Reflections on "What I Need from My Church: Hope" Romans 5: 1-11; Acts 26: 1-8

As I note in the sermon text, I listened to my colleague and friend Julia Wharff's recent sermon on hope preached at Worthington Presbyterian Church.  Her context was a stewardship series, which was different than mine, but it was good to hear (and still from her) her perspective on hope. 

I had fun with the opening section on searching for hope on Amazon.  I don't think I've had something silly like that in a while in a sermon, so it was good to have a lighter moment. 

I preached a couple of years ago on the difference between hope and optimism, so I did not go there in this sermon, although the idea of hope that is grounded in reality is a similar train of thought.

I probably would not use the Acts passage if I preached this sermon again,  I would probably read the Lamentations passage.

The conclusion below was left out of the sermon.  When i got to that point in the sermon, I decided to just end the sermon.

“What I Need from My church:  Hope”  SAPC, Denton; November 14, 2021; Fall, 2021 series; Romans 5: 1-11; 

26 Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand and began to defend himself:

2 “I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews, 3 because you are especially familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews; therefore I beg of you to listen to me patiently.

4 “All the Jews know my way of life from my youth, a life spent from the beginning among my own people and in Jerusalem. 5 They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that I have belonged to the strictest sect of our religion and lived as a Pharisee. 6 And now I stand here on trial on account of my hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors, 7 a promise that our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship day and night. It is for this hope, your Excellency,[a] that I am accused by Jews! 8 Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?

Introduction:  We continue our preaching series, although it’s almost over, reflecting on what we need from our church in order to grow in our discipleship.  

Someone recently suggested to me that they did not need anything from their church because they had an Amazon account.

 I think they were kidding

Made me curious about getting hope off of Amazon. so I did an Amazon search for hope.

Sure enough, you can find lots of hope-related things on Amazon.  

Here is a sample: 

Three books from 2021 - the pandemic must have inspired writers.

multiple videos, some with the same title;  you can download and play immediately if you are desperate for hope, or you can purchase and watch at your leisure.;

philosophy hope in a jar eye and lip cream, 0.5 oz

HOPE'S Premium Home Care Countertop Restoration Polish and Protector Granite, Marble, Concrete, 8 Ounce, 2 Pack, White, 16 Fl Oz

Hope & Henry Girls' Intarsia Horse Sweater

Mug Hope Ivory

REPUBLIC OF TEA Good Hope Vanilla Red Tea

jewelry at all prices; deal on 40pcs Infinity Hope Symbol Connectors Charms Pendants for DIY Necklace Bracelet Jewelry Making Accessories(Antique Silver) - $6.99.  quite the deal on hope

YOu can drink hope - Willow Tree Angel of Hope, Sculpted Hand-Painted Figure

But this morning we are reflecting on the hope that we need from our church.

Move 1:  We need hope that lifts us up.

a.  hope has movement (This point grows out of a sermon preached by my colleague and friend Julia Wharff at Worthington Presbyterian Church, 10/24/21.  Her husband Dennis suggested I listen to the sermon for her thoughts on hope.  She also tied this point to the hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” which I had already chosen to include in the sermon.)

1.  Alexander pope “hope springs eternal in the human breast”  Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man 

2.  Hope is an upward movement - lifts us from where we are to a new place.

b. later in the service we will sing a wonderful hymn, Great is Thy fAithfulness

1.  Based on a couple of verses in Lamentations 3: 22-23.

But this I call to mind,
    and therefore I have hope:

22 

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,[b]
    his mercies never come to an end;

23 

they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.

2.  But before we get to this hope, we hear the lament:

my teeth grind on gravel,

I cower in ashes;

my soul is bereft of peace;

    I have forgotten what happiness is

The thought of my affliction and my homelessness
    is wormwood and gall!

Wormwood and gall.  Sounds nasty.  nasty like pandemic, or racial injustice, or terrorism.

3.  the lamenter is in a bad spot; feeling down; the world around is crushing; 

4. But then, the lament shifts as the lamenter calls to mind God’s steadfast love which lifts up, which brings hope.

c.  Church’s role

1.  the church is not the holder of hope because our hope comes from God.

2. But the church helps us remember and claim the hope we have in God.

Move 2:  Hope is grounded in our reality

a.  hope is not some naive optimism that continually spouts everything is great. 

