Journeying with Jesus into the Unknown

When in and all around us things are changing it can be pretty disruptive. It’s a little like what happens when we receive 6 inches of rain in a couple hours and the creeks and rivers overflow threatening to flood our basements and our homes. We become anxious and scared and worry about what we’re going to do and how we’re going to survive.

What’s our typical reaction to change? How do we react when change comes that we’ve not really prepared ourselves for? Do we welcome it? Do we just ride out the change trusting in whatever God brings our way?

Have you noticed stones and rocks in a stream? Have you noticed how all the edges are round and smooth? Have you noticed how the bigger stones just sit there on the bottom, not moving, as the water flows over them?

Perhaps we can take a lesson from the stones and the rocks in those streams and let the sharp edges of our lives be worn away. Perhaps we should let God’s Spirit help us find the reason for living in these challenges that come to us. Perhaps we should be like a river that is continually changing its direction as it flows toward the ocean.

In this new year, this new season, this new journey we should ask ourselves, “How do I live?” Do I live as a person who has been set free or do I live as one chained to all the things life puts on my shoulders? That’s a heavy question and not easily answered.

I’ve been thinking about all this as I’m fast approaching my last Sunday as a pastor. There are people and things that have given my life a purpose. It’s hard to let them all go because they’ve provided a sense of security.

And now I wonder how I’m going to live after…I’ve always lived my life knowing that it was my responsibility to love and care and protect my family. And as a follower of the Way of Jesus I’ve felt the call to share my gifts of time and talents.

But there have been times that the darkness has crept in and I have felt overwhelmed.  It’s then that I realize that I’ve given in to the demands of the world and I haven’t relied on God and his peace and his love.

This darkness hasn’t always been a bad thing when I stop and sit and think and let God show me there is nothing to fear since He’s never left my side. Sometimes the darkness is just the shadow cast by God’s light.

Sometimes the darkness is my own fear of being set free to become someone I’ve never been. Change makes us feel insecure, shaky, like the people in Texas probably felt this past week with the earthquakes. Change is kind of like looking in a mirror and not recognizing the person looking back at you.

Friends, we are all on a journey. Your journey and my journey are probably different but one thing is the same. We are both called to be changed into whomever and whatever God wills.

What an exciting time this next year is going to be for all of us. May God give us the strength, and the wisdom, to get acquainted with this new person, this stranger who will do and say and live in ways that we’ve never imagined. May we know that we all are being created in God’s image in ways that we’ve never realized before.

It’s a frightening thing, change, transformation, freedom. But what a gift. May God give all of us the opportunity to hold it tight, live in it fully, and enjoy it to the fullest, right now.

Thanks be to God for his unimagined grace. Amen.

Time for Get Up and Go...

A new year is here and all around us things are changing. People are changing jobs, people are changing houses, people are moving to new places, everywhere we look people are moving, people are changing.

I remember as a young boy playing hide and seek with my friends when we’d get together. One person would be ‘it’ and the rest of us would run away to hide. The person who was ‘it’ would cover their eyes and count to 100. Then they’d shout, “Ready or not, here I come!”

Everyone would stay very still, not moving, not saying a word, hoping that they’d get the chance to race toward home and touch the tree or pole so that they’d be ‘safe.’

If the person who was ‘it’ touched you or caught you between your hiding place and the ‘base’ then you would be ‘it’ next. Never once when they caught you did they try to take your life, never.

But, that’s exactly what King Herod did when he sent soldiers to Bethlehem looking for the new born king the Magi had come asking about. When they didn’t return and let him know where Jesus was he was in a rage. He sent soldiers there to kill all the boy babies up to two years old.

We’d like to think that wouldn’t or doesn’t happen anymore, but it does. Children are being killed with rockets, guns, by starvation, and by disease all over the world.

On that day when the soldiers marched into Bethlehem no one ever expected their children to be in danger. Can you imagine the grief and the tears and the wailing? Can you imagine the pain in those parent’s hearts?

We all know there are children in danger today. We all know, but they are so far removed from us that we don’t think there’s anything we can do…or we ignore it.

Right now in our communities there are children who haven’t received a flu shot and they’re in danger of coming down with influenza and dying. In our communities there are children who are hungry, there are children who are being abused, there are children who are cold, and there are children without any parents whatsoever…in our communities and in the cities not too far away.

