"Using Our Intuition And Imagination” Sermon Delivered By Reverend Richard E. Stetler – September 25, 2011 Centenary United Psalm
78:1-4, 12-16; Matthew 21:23-32 This morning we are going to consider what enabled Jesus to do and say the things that he did during his extraordinary ministry. The Church has seldom explored this theme because for centuries, the standard teaching was that Jesus was the Son of God. That answer has stood the test of time. Few people among the faithful ever thought to probe deeper into other possibilities.
The problem
Christians face is that if being the Son of God provided
the spiritual musculature for
Jesus to perform his miracles and to teach his lessons, that fact alone
separated Jesus from all humankind.
If there was such a wide separation, as many Christians believe,
how could Jesus ask that we follow him? How could we possibly love
others as he did when we do not have Jesus’ DNA?
Think about these questions.
When we read what
Jesus taught, we learned that Jesus never thought about himself as being
separated from us. That distinction came much later historically when
writers began to develop a theology that concentrated on who Jesus was
rather than on what he taught.
For example, Jesus
taught, “I am telling you the truth – those of you who believe what I am
teaching will do even greater things than what you have seen me do.”
(John 14:12) He said,
“Why do you call me good? No
one is good but God alone.”
(Mark 10:18) He also
said, “I assure you that if you believe and do not doubt, you will be
able to tell the yonder mountain to throw itself into the sea and it
will happen.” (Matthew
21:21f).
We have to ask
ourselves, “Would Jesus have
asked his followers to develop attitudes and wholesome habits that are
impossible to achieve?
To his mind, he did not distance himself from his followers.
To his mind, he knew that when people deliberately chose to live
in the Kingdom of God, miraculous events would happen all around them.
In our lesson today,
Jesus went to the
Jesus’ question
presented the professional staff of his
Where did Jesus’ profound insights
and the quality of his spiritual energy have their origin?
More importantly, was what Jesus taught
his followers and audiences a quality of life that can be achieved by
anyone who chooses to follow him?
We have been taught a lot of theology during our lifetime, but
suppose as Jesus implied -- The only thing that separated Jesus and his
followers was the level of his skill?
Everyone has that potential. (Philippians 4:13)
For example, what do
we actually have when we obtain the
pearl of great price? What are
we capable of doing when our tiny mustard seed of faith grows into an enormous tree with
branches where birds build their nests?
What wealth do we
honestly possess once we buy the field that contains
the hidden treasure?
(Matthew 13:31f)
Jesus had no doubt that we
could achieve what he was teaching.
With this said, what enabled Jesus to develop such extraordinary
abilities?
When our children
were young, Lois and I wanted to show them our country so we drove
across the
A service agent told
us that they would have the car running in no time because all of his
mechanics loved working on the older model cars.
He suggested we get supper at the hotel restaurant across the
street and by the time we were finished, we could be on our way.
After supper we walked back to the dealership and saw that the hood of our car was still up. What gave us one of those sinking feelings was the sight of eight mechanics conferring as they stared at our engine. We were advised that it would be a good idea if we booked a room at the hotel. We were told that one of their senior mechanics would be coming in the morning.
“My knowledge of car
engines,” he said, “did not come from books or from taking classes.
I began to design and build engines after I quit school.
I guess my diagnostic skills came
from my experience, intuition and imagination.
By the way, your Ford 302 is an excellent engine.
I would run your car until it rusts out.”
We did just that!
That car took us across the
What does this story have to do with Jesus’ skills and energy? The earlier question was, “Where did Jesus’ profound insights and the quality of his energy have their origin?” We could say that they came from a revelation from God. If so, how does revelation come to us? Jake was a self-taught master mechanic who had studied car engines since he was a little boy. He dreamed about engines. He rebuilt engines. He designed and created one-of-a-kind engines for race cars. He could create what few others could because of his intuition and imagination.
Think of Jesus being
alone for much of his adult life.
He was one of the very few people who could read and write.
He had time to think about the problems with the religion of his
heritage, a belief system that had not changed for hundreds of years.
Just as Jake had focused on engines everyday, Jesus thought about
God every morning, noon and night as he was working alone in his dad’s
carpentry shop.
The vehicle for inspiration came through
those same two invisible streams
of consciousness -- intuition and imagination.
