Re-membering

Exodus 32: 11-14

I Corinthians 12:12-20
1 Corinthians 11: 17-19, 28-29

Luke 22:14-20

Re-membering

There was a study recently done by two physiologists on how members of the various sections of 11 major symphony orchestra perceived each other. The percussionists were viewed as insensitive, unintelligent, and hard-of-hearing, yet fun-loving. String players were seen as arrogant, stuffy, and un-athletic. The orchestra members overwhelmingly chose "loud" as the primary adjective to describe the brass players. Woodwind players seemed to be held in the highest esteem, described as quiet and meticulous, though a bit egotistical. Interesting findings, to say the least. With such widely divergent personalities and perceptions, how could an orchestra ever come together to make such wonderful music? The answer is simple: regardless of how those musicians view each other, they subordinate their feelings and biases to the leadership of the conductor. Under his guidance, they play beautiful music.

Memories. Remembering. Re-membering. What makes a memory? When we remember something or someone, in a way it is like fitting the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together to form a whole picture again. We put together images, and sounds, and even smells, and of course emotions so we can make it all whole again and hold it in our minds for awhile.

All of us have memories, some fond and others far from fond, of persons, places, and events that have been significant in our lives. Memories are so significant that we could actually say that individuals are the sums of their memories. Even when someone ends up dredging up painful memories, the recognition and the sharing can be both therapeutic and community building.

What is true of individuals is certainly true of families. There is a continuing interest in researching genealogy, as evidenced by the various 'how-to' books, classes, and even web-sites on the internet. Part of why we do that is so we feel more connected, more a part of our past, and can pass on those connections to our children and grandchildren. We want to remember who our past relatives were, even if we never knew them. And, we want to be remembered. Sometimes we may think and act in accord with the way we've been formed by our families, and sometimes precisely the opposite. Ever have someone say, “You remind me of your Dad”? Or, “You remind me of your Mother.”? Close your eyes for a moment . . . now recall a family gathering with me. Who is there? How are you involved? If you think hard enough it's almost like we're there again with those people we love, isn't it? Such is the power of memory.

To be fully human is to remember. The Greek word for memory is “anammeis”—the recalling of history. Very close to the word we are familiar with, “amnesia”, which is a loss of memory. Loss of memory is a terrible thing. Losing our memory dis-members us. We remember so we are better equipped to face the future. We remember so we can remain whole. We remember so we can remain connected, to the people we know and the world around us.

Nations and regions and communities have a collective memory as well. The people of the nation called Israel were told by God that they were to be a people of memory. They were to remember where and what they had been and how they had been delivered from them by God's gracious action. This recalling of history is in itself a profession of faith in God. However, it's not just something that's located in the past and not to be forgotten. Rather, this re-membering makes us contemporaries with the events that are recalled; that history is also our history. To remember what God has done for Israel is to be part of the action because it encompasses the past, speaks to our own liberation today, and assumes the future. Why? Because God who is "the same yesterday, today, and forever," is the One who acts.

What we heard in I Corinthians 12 is, “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though al the parts are many, they form one body….. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” Without you the body cannot be whole. Without you, Christ is not complete. Without you, Christ is not fully alive in this world yet. For the body of Christ to be whole each of you has to re-member Jesus. You have to put him back together by becoming one with him.

Jesus did not save us just by shedding his blood and dying as a broken body on the cross. Jesus saved us by being made whole through the resurrection, becoming whole again, and living and being alive today. Through salvation and sanctification, we are made whole by God’s grace.

If we call ourselves Christians we become part of Jesus’ body. The church is to be the body of Christ. As a church we are to become like the orchestra, with Jesus as our conductor. The conductor with his wand is silent. It takes the orchestra to make the music he wants played, and to play it the way he wants to hear it. The notes we are to follow are the commands of Christ.

Each time we celebrate Communion, we are remembering God's gracious action toward us, we are re-membering the Body of Christ. That is, we are being brought more and more into wholeness with the living Lord. That's why I believe that the best definition of Christian worship is, "gather the folks, tell the story, break the bread." In those simple actions we re-member the Body of Christ.

