“The Excitement Caused By Waking Up”

Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – September 11, 2016

Centenary United Methodist Church

Psalm 14; Luke 15:1-10

 

    A number of us have taken for granted the dramatic innovations that have come to us from men and women during our lifetime.  What was only conceived of in science fiction years ago is now readily available.  Much of it has happened on our watch.  Very little surprises us anymore.

    Each time the Olympics finds its way into our living rooms, we take it for granted that athletes will continue to set new world records. The last Olympics was no exception. A lot of those records were broken because of the discovery of new techniques and sophisticated outerwear.

      During my days in junior high school, we were taught to high jump by running toward the bar and hurling our bodies over it.  Today athletes have learned that, as they leap, they turn their bodies so that their backs and legs glide over the bar.  Athletes are reaching record-breaking heights.

    In the 1950's, a quantum leap was made in the sport of pole vaulting.  Someone showed up during a track and field meet with a pole that was made of a flexible composite material.  The first jumper to use this new pole shattered the world's record, not by inches but by yards.  Other athletes with their rigid poles were aghast at the height the athlete had reached and they went home crying "Foul."  Today everyone is using similar highly flexible poles.

     Every advancement we have experienced has resulted from someone teaching the rest of us how to improve our methods for doing what we do.  In last week's sermon, I spoke of a person using a pay phone in one of my former churches. Think of how far we have come with cell phone technology.      

    Our dictionaries and encyclopedias are slowly being replaced by devices endowed with artificial intelligence.  IBM has created a unit called Watson.  Amazon has Echo and Google has Siri. Each will talk to you in conversational English and tell you anything you want to know.  These amazing depositories of knowledge are neatly encapsulated in an attractive shape that we can place anywhere.

    Our Gospel lesson today appears to be in another universe from all the present and futuristic advances that are taking place in our 21st-century cultures.  While all these advances excite us as we anticipate the next BIG thing, we can almost hear Jesus saying:

Wait a minute!  Hold on!  There is another universe that needs to be discovered, explored and developed.  It is inside of you in a place that the medical professionals will never find.  Every individual in each new generation needs to discover this energy for themselves.  No one can give it to them. If those who know about it do not give this information to the next generation, the newcomers to the world will emotionally develop in a wasteland where they often become victimized by their own choices. 

    We quickly learn from listening to our lesson today that Jesus was not talking about lost sheep and lost coins. This episode discusses how Jesus was being criticized by the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law for even talking to tax collectors and other people considered to be outcasts.  He countered their emotional responses with, "Let me tell you something.  There is more joy in heaven over one person who has awakened from his or her wasteland living than over ninety-nine people who are living respectable lives." (Luke 15:7)

    Have any of us ever wondered what religion Jesus belonged to?  He certainly was not teaching the religion of his heritage.  Nor was he teaching Christianity. Such an organized body of correct beliefs had not yet been thrust on believers by those who followed many years after Jesus' death. What Jesus was teaching may have had little to do with any particular religious practice.  

    Religions typically place prescribed boundaries around their believers. What Jesus was teaching was dealing with a universal energy that everyone is capable of accessing. We sugarcoat love to the point where we no longer recognize that the same dynamic and powerful energy that created the universe is also inside of each person. (Luke 17:21)  Everyone is born with unimaginable capabilities, talents and abilities.  Many of us, however, allow such treasures to melt away because we have no idea that we have them.  (Matthew 25:29)

    Think of it - - when accessed, this radiant form of energy enables the user to transform and redefine all of his or her experiences.  What makes love so mysterious is that we do not know how or why it works.  We only know what happens to us when we use it to interpret our life-experiences. 

    Lois and I were in the Philadelphia airport during one of our trips to Maryland and we needed to contact our son.  I borrowed someone's cell phone because pay phones were not available.  I had to ask the owner of the phone to show me how to turn it on and then how to dial the number.  He and his wife looked at me as though I had just emerged from some cave where I had been living.

