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“Knowing, a Gift Greater Than
Faith”
Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – August 30, 2020
Centenary United Methodist Church Psalm 105:1-6; Matthew 16:21-28
This morning we are
going to consider what gave Jesus the insights that caused him to teach
as one who had authority over how to live. He did not teach from his
beliefs or from his faith-heritage, rather he taught from knowing a
level of truth that others did not have.
Jesus' knowing came from his personal experiences. Last week our
gardener was talking to me about Bermuda's weather patterns. He
predicted that Bermuda will not experience any hurricanes this year.
How could he say that with such certainty?
He said: The older gardeners
that I work with at Mid-Ocean have been around for a long time.
They seem to know these things.
They know how to read the signs in nature from their years of
experience. We should have a
test of the accuracy of these gardeners.
A tropical depression, to be named Nana, appears to
be tracking toward Bermuda.
We shall see. A woman in my
former church wrote that some months ago a large tree had fallen on her.
When we saw the size of the tree from a picture she sent, we knew
that she had been inches away from being killed.
Her right leg took the brunt of the impact of the tree. Above her
knee, she developed a hematoma that grew to the size of an American
football. A hematoma is formed
by trauma that shatters blood vessels.
The resulting hemorrhage remains trapped under the skin. The members of her
immediate medical community had never encountered one this large.
Their collective wisdom was to leave it alone and in time her
body would absorb the fluids. Her personal physician referred her to
another doctor who was no stranger to treating unusual wounds.
That doctor took
one look at her hematoma and said, "That thing has to come out!"
Surgery was scheduled and he removed the mass. She is currently
on the mend and delighted that she will recover more quickly.
Her surgeon is 82 years old and
has an enormously busy practice because of what he knows. Other
physicians refer their patients to him because he has become a
master-surgeon who knows many things that were never covered in medical
school. Jesus was a most
unusual teacher who eventually became one-of-a-kind that attracted
crowds of people by his wisdom and his ability to heal people. He had an
extraordinary experience at his baptism that history records as being
a divine encounter. That experience was so personal that it
called him to leave his profession as a carpenter, his family, many
of his religious beliefs, and the war-god known to the Jews as Yahweh. His father, Joseph,
had trained him to serve others with his skill as a carpenter.
When he added his training to an encounter with God's loving
energy, we have the Jesus that becomes alive for us in the
Gospels. Jesus' knowledge of Spirituality became so engrained in
him that no Pharisee could possibly be compared to him.
The skill of Pharisees came from their strict obedience to the
Laws of Moses. Jesus' knowledge came from a series of experiences that
no one else could even imagine. (Matthew 7:28f) The text in our
lesson that we are going to consider today is Jesus adding the Spiritual
path to our lives: "If you want to follow me, you must forget yourself,
shoulder peacefully whatever burdens you are carrying and follow
me." (Matthew 16:24) Most people have
been trained to be successful by following a vocational path found among
the opportunities available to them. Jesus' mission was to teach people
that there is another level of living that they can achieve. (John
18:37) This level of understanding does not come without deliberately
searching for it. Jesus said, "Ask
and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be
open to you." (John 7:7)
From all the voices offering guidance in our world, people often miss
developing the skills that evolve from being on the Spiritual path.
Think about this.
For over a year our congregation has not heard the sound of our organ
even though our instrument has the right components to create beautiful
music. Even with an
outstanding organist at the key board, our organ could not make music.
What was the problem?
This is the culprit!
(The pastor holds up a small transformer).
Without this small component, our marvelous organ could not make
music. This transformer was replaced this past week. People have the
potential to develop highly polished skills in nearly every profession.
They can achieve wealth, power, prestige, and become a
high-profile personality that is in great demand by the public. If
the transformer is missing, that gives people the ability to
communicate loving energy, they will not make music.
COVID-19 caused
governing authorities all over the world to mandate the public to
shelter in place for an extended period of time.
What happened during this period? Actors could no longer perform
on the stage. Doctors had to take abnormal precautions to see their
patients. Necessary surgery was
put on hold. Restaurants shut down and many went out of business.
Public transportation stopped.
If a person's car was in the shop for repairs, it stayed there.
Stay at home day
after day produced many untold stories of people who escaped into
alcohol and cocaine, spousal abuse, and incest. Many employees were able
to work from home where they encountered isolation.
Depression became increasingly widespread.
There were far more suicides. Why were such activities happening?