1.  Being people of hope means being people willing to name what oppresses or weighs us down.

2.  Paul points to hope that grows out of suffering.

3.  Paul knows we face challenges and difficulties in life.  He certainly did.

4. But when we point out the challenges, when we point to the gap between the world in which we live and the hope we have in God, we begin the movement toward that hope. 

c.  then Journal for Preachers, Lent 2015, Volume XXXIII, p. 10, “Preaching during Lent in 2015” Liz Goodman shares an image used by Charles L. Campbell and Johan H. Cilliars in their book Preaching Fools:  the Gospel as a Rhetoric of Folly):  

South Korea has the Observatory of Reunification, which sits as far north as you can be in S. Korea, looking over the river at North Korea; one can see the military presence in with training camps, uniforms, machine guns visible; S. Korea side there are also statues of Buddha with his arms open in blessing and Mary, her hands folded in prayer.  Both face north toward North Korea.  

Up the hill is a chapel, with the whole front of the chapel is glass, looking out over into North Korea, the beauty of the land, but also the barbed wire and fences of the DMZ; the pulpit is right in front of the window.  When the sermon is preached, the one preaching the congregation sees the one preaching God's word standing in S. Korea, but the rest of their view is North Korea – the enemy, but also the brothers and sisters of those in South Korea; 

the church - standing in the gap between how the world is and the hope we have in God. 

 all that stands between the two is God's Word; which points to the division and offers hope. HTTP://kidsfuninseoul.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/odusan-unification-observatory/  FPC, Troy, 2/22/15

Move 3:  Hope grows out of resurrection.

a.  We read this morning about Paul standing before King Agrippa on trial.

1.  paul references the hope that he has - this hope in the God who raised jesus from the dead.

2. This hope that is worth being on trial; the hope worth speaking out when told to be quiet; the hope worth changing his entire life.

3. Paul connects this hope with the hope the Israelites had in God.

4.  The hope that Paul now sees most fully in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

5. the hope that Paul has to share, even if it gets him in trouble because the world needs hope that is only found in the power of God to resurrect.

b.  NT Wright:  The deepest meanings of the resurrection have to do with new creation. …it was, therefore, the sign of hope for the future, not only for individuals but for the whole world.” (The Meaning few Jesus:  Two Visions, Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, 125-126)

1.  hope tied to new creation.

2. Creative spirit tied to hope.

3.  Hope grounded in resurrection opens the imagination to see new possibilities.

4. When we claim the hope that God is at work doing a new thing, it invites us to imagine a world beyond whatever it is that brings us down in the present:

imagine a world without a pandemic;

imagine a world without racial injustice

imagine a world without violence and hatred.

then look at how God is working through us to make things new.

c.  Church’s role

1. Proclaim resurrection.

2. Stand in the muck and point to the God who is still at work.

‘

3. Point to where God’s power to resurrect is at work.

.

4.  Several years ago around Easter time, the movie Risen was released.

as you may remember the movie follows a Roman centurion, Pontius Pilate's right-hand man, as he sees the crucifixion and then leads the investigation into what happened to the body of Christ after the tomb is discovered to be empty.

Late in the movie the Roman centurion who is tracking down the disciples has joined them on the beach at the Sea of Galilee where the resurrected Christ finds them (the movie seems to be following the Gospel of John at this point).

The camera moves away from the disciples and reveals a man with leprosy being discarded on the ground, banished from being around anyone.

As this is happening, the centurion has a has a conversation with one of the disciples.

“Did you know Jesus was going to be raised from the dead?.”

“he had told us, but we doubted.”

“Why then do you believe?”

“Watch this,” the disciple responds, and they watch as Jesus heals a man who had been isolated and ostracized for his leprosy.

The miraculous sign was more than the healing in the moment – it was the reason for disciples to have hope - the God of resurrection is still at work. t

conclusion:  Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember (San Franciso: Harper and Row, 1984), 32-33. as referenced by Ted Wardlaw in Journal of Preachers, “Preaching Hope in a Time of Discouragement,” Volume XXXVII, Number 4, Pentecost (10):  Buechner imagines a church where he preached as people who were not changed much at all, but:  yet they keep on coming anyway, and beneath all the lesser reasons they had for doing so, so far beneath that they themselves were only half aware of it., I think there was a deep reason, and if I could give on one word to characterize that reason, the world I would give is hope.

They came here...to get married and stood here with their hearts in their mouths and their knees knocking to mumble their wild and improbable vows in these very shadows.  

They came to christen their babies here – carried them in their long white dresses hoping they wouldn't scream bloody murder when the minister took them in his arms and signed their foreheads with a watery cross.  

