“Our Grey Areas” Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – January
15, 2017 Centenary United Methodist Church
Isaiah 49:1-7; John 1:29-42 Have you ever noticed how much we can learn about each other
simply by watching the behavior and attitudes of our family members,
friends and neighbors? This morning we are going to consider several
insights about the sinful lives
that many of us engage in from time to time. When our daughter boarded her airline in Lois and I have known people who put a handicapped hanger over
their rearview mirrors so they can receive priority parking near the
businesses they intend to visit.
A good number of doctors must be an
easy touch when it comes to
prescribing these hangers for clients who obviously do not need them.
The other day, an SUV driver allowed me to pull out from the
church parking area as a gesture of courtesy.
I turned right to go up Collector's Hill as the light was turning
red. The three cars behind
me drove through the red light on What is going on in so many of our lives? The word
sin is far too dark and
sinister as a description of this kind of activity. This morning we will
use the term our grey areas
to describe the times when we fail to live consistently by the rules of
our society. There is always a temptation for me to walk around the sanctuary
with the microphone and invite you to participate in the
finger-pointing. I am sure we could fill our time together this morning
by telling stories about what we have experienced.
Actually, it is quite humorous to see what we do
to cut corners or to save a
few steps as we attempt to get ahead of everyone else.
If any of you would
like to witness people acting like puppy dogs that have not been fed for
several days, get out of bed at 3:00 a.m. and get in line at some
department store that plans to open its doors at 5:00 a.m. on
Black Friday.
It is like a feeding frenzy. In our current social-climate, humanity has reached a stage in
its evolution where freewill
is really free will.
We have the Ten Commandments,
but as the news journalist, Ted Koppel, said years ago, they have become
the Ten Suggestions for many
people. We live in a day
where people are far more casual with their living patterns.
People tend to focus on what meets their needs.
The majority of people in most western nations have
transportation, lodging, plenty to eat, a wardrobe, and they have the
financial resources to do just about anything that they want to do. Once there was a social stigma connected with certain behaviors
and attitudes. They do not
exist today in many areas. Personal accountability is almost totally
under our personal control.
Today, social attitudes are more like ones that communicate, "I don't
care what you do with your life so long as it does not inconvenience
what I am doing."
When people act irresponsibly, most of us observe their behavior and
shake our heads in disbelief.
We are able to emotionally disconnect from such people almost
immediately. How many of us can remember skipping flat stones across the
surface of a pond when we were youngsters?
Some people live this way.
People can easily become
engaged in surface living
until they have some
mystical encounter that
awakens them to deeper levels of understanding.
There are people that live ninety-nine full years packed with
remarkable experiences and adventures.
There are others who live one year ninety-nine times. In our lesson, John the
Baptist witnessed something that may be instructive to us. He said, I saw the Spirit
come down like a dove from heaven and stay on Jesus.
I still do not know if he is the one who has been promised by
God, but God, who sent me to baptize with water, said to me, 'You
will see the Spirit come down and stay on the man you baptized.
He is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit." (John
1:32f) What surfaced in our minds when Darlene read what John the
Baptist told his listeners about Jesus? He said, "There is the
Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world? What
was John suggesting about Jesus' capabilities?
When theologians get involved, the answer they often provide
makes the issue of what John witnessed and heard very complicated.
Quite simply John saw a dramatic change in Jesus after his
baptism and that is the way he chose to characterize what he saw. We do
not know what John meant when he said "like a dove that came down from
Heaven." One of the discoveries that we learn during our study of the
Bible is the number of high profile personalities that had been drifting
along in their lives until a
mystical experience caused them to wake up.
Once awake, they became highly energized and their lives changed
directions. All of us have
this same spirit that can lie dormant within us until it is awakened. Look at what happened to
Abraham. (Genesis 12:22)
Look at what happened to Moses (Exodus 2:11-3:22), to prophets
like Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1f), to Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:3) and to the
Apostle Peter (Acts 10:11). Think of it.
These single individuals helped to shape the way people would
live in the future. Today is the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
His I Have a Dream
speech was electrifying when he delivered it in front of 200,000 people
that had gathered in What shattered his
sleep-walking was a threatening phone call when he was 27 years old
on January 27, 1956.
Something quite visceral
stirred within the spirit of Dr. King and it awakened an energy within
him that completely changed the direction and purpose of his life.
He eventually became the leader
of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Dr.
King led the greatest realignment of race relations that has happened
during our lifetime.
What he did has rippled around the world.
King
became one of those people that took away the sin of the world.
For sure there are still a lot of stragglers but
the die has been cast.
Several more generations of people have to die before the vision that
many young people have today is held by most people.
