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Sermon
Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – December 15, 2019
Centenary United Methodist Church Isaiah 35:1-10; Matthew 11:7-11 Our Gospel lesson this morning is about John the
Baptist. Three times Jesus
asked his listeners: "What do you see when you go out into the
wilderness?" Finally, Jesus
gave them the answer he was seeking when he asked his third question.
"Did you go into the desert to see a prophet?"
Jesus continued: That is exactly what you went into the desert to
see, but John was far more than just another prophet.
He is a messenger sent by God to prepare the way for the
coming of another who will introduce to the world The Kingdom of God.
I want to tell you a truth about John.
He is greater than anyone who has ever lived. However, the person
who is least in The Kingdom of God is greater than John.
(Matthew 11:9f) John was angerly denouncing the sins of the people
who had come to listen to his preaching.
He said, "You snakes!!
Who told you that you could escape the punishment that God
is about to send?" (Luke 3:11) His notion of salvation was for people to
change the way they ordered their lives or suffer the eternal
consequences. John was preaching fear as a motivation to change
their attitudes. Jesus was
teaching that loving energy has the power to conquer fear.
Jesus would never teach people to love others from a fear of what
will happen to them if they cannot bring themselves to master such a
response. People who are living in The Kingdom of God
develop loving responses that fill them with joy and happiness most of
the time. They only have
their inner lights flicker when matters found in the
material world are taken seriously.
Such activities can be judged harshly when people invite fear to
enter their minds. When
people refuse to take the material world seriously, they can sing
while others weep. Many years ago, in my second church, we celebrated
Halloween in a most unusual way.
Someone had access to large cardboard shipping boxes.
These boxes were brought to our fellowship hall and taped
together to make tunnels for the children to crawl through.
The children all came in costumes.
A number of their parents secretly came also dressed in costumes.
The parents arrived as vampires, zombies, and other frightening
creatures, many wearing clinging, skintight masks that were hideous
looking. As the children were crawling through these tunnels
to get their treats of candy, they were greeted at the end by their
crazy looking parents. The children were instantly traumatized.
The children believed what their senses were telling them.
Many children burst into tears and were screaming for their
parents whom they did not recognize because of their disguises.
No one expected this response from their children.
The strong emotional responses only subsided when their parents
removed their masks and costumes.
Needless to say, this was the last time we staged such a drama
for our children. The activity
was meant to be fun, but as it turned out, no child was saying, "Do it
again, Daddy! Do it again!"
All the participants were given a clear
illustration of the response of people who understood what was happening
and the response of those who did not know that their senses were
deceiving them by something that was not real. This is true in the daily experiences of most
people. They look at what
is happening in the world and say, "The Second Coming cannot come
soon enough!" The reality
is that we are experiencing today what history tells us has always been
happening in every generation since the beginning of recorded history.
Some people smile because of
their understanding while others weep because of what their senses are
telling them. Most of you know that my brother's wife was
diagnosed with stage-four pancreatic cancer several years ago.
She knew that she did not have much time to live.
With the time that she had left, she prepared her family and her
Baptist congregation for what appeared to be the inevitable.
Her orientation toward life was
clearly about living in the world no one can see.
She often stated rather emphatically: Look!
We all know that we die.
However, we don't know when or how. What we do know is that God's arms
are wide open to receive us. Please
no mourning and no shedding of tears.
We were born and we die.
It is that simple.
Accept all of our experiences with gratitude."
When she died on Palm Sunday last year, there was a
true celebration where people were smiling, joyous, and excited that
Mary Ann was finally out of the woods.
Her pain and suffering were gone
and she had reached her goal of being reunited with the Master. Everyone in her church family and in her immediate
family knew positively what had just happened.
My brother never shed a tear.
He knew that all was well with his wife, Mary Ann.
This is truly an illustration of how some people can smile with
joy while others weep. What had
just happened was that Mary Ann had taken off her mask and costume and
left them here for burial. People who only pay lip service to what
Jesus taught can be looking for their faith to be rewarded by a new
surgical procedure, a new medication, or a miraculous spontaneous
healing. If a healing does
come, it will often cause people to exclaim, "Prayer really works; this
healing was a gift from God, or I guess God spared the life of my wife
because God has something more for her to do."
Often people fail to remember that God only
intervened in Jesus' life when John the Baptist baptized him.
Toward the end of Jesus' life,
God stood by and watched as Jesus was falsely accused of crimes
he never committed and murdered by people in a most grotesque manner. Why did God do this?
