“What People Did To Jesus’ Message”

     Sermon Written By Rev. Dick Stetler – May 24, 2020

     On the occasion of church’s closure due to COVID-19 Virus

     Centenary United Methodist Church

    Psalm 47; Acts 1:6-14

    Last week, it was mentioned that we cannot take the treasure that Jesus found and make it our own.  Such a statement may sound like heresy to some people.  To others, it may sound like the age-old struggle that people have experienced while trying to accomplish it. Evangelists and Pastors have taught:

Open your hearts and let the loving spirit of Christ come into your lives to guide your path. Jesus came into our world to extend salvation to everyone.  He willfully shed his precious blood on the cross to save us from our sins.

    We have heard words like these since we went to Sunday School as children.  How many of us truly understand what these words are saying?  Can we honestly take what motivated and inspired Jesus into our spirits so that we become as he was?  If that was Jesus' intent, why has this process failed so miserably?

    If we express this thought in another way, "Can we become a master architect by taking the spirit of someone who has mastered her craft into our lives?"  How does a person accomplish such a goal when each of us is one-of-a-kind?  Each of us understands life differently.  Each of us must learn how to live by improving the choices that we make.

    This morning, we are going to explore what the disciples experienced once Jesus left them for the final time.  As soon as Jesus stopped making appearances to people, our Scripture lesson captures one final exchange before he departed. His disciples asked a final question, "Lord, will you give the Kingdom back to Israel?" How Jesus answered is as true today as it was to his listeners:

When the Holy Spirit is born within you, you will be filled with power and you will be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  (Acts 1:8)

    Their final question to Jesus demonstrated what eventually happened.  Jesus' response was not heard by spirits that understood.  Today, we would say that his disciples were like a car that had its engine removed.

    One has to wonder what happened to the teaching that the Kingdom of God was within them and not in some external power such as a governing body that was present in Israel.  Jesus knew that all spiritual growth was and would remain an individual effort.  He also knew that not everyone would grasp what he had been teaching. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:

Go through the narrow gate of knowing that you must take responsibility for your own spiritual growth. The way is easy and the road is wide to the understanding that you can grow because you belong to a group.  The individual path is hard to navigate amidst all the illusions of living in the physical world and only a few people will be able to find it. (Matthew 7:13f)

    What happened during the early years following Jesus' departure was as he predicted. Within the first century, The Way of Jesus had grown into five different branches before becoming institutionalized by Rome.

    There were power struggles over what Jesus taught and what early writings were to be kept in a book that became known as The Sacred Words of God.  The Scriptures achieved divine status because of a vote taken by a Church Council that wanted to protect God's Word from all the heresies that were springing up everywhere.  It was as if church authorities were saying, "Thank you God for sending us Your Son to redeem the world, we can take it from here."  That is what they did.  What happened was not the result of the Holy Spirit being born within people.

    The power Jesus was discussing in his final response on earth was for every individual to assume total responsibility over his or her life.  It had little to do with a notion of turning the Kingdom into Christianity, an external entity into which religious politics was born.

    From this little band of Jesus' disciples grew an episcopal hierarchy of Bishops, different denominations, and splits in the understanding of how people could please God. Disciplines were required.  Lots of rules and regulations were created.  The priests had to be trained and conditioned to make their churches grow in numbers.  Lots of money became required from parishioners. Slowly, fear began to replace love. 

    For centuries, pastors used various images of God in their preaching to keep people faithful and to keep their offerings regular and plentiful. The early priests kept the Scriptures in high Latin and Greek so only they became the source of how the sacred words were interpreted.  Listen to these words:

The bow of God’s wrath is bent and an arrow has been made ready on the string.  Justice bends the bow, straining the string with an arrow that is pointed at your heart. It is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, without any promise or obligation at all, which keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. 

    Can we imagine Jesus ever saying words like these? These words were spoken in a sermon delivered by Jonathan Edwards as he threatened his New England congregation.  Edwards was a Presbyterian Theologian that became one of the most prominent preachers in the 18th Century.  He was one of the leaders of the period in history known as The Great Awakening.  

    We can hardly imagine how a three-year ministry by a humble carpenter could result with what was happening historically.   What about Jesus' message would inspire the professional clergy and church leaders to use the money from the offering plates to build gigantic cathedrals in Europe?  What teachings of Jesus were used to justify the building of Vatican City in Rome, burn heretics at the stake, accuse certain women of being witches, and condemning scientists like Galileo with the threat of death if they tried to correct the sacred dogma of the Church?  What was it that caused Jesus' teachings to become understood as though the Kingdom had been turned over to Israel?  Perhaps it was the need of Church leaders who were becoming more like the role that the Sanhedrin played in Israel's history.

    What Jesus was teaching had to do with only one activity. Everything he taught had to do with what would happen to the quality of people's lives when they chose forgiveness over smoldering unhappiness, compassion over self-interest, kindness and tolerance when confronted with values that were foreign to the teachings of Jesus.

    The garments of many of today's clergy have little in common with the robe and sandals of the Master. The striving for doctoral degrees by clergy has little in common with many of Jesus' disciples who could not read or write. 

    Bishop John Spong wrote a book entitled, Why Christianity Must Change or Die.  In his book, this Anglican bishop discussed how the Church has lost its way.  The skirts of Christianity have been bloodied by violence, deceit, and corruption. 

    What is needed today from the followers of Jesus is to sow seeds that build communities of support for one another. Some of those seeds land in different qualities of soil just as Jesus taught.  (Matthew 13:3-9) In spite of what has happened to Jesus' teachings, there will always be a remnant of individuals that demonstrate results from the presence of the creative spirit of God.