Those who had
their transformers in good working order were fine every day. Their
energy caused them to seek places where they could be helpful. They
inspired businesses to combine their resources and meals for seniors
were created. After securing permission from the government, drivers
were able to take meals to people or to help them get to grocery stores
and pharmacies. Jesus did not
insist on anything from his listeners.
During his ministry Jesus offered to others what would become
a way of life based on knowing what works and what does not.
Most people ignored his offer.
They were not asking, seeking, or knocking. They were not ready
to add the Spiritual path to their other vocational skills.
(Matthew 7:13) Self-defeating
consequences can occur because the gas tank within them is trying
to run on empty. Having
faith is no match for how
knowing will enhance people's
lives. When people
find what works coming from their knowing, they stay with it.
Having only faith can cause people to trust God for a
favorable outcome to one of their life-issues.
They need a lifeline.
They need reassurance that God has heard their prayer.
They are hopeful that God will grant them a miracle.
Jesus was teaching: Forget your
judgments, forget your hurt feelings, forget who likes you and who does
not, forget being offended by everything, People remain
confident, self-assured make music.
They know how to direct their loving energy toward others no
matter how humble or great their lives have become. The path that Jesus
was offering enables people to glow in the darkness that
surrounds many others. When others do not have the knowing that comes
from the Spiritual path, they live with habits, attitudes, and
ways of thinking that no longer work for them. This is why Jesus taught,
"Forget yourself." Jesus knew that all
he could do was sow his verbal seeds that would fall on different
qualities of soil. (Matthew 13:3f) Jesus was an angel-in-the-flesh,
who became known in the future by many names.
Jesus could
only teach what such a transformer
does for the spirit by which people choose to live.
What Jesus could not do was instill what he knew into other
people. Neither God, Jesus,
nor the Holy Spirit will do the homework that each of us has the
potential to complete on our own. (John 20:25) The Apostle Paul
wrote, We celebrate our
struggles and troubles because we know that such strong emotions produce
endurance and endurance produces the knowledge that works for us.
God has poured his love into each of us by giving us boundless
potential through his gift.
(Romans 5:3f) The
adventure for people begins when each individual finds their
treasure buried in their unique field
within their spirits. Then they can become like the gardener
who knows the ways of nature so well that they can predict weather
patterns with some certainty, or become like the 82-year old surgeon
whose life-experience and surgical skill enables him to know exactly
what to do with unique wounds. People grow
when they encounter a superior truth
that works far better than the guidance they had been following.
Such Spiritual awareness is what makes our transformed
lives into being the great adventure that our living was meant to
be. No one can ever
take our knowing away from us.
Faith can weaken and even disappear.
However, knowing from our spiritual experiences will never weaken
or disappear. Why? What we
know works and keeps our boat floating gently down the stream carrying a
passenger that is filled with boundless energy for expressing kindness,
patience, and forgiveness.
CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER
Loving
and peaceful God, many times we find ourselves in circumstances that
need resolution and we feel ill-prepared.
We do not know what to say to help relieve someone of their pain.
We try to be careful not to judge, but we do.
We recognize that our emotions can shift with our moods and that
many of our decisions are based on self-interest.
Help us to recognize that we need to show up fully present
right where we find ourselves. Enable us to cast aside any feelings of
unworthiness. We know that we cannot put anyone in possession of what
will heal them, but we can be a friend who realizes that what we cannot
do, you can do. Amen.
PASTORAL PRAYER Loving God, as we
come together in our temple for another spiritual experience, we are
made aware of many things that we may routinely overlook. We need days
of rest and reflection knowing that we do not take nearly the number of
them that we could. We are aware of how days, weeks, and months turn our
lives into a blur of passing events. We realize how quickly our
minds and spirits can be filled with clutter that cloud our
judgments. We understand how often our priorities shift so quickly that
your guidance becomes lost in the mix of competing voices.
We
invite your cleansing spirit into our minds and emotions. Help us
to release those things which preoccupy us with worry. Help us to
sense the adventure that comes from the life-events over which we have
no control. Still our minds, O God, that we might
hear more clearly through our
transformed spirits, "I will always be with you until the end of your
physical life." You have placed within us so many qualities that reveal
their beauty to others the moment we give them away. Help us to
remain compassionate so that each of us might become the art form that
you designed us to be.
As we
continue to stretch and grow, lead us to the understanding that we will
leave this world a better place because we lived. We pray these
thoughts through the loving spirit of Jesus, the Christ, who taught us
to say when we pray . . .
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