Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – June 2, 2019

Centenary United Methodist Church

Psalm 104:24-34; John 16:25-32

At the end of our lesson this morning, John has Jesus say:

Living in this world will eventually cause you to suffer. But be brave and happy. I have overcome the world. By following me and learning how to live in my world, you will also develop attitudes and spirts that will enable you to live without the doubts, fears, and uncertainties associated to living in this world. (John 16:33f)

Today, we are going to look at the possibility of living this way. Jesus appeared to be telling his listeners to live in our world without being influenced by the turmoil generated by political, economic, and social injustices. How can we do this and remain a light in darkness?

Many of us have a dream of what could be accomplished if everyone pulled their oars in the same direction that would serve and benefit all of us. One of the reasons that prevents this from happening is that the seven billion people on our planet each have an image of what that looks like. We all have different appetites for what we want to experience. Some of us with high ambitions want power, control, wealth, and fame. Others may want to remain dependent on others by living off an inheritance or the welfare provided by their rulers. The crown jewel for a far fewer number of people is to develop the gifts of spirit. Expressing these helps us to experience a unique freedom for living every day with enthusiasm and hopefulness.

Movies that are called chick flicks always have a feel-good theme when after a lot of tension and estrangement between two people, they both suddenly awaken to the realization that they love each other. They kiss romantically during the last five-minutes of the movie. The Hallmark channel features these episodes. Each movie has a different storyline, but the theme remains the same.

People watch these mesmerizing movies as though what they are seeing is possible to achieve in their own lives. What these movies do is take the viewer into a world of fantasy that was created by a writer for actors who convincingly play their roles. None of it can ever become real. For sure, many couples have these romantic moments at the beginning of their relationships. However, as their romance continues, it does not take long before the authentic partners show up.

Reality appears when each discovers that their partner is at a different place on a learning-curve of life-skill development. This learning-curve includes the skills of each in communication, spending habits, emotional maturity, the mix of how their domestic skills are shared, and a whole host of responses that never surfaced during the romantic phase of their relationship. In other words, the relationship blossoms or stumbles when couples actually engage each other in living together.

Jesus was telling his disciples that, by following him, each of them will have the potential to write the script for their personal journey while living in the material world filled with events that they cannot control. Most of us cannot live in this world without expressing strong emotions when reacting to life's drama - its disasters, its disappointments, its lack of justice for all people, and its environment of constant change. Like living with a partner, we cannot escape engaging the life we came here to experience.

What Jesus did was teach a path less-traveled to his listeners by stressing the art of detaching from the controlling influences of this world. Every person has their potential to choose when and if such detachments are possible for them. People often ignore developing this ability because their automatic responses are to react emotionally to the world’s influences.

One day a daughter called her father at 6:30 a.m. She was so excited that she could not hold her news any longer. She told her dad about her new responsibilities in her company. She received a large boost in her salary and welcomed a new staff of people with whom to work. She was so excited by telling him what this promotion meant to her. He was trying to listen so he could share in her enthusiasm but he did not have the staying-power to remain a participant during their conversation.

He stopped her in the middle of a sentence and said,

Honey, I am so proud for you but if I don't leave the house right now the traffic patterns will be a mess! I'll call you later, okay? Congratulations! I love you! Bye.

That father called me soon after he arrived at work. After telling me about how his day began, he said:

Dick, I devastated her. Here she was telling me about one of the greatest moments of her life and I was worried about my self-imposed morning ritual of beating the rush-hour traffic pattern. What can I do to recover from my stupidity and lack of sensitivity?

Such responses like this one are not uncommon for most of us. What confronts us daily are the habitual tensions that can result from living here. When we are not careful, these conditioned, automatic responses can seemingly make less-than-endearing choices for us even with those that we would never want to hurt. Many responses to life communicate what we value at the moment.

Due to Jesus’ being knowledgeable about the world of his origin, he could more easily detach from the influences of the material world. However, Jesus could not always hold on to what he valued. What occasionally showed up in Jesus' behavior and attitudes was his impatience with people who were preoccupied with the only world they knew. The circumstances taking place in Jesus’ movie often became overwhelming!