They came here to bury their dead, and brought in, along with the still finished bodies, all the most un-still, unfinished  love, guilt, sadness, relief, that are part of what death always is for the living,  

In other words, what they were doing essentially beneath this roof was offering up the most precious moments of their lives in the hope that there was a God with them.  

That God would take them and do a  new thing.

the hope that God who raised the dead will lift them up.

Will lift us up. Amen.

Reflections on “What I Need from My church: A Call” I Samuel 3: 1-18 Acts 18: 1-4; 18-21

I thought I would enjoy this more because it was mainly telling stories.  I had a little fun with it, but when I was done it felt more like a recitation of stories than the telling of stories.  Not sure what was happening in the delivery.  

When I read the Scripture lesson from 1 Samuel in worship, I ended it at verse 9.  I decided in the moment that emphasized Eli's role more than if I read the whole pericope.

We celebrated All Saints' Day, which included the reading of the names of members who died in the past year.  In retrospect, I could have built off that and invited people to consider how some of the saints of the church had influenced their lives in years past.

 “What I Need from My church:  A Call”  SAPC, Denton; November 7, 2021; Fall, 2021 series I Samuel 3: 1-18

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.

² At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; ³ the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. ⁴ Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!”^[a] and he said, “Here I am!” ⁵ and ran to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. ⁶ The Lord called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” ⁷ Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. ⁸ The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. ⁹ Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

¹⁰ Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” ¹¹ Then the Lord said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. ¹² On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. ¹³ For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God,^[b] and he did not restrain them. ¹⁴ Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.”

¹⁵ Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. ¹⁶ But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” He said, “Here I am.” ¹⁷ Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” ¹⁸ So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, “It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.”

Introduction:  Preaching series on what we need from our church — this week we focus on the church’s role in helping us hear God’s call for our lives.

We Presbyterians have a high sense of call.

Presbyterian 101 class - is God calling you to this congregation at this particular time in your life?

Officer Nominating committee – not necessarily the best skilled or most talented, but who is God calling into leadership at this time in the life of the church.

We sometimes do a disservice to our theology of call by limiting our understanding of call to church work, but our theology of call teaches us that God calls us in all aspects of our lives.

A series of call stories I have heard through the years. 

Emphasis on the role of others, often the “church,” in assisting in the fall.

Move 1:  wE begin with the Samuel

a.   If we go back in the story, we discover that Samuel's call grows out of his mother Hannah's deal with God.

1. As you may remember, she promises to give her child to God if God will allow her to bear a child.

1. Literally from the womb, Samuel's mother begins the process of helping Samuel hear God's call.

b. In the specific moment, we read about this morning, the priest Eli comes to Samuel's assistance.

1. When Samuel does not recognize the voice in the night.

2. When Samuel does not understand what is happening, Eli guides him.

Samuel needs someone to help him hear God’s call.

Move 2:  My story

a.  University Presbyterian Church - letting elementary-age children usher.

b.  St Andrew - Dr. McCoy, asking 

b.  Church asking a 22 yr old to teach SS and serve on the CE committee at Westminster

1.  Sent me back to SYW with youth after I quit my job to go to law school.   While there, I begin rethinking going to law school and instead going to seminary.

2.  As I am processing my sense of call, my former Jr. High sponsor at St.Andrew, is now a Sr. High sponsor and is with the youth from St. Andrew at SYW.  how convenient for him to be there to help guide my 

e.  Arrive in Houston for law school.

1. Closest Presbyterian church happens to be where the keynote speaker from Synod Youth Workshop is the minister.

2.  Go to worship there.  

3.  Lazy minister does not write a new sermon.  He preaches the same sermon he had preached at the final worship service at SYW.  it happens to be on listening for God’s call.

4.  went to see him the next morning – you don't know me but were you preaching your sermon to me.

5.  I don’t know, maybe. 

6.  A week later I was in seminary. After SYW was over, I drove the kids back to Corsicana, TX, and then drove to Houston to start law school in a few weeks. 

multiple churches played a prominent roles in my hearing the call to ordained ministry.

Move 3:  A Ruling Elder colleague of mine tells his story.

a.  Over 40 years ago, he was in worship at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church listening to a sermon by Bryan Kirkland.

1. The sermon was about being a servant and was based on the text in Mark where James and John are wanting to sit at Jesus' right and left hand;

2.  Kirkland says in the sermon:  "Another way to think about this is, if you want to be the chief, first you must be the chef."

3. not a comment on cooking particularly, just a note about serving others.

b.  My friend cannot get that sentence out of his head.