Re-membering the Body of Christ means that we are constantly putting ourselves back into God's active, living memory. When we come to church to worship together we are coming to re-member the Body of Christ. When we go our separate ways, the Body of Christ goes forth into the world through you and through me. God's love, God's care reaches out to the world through you and through me. God's love, God's care reaches out to the world through our words, our actions, and our touch. For Christians, this is how memories are made: gather the folks, tell the story, break the bread.

The Church into which the Christian is called is not a collective but a body. If anyone comes to church with the idea that the Church is simply a gathering together of persons to worship as if they were a crowd at a movie, that person is dis-membered. Christ’s presence, the interaction between him and us, must always be the overwhelmingly dominant factor in the life we are to lead within the body; and any idea of Christian fellowship which does not make fellowship with Jesus the primary reason to gather, so as to do his work in the world, is out of order.

Maybe you remember sometime in the past, when you put your face above a headless frame painted to represent a muscle man, a clown, or even a bathing beauty? At the Columbus Zoo your face can become the head of an animal. Many of us have had our pictures taken this way, and the photos are humorous because the head doesn't fit the body.

If we could picture Christ as the head of this church would the world laugh at the misfit? Or would they stand in awe of a human body so closely related to a divine head?

Where do you fit as part of the Body of Christ? Come to the table this morning and re-member the Body of Christ for your family, for your friends, for your community.

Amen.

Hope

Psalm 31: 21-24

1 Peter 1: 3

John 14:1-4, John 20: 19-22

Hope

When the explorer Shackleton was on his quest for the South Pole in 1914-15, his ship the Endeavor was trapped in ice and he was compelled to leave some of his men on Elephant Island. As his ship was crushed and sinking he knew he had to try to find help. He promised that he would return for them. He took the best boat they had, strengthened it with materials salvaged from the ship Endeavor, and went on a 500 mile journey to find help at a base station further north. But when he tried to get back, he found a sea of ice between him and the island.

What should he do? He had promised, and he felt he had to keep his word. He tried to reach them, but failed. He tried again and again, but without success. Beyond the ice were his trusting companions, who had every confidence in him. They had only a few supplies with them. At that time of the year it seemed stupid to hope for any favorable change in the weather, and he was told that there was absolutely no hope of getting his little boat through the great ice barrier to Elephant Island.

He could not stop trying. He must reach his men; so at the risk of losing his boat and the lives of his crew, he pushed in nearer to the island; and unexpectedly there came an opening in the ice. He hurried in, rescued his men, and in an hour was back again with all on board. Had they been delayed only a few minutes, their frail vessel would have been destroyed by the crashing of the ice as it closed in.

When they were sure they were beyond danger and the nervous tension was over, Shackleton said to one of the rescued companions, "Well, you were packed and ready, weren't you?" "Yes," came back the reply, "we never lost hope. We believed you would come for us, even though circumstances were unfavorable. You had promised, and we expected you; so each morning we rolled up our sleeping bags and packed all our equipment, that we might be ready." And now they were all safe and homeward bound, happy that they had been prepared daily.

Before Jesus departed from this world, He left a definite promise in John 14:1-4. The Lord does not go back on his promises.

Hope. Webster’s dictionary defines hope as “the feeling that what is desired is also possible, or that events may turn out for the best; to look forward to with desire and with reasonable confidence.”

When Jesus was crucified, the disciples were completely without hope. They felt the last 3 years had been for nothing, and they were afraid. Even after Peter and John had looked into the empty tomb, and saw for themselves what Mary Magdalene had said about the tomb being empty, they still did not understand that Jesus had risen. They went back to their homes. Then Mary saw Jesus in the garden, and went to the disciples and told them about it but still they were so afraid they stayed locked away together. They had no reasonable confidence. Jesus had to appear to them directly in that locked room, before they understood and before their hope was restored. That the disciples saw happen on that day we know as Good Friday was a terrible thing, so terrible it would leave anyone who saw it without hope. They were crushed. Their hopes for a bright future for the Israelites were crushed.