The Gospels tell us of the time when Jesus engaged in a fit of rage and overturned the tables of the money-changers in the Temple. The money-changers had operated this way for centuries. They were back in business as soon as Jesus left the area. Passover was their busy season when thousands of visitors from other countries were in Jerusalem needing to use the local currency. (John 2:13f)

Like the father’s reaction to his daughter’s excitement, Jesus reacted emotionally. He withdrew immediately when the drama was over. When others are not on the learning curve where we are, we can easily lose our patience with them. Even though Jesus knew that ultimately nothing in this world matters, yet he was not always able to stay with the values of his world of origin.

There was another recorded moment when his frustration with people became quite judgmental. He exclaimed:

How unbelieving and wrong you people are. How long must I stay with you? How long do I have to put up with you? (Luke 9:41)

When God created a material-setting packed with influences that constantly test the staying-power of our values, it was not done without a purpose. Since the world has remained basically the same since the beginning of recorded history, we might use our imaginations to understand that these repeated historic themes are not just happenstance. They have a purpose.

Regardless of what is happening in our current 21^st Century drama, we can bring the responses of our former world into our contemporary setting. Our more carefully considered choices will enable us to express patience, forgiveness, kindness, compassion, peace, faith, hope, and love. The Apostle Paul understood this when he wrote:

How we understand our world is like seeing a dim image in a mirror of the real thing. What we understand now is a fragment of reality that is mostly illusionary. A time is coming when we will have complete knowledge of who we are and a thorough understanding of the true meaning of our experiences. The knowledge of ourselves will be as complete as is God's knowledge of us. (I Corinthians 13:12f)

Beliefs are not necessary for Paul’s insights to be a true expression of reality. The purpose of beliefs is to enhance our experiences but they are not necessary since all of us have come from and will eventually return to the same remarkable environment.

Everyone is safe and secure in God’s infinite love but not all of us are having a pleasant experience while living in our physical forms. Some people’s beliefs have defined-life-on-earth as a living hell. Is this true or have their beliefs made their experiences true for them and others like them? For those of us who have realized that our Creator loves each of us equally, we understand that God would never create an environment that causes misery.

How do we explain this when such feelings happen to us? The answer is that we have chosen them over responses like acceptance, peace, forgiveness, and compassion. These choices can prevent us from dwelling on the more poisonous experiences created by disappointment, frustration, bitterness, and hostility.

We are spirit-beings that have come here to see how we choose when our movie confronts us with values that belong only to this world. Jesus said, "Follow me." When we follow him, we discover that we have also overcome the influences of a world that ceases to exist the moment we leave it.

Once our classroom experience is over, we are left with memories of who we were when we lived temporarily in a world where nothing was real. However, we will be doing so in an environment where we are totally free from fear and uncertainty. Like the Prodigal child in Jesus' parable, we have come home. (Luke 15:24)

CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER

Loving God, we thank you for your constant faithfulness to us. Our lives are filled with dramas that distract us in ways that we cannot imagine or measure. You have offered us a rock upon which to build our lives and often we build on sand. We turn to you for guidance and yet we often choose from what our limited senses tell us. Even though few of our choices reflect the potential you gave us, your support for our growth never wavers. In our seeking you, help us to remember that the path we seek is found through extending ourselves in ways that make your spirit visible. Amen.

PASTORAL PRAYER

Thank you, O God, for calling us to center our lives around matters of spirit. There are moments when life confuses us. We do not know why events occur as they do. We find ourselves searching and hungering for what appears to lie beyond our grasp. Many secrets to life still linger in front of us, as if they are begging us to discover them.

We are grateful that we do not need to understand life’s complexities before we trust that all of them have a purpose for our continued growth. We do not have to possess the reasons for life-reversals before we experience peace. We do not need answers before happiness becomes a by-product of our lives. We thank you that you never tire of giving us new ways to define our experiences. Sometimes they appear as skills to use during our struggles. Other times they provide us with a renewed resolve to strengthen our faith after a fragile moment has come and gone.

Loving God, teach us the art of perceiving with open spirits rather than through our physical senses that are often quick to judge. Teach us to view life as a privileged journey rather than a series of successes and failures. Truly our lives have become more meaningful from our experiences of both the valleys and the mountain peaks. As we continue our pilgrimage, may the spirit underlying our words and deeds teach others that you are always offering us guidance. We pray these thoughts through the spirit of Jesus who taught us to say when we pray . . .