“When Love Demands Stringent Measures”


Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – October 11, 2020

Centenary United Methodist Church

Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23; Matthew 22:1-14

 

    There comes a time in the life of many pastors when they get the distinct feeling that their congregations have lost interest in the messages being preached Sunday after Sunday. 

    The message seems to fall on deaf ears. What is being experienced in worship no longer feeds the spirit of people the way it once did.   Because of the distractions present from the drama taking place in the world, many people are no longer paying attention. In many ways, the world's drama appears to be far more compelling and relevant than what is coming from attending church services.

    Jesus discovered this during his ministry.  His listeners were not absorbing many of his teachings. They said to one another, "Jesus' teachings are becoming too abstract.  Who can listen to them?" (John 6:60).  Jesus responded:

What gives life is God's Spirit; human power is of no use at all.  The words that I have spoken to you bring God's life-giving Spirit to you. Yet some of you do not believe.  I have made it clear to you that no one can pay attention to me unless God inspires them to do so. (John 6:63f)

    John's Gospel reported that many of Jesus' followers refused to listen and they stopped following the Master.  Their refusal to listen to him frustrated Jesus.  He knew that people needed what he had to teach them.  He turned to his disciples and said, "What about you; do you want to leave me as well?"  Peter responded, "Master, to whom would we go? You are the only one who has the words that guide us to experience eternal life." (John 6:68)

    When we look at what has happened during our own lifetime, we understand what Jesus was experiencing. There was a time when the pews were filled with people. Sunday schools were active in teaching children how to live in this world.  Such days are long gone except for mega-churches like Lakewood in Houston, Texas, where Joel Osteen is the senior pastor. 

    We have five to six generations of young people who have little or no understanding of the vast power that lies within them.  They have no idea that each one of them came well-equipped to deal creatively with everything that comes up for them. 

    This morning we are going to consider another dark parable that Jesus used during his preaching.  Jesus had to use harsh illustrations occasionally to inform people about what will happen to the quality of their lives if they refuse to nourish their spirits.

    Every vacuum eventually gets filled.  What does a person do with the mysterious emptiness that comes in the form of fear and anxiety? Feelings creep into the consciousness of people that will cause them to blame their unhappiness on their circumstances. Often their coping methods are not helpful.

    Drugs would stop flowing over our borders if the demand for them was not there. Alcohol sales are at record levels.  Many people have no idea that continued drinking contributes to cognitive decline and dementia. Why?  Alcohol kills brain cells. Remaining young and physically attractive remains a useless exercise. People would do better to get over themselves by accepting that physical changes will show up during the latter stages of life.

    In my computer's memory of saved artifacts of another day, I have pictures of well-known people at their prime of wealth and fame.  Next to each of these pictures is how they look 30 to 40 years later. These pictures provide viewers with all the evidence any one would possibly need to prove that holding on to their youth will remain a losing battle.  Jesus said, "Your heart will always be where your treasure is." (Matthew 6:21)

    Who would believe that the real culprit that continues to fuel a person's feeling of emptiness cannot be mastered by any of these coping-mechanisms?  Emptiness is a symptom of spiritual malnutrition.  When people are no longer feeding their spirits, they are feeding something that entices them with the idea that fulfillment will come from places that cannot provide it.  

    In our lesson this morning, Jesus' parable leaves little to the imagination.  Jesus put his message in the most stringent terms.  His words were extremely relevant and were reminiscent of what John, the Baptist had been preaching: "Change your ways or your current path will destroy you." (Matthew 3:2) Jesus used words that were very understandable in spite of a person's level of education or emotional maturity.

    Jesus' message came in a graphic form that communicated that God had spread a feast of an abundant living filled with fruits that would pour forth from a person's loving attitudes.  Very few were interested in wanting any of it. After repeated failures to attract those who felt saved and chosen by God, a King sent his servants to invite everyone, good and bad alike, who wanted to be fed.  Eventually the wedding hall was filled. (Matthew 22:8f) Jesus concluded that many people are invited but few will be chosen.