    We need to ask ourselves: 

Are we free from the secular world and its cost of living, its laws, its blind alleys that beg responsible people to choose sides politically, and to bow down at the belief that to be fair, all of us must be economically equal?

    The only time in our lives when everyone is equal is when we exit our mother's womb.  After that there is growth toward our individual potential. Many times, that growth is determined by the law of consequences.  (Matthew 25:29)

    The words of the Apostle Paul should give us a measuring tool that is more in keeping with the spirit Jesus wanted his followers to develop:

Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control.  There is no law against such as these.  Those who are followers of Jesus have learned to put to death all the seductive movies that incite passions and desires to forsake the substance in order to follow a shadow.  Developing our spirits has given us life and self-control.  (Galatians 5:22-25)

    To believe that we can be like Jesus is a thought that has been proven to be misguided.  Jesus could not give away anything that he had found. (Luke 9:54) He could only point to where people could start.  Growth begins by changing our choices. (John 3:3) After that, Dr. Ego can easily take over our lives.  Rather than becoming a person who humbly serves others, history has shown how some people become like Saul of Tarsus prior to what happened to him on the way to Damascus. (Acts 9:3f)

    What has happened historically is true, but is it the entire truth?  There is a far greater truth present.  The greater truth that is missing from the Christian narrative is to understand what God has done.  Think of it. God creates invisibly, behind the scenes and completely out of the headlines of history.

    Jesus once revealed how God works when he taught, "When you serve others, do so in such a way that your closest friend will not know about it."  (Matthew 6:3) It was invisible hands from anonymous authors that allowed the Scriptures to survive the Dark Ages, that allowed Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, Paul's letter and the four Gospels to survive.

    There have been more books written about Jesus than about any other person in history. However, Jesus' life and teachings have become important because of what people in the future wrote and said about him. 

    Jesus did nothing to promote himself while he was alive.  He never wrote anything that he wanted to be preserved. He only sowed his verbal seeds, trusting that if others found them of value, one or two people might find their lives filled with more compassion and forgiveness.  One of those people who made such a discovery was Saul of Tarsus.  In an age when few could read and write, it was nameless scribes who preserved Paul's letters.

    Even when scribes added to Paul's letters very disparaging words about the role of women in the church to fit Rome's narrative, what allowed earlier letters of Paul to be discovered where none of those judgmental words about women appear?

    We only influence others by the spirit that inspires our words, our thoughts, and our daily activity. Nothing else matters. Jesus once described how the spirit affects our lives when he said:

The wind blows wherever it wishes; you hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going.  It is like that with everyone who is born of the spirit.  (John 3:8)

    Our task is to make visible the humble spirit of our loving creator.  What others have done during the colorful history of Christianity was up to them. God creates silently, invisibly like the wind.  God leaves footprints only for people who have the ability to notice them.  God's spirit cannot be found in what history has preserved.  In spite of how well-meaning people have sabotaged what Jesus taught, nothing has put out the flame of what Jesus brought. (John 1:5)

    It is our turn to be God's light in whatever form our lives take.  Perhaps one or two people will find hope and peace because their path crossed ours.  We should never be bothered by what the institutional Church says about going this way or that way. Jesus called a few of us to express our love with faith, hope, and trust while realizing that if our lives make any difference in the future, it will be accomplished by unseen hands.

    History cannot record what is done in secret.  However, the invisible yeast has caused the dough to rise.  God uses invisible spirits to do the work of creation.  The authentic history of what God continues to do among us will never be in any history books. The only footprints that are useful to follow are those made with love. (1st Corinthians 13:13)

     

CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER

Merciful God, we thank you for loving us while also being flexible in allowing us to mature in spirit when we are ready to do so.  In your wisdom, you allow us to struggle so we learn to value achievement. You gave us the ability to question what we believe so that we might develop an informed faith.  You gave us our church family so that we might support each other's spiritual journey. So often our community of faith helps us to remember who we are by remaining focused on our mission.  Help us to carry ourselves as people of hope whose trust in you enables us to share our vision of the world that you designed for all people to enjoy.  Amen.

      

PASTORAL PRAYER 

We come before you today, O God, knowing how many times our faith has transformed moments of pain into lessons of triumph.  Our reversals have taught us patience.  Hindsight has helped us to define the "why" of life's many unexpected changes. Loneliness has taught us that we need to give more of ourselves to others.  Boredom has provided us with the motivation to make more plans and set more challenging goals.   We thank you for equipping us with minds and emotions that have the potential to be the one-of-a-kind spirit that we were designed to be.

Each time we achieve anything of value, it is because we have discovered how to use what you have given us.  We have discovered, also, that the moments in life that have truly mattered have been those when our trust in your love sustained us while our own abilities were weak, frail, and undeveloped.  May we always cherish the understanding that with you there is no mountain that we cannot climb, no darkness that can permanently surround us, and no misadventure that will offer guidance to become a more valuable person. You are there every step of our journey as we learn how to be more skilled at being the angel-in-the-flesh whom Jesus called, "My disciples."  

O God, thank you for our potential to see and understand what could easily be missed by others.  Being a part of Centenary, there is an atmosphere and environment where people can feel safe, secure, and loved in their own skin just as we are.  In our own fragile way, we are generous of heart and always eager to serve you.  We pray these thoughts through the Spirit of Jesus, the Christ, who taught us to say when we pray . . .