Posted on by Cheryl Norman

All you need is Love

Pastor Sherry’s message for February 2, 2025

Scriptures: Isa 62:1-5; Ps 36:5-10; 1 Cor 13:1-13; Jn 8:1-11

A few weeks ago, I told you I had gone to college with Bob Dylan (not physically, but his music saturated my college experience).  In a similar way, I could say I went to high school with the Beatles.  Their lyrics were simpler than Dylan’s (e.g., She loves me, yeah, yeah, yeah…)—and sometimes didn’t even make sense–but their melodies were catchy.  A good example is their song, written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, called, “All you need is love.”  The verses are somewhat nonsensical, but the chorus has stuck with me for years:

“All you need is love;

All you need is love;

All you need is love, love, love is all you need.”

You can see where this chorus could get into your mind and replay itself for so long that it drives you nuts!

Now we know that God is love.  He loves us with a steadfast, loyal love.  And He wants us to try to love others, even when they don’t appear to us to be very lovable.  Think about the fellow who cuts you off in traffic, or the woman who is loudly cussing out her kids in Walmart, or the person who confronts you in anger and with shouting and intimidation. In these cases, we need more than the intention to love others.  We need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to love the irritating, the irritable, the grumpy, and the disagreeable.  We need love and a supernatural boost to exhibit it.

All of our Scripture lessons today focus on God’s ideas of love.

A.  Let’s begin with our New Testament lesson from 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.  St. Paul has just taught us about spiritual gifts in the 12th chapter.  He names a few and says we are all given at least one in order to contribute to the Church, the Body of Christ.  He even says we can ask for more.  But, in chapter 13, he insists that no spiritual gift is more important than love.  If we, for instance, have a gift of prophesy or of healing others, but are not exercising these out of love, then these gifts have no value in God’s eyes.  Someone has said, “Even the most impressive sacrificial gifts mean nothing if not motivated by love.”  (www.bibleproject.com, 1/28/2025)

St. Paul also wants us to know that to the Christian, love is not self-centered.  It is not self-focused.  It’s not a “quid pro quo” I do what you need or want for you so that you will do what I need or want for me.  That’s a transaction, not a gift.  That kind of love is motivated by my self-interest.

That’s also where a lot of married people get love wrong, feeling they are owed certain behaviors by their partners in order to love them back.  Instead, Christian love is the “willingness to give up one’s own desires for the good of others.”

(www.bibleproject.com, 1/28/2025)

It is a way we serve or bless others.  It is exactly what Jesus does, over and over in the Gospels.

B.  Let’s look at John 8:1-11, the story of the woman caught in adultery.  Jesus is teaching in the Temple and is rudely interrupted by some religious leaders.  They don’t have a theological issue for Him, like healing on the Sabbath or which commandment is the most important.  Instead, they have set a trap for Him and, because as God He is omniscient, He knows it.  Rather than taking Him aside privately, they throw a woman they’ve caught in the act of adultery onto the ground before Jesus and the crowd, and demand to know what He believes should happen to her.  The woman is clearly guilty. 

But where’s her partner?  No one commits adultery all by her or himself.  These hypocrites don’t care about the male partner or about justice.  Rather, they are hoping to make a public scene in which Jesus will violate either the Torah or Roman Law.  It’s a lot like current congressional hearings where the representatives or senators pose questions that can only be answered by “yes” or “no.”  The trap is this:  If Jesus says, “You are right, stone her,” they can run to the Romans to accuse Him (only the Romans could authorize the death penalty).  But, If He urges mercy for her, they can claim He violates Jewish Law.  

What’s interesting is that in trying to trap Jesus, they have themselves violated the spirit of the Law:  Leviticus 20:10 reads If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—the wife of a neighbor—the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.  The same sense is replicated in Deuteronomy 22:22 If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die.  You must purge the evil from Israel.   Notice, the means of death is not specified in either passage—there is no mention of stoning.  And also notice the Law is aimed at the male and they have not bothered to drag him in.

Finally, notice Jesus doesn’t say a word —THEY CAN’T TRAP HIM IF HE DOESN’T SPEAK!  Jesus is so brilliant as He outsmarts them and their plot.

Instead, He begins to write in the dirt with His finger.  What could He have been writing? Isn’t it a shame that we have no record or the only thing Jesus Christ ever wrote?  I think He looked at them one-by-one and wrote their name next to a big, secret sin, and perhaps the name of the person they had sinned with.  This makes sense because, after having apparently listed their major sins