What are some rules you remember? No running down the hallway? Sitting quietly in class. Hands and feet to yourself! Sure. Rules are necessary so that everyone can be treated fairly, with dignity and respect. We live our best life when we follow the right rules. You know, the game of Frisbee has rules, too. Here’s a Frisbee for you. Our game is to toss the Frisbee to the pew and the rule is throw it just hard enough so that it doesn’t end up in rear of the sanctuary! And it has to land on the bench. O.K. Play! Great. So each of you played the game and you followed the rules. God has given us some rules, too. We find them in God’s love letter to us we call the Bible. In the Bible we learn about how Jesus lived his life and how to make our life look more and more like his! They guide us. They remind us. And when we have Jesus in our heart, we can learn and grow to follow the rules on our own. Whether in games or in life, following the rules helps us to treat others with dignity and respect, and also have a lot of fun as we live our very best selves. Enjoy the Frisbees!
Do you know what time it is? Just now, you likely paused to check. You may have looked to the clock on the wall, or the phone in your pocket. Maybe you raised your arm to glance at the watch on your wrist. Or called out, “Hey, Siri, what time is it?” You have your answer but what time is it, really? You’ve heard it said, “We have all the time in the world!” But have also been cautioned, “Time’s a’wasting.” How do we really know what time it is?
There’s an absolute atomic clock reference point that nations have agreed to recognize which essentially never varies. Our device’s time derives from this atomic standard. But Jesus wanted his followers to reconcile their life’s mission to a different clock: eternity. It includes everyone. It extends everywhere. Jesus wanted them to make time for living.
Our Bible journey continues in Mark 9:37-50, just after last week’s account when Jesus shockingly lifted a child to his lap and reminded his disciples that if greatness is one’s goal, serving others, especially children, must be the focus of one’s practice. Not skipping a beat, the disciples then smugly report that they condemned some outsiders for using Jesus’ name to heal people. How dare “outsiders” presume to do what “insiders” did! “What!?,” Jesus exclaimed as he scolded them, “Stop giving others a hard time!”
This week we’ll learn how to reset our clock to God’s time. Making time for living invites us to remove distractions, false reference points, and criticism of those who serve differently. What time is it? Its time to bless others and preserve the peace.
It’s all about time. How do we know what time it is, or know if if the clock we have is set correctly? What do we do? Live “out of sync” or reset? Our choices: Try to set everybody else to our time (not a good choice!), or the better choice to set our time to God’s time. Let’s ask God to reset our clocks and keep in time with God.
Make America Great Again is , well, a great slogan! It stirs our imaginations to conjure images of America as Great! But what is our frame of reference to be Great? Back a few centuries ago, America was considered Great because it was the friend of all, welcoming of every religion, even the Puritans (who were kicked out of England because their faith was just weird), the Anabaptists (who fled Europe because their faith was non-conformist), the Roman Catholics (who were feared to be worshipping a prince in a tall white hat instead of the Prince of Peace), and welcoming of Italians, Germans, Scots, French, Asian, African, and South American countries, too. Being great means no one is left behind. There is room for you. One more. The ones no one else seems to want. The others who are forgotten. Being Great as in winning the Great War, enjoying the Greatest Show on Earth, hearing the Greatest story ever told, singing Great is Thy Faithfulness, and recalling Jesus tell his disciples, Greater things you will do, are all, as I said, really great. Aspiring to greatness can be a great thing to aspire to. But what is great? And how do we as individuals become truly great? How do our communities become great? How can Cold Spring Church become great? How can America become great? Well, what did Jesus say about greatness? Let’s take a look at Mark 9:30-37.
The disciples followed Jesus, literally followed him as he walked around. They were his students and where Jesus went, they went. But from many accounts in the Gospels, the disciples not only stayed attentive to their spiritual coach, they also had their own huddles with one another just out of earshot of Jesus. (An interesting Bible study could be looking up the manny times Jesus asks, “What were you discussing along the road?” ) Just out of earshot may protect your private conversation from a hard of hearing friend, but Jesus is not hard of hearing. He hears the whimpers of a baby and the sighs of the aged, Jesus hears all, something the disciples just couldn’t understand. So, the disciples were in their huddle, chatting up a storm, when Jesus asks, “What were you discussing on the road?”
Not a peep. Like getting caught in science class whispering to a classmate. Stoic Silence. Apparently no one admitted the conversational topic. THey were too embarrassed. But like I said, Jesus is not hard of hearing. He sits them down in the home they arrived at, and starts addressing what they thought was a silent running.
“So you want to be great?”
Simple. Include everyone. Welcome this child. Love this child. Protect this child. As you welcome children, you are welcoming me, Jesus said. To be great, is to be the servant of all. All of us are children. Some of us just move faster or slower than others. Every age. Every person. Welcome. Now, let’s show God’s love as servants in the community, and to the degree we serve, we will be great again! And that’s Great!
What’s the difference between children and adults? Age? How about speed? Listen to the following pieces of music. Two pieces. Same music. Same pianist. Same piano. What’s different? (Glenn Gould, Goldberg Variations: 1. 1955. 2. 2005.) The first was faster than the second. The number “50” represents the difference between these two performances. 50 years between them. When younger, we move faster. As we become older, we move slower. But the childlike love for the music in 1955 was the same childlike love Glenn Gould played in 2005. All of us are children. We just move at different speeds. God loves all children, no matter how fast or slow they move!