1.  He enjoyed cooking, but never thought of it beyond doing something he had enjoyed doing growing up with his mother.

2. But that single sentence in the sermon shaped his sense of call.

3.  he did not become a minister of cooking.

4.  But he began to see cooking as a gift to others.  he became the one who invited people over for meals; or cooked at gatherings; 

He is not a touchy, feely guy with a warm, fuzzy persona.  But he cooks for people; he offers hospitality; 

cooking has become sort of the trademark among family, friends, and work colleagues.  

He sees his gift as bringing people together around the table.

A calling from God heard in a pew.

Move 4:  Priscilla and Aquila

Priscilla and Aquila

1. They'd already been driven from Rome because of their religious beliefs.

2. Now they are in Corinth when Paul comes to town.

3. Paul's a tentmaker, so he stays with them.

4. Imagine those conversations that took place as they worked or hung out at home at night.

5. IN addition to being a fellow tent maker, Paul also happens to be the most persuasive, most compelling, most persistent evangelist in the early church.

6. Before too long, Priscilla and Aquila are packing their bags and moving to Ephesus to help start a church there.

7. I bet some days they wish they had not been tent makers when Paul comes to town.

Move 5:   Another ruling elder told me this story.  

a.  He was preparing to retire and was thinking about engaging in some type of ministry.  He looked into going to seminary, but he had too many years of classes (he would need an undergraduate degree before he went to seminary).

b. Next, he thought about mission work; maybe Africa; but, his wife was still teaching and he was not sure he wanted to go to Africa; kids in the area; grand-kid or two already

c. He went to a presbytery meeting. And he heard about a new church development that the presbytery was starting. That caught his attention. It was going to be not too far away from their home.

d. He told his wife about it. Maybe they could help with this new church development. They prayed about it.

e. how he and his wife with their numerous years of experience as both Elder and Deacon in a Presbyterian church continue to play the role of the wise, veterans who help the congregation claim its Presbyterian identity as it welcomes new members with no connection to church or the Presbyterian church.

Hearing God’s call at a presbytery meeting?  Really?

Conclusion:  Sometimes we need somebody to help us hear God’s call.

Such is the work of the church.

Reflections on "What I Need from My Church: Foundation for Discipleship" 1 Timothy 4: 6-16; Deuteronomy 6:4-9

I basically had three sermons I wanted to preach this week:  1. the comparison between nurture (last week's topic) and foundation for discipleship as seen through the lens of baptism. 2. An exploration of the Deuteronomy text: heart, teach, wear as an emblem.  3.  Luther's take on discipleship.  It tried to do a little of each, but ended up with a sermon I did not think work very well.  I left the text as it is written, but I changed off of it quite a bit.  In fact, I did not use the conclusion that is found below.  it felt like I should end earlier in the sermon, plus, I had not used "The Church's One Foundation" as a hymn in the worship service, so I just stopped the sermon.

“What I Need from My church:  Foundation for Discipleship”  I Timothy 4: 6-16; Deuteronomy 6: 4-9 SAPC, Denton; October 31, 2021; Fall, 2021 series

I Timothy 4: 6-16    If you put these instructions before the brothers and sisters,[b] you will be a good servant[c] of Christ Jesus, nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound teaching that you have followed. 7 Have nothing to do with profane myths and old wives’ tales. Train yourself in godliness, 8 for, while physical training is of some value, godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. 9 The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance. 10 For to this end we toil and struggle,[d] because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

11 These are the things you must insist on and teach. 12 Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. 13 Until I arrive, give attention to the public reading of scripture,[e] to exhorting, to teaching. 14 Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of elders.[f] 15 Put these things into practice, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. 16 Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; continue in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Introduction:  We continue our fall preaching series on things we need from our church - not for our own self-gratification, but for us as we grow in our discipleship.

Move 1:  Role of the church in developing a foundation for discipleship among its members.

a.  We know from the letters to the early church that the church understood its role to be one of teaching 

1.  The letter we read to Timothy this morning would be an example.

2.  Teaching, or giving instructions, about how to be “good servants of Christ Jesus.”

3. If Jesus was indeed the resurrected Son of God, what did it mean to follow him?

4. So many of the writings of the early church involved answering the questions of how the followers of Christ were to live their lives in light of God’s power to resurrect.

 

b.  Although the early church grounded itself in the new reality of the resurrection of Christ, the task of God’s people to teach how to live lives of faith was not a new idea.