It’s a new year, a new day is dawning, and we can do something to help. We can buy cans of food and give them to the food pantry. We can buy a pair of gloves or a hat and give them to our churches to deliver to the Open Door Mission or Micah House or the Family Crisis Center. We can advocate for those children who have no one to speak up for them. We can volunteer in the schools and in the day cares and in our churches to make sure that no child has to suffer.

This a new day and it’s time for us to get up and go to work for Jesus. As long as we have breath in our bodies God still has something for us to do…and we should be doing it. There’s no early retirement from serving the Lord.

So, as we prepare to leave this sanctuary and go back to our homes let’s begin a new thing as we seek to live our lives more like Jesus and follow our Lord wherever he leads us.

Thanks be to God for his grace. Amen.

Seeking

When you’re on a hunt for something of value, a treasure hunt, how do you feel? What are you experiencing emotionally?

I know that when I’m on the hunt for something of value there’s a sense of excitement, maybe some anxiety too because I might not find what I’m looking for.

Just picture yourself as one of the Magi. Think about how they must have felt when they discovered the star and in their research found that it meant a new king had been born.

Think about the talks they must have had planning, arguing, negotiating what to take, what not to take, what route to take, how many servants, all that they’d need for a journey that they had no idea how long it was or how much time it would take.

And think about all the different people and characters they’d meet. Some would be helpful and some, I’m sure, would make you fear for your life.

Think of all the people they had to trust, even King Herod. Kings can be kind of hard to read, especially Herod and his reputation for killing people he thought might be in his way.

So, we’re on a journey called life. As Christians we’re also seeking the Savior, Jesus. Sometimes it’s not so easy to find Him.

We talk to folks, we ask questions of religious people, we read books, we read the Bible, we pray, we seek, we hope.

Where do we find Jesus? Can we find him in this building? Is he out there in our community? Or…is he inside us, gently, and sometimes not so gently, pushing us to get on with the work and get out of our comfort zones? Is Jesus the one who leads us to those chance encounters with some very strange people and is he the one who turns those encounters into blessings?

If we’re on the wrong road is he the one who shows us a different way? Maybe we need to tune our hearing so that we can hear his voice as he speaks to our hearts helping us to understand and trust in him.

Maybe that’s why at this time of the season, winter, that we celebrate the birth of the Savior, to discover the real riches that Christ and Christmas brings to us. It’s a good time of the year to just be and let time and light and love penetrate the darkness and show us the way home.

Thanks be to God for his grace. Amen.

God’s Vision for the World

Over the last couple weeks we have seen the vision God had for the world. In Habakkuk we were urged to write God’s message clearly so all people could read it. In Esther we heard the story of God’s love and vision for the whole community. Today as we heard the lessons read we get the idea God’s vision has grown and is meant to encompass all, Jews and Gentiles, people of faith and people without faith, all people.

The Good News is for all people, and we find that the vision spoken by Isaiah was written and delivered to those who were the least in society.  God’s vision wasn’t, and isn’t, just for the chosen ones, the wealthy and rich, but for the poor, the prisoners, the nations that are downtrodden. It is in fact a vision for all God’s people everywhere.

We hear this passage from Isaiah and immediately think that it’s about the coming of the Messiah. That’s who we think the ‘Suffering Servant’ refers to. It could be that the message wasn’t so much to point the people toward a Messiah but to point the listeners to themselves, the people of Israel. This vision of God’s blessing brings with it a responsibility to work at bringing God’s vision into reality right where we are.

If we look at Isaiah’s message in that way, thinking about us as the Church, and understand that the message isn’t about the Messiah being responsible for telling the Good News but the community of the Church is responsible for interpreting and delivering the message of Good News to our communities and the world. What would our communities look and feel like if the people of the Church were actively working to bring about God’s vision of justice for all?

As our scriptures tell us this ‘light’ has been given to the people of God to light the way for others. So, the question for us is this, “If we are to light the way for others, how are we living this out in our communities and how is it being experienced by those we encounter?” Is this light of God’s incarnation in the world helping people to see and understand God’s vision of justice for all?