Who am I? This week, Jesus asks his disciples who others say he is. Our identity, sense of self, is something that is uniquely ours, yet also something that others influence and may even have opinions about. Many of us struggle as we attempt to deal with the opinions of others, or we seem to invest a lot of energy in trying to live up to the unrealistic or artificial expectations of others. We also take steps to “protect our identity” whether it is the password on our bank account or smart phone, the key code on our garage door, or the safe keeping of our wallet. Some aspects of our identity can be “stolen” but our true self is not only safe in God’s hands, it is not static either because as we learn and grow, our sense of self grows, as well. Our text this week from Mark 7:27-38 invites us into a dramatic encounter with Jesus who gives a rather shocking answer regarding his identity. His messianic identity of suffering, rejection, death, and resurrection is hard for the disciples to comprehend, and Peter tries to dissuade Jesus from his mission. Jesus’ disciples must see themselves as “followers” more than as “leaders.” What does Jesus mean when he declares that those who “follow” him must “take up their cross and follow me”?
When we feel we don’t measure up… on the inside because of how we have been treated, or because of the choices we have made, or our circumstances, remember and internalize this:
- God told us who we were. Created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26; 1 Corinthians 6:19).
- Jesus Tells us who we are. His friends, his disciples, his co-workers planting seeds of hope (John 14:12-14; John 15:15).
- The Holy Spirit tells us who we are becoming as our minds are renewed, being transformed day by day. One day we will be presented faultless before the throne of grace (Romans 12:1-2; Jude 1:24).
This week, Jesus asks his disciples who others say he is. Our identity, sense of self, is something that is uniquely ours, yet also something that others influence and may even have opinions about.
I will be using a mirror and inviting the kids to take a look at themselves and say what they see. And then ask them to consider what God sees. I will also have some fun with some eyeglass-funny nose masks to show them that we can all change our appearance on the outside, but who we are, growing and learning, happens on the inside.
Our worship theme this week is healing as our Bible readings bring us back to the basics. Sort of a Real Life 101 from James 2:1-10, (You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” v8), and Mark 7:24-37 where Jesus is challenged by an “outsider” who expects a blessing, (But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” v28).
Our recent Mission Study helped us to look at our communities with fresh and current eyes. Take a look at your neighborhood. When you open your front door, what do you see? If you had to rank what your neighbors want more than anything else, would it be #1 worship, or #1 preaching/teaching, or #1 healing? Our churches have always focused on worship. And yes, we need great worship. And, yes, we need great preaching and teaching. But most of all, I think our communities need great healing. Spiritual healing. Physical healing. Emotional healing. And all of us can experience the healing we require and become an essential part of that healing offered to our communities.
John 3:17 reminds us, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” The word translated save is also translated and means heal. What comes to you mind when you re-read this verse, For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to heal the world through him. This message invites us to take a deeper look at our ministry in the community and ask how we can work with Jesus who not only saves or delivers us as forgiven, redeemed, people with eternal hope, but calls us to be in the healing business with him. Our communities need healing today. How will they know Jesus as the Great Healer if we don’t show them?
Find out how to practice the Art and Mission of Community Healing this week, at Cold Spring Church.
Well, the Summer is drawing to a close. One of the things I don’t miss about Summer is sunburn! What do you do to relieve the pain of sunburn? Probably an ointment with Aloe in it. Have you even seen an Aloe plant? Well, here is one, take a look. The Aloe plant is pretty amazing. If you planted an Aloe plant in a small area, in a season it would expand to produce many, many more plants. The Aloe plant is really special because it’s nectar has healing properties used to relief sunburn pain and other hurts, too. Sometimes we have other kinds of pain that needs healing. When our feelings are hurt, when we are disappointed in ourselves or others, or when we just don’t feel ourselves. What helps us to feel better? Jesus offers us a kind of spiritual Aloe so we can be whole, healed. John 3:17 reminds us that Jesus was sent to us to save the world. You know, the word for save also means heal. So God sent Jesus to the world to heal the world through him. Prayer is Aloe. Encouragement is aloe. Serving others is aloe. Reading the Bible and applying what it means is like applying aloe to our life. Jesus brings healing. This week, can you thnk of a few others who need healing? God can use you to be a kind of Aloe plant to them. Here, this Aloe plant is for you to keep in your room to remind you that Jesus heals, and that you are a healer, too.
Our Lectionary texts this week will help us to think about how to live our life “inside-out”. That is, how our inner spirit and motivations find expressions in our actions. In Mark 7, Jesus wants us to stand out from the crowd, not to draw attention to ourselves, but to reflect his character and values. The self-important religious leaders focused on what they ate, how they dressed, and where they stood in worship, and the importance they held in the eyes of others. The thing they missed was that God cared most for how they treated others, not how much money they put in the offering plate or the rituals they observed. The apostle James told his listeners, ”Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:27). How do we practice “undefiled religion” by caring for “orphans and widows in distress”? Given that all sin and fall short of the glory of God, we are all hypocrites to one degree or another and must grow to be more authentic and live with more integrity despite our inevitable mistakes and shortcomings. Let’s stand out from the crowd, in a good way, this week at Cold Spring Presbyterian Church!