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"God’s Kingdom Is One Choice Away” Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – February 22, 2015 Centenary United P salm 25:1-10; Mark 1:9-15 Last week was our Annual Cub Scout Sunday.
Attending our service were about
35 Cubs, their leaders and a good number of parents that have never
visited Centenary. At the
luncheon that followed, I extended the invitation to our guests to come
more often. All of them
smiled in gratitude and said, "We attend St. Patrick's just up the
street." Still, it was
wonderful to have them here and they were most complimentary about their
experience.
The Kingdom is all around us
but people call it by different names. Mark's passage today has Jesus telling people in Galilee that the If we translate the one sentence in our lesson a bit differently,
it would read, Turn away from all
the things of this world that have taken up space in your mind and
hearts. Make room in your
lives for a new message which should be
good news to all of you --
God loves you and there is nothing you can do to prevent that love from
surrounding you every moment of your lives. (Mark 1:15) Think of it. To
people who lived in terror of God because of all the horrible things
they imagined that God had done to their people in the past, this would
be the greatest news they had ever heard.
Almost all Jesus' listeners grew up listening to the words of
condemnation from These were people that had wandered spiritually for hundreds of
years, armed only with ancient rituals and practices to which they had
remained faithful. These people knew that obedience to the Laws of Moses
must be kept alive in their memories.
Phylacteries marked the entrances to their homes.
Men wore them around their necks.
These were leather cube-shaped cases that contained several
sacred texts from the Torah. Oral traditions had kept alive the history of their people when
they were enslaved by Pharaoh in Throughout our
lives, our growth has always come in stages and our
growing pains
do not stop until we graduate from this life.
There was a time when my world was as big as my tricycle
would allow me to explore.
One morning of a particular December 25th, a shiny new bicycle was
standing beside our Christmas tree.
My father took me outside, put me on it, gave me a shove and off
I went. The town of At 16, I began driving the family car, and, after I married Lois,
the entire country became our family's playground during our vacations.
Then at the age of 67, I arrived in During any stage of my increasingly expanding world, I could have
succumbed to fear and said, "I am too afraid to ride a bicycle.
I am scared to death to learn how to drive a car.
I cannot imagine learning to drive in a foreign country where all
my learned driving habits no longer work."
We may smile at such notions but this is exactly what Jesus was
helping his listeners to understand -- a huge change was coming in the
way they understood the nature of God. They were about to be led away from Yahweh, the name of their
tribal God. (II Kings 5:15)
Jesus was going to acquaint his listeners and disciples with the
creative energy of which he and everyone is a part.
He said, "I am the vine and God is
the gardener. God breaks off
every branch in me that does not bear fruit and he prunes every branch
in me that does bear fruit so it can bear even more fruit.
Remain united to me and I will remain united to you." (John
15:1-4) Jesus
understood a source of energy that allows love to flow toward, surround
and embrace everyone even when most people, then and now, do not
recognize it.
With this understanding, Jesus asked his listeners to love their
enemies. He said, "Why
should you think that you have
exclusive rights to God's love if you love only those who love you?
Everyone can do that, even the tax collectors and pagans do as
much." (Matthew 5:44-47) As challenging as it might appear to some of us, Jesus taught his
listeners to forgive 70 times 7, to turn the other cheek and to allow
their love to flow to all people regardless of what they are doing with
their lives.
Jesus was able to teach this
lesson because he knew this is the nature of God.
People no longer had to conform to what the Law said because they
were afraid that God would turn away from them if they failed to do so.
If anything, God would offer encouragement by saying, "Choose
again. This time, make a
better choice." All of us today are exposed day after day to the various
news-agencies that continue to fan the flames caused by the various
atrocities committed by others.
We have been given graphic information of how 12 Coptic
Christians were beheaded.
Next, we were told about 40 Iraqi citizens that were recently burned
alive. Coupled with this,
we hear events occurring in northern Nigeria at the hands of Boko Haram,
kidnapping hundreds of school girls and selling them, massacring entire
village -- first killing all the men and raping all the women before
selling them. Is Jesus
really asking us to love people such as these? During the Ash Wednesday service, I read a listing of quotes that
were distributed to the United Methodist Women during their meeting the
week earlier. The women
were asked to draw a quote from a bag and attach it to their
refrigerator door with magnets.
This was to be a daily meditation during Lent before starting
their day. One of them was: Most things are not
as they appear. We only see
in part. Most of what we
understand is only our interpretation of what our senses are telling us.
God, however, sees the whole with perfect understanding. Before we get too excited about being asked to love murderers and
rapists, we have to trust that God knows these people far better than
any of us. After all, they
are God's children. There
is no one better to know their hearts than God.
We have to remember during our first Sunday of Lent the words of
forgiveness spoken by Jesus to the
righteous savages that were
taunting him as he hung on a cross.
Listen again to what these people were saying: People passing by
shook their heads and hurled insults at Jesus: 'You were going to tear
down the Jesus once said, "My friends, never be afraid of those who can
kill your bodies. There is
nothing more they can do to you."
(Luke 12:4).
He knew that we are not our
bodies. He knew that our
physical forms are only vehicles
that temporarily house our infinite spirits.
He faced life fearlessly because of his knowledge of God's love.
He told his listeners, "The
Kingdom of God is near."
Indeed, for all of us, it is one choice away. A friend of mine came to me to share an experience and to listen
to my response. The
love of his life had fallen
in love with her tennis instructor and wanted a divorce.
She refused counseling.
I asked him if he really loved
her. He said, "yes."
Then I said, "If you really love her, support her as she follows
her dream. Let her go, and
be happy that you had her for as long as you did. During this process,
see what is happening to you." He
sat there stunned by my words but he made the commitment to do just
that. Initially, this response was very hard for him to make, but he
did it and came alive with such energy during the experience of his
divorce.
His love for her prevented him
from experiencing all the raw emotions and labeling that are frequently
present during a divorce.
The Kingdom of God was
near. It was one choice
away. He made that choice
and found love stronger than any other response.
Think of God's love:
Rather than falling in love with a tennis instructor, we fall in love
with so many physical forms that are present in
our classroom.
What God knows is that none of us will get away because
God knows only love.
God also knows that all the
forms in the physical world that attract and hold our attention, even
those that have darkened the lives of so many people -- none of these
forms, as beautiful or as ugly as they are, exist in the realm of
spirit.
Another quote that a woman drew from the bag was this one:
"Just as a blossom cannot tell what becomes of its fragrance, we
cannot tell what becomes of our influence."
Has history recorded anyone's name that was standing beneath the
cross hurling insults at Jesus?
Yet, isn't it odd that history should remember a man whose
ministry spanned only three years in one of the most obscure parts of
the world and died as a criminal
between two thieves? We need to remember that living in the Kingdom is only one choice away. What we have the privilege of doing is to live in that Kingdom right now and God will take care of the waves of influence that will radiate from our lives. Peace comes to our spirits from expanding ourselves to be compassionate toward all people. We do this not because of some reward that we believe is waiting for us; we do this because we become the heart of God in a physical form. |