The God we know in Scripture is a God deeply, personally, involved in our lives. A God who feels deeply the loss of every life, and the suffering of a nation. "Since my people are crushed, I am crushed," says the Lord. "I mourn, and horror grips me." There was nothing “good” about Good Friday. Not for the disciples, not for Jesus, not for God. It was not something our loving God wanted to happen to his Son.

The message of our Christian heritage is hope within redemption. Yes there's good, and yes,
there's evil; but good is never pure, and evil is never irredeemable. So the gospel offers us hope, a reason to believe with confidence. Neither earthly good nor evil is absolute. And the thrust of history is toward the heavenly good, toward the will of God. But we arrive there not by perfection, but by a continual process of healing, of death and resurrection, of conversion.

For Christians, the central hope of our faith remains the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Christ's death was at the hands of both human good and human evil. In the hindsight of history, we look back on the events between Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and the crucifixion as culmination of evil. However, most everyone who helped get Jesus hung on the cross thought they were doing it for a good reason. Rome wasn't bad as Empires go. They were pretty tolerant. But it couldn't tolerate a person like Jesus—especially the local officials who were afraid he might start an uprising when the city was full of Jews wanting out from under the Romans. Judas thought he was doing the right thing by identifying Jesus to the guards who came in the night. When he realized what he had done, he committed suicide in remorse. The High Priest Caiaphas had good reasons for believing it was better for one man to die for the sake of many and maintaining the peace. Pontius Pilate thought he had made a good decision by giving the Priests and people a choice. But that didn't make him right. Jesus' disciples were frightened for their lives. That didn't justify their cowardice. Humanity couldn't tolerate God in human form, so we killed him. It was a terrible evil.

But God redeemed that evil act by raising Jesus from the dead. Jesus asked for forgiveness for those who put him on the cross, and God extended forgiveness to Jesus' murderers by raising Jesus from the dead. God offers hope for humanity in raising Jesus from the dead.

This is not good defeating evil. It is God taking evil and transforming it into good. We too, as Christians, have an obligation to work to transform evil into good. Each of us is called as a Christian to do what we can to counter the bad things that happen around us. We are called on to carry God’s love to others, not just through our gifts in the offering plate, and not just to our friends or people we know and like. We are called upon to give and to forgive, as Jesus gave and forgave.

Sometimes what we can do may seem very small and unimportant in the larger scheme of things, but we never know just how important a little act of kindness may be, how some small thing we do might bring hope to someone else.

In 1994, daily the city of Sarajevo was under siege. Mortars and artillery fire instantly transformed once beautiful buildings into rubble. Sarajevo's citizens were frightened, weary and increasingly despondent. Then, one February day, a mortar shell exploded in the market killing 68 civilians. Many more were wounded and maimed from the blast.

A cellist with the Sarajevo symphony could no longer stand the killing. He took his cello to the market, sat down amidst the rubble and played a concert. When he finished, he simply took up his instrument and left.
Every day, for 67 days, until the shelling stopped, he came to the market. Every day he played a concert. It was his gift of love to the city. He did it because he felt his community needed hope.

Because of the hope given us by the Resurrection, we are called upon to give others hope. We are called upon to play music in the midst of turmoil, draw a cross in the dirt, wipe the tears of a stranger. Jesus said, “As you have done it to the least of these……….”

Hope is music in the heart. It is a gift given to each of us to see us through the night. Once you have lost hope, you have nothing left to lose. Utter hopelessness kills everything it touches. But hope gives us strength to continue, whether it be a marriage that is worth saving, a life that is worth living or a situation that is worth salvaging.

In the end, hope is a spiritual thing. When all is in chaos and ruin, hope is the knowledge that the music still goes on. In this vast and infinite universe, we are not alone. There is a God, and he loves us. He loves us so much he gave his only begotten Son.