Why did God choose this response and then present to humanity
the gift of an empty tomb? The answer is that God knew what was
happening even though no one else did.
Jesus did not die; he merely changed his form. The Apostle Paul thought he understood what
happened at Jesus' crucifixion. His imagination came up with the
narrative that Jesus was the Sacrificial Lamb that was killed to
atone for the sins of the world.
Did God really need a human sacrifice?
Think of it - - An entire theology has grown from Paul's idea. We become so attached to the things of this world
that often we find it difficult to realize that life is temporary, that
what we are experiencing does not exist when we die, and that life
actually does have cyclical themes that were present during every
generation. We have learned that
the world is perfect for what it was designed to do. Think about this: the only things that
upset us have to do with activities that are occurring in the external
world. When fear enters our minds and emotions, they can easily
compromise the quality of the spirit by which we live. John the Baptist was preaching fear that if people
did not turn from their wicked ways, they would be lost forever.
Jesus was teaching people how to have a good time regardless of
what was happening around them in the world. His followers were invited
to become a light in darkness. (John 5:14f) By living in The Kingdom of God, their seeds
have fallen in what Jesus characterized as fertile soil.
When our life-experiences prune us, we are still living
in fertile soil because we know what is happening. Pruning
enables us to produce even more fruit. (John 15:1f) Once people
have learned to live with this understanding, they can sing, smile, and
hold on to the joy of living for the rest of their lives. Just like during that frightful Halloween
experience of children years ago, once Jesus took off his mask and his
costume, he revealed the results of dying only
in the material world. Jesus revealed himself as an infinite
spirit-being that had been clothed in a cocoon-like vehicle like the
rest of us. We were never taught
how to use our powers as Jesus did during his 40 days in the wilderness. What Jesus did, that often separates his responses
from our own, was that he did not allow the fear to enter his mind that
his life was too short or that his influence would die with him on a
cross. Those thoughts never occurred to him. He just lived what he
understood and demonstrated that knowledge on the world's stage. When we understand that God's winds will
carry our seeds to wherever they need to be, our fears leave us.
God does not give the right
to come home only to the elite or the elect. Jesus
taught that he came to give spiritual freedom to everyone from
being confined by the tendrils of this world.
(Luke 4:18f) However, most people live as though this world is
the only one there is. That choice is fine but people have to put up
with the consequences that remain in the hands of happenstance.
Such people can easily weep
during life's reversals. Jesus
came to offer humanity an additional world to consider.
This resulting flow of energy is why we have lighted the third
candle of Joy on our Advent wreath.
Living with joy and happiness is not the result of
our choosing to detach ourselves from this world with all its fine
trophies and sensuous pleasures.
Not at all. We
choose to live in this world by bringing our loving energy flow into
every aspect of our lives. Living in The Kingdom
of God gives people a strength and power that
others will not have.
John the Baptist was preparing the way for another who would
introduce this reality of spirit to the world's people.
We are never without the capability of making the choice to live
in God's Kingdom now. This is the way life's true values come to those
who understand what is happening to them. They intuitively understand
that there are two worlds available to everyone, not just one.
Knowing this will give us peace, the Advent theme for next week.
CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER
Loving God, thank you
for creating us with the ability to experience joy when we express
generosity from our hearts, minds, and spirits.
We have learned that optimism and hope spread more joy than
gloomy reports about our future.
We have learned that faith is contagious when we stand strong
amidst other people who have lost their courage.
Help us to let go of qualities that may prevent us from being
instruments through which your music plays.
At the beginning and the ending of each day, may you find us filled
with gratitude and joy because of how conscious we are of your presence
every moment. Amen.
PASTORAL PRAYER
From you we have
learned that not all strength appears as we choose to define it.
We have learned that not all love comes in a form that we
recognize. We have learned
that some of our greatest sorrows need not block your spirit from
lighting our path. We have learned that sometimes we need to accept life
as it comes. In our poverty
of understanding, we do not know where our life-experiences may be
leading us. We thank you
that while our minds and hearts are still maturing, you still send
guidance. Even though our
lives are not lived in harmony with you, you still send music to which
we can dance. During this Season of Joy, enable us to discover how to
become better instruments for communicating compassion.
Help each of us to become the message we want others to receive.
We pray these thoughts through the spirit of Jesus, the Christ, who
taught us to say when we pray . . . |