    This would have been a typical response from those that were listening to Jesus' message.  His words sounded irrational. Jesus was teaching ideas that were counter to everything people had been taught. (Matthew 5:38)  He was the first person in history to teach, "Love your enemies." Any of his listeners might have said:

What hidden source of energy are you talking about?  Love my enemies?  Instantly forgive those who have deeply offended me?  I don't think so.  Have you lost your mind?  I want these people out of my life.  I want them dead!  

    Christians talk about God's grace.  We sing about love.  We lift our voices in praise and adoration about love while still not taking this creative energy seriously enough to want to live it.

    Not many of us know how a cell phone works.  What we do know is that it enables us to acquire information instantly and establish contact with our friends, acquaintances and family. We cannot explain how this happens.  Like so many other things, we take this miracle for granted.

    My communication with Steve by using that phone had nothing to do with any religious practice. It had to do with using a strange technology that was unheard of forty-five years ago.  Why is it that we can use a cell phone and think nothing of it?  Yet, when it comes to coping with challenging life-experiences by using another strange technology, we often act as though doing so would be a religious based practice that is wonderful to believe but remains an energy we seldom use.

    The followers of Jesus included virtually anyone that wanted to learn this new technology that produced highly effective responses from them. Who would not want more enthusiasm, patience and compassion in their lives?  When we use it and it works, something lures us back to use it again.

    In June, five prison inmates broke out of a minimum security cell in the United States.  What prompted their breakout was witnessing a guard collapse and fall on the floor. The prisoners broke through the door and found the guard unresponsive.  He had stopped breathing and he had no pulse.

    Security cameras showed the men starting CPR while others called for assistance.  Finally help arrived in the form of a defibrillator and news that an ambulance was on its way.  After being shocked, the guard's heart started beating again and now he is well on his way to a full recovery.

    What is interesting is that the prisoners were transformed by the experience of saving this man's life.  They felt some unseen presence urging them to take action.  This unseen presence was an example of this high-tech radiant energy that Jesus was teaching and demonstrating.

    People can divide their personal demons in numerous ways.  Our age does not prevent these energies from immobilizing our minds and emotions.  Have we ever asked ourselves any of these questions?

How can I avoid feeling guilty?  How can I deal with my anxiety?  How can I stop worrying about what people are thinking and saying about me? How can I stop seeking approval by pleasing everyone and trying to live up to everyone's expectations of me?  How can I live in the present moment and not be drawn to events in my past or become fearful for my future?  How can I stop being victimized over and over again by my parents, authority figures and people whose opinions bother me?  How can I better manage my emotions? 

    Many of us experience some or all of these demons.  Why is that?   All of our demons are nothing more than fears that we have not yet outgrown.  Our angels within us appear the moment we radiate love, a response that has nothing to do with influences coming from our external world.  Love is about extending our life-energies toward others.  This redirection of our energy is a major shift that supplies one solution for every drama that confronts us.

    The two parables in our lesson today are about transformation and the joy found in heaven when even one person flips the switch to begin a totally new journey.  This dynamic, radiant energy is amazingly powerful.  

    Strangers to it learn the magic of allowing people to be whoever they want to be without being bothered by where they are on their evolution.  Strangers to it begin looking for how to be helpful and supportive to others.  Strangers to it realize that there is no one to blame for how they feel.  They have assumed full responsibility for their own thoughts and feelings. Strangers to it learn that they are free from the energies their demons once represented.

    Strangers are so amazed by the energies generated by love that they exclaim:

Eureka! I have found it!  Loving responses really work! I am becoming a new person.  I do not know who that other person was who once lived in my skin.  I am free!  I am free!  Thank God, almighty, I am free!

    It is wonderful to know that this dynamo of energy lies within each of us.  Let us use it everyday in order to teach the world how to sing and to dance.  This is God's gift to everyone.  All we have to do is unwrap it and start using it.