During those times when all may seem to be crumbling down around you, can you hear the music in your heart -- the song of hope? Listen carefully. It is there, playing for you. Amen

Aromas

Leviticus 2: 4-9

2 Corinthians 2:14-16

Matthew 26: 1-13

Aromas

Have you ever been assaulted by a smell? Long time ago, in New Jersey on a dock as friends and I prepared to go fishing for blue fish out off the coast, I saw a sign that said, “Old fishermen never die. They just smell that way.”

Now I do not have a sense of odor. Almost none. I lost it working with formalin in a biology lab as one of my jobs to pay my way through college. But I do remember that walking down the street, creeping out of a vent in the sidewalk; or strolling along the mid-way of a carnival or fair, wafting its way from a kiosk - sometimes an odor will "hit you". Sometimes that odor will even thrust your psyche back into another time and place.

Maybe it's the sweet smell of caramel apples. Maybe it's the pungent punch of garlic and onion. Maybe it's moldy and murky smell of a basement. Maybe it's the sea-weedy smell of the beach.

Whatever the odor, it is officious - meaning, it is "large and in charge." It teleports you back to a particular place and a particular time. I suspect each of you has memory smells. Our sense of smell is the physical sense most associated with memory. Smells, more than sounds, more than sights, more than touches, transport our minds and bodies back in time to an imprinted memory. Rising yeast might bring you back to your grandmother's kitchen. A wet sock smell brings you back to the locker room-or to the terror of the day you fell in a frozen creek up to your waist and almost froze. Roasting chicken smells like every Sunday dinner. Gasoline chokes you with memories of a car crash. Nothing evokes strong emotions, strong memories, strong longings, like the sense of smell. It is a powerful communicator to our inner being.

In the days of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, burnt offerings were the norm - small birds, little lambs, calves, great grains - all were sacrificed and burned. Burnt sacrifice was offered to appease God's righteous anger over the sins and transgressions the people of Israel had committed. In fact, burnt sacrifices were commonplace in several cultures during the time of Jesus. The Romans offered burnt sacrifices to their gods, especially when a Roman General came home to Rome after a great victory.

Jesus’ world was full of strong odors. Cooking was often done out in the open, over wood fires. There were no sanitary sewers in the towns he walked through. At the time of Jesus, the bathroom in most homes was a dung hill at the back of the house and even though they did not know what germs were or how it worked salt was used on the pile as a disinfectant to stop infection from spreading. There were no garbage men to make regular rounds. Garbage often simply rotted in heaps on the outskirts, or was burned with trash. Incense was burned in homes and meeting places, to help overpower the odor of unwashed people and all the other smells that surrounded the places. It must have been wonderful to Jesus to walk in the open countryside with a clean breeze between visits to the towns and villages.

Jesus also encountered strong odors among the people with whom he spent much time. Not just because even people who were well off didn’t wash as much as we do now—Jesus spent time with those who had even less access for personal hygiene. He also encountered awful odors in his ministry. There was the odor of rotting flesh from the lepers he met and healed. And there was the odor of his friend Lazarus who had been dead for four days by the time he arrived. We read in the Gospel of John 11, “…He was warned not to open the tomb because it would stink.” But he opened the tomb anyway.

Incense and perfumes, such as Mary used that day to anoint Jesus, were valued, and the perfume she used was especially valued. Not the way we use it today, but to mask odors. However, good perfumes were hard to get then.

So it is no wonder scriptures speak of odors so much, and how they refer to sin as a stench in God’s nostrils. The rank odors were common place, but no matter how common they were, they would have been repulsive. The writers of the scriptures wanted their readers to see sin, while common, as just as repulsive as the most awful smelling garbage that could be experienced. Scripture also likened sin and injustice to the stench of death. When sin dominates our lives it creates a stench about us that’s hard to overlook. God hates sin because it corrupts people, and separates us from him. It eventually destroys us. Because of that he has no intention of rewarding us for bad behavior.

A lot of people make the mistake of trying to cover up that smell, by doing good deeds, being kind to strangers, giving lots of money to good causes. They convince themselves that the fragrance of their good behavior will cover up the smell of their past. But they’re kidding themselves. That becomes hypocrisy, which Jesus considered the most repugnant smell of all.