Jesus began to think,
“Since I have developed patience, how much greater must be God’s
patience? Since I have
learned to love my neighbors, how much greater must be God’s love for
all of us? Since I have been
taught how to create well-made products in my shop, how much greater was
God’s precision when he created the world? Since we are created in God’s
image, what pieces of this puzzle are we missing that prevent God’s
spirit from being visible in our own lives?”
Suddenly, the concept of
living in The Kingdom of God,
that invisible source of all motivation and decision-making, burst into
Jesus’ consciousness.
What had to be
shocking to the officials from Jesus’
The priests and elders were only being
faithful to what they had been taught – compliance and obedience to the
Laws of Moses.
Jesus,
however, became adventurous and moved beyond the traditional definitions
of God’s nature. His accusers
called Jesus blasphemous because he suggested we could become intimately
connected to God’s spirit when we learned to love like God.
Jesus succeeded in doing that and he invited his followers to do
the same. (I John 2:5f)
We can use our intuition and imagination
and excel in any profession.For example, in 1741, George Frideric Handel created the musical
work known as Messiah.
Through his intuition and imagination he created this remarkable
work in just 24 days. The
material just poured through him as he described the phenomenon.
Are the
one-of-a-kind artists, builders, architects, designers, inventors,
business people, musicians and medical specialists, just lucky people
that have been singled out by God to develop creative insights, designs
and products? No!
What happens to such people is
the result of becoming so passionate about what they love doing that
they create better results than anyone else.
These people shatter
the old molds. They climb
every mountain and ford every stream. They have dreams that break into
our world because of their intuition and imagination.
Today we call this process, “Learning to think outside the box,”
“Learning to paint outside the lines,” or “Learning to build a better
mouse trap.” We know how to
define the process.
With so many people
following what has been done before, change in how societies order their
collective lives has been very slow to evolve until recently. We can
imagine someone working somewhere in a suitcase factory yelling to
everyone else, “Hey! Why don’t we build these things with a set of
wheels?” This is how
quantum leaps in our thinking happen.
For Jesus, he knew
what was humanly possible when people chose to live in
The Kingdom of God with every thought, every attitude and every
deed.
When we radiate loving energy patterns, we become one with the Creator
of the universe. Our energy
is flowing away from us just like the flow of God’s energy. This is
why only a few people find the
narrow gate that leads to a fulfilling life.
(Matthew 7:13f)
Years ago there was
a man who knew how to use his intuition and imagination to acquire
financial wealth. At the age of 23, he became the world’s first
millionaire. By the age of 50, he had become the world’s first
billionaire. Every decision, attitude, and relationship was
strategically used to reach his goal of being the wealthiest man in the
world. And yet, something
was wrong. At the age of 53 he became seriously ill. His failing health
forced him into retirement at 58.
He lost all his
hair, including his eyebrows and eyelashes. Every nerve ending in his
body appeared to be inflamed. Pain never left him. The world's only
billionaire could buy anything he wanted, but he could only digest milk
and crackers. At the close of business one afternoon, an associate
wrote, "He could not sleep, would not smile and nothing in life meant
anything to him." His personal, highly skilled physicians predicted he
would soon die.
One morning he
awakened with the vague remembrance of the dream he had during the
night. He told people that he had become like a sponge absorbing assets
none of which would serve him now. Those thoughts triggered a new choice
that set in motion different values.
He summoned his
attorneys, accountants and managers. With what little strength he had
left he insisted on being propped up on his pillows so that he could
communicate by looking in the faces of his staff.
Using a level of speech that was
barely audible, he announced that he wanted to give his assets to
hospitals, research and mission projects. That day he established a
foundation that bore his name.
When John David Rockefeller changed his
desire from one of acquiring to one of channeling his energy and assets
away from him, that very moment he significantly altered his body's
chemistry. This change led to
the discovery of penicillin and cures for malaria, tuberculosis,
diphtheria, infantile paralysis and scores of other diseases.
He built the
Think about what
each of us can do by using our intuition and imagination.
Jesus focused on God, and his break-through grabbed hold of
the mountain that had defined
the nature of God for his people for hundreds of years and cast it into
the sea. Jesus created a new
day for all humankind. What
break-through is waiting for us to decide to expand our awareness? |