God’s vision is for all people. Through the Spirit of God, God’s servants are, and will be, a light to the nations, bringing justice, healing, wholeness, and release to the prisoners. The people of faith, you and me, are God’s servants; our church communities are God’s servants. My hope and prayers is that we don’t think of this passage as someone else’s responsibility to undertake and bring about God’s vision of justice. It isn’t about someone else, it’s about us.

As it’s written in the book of Esther, “For such a time as this” God’s servants are called to work for justice…each and every one of us are called.

Thanks be to God for his gift of grace and faith. Amen.

God's Time

There’s a song that reminds us we’re given 86,400 seconds every day. That sounds like a lot of time. And it is, until we realize we’ve wasted 3,600 seconds not doing what we know deep in our souls we should be doing and maybe another 3,600 doing something else. We delay, we put it off because we’re afraid that someone will be mad or hurt or will ridicule us or one of the other million excuses we use.

Mordecai asked Esther to do something hard, to do something that could have cost her life. So, for a moment, maybe a day she hesitated until she heard from her Uncle Mordecai.

He said she may have been placed in this position as queen “for such a time as this.” Mordecai wanted her to know that God was there as their protector even when they were in exile.

So, do you know what God has for you to do? Has God been calling to you to do something you don’t want to do or you’re afraid to do? Have you been wondering why God put you here in Walnut, IA?

Well, think about this for a minute. There are homeless people in Omaha and Council Bluffs living along the river, under the viaducts, sleeping under cardboard wearing multiple layers of clothes. There are children going to homes unsure what kind of reception they’ll receive when they get there. There are children who don’t know what it’s like to be hugged or kissed or told they’re precious. These are people who don’t know what it’s like to be loved.

There are folks living in care centers who are so lonely they just want to die because they have no family to visit them. And there are folks living in homes who never have anyone checking in with them to see how they’re doing.

The Jews in Esther’s story were living in exile. They didn’t know if they’d ever get back to their homeland. Fortunately for them God knew their plight and he hadn’t abandoned them.

Mordecai and Esther were part of God’s plan to save these people. If they hadn’t answered God’s call the ending of the story would have been way different. God may have save the Jews but Mordecai and Esther may not have survived.

So, back to you and me. I believe God is calling us, you and me, to a particular work. I believe God’s been calling for a while. My call may be different from yours and then again it may be the same.  My question is, “Do you think we’ve answered God’s call to us?”

What is God calling his Church to do? If God is calling his Church to a particular work then that means God is calling you and me to a particular work since we are the church. And, if God is calling us and we’re not answering the call, who’s being hurt by that? If we don’t answer God’s call who will he call next and what will happen to us?

This is God’s time, every day, every 86,400 seconds, belong to God. One day, I believe, we’ll have to answer how we used God’s time. That scares me some because I’ve wasted a lot of the time God’s given to me. My only hope is in the forgiveness offered through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

But still, we are all here for a reason, for a particular purpose and the only way we’re going to know what God has for us to do is to take time to listen.

So, in this season of Advent, this winter time, I think it’s a perfect time to sit by our heaters, wrapped in our blankets, and let God speak to us his call. And may we have the courage Esther showed to answer the call.

Thanks be to God for his forgiving grace to us. Amen.

Gratitude

I’d like you to picture yourself as one of the ten lepers who called to Jesus for pity. Put on their clothes. Put on their sandals. Remember that you aren’t allowed to get too close to other people because you’re not ‘clean.’ You haven’t been ‘clean’ for quite a while.

The children of the town are always taunting you and sometimes they pick up stones to drive you away. And lately you’ve noticed that you’ve lost the feeling in your fingers and toes. You’ve had this condition for so long it’s hard to remember what it was like to have ‘clean’ skin that didn’t itch and wasn’t covered with sores.

You’ve heard about this one called Jesus. You’ve heard about his healing powers and the miracles of feeding 5,000 and raising folks from the dead and driving out demons. And today, there he was walking down the road we were on.

One the others with us began the shout, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” As he looked our way we all took up the shout, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

It was like he was looking right at me. He didn’t come near. He just said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”

That’s all. And so we began to go to the temple. That’s when I noticed that something felt different. I looked at my hands. They were healed! I could feel the tips of my fingers again! I could hardly believe it!