On the other hand, service to God was said to be a sweet smell. Sacrificial giving of time and resources and self and a willingness to take risks, even risks to one’s life, to spread the Gospel was the counter to sin. It still is.

Paul’s letter to the Philippians in chapter 4:18 says, "But I have all, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God." Those churches had supported him generously in his mission ministry, and he was referring to their gifts and service to him, given out of love of God.

There is an odor to a spirit of love. The Lord looks at the thoughts and intents of the heart. The Lord looks at what motivates what we do. What we do is not half as important as what motivates us to do it. Our hearts, our attitudes, are what the Lord is looking to.

Jesus called upon his followers, and us, to be the salt of the earth. He wasn’t just thinking about what salt does for food. We are to help disinfect the world of sin, and give our surroundings. Similarly, the Church today is to be the antidote to the evil and depravity rampant in society.

When we serve God whole heartedly, because we love him with all our heart and mind and strength and soul, scripture says we will have the fragrance of Jesus. May your aroma bring God closer to those you meet this week.

Amen

What Is A Pulpit

Preaching from the Pulpit

by Todd Elder

There can be much disagreement within groups when the issue of the pulpit because the pulpit connotes authority. When dealing with this situation, it would be better to start by asking if there should even be a pulpit.

The Form of the Pulpit

Within a modern church, the pulpit tends to be the area of focus during a worship service and is primarily used for a message or sermon. Sometimes the pulpit is placed front and center. Other times, the pulpit shares the front with a lectern used by the laity for the reading of Scripture or for announcements. A couple of centuries ago, the pulpits often had three levels with the lowest level for announcements, the middle level for reading of Scripture, and the top level for the main message or sermon. Before the Protestant Reformation, the pulpit was usually a single elevated level.

History of the Pulpit

During the first couple of centuries AD, believers would often meet in homes. The first reference to a pulpit does not appear until a letter in the third century AD. During the Middle Ages, pulpits became commonplace, but were not typically used much for sermons because the sacraments were more important to the Catholic Church. The preaching of the Word at the pulpit became more important with denominations after the Protestant Reformation. Since then, the authority of Scripture, the church, and the preacher became closely connected with the pulpit.

The Authority of the Preacher

The pulpit is generally considered the place where one has authority over a congregation. To have authority over a person or a group is a form of covenant and there are bonds, both physically and spiritually, within a covenant. For one person to have authority over a large or mixed group of people is inappropriate. One of the great problems associated with a regular preacher (whether a priest, pastor, reverend, or minister) is that the position lends itself to the idea of a spiritual superman. This person is expected to have a special relationship with the Almighty and then dispense what he has to offer to the entire group. Preaching of this type stifles the growth of everyone involved and only helps a few in any given message. It is much better if each individual in the group is learning the techniques for studying Scripture and developing the disciplines of worship so that each person can have that relationship with the Almighty. This enables each person to become mature in the Messiah and allows each to pass that on to their children and to other people as well.

Ultimately, the pulpit form of worship lends itself to placing one person in charge of a group rather than letting each individual grow in maturity and ability to help others. This type of authority, from either man or woman, should not exist and instead should be replaced by letting those who are mature in faith be examples to the others. By following the appropriate boundaries, everyone can benefit.

Additional notes:

In the eighteenth century triple-decker pulpits were often introduced in English speaking countries. The three levels of lecterns were intended to show the relative importance of the readings delivered there. The bottom tier was for community announcements, the middle for the gospel, and the top tier was reserved for the delivery of the sermon. This tended to elevate the authority of the message as given by the preacher over the authority of the scripture. However, some thought this represented the message as having the scripture as its foundation.

In churches where there is only one speaker's stand in the center of the front of the church, it serves the functions of both lectern and pulpit and is properly called the ambo. In common usage, however, ambos are incorrectly called pulpits.

In addition to the ambo, many major churches in Greece and Cyprus also have a raised pulpit on the left side of the nave, usually attached to a column and raised several feet high. This is reached by a narrow flight of stairs. It is considered an architectural element that is symmetrical to the bishop's throne, which is located on an equivalent position on the right. Pulpit and throne are usually similar in construction, usually made of either sculpted stone or sculpted wood.