1.  We read the passage in Deuteronomy and see how the Israelites understood their task to teach the faith so that people would understand the claim God had on their lives.

2.  In Deuteronomy, we are reminded that discipleship is a matter of the heart.  In other words, discipleship is not just learning techniques or memorizing beliefs, but about giving over all of who we are, keeping all that we learn and know about God in our hearts.

3. like the early church, the Israelites also understood the importance of teaching the faith.  

the Israelites we exhorted to talk about God to their children when “they lie down: and “when they rise.”

We hear that and recognize the call to teach our children about following Christ and power of the God to resurrect.

4. of course, it is not just the teaching, but the living what is taught so all the world can see and be transformed.  Like an emblem on our foreheads or a sign on a doorpost, our discipleship should announce God’s saving grace to the world through how we live our lives. 

move 2:  On this Reformation Sunday, two thoughts on discipleship from the Reformer Martin Luther.

a.  First of all, Luther understood the importance of engaging people where they are, particularly with God’s Word.

1. Luther worked to have the Bible translated into the native language, in his case German, and made accessible to people.

2. Luther also began preaching in German, instead of in Latin, the language of the Catholic church, so that people could understand the sermons.

3.  As on Luther scholar notes, “Before Luther helped spark the Reformation, the homes of people were filled with darkness. After Luther labored to give the people the German Bible in their own tongue—suddenly there was light in the homes of those who believed the gospel. The open Bible had replaced the relics and altars to saints that had been given to them by the Roman Catholic Church. Post tenabras lux—after darkness light!

Suddenly disciples were made through the open preaching of God’s Word in the people’s language. (9/29/17, Josh Buice, “Luther and Discipleship, https://g3min.org/luther-and-discipleship/

4.   We recognize in Luther’s insistence that people be engaged by God’s Word the admonition in the 1st LEtter to Timothy to “give attention to the public reading of scripture to exhorting, to teaching.”

5.  We also recognize our need to engage people to help them, to help us, grow in our discipleship in ways that connect with the lives we live.

5. in other words, helping people discover what it means in real and meaningful ways that we follow the resurrected Christ.

b.  Luther’s understanding of law and grace speaks to discipleship as well.

1. Lots of theologians have written lots of words about Luther’s understanding of law and gospel.

2. I will not try and sort all that out, but I do offer a general comment.

3. Luther believed the law “reduces God uses the law to reduce sinners to nothingness and the gospel to create new beings in Christ. 

4.  In this light discipleship is more properly viewed as something God does to believers, rather than something that believers do for God or for the world. 

5.  The law/gospel approach to Christian life resists reducing discipleship to acquired techniques. Instead, it views discipleship in terms of Christians faithfully living out their vocations as baptized children of God. Through the preaching of God’s law/gospel Word believers are created and formed to live by trusting God’s promise to be God and by loving the neighbor in service of creation’s wellbeing.(Lutheran Quarterly, Vol XXVI, 2012, “Discipleship in Lutheran Perspective,” Mark Mattes, 142)

2.  Accordingly, discipleship is pictured as a matter of dying to the old self and becoming a new creation, which, of course, brings us to baptism.

Move 3: Last week, the sermon topic discussed that we w

needed our church to give us nurture;

a.  Like this week, the sermon was preached in the context of coming to the waters of baptism later in the service.

1. In her sermon last week, Reverend Patterson reminded us of the role the congregation takes in nurturing those in its midst.

2.  She illustrated this nurture by pointing out how the congregation stands with the person being baptized.  

3. a powerful image of nurture we will do again this morning.

b.  to illustrate our call to provide a foundation for discipleship, however, I invite you to listen to the words we will speak about the congregation’s role in raising Ellie in the faith and teaching her about Jesus Christ so that one day the might profess Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior.

1. We take those vows this morning on behalf of the church universal recognizing them as the reminder of our commitment to all the infants we baptize, to all the youth we baptize, to all the adults we baptize, to everyone who steps through the doors into this community of faith we know as St. Andrew.

2.  We commit to creating Sunday School and youth programs that invite our children and youth to learn about Jesus Christ and commit their lives to following him.

we strive to provide worship in which people can come and hear God’s Word and recognize the new creations God is calling them to be.

We work to provide mission projects and other programs that allow us to share our gifts and talents with others as we serve our Lord Jesus Christ.

Conclusion:   We remember the words of the hymnist:  “The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord,” and we commit to helping people see how God has built that foundation in their own lives and respond to what God has done.