I stopped right there in the road. The leprosy was gone! I turned around and ran back to Jesus and fell at his feet. I was so happy I don’t remember everything I said. I know I was thanking God and thanking Jesus. What would you have done? What else could I do?

Then he spoke and said, “Weren’t there ten who were cleansed? Where are the others? How is it that only this one, a foreigner has returned?

Then he spoke to me! He said, “Get up and go. Your faith has made you well.”

I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced such joy, ever! I had to run to the priests and then I was going to go home! I hadn’t been close to my family for so long!

I’ll tell you one thing for sure! I’ll never, ever, take one day for granted anymore. Since Jesus healed me I know that every day is a blessing. I give God the glory every day.

And that Rabbi, Jesus. Some say he’s the Messiah, the Son of God. He sure could be. All I know is once I was an outcast and now I’m not.

So, good friends, don’t take your good lives for granted. Don’t be like I was. Go, find this Jesus and ask him to have pity on you! May you have the peace and joy I received when Jesus told me my faith had made me well.

God’s Message-Can You Hear It; Are You Listening?

Today is the last day of the Christian year. Today we celebrate and remember the greatest gift to the world, Jesus Christ.

Since it’s the last day we might be tempted to look back at where we’ve been, maybe even take time to reflect where we’ve known that God was with us and also those times when we didn’t feel God’s presence.

Since it’s the last day of the year we might also be tempted to look ahead and consider where God is calling us to be, what God is calling us to do, and how God is calling us to both be and do.

Jeremiah heard God’s voice when he was a boy. When God gave him his instructions Jeremiah didn’t think he had the qualifications to complete the work of the Lord.

So, as the old year ends and the new year begins next Sunday with Advent consider this, how is God speaking to us and what is he calling us to do? Can we hear God’s voice? What are we to do if we can’t understand what God’s saying?

We have two separate and different things going on in these two passages. One is God’s call to Jeremiah and the other is the message God gave him to take to the people while standing at the gates leading into the temple.

So, our task today is to understand how this speaks to us today. I believe that God calls people to particular work. We read about it in the Bible and we hear people tells us how they’ve been called by God for particular work.

Is God calling you? Is God calling this church? If God is calling us, how are we responding to the call of the Lord?

I don’t think it works very well to tell God we’re not qualified, we’re too young…or too old, we don’t know how to speak, or any of the other excuses we use when we’re asked to do something hard. Especially when we read how God has plans for us before we were ever conceived. That kind of gets my attention doesn’t it you?

So, that’s the first part and then there’s the second piece that basically telling the folks and the leaders of the church that they haven’t been doing the things God has been calling them to do and be. They weren’t treating each other fairly or justly.

As we heard read they were brazen enough to tell God they didn’t think they were doing anything wrong.  And who was this Jeremiah to be telling them that he was speaking the word of the Lord?

Two things, two messages for us today. One is a call and the other is a warning. Both can be scary and frightening for any one.

So, again, what is our calling from God…and what is our warning from God? I’m not sure I can give you the answer because I think the question is for each of us as individuals. There is the possibility that your call and my call could be similar maybe even alike but there’s also the possibility that they could be very different since we’re all uniquely different people created just for God’s purpose.

I haven’t given any answers to the questions presented. How do you know if and when God is calling you…or me…to a particular work? How can we discern God’s call…or warning? Think about that. What do you do? What would you do?

When I was a kid and I was perplexed with a sense of God’s call I’d go to my Bible and open it randomly thinking that if God had a message for me I would find it there and God would make sure the right pages fell open and my eyes would be led to the right words. I can’t remember if any real revelations came to me or not.

But my question isn’t for me but for you…and you…and you. What do you do? Is anyone here sensing a call from God that you don’t know how to answer? Maybe together we can help each other understand God’s message for us.

Jeremiah was in it alone and he suffered for the message God gave him to deliver. Maybe if we talk to each other about God’s call to us the work will be easier…maybe.

Friends, this week I’m asking all of you to sit with God and listen for the Voice of the Lord. Read his word for you, lift your prayers to God, and listen…because I believe God has a call crafted just for you.

May you be blessed with God’s grace and peace this week. Amen.