How People Come Into The Church

Shifting Entry Points

by Susan Beaumont

 

Traditionally, worship has been regarded as the primary venue through which individuals enter the life of a congregation. In The Inviting Church (Alban, 1987, 74-75), Roy Oswald and Speed Leas linked new-member assimilation with spiritual growth. They named six levels of incorporation into the spiritual life of the church that progressed in this order: joining, belonging, participating, searching, journeying inward, and journeying outward. Oswald and Leas were careful to explain that individuals might not progress through the six stages in linear fashion. In fact, they argued that the first three steps may be disassociated from the last three. But they nevertheless assumed that people begin their engagement with the church through worship and then move through deeper levels of involvement from there.

A lot has changed in congregational and mainstream culture since Oswald and Leas wrote about assimilation. People have shifted the way that they integrate into congregations. Joining is rarely the first step and may not even enter into the equation. Some would argue that the first three steps today are actually a reversal of the process described above, particularly among the millennial generation. People’s involvement is more likely to follow this path: participating, belonging, and then joining.

Some new arrivals at the church begin by participating in the outreach or service opportunities the congregation sponsors. They move from participation into a quest for deeper belonging, where they test out small group involvement or worship, and finally they move toward joining, taking orientation and membership classes much later in their church experience.

This reversal in assimilation patterns is particularly evident in the large church. While many continue to treat weekend worship as the center of church life, others do not. The large church offers so many programming options that Sunday morning worship is no longer the only feeder system. People who are attached to the church school, a fine arts program, or a recovery program or support group may not be particularly drawn to weekend worship. They may not be formal members of the church, but they often describe the church as their own.

This phenomenon introduces a number of interesting challenges into the congregation’s acculturation process. In the 1980s, our best guess for how to assimilate new members centered almost entirely on Sunday morning worship. We obsessed over the availability of parking and the training of our greeters, ushers, and welcome-table hosts. We tracked participation in worship services and mailed a carefully conceived series of follow-up letters that drew people ever more deeply into the life of the congregation.

For many newcomers, worship remains the primary entry point, and so all those things we worried about back in the ’80s are still relevant. However, if people are not regularly attending Sunday worship, then we need to have integration systems in place that will gather in those who are participating less traditionally. Every ministry of the church needs to have its own method for drawing people more deeply into the life of the congregation. Critical incidents or trigger points need to be identified for flagging people who are expressing an interest in the life of the congregation outside of worship.

Susan Beaumont is a senior consultant with the Alban Institute. This article is adapted from her book Inside the Large Congregation, with permission from the Alban Institute. Copyright © 2011 by The Alban Institute, Inc. Herndon, VA. All rights reserved. For more information, visit: http://www.alban.org/insidethelargecongregation.aspx. This book is also available from Amazon and Cokesbury.

Passwords

Zechariah 3: 8-9

Hebrews 12: 1-3

Mark 8: 27-30

Passwords

"I want to change my password," said the man who for two years had a secure savings account that required a password to access.”

Very well," replied the man in charge. "What is the old one?"

"Gladys."

"And what do you wish the new one to be?"

"Mabel. Gladys has gone to Vegas."

I know a lot of you are on Facebook. Facebook was created to help you connect and share with the people in your life. There are several ways that it can help you connect, but there can be a problem of connecting with people if you cannot get onto your Facebook account. That happens when you forget your password. But if you forget your password you just click on the "forgot your password" link and Facebook will help you reset your password so you can get back into your account.

I had not really thought much about it, but we live in a password happy world don’t we? At least if you use technology there are many passwords out there that you need to remember. You may have passwords at work to get onto computers or access certain files. We have passwords or pin numbers for our debit cards. Your social security number is a password. I have passwords for both my cell phone and home phone accounts. If you buy things on-line you have passwords for those accounts. I have ones for Amazon, email, and several others. All of that is for good reason, it is for security, but it still can be tough to remember everything. You are warned to not use the same one for everything, because if you do and someone manages to steal one, they have access to all the others, and you could be a victim of identity theft.