    This message has remained relevant since the time Jesus told this parable.  Consequences are built into our personal experiences. What we feed grows.  If people cannot forgive, they sow seeds of a spiritual cancer that will metastasize to their other attitudes.  Jesus indicated that it is like having people's hands and feet bound before being thrown out into the darkness where they will cry and struggle with depression. (Matthew 22:13)

    We cannot escape the fact that there are two worlds.  This fact is not up for debate.  Reality does not need belief for it to be true.  Further, it is perfectly normal for countless people to remain uninformed about matters of spirit.  The world remains filled with such people who will remain frustrated in their struggle to figure out what is wrong with them.

    People experience consequences that will appear like the warning signs on the dashboard of their vehicle. They often run faster toward what appears to be more rewarding experiences in the world. A more informed understanding of the warning signs is that they are suffering from spiritual starvation.

    This is why Jesus taught, "I tell you, there is more joy in Heaven over one person who has found his or her way by feeding their spirits than over ninety-nine people who have done so for most of their lives." (Luke 15:7) There is hope by changing how we think.

    A number of years ago, I had surgery for a triple hernia.  Since the surgeon performed the procedure by going through my navel, I was up the next day and good to go. Three days into my convalescent period, I was helping one of my laymen to remove a heavy steel frame that covered all the dimmer switches governing the lighting in the sanctuary.  The man lost his footing and I found myself supporting the frame by myself. Pain shot through my abdomen as I managed to tear internal sutures that had not been given time to dissolve.

    Within hours, I saw on both sides of my abdomen the outline of blood trailing about six inches just under the skin. I called the surgeon the next day to confess my sin.  

    His first words to me were these:

First, let's connect the dots here.  What did I tell you?  Do you remember my words that you were to lift nothing over 5 pounds for at least four weeks?" 

    Then he said something that was both reassuring and very funny.  He said, "Do you think that you are capable of ruining my work?  You can’t.  You've got a minor hemorrhage on both sides of the mesh that I installed.  You have nothing to worry about."  In essence, he told me to go and sin no more. 

    Numerous times during my ministry, I have said the same thing to people who had spiritually awakened.  After going through their litany of being prodigal sons or daughters, often they have said, "But, what about my past mistakes and terrible decisions?"  My response was: "All of those experiences brought you to where you are now."  In other words:

Do you think that you are capable of ruining God's work?  You can't!  You are one of God's kids.  All that you had to do was wake up to that understanding.  You have done that.  What is left for you to do is to think and feel like one who is loved and accepted by God just as you are.  Look at life as having walked across the stones in the stream to get to the other side.

    We so easily sabotage our lives by laying blame for who we are on something or someone.  In reality, we have become our own worst enemy because our cues for living were coming from a world that will never lead us correctly.  Why? That world has only one consistent value – it is always changing.

    Once we learn what life has been trying to teach us, we awaken to the inner-world that has been with us since our birth.  Our new understanding and orientation toward life saves us from making excuses and taking detours.  We have arrived in God's Kingdom while still living in our skin. We cannot ruin God's work. We can only postpone recognizing that we are a one-of-a-kind work-of-art. 

     

CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER

Thank you, God, for bringing into our lives a deeper awareness of how mercy, kindness and peace can heal our fears.  You have given us a powerful road map for living through the life and teachings of Jesus. Yet, we confess that there are moments when we feel fragmented.  We want to be generous with our money, while the voice of fear guides us to save for our rainy days.  We desire more patience for the number of times we fail to experience it.  We have often replaced our desire to be in mission with scheduled priorities that take us in other directions.  Allow us to make today a new beginning.  Amen         

     

PASTORAL PRAYER

We come together this morning in humility and in gratitude for our lives, our families, and our ability to love and care for each other.  If life has taught us one irreversible truth, O God, it is that being loved by you is beyond and above everything else that our world might give us.  And when your son came to be among us, surrendering all that he knew elsewhere just so he could become one of us, we marvel at his clarity when he said, "I love you; will you follow me?"

 

We thank you for accepting us as we are.  We have moods that challenge our ability to be kind and merciful.  We have moments when we do not use good judgment.  We have times of confusion that make our decisions uninformed.  We face moments when it is difficult to admit that we have been wrong.  There are occasions when we would rather move on with our lives than apologize for who or what we have become.

 

Touch our hearts and minds with your spirit. Inspire us to turn a blind eye to the dramas taking place in our world so that we can experience the stillness and peace of being in your Kingdom right now.  We pray these things in the spirit of Jesus, the Christ, who taught us to say when we pray . . .