How did Dr. King accomplish this?
He did it the same way that Jesus did. He used his own life to
point to a different social reality from the one that people were
living. It was an idea whose time had come. The greatest testimony to
his success was the election eight years ago of Barack Obama as the
President of the The other day, Lois and I were in the Shelly Bay Market Place.
During a conversation with one of the women who bags groceries
for customers, she said, "I never worry about anything that is happening
in Every time I hear someone looking forward to the Second Coming of
Jesus, I think of the Jews who spent a lot of energy hoping for
centuries that a Messiah
would come to liberate them. I
think to myself, "If Jesus has to come a second time, it could mean that
he failed the first time to complete his mission. Or, if his coming
again signals the end of the world, it could mean that God failed when
God created men and women to be a little lower than the angels."
Since neither of these ideas works for many of us, could
the second coming be symbolic
of something completely different? Rather
than having Jesus or God
micromanage the evolution of humanity by breaking into history in
some dramatic way, suppose the
second coming is our task. Most people are aware of the
life of Jesus. Perhaps it
is time that more people meet the
way of Jesus again by seeing his loving attitudes modeled by what we
do.
The Apostle Paul discovered this truth when he said, "It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me." (Galatians 2:20) He understood what God can do when God works through people. Why do some Christians keep looking and hoping for Jesus to return a second time? Saul of Tarsus had the
highest academic, economic and
religious pedigree of anyone in the ancient world.
His identity completely changed
after his awakening. (Philippians 3:8f) We would not be here this
morning had the Apostle Paul not taken Jesus' message to the Greek and
Roman worlds. During his three missionary journeys, Paul acquainted
others to a second coming
because that is exactly what he experienced while on the road to This energy that was awakened in Paul is in all of us. God knows who we are. We are the ones with spiritual amnesia. Our sin, our missing the mark, our being self-absorbed represents our sleep-walking. However, we do these things in such a way that we assume they are normal living patterns. Once we have awakened,
our grey areas vanish.
We carry ourselves patiently and peacefully, with no need to get
ahead of anyone else. (Matthew 20:16) We are no longer motivated
to fix anything. Rather than
protesting anything, people see us living the message of Jesus by our
loving one another, even our enemies. (Matthew 5:10)
Our call is to show up and let
our loving energy guide people to experience their own
second coming. When our spiritual energy has been awakened, we evolve into
a gleaming diamond through
which God can move mountains within us and in other people. This is one
way we can play a role in manifesting on the earth what Isaiah and Dr.
King desired -- a day when The
glory of the Lord will be revealed and all people shall see it together.
Each of us can become that
light set on a hill so that others can awaken.
(Matthew 5:14) We must never become discouraged if we never see
the fruit from the seeds we have
sown. We are in great company.
For three years Jesus
sowed his seeds and he never lived to see what happened to
his first crop. We can be at
peace with that, knowing that our Creator is still creating.
CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER Loving God, as each
of us enters our worship experience, we are sensitive that we live in a
world where people appear more skilled at creating roadblocks than a
sense of community. Guide
us to minister to those whose values and attitudes isolate them from
being loved. Open our minds
and hearts to the truth that few people enjoy feeling alone.
Encourage us to reach beyond the barriers we have created so that
we might all enter our shared future together in hope and trust.
Help us to remember always that it is the harmony and silences
among the notes that produce the symphony.
Amen. PASTORAL PRAYER Loving and always-present God, we thank you for calling us to be more
than we ever thought we were capable of being. Your Son called his
listeners to become "the salt of the earth and to become as light set on
a hill so that others could see." Too many times we do not feel we
can live up to Jesus' expectations of us. We confess that often we
are the ones who believe that we need prayers. We are the ones who
need healing. We are the ones who come seeking the courage to go
on when our circumstances appear uncertain. Too many of us believe that
what we are is not enough. How easily we forget
that people needing and seeking Jesus frequently overwhelmed him. The
Jewish authorities sought Jesus in order to accuse him. Another
came under the cover of darkness to seek his wisdom. Another
wanted to sneak up behind him so she could touch the hem of his garment
and be healed. Mary and Martha both scolded him when he did not
come immediately to As we come seeking him, may we hear again his
request to take what we are to others.
He would rather we give away our gifts than come to him seeking
more. Encourage us to do less seeking and more giving away of what we
have discovered. We just
might find that doing so is enough for you to move the mountains of fear
in us and would allow our mustard seed to grow into a tree. By standing
forth in total trust, we may become a bridge over troubled water for
someone who fears they are lost. We pray these thoughts through the
loving spirit of Jesus, the Christ, who taught us to say when we pray .
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