And the fun part is not just remembering the passwords, but the user names as well. Some accounts use my email address, which is nice. But other accounts I am known by other user names, but not my own real name. It can be hard to keep it all straight and online places realize that and this is why most, if not all, accounts have a "forgot your password" button.

There are applications you can install on your computer that give you a place to store all your passwords securely. But then, you have to remember the password to the password vault.

Of course, you don’t need a password if you don’t have an account and don’t care to open one.

By now you may be wondering what in the world does all of this have to do with our faith as Christians. Some organizations have secret passwords, some have secret codes. I was in a college fraternity once, and there was a secret handshake. Well, let me first say there are no secret passwords in Christianity. There are no secret codes, and God already knows your name. Nothing in our faith is meant to be kept secret from others.

However, if there is one password in Christianity, it is the name of Jesus, but that name should be made known to all. It should not be a secret. There is power in the name of Jesus.

So I am not going to share a password with you today or ask you to come up with one. What I want us to do is work on remembering. See, if you are a Christian that means you are already signed up. You made your profession of faith, accepted the terms that Jesus is both your Savior and your Lord. You have been there, done that, but perhaps you have forgotten something. This is what happened to the church in Ephesus according to the book of Revelation. Ephesus is a town in modern day Turkey. Let me read from Revelation 2.

The passage started out by saying some positive things about this church. It said that this church was hard working and persevered in the midst of hardships. When there was persecution this church stood its ground and pulled through. It also said this church tested the teachings of people that came along to see if their teaching matched the Scriptures and Jesus. They did not want to be led astray. They held true to the Gospel and were not distracted.

But then it goes on to say, even with the good going on, there was one thing missing. It was said they had forsaken their first love. They were going through the motions, but were an empty shell no longer filled with the love for Christ.

You see this church was doing good things. They endured hard times and pressed on, but they had forgotten something. They had forgotten their first love. They had forgotten the reason they endured hardships. It seems to me that they were doing many of the right things on the outside, but were missing the internal passion and reason for their actions.  They had forgotten that Jesus is the password to vitality.

Too many churches today have forgotten their reason for existence. They do good things, but they have forgotten the only reason a church exists is to make disciples for Christ, teach them all he taught, and to serve others as he served. Jesus did not preach from a pulpit, or build a building, or create an institution—he created a movement, to take his message to all people. Too many churches have turned inward, becoming institutions rather than missionary movements, Sunday morning clubs of fellowship rather than bases for outreach. They have forgotten their password, Jesus.

As individuals we sometimes get that way as well. Do you remember when you first realized God’s presence with you? As Christians, we sometimes forget why we believe in God or we forget that God has a purpose for us. We too often take it for granted and just keep doing what we have always done. But this is not what God wants for our lives. God wants more than just the action or outward appearance of faith. God wants that internal passion to be living and the Holy Spirit our guide. So we need to reconnect. We need a reminder. We need to relearn that Jesus is our password to understanding God’s purpose for our lives.

And that is the message for today. Remember why you first fell in love with God. We dare not forget. We dare not forget why we first started to follow Christ. We dare not forget those times God has really touched us and changed us. We dare not forget that God has set us free from sin to live our lives. We need reminders of God’s love and purpose for us, and that Jesus as Savior and Lord is our password to everlasting life.

Amen

Repentance

2 Samuel 12:7-10, 13

2 Corinthians 7:9-11            

Luke 24: 46-47,  Acts 26: 19-20

Repentance

Reverend Alan Tison tells a story about a country church that was having their annual revival meeting. On the first night the preacher preached a message about repentance and the need to return to the Lord. At the altar call, a man came down the aisle saying "Fill me Lord, fill me".

The next night the preacher challenged the congregation with the need to totally surrender their lives to Christ in complete obedience. Again the altar call was extended; like the night before the same man came down the aisle saying "Fill me Lord, fill me".

The third night of the revival preacher warned his congregation of the evils of sin and urged the congregation to live lives of holiness. Again at the invitation was made to give one's life to Christ, the same man came up the aisle saying "Fill me Lord, fill me".

To which someone in the back of the church yelled; "Don't do it Lord, He leaks!"

The truth of the matter is we all leak from time to time. We all lose our way, there are times we tend to lose our fire for Christ, or we wade in the pool of the lukewarm.

Wabash, a town in a remote portion of Labrador, Canada, was completely isolated for some time. But recently a road was cut through the wilderness to reach it. Wabush now has one road leading into it, and thus, only one road leading out. If someone would travel the unpaved road for six to eight hours to get into Wabush, there is only way he or she could leave---by turning around.

Each of us is a sinner. Each of us, no matter how hard we try, at times falls off the path God intends for us, and get lost. A recent nationwide Gallup poll by shows there is little difference in ethical behavior between the churched and the un-churched. It turns out there is as much pilferage and dishonesty among the churched as the un-churched. And I'm afraid that applies pretty much across the board: religion, per se, is not really life changing. Faith is life changing, truly accepting, following, and serving Christ is, but religion as such is not—religion doesn't have primacy in determining behavior.  Many people are caught up in religion,--they go to church regularly, do lots of work in the church, maybe even read their bibles regularly-- but unfortunately far fewer live a life of true faith, and as a result too often find themselves sorry for decisions they have made.

As in Wabush, there is only one way out--a road built by God himself. But to take that road, one must first turn around. That complete about face is what the Bible calls repentance, and without it, there's no way out of town.

Now repenting is not being sorry for what we do that we wish we didn’t.  Too often people will say they are sorry for something, but then go ahead and do the same thing again at some point—or they say they are sorry, and do not really mean it. So repentance is not sorrow.  In fact, repentance is an outcome of true sorrow—it follows sorrow.

And, repentance is not conversion. Repentance alone does not mean a changed life. There have been millions who have come forward at alter calls to say they are sorry for their sins, but that does not mean they have had a conversion or have salvation.  Peter makes this very clear in scripture in the book of Acts chapter 3, verse 19, when he says “Repent and then become converted…”

So what is repentance? It is a change of mind, a decision to turn away from sin followed by a decision to turn to God.

The steps then are, first true sorrow for wrong behavior—sin.  Second, a decision to turn away from the past behavior and change to a life lived for God.  And then, at some point, actual conversion which means a changed life and living in God’s will.

Think of a husband and wife in a car, the wife tells her husband to turn right at the next junction and by mistake, he turns left. When he realizes what he has done, he says to his wife “I’m sorry love, I went the wrong way.” But if that is all he does, it isn’t enough. His saying sorry isn’t getting them any closer to where they want to be; it isn’t even stopping them getting further away. To get where they want to be, he needs to stop the car, turn it around and go back on to the correct road that his wife told him to take in the first place. That is repentance.

What leads us to repentance? We find the answer in what was read in 2 Corinthians.  It is being made sorry in a Godly manner, that leads to salvation. Many people—most of us—experience worldly sorrow, where we regret something because we got caught, or it makes us look bad in front of others—we are sorry mostly because we are suffering.  But being sorry in a Godly manner means we recognize that we done something against God, and he and his purpose suffer.

What are the signs of true repentance?  First, working to stop doing what has brought the deep sorrow, and accepting God’s forgiveness.  Then an eagerness to be obedient to Christ’s command to love God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength,  and love others as he loves us, and then an eagerness to obey his Great Commission to work to make disciples. 

That is followed by a desire to serve God, by serving others as Christ did.  Repentance is not seen in apathy or half-hearted service.  Instead, it is seen in a longing, and a readiness to, as we read in Acts, see justice done and prove our repentance by our deeds. If we have not made a decision to live as Christ has commanded, to loving others as he loves us, and if we are not yet ready to serve others eagerly      we have not yet repented.

The question before each of us as we come to the table for Holy Communion is, can we look at our lives and see signs that we have really had "a change of mind", to truly make "a decision to turn from sin and to turn to God"?

Josh Billings….It is much easier to repent of sins that we have committed than to repent of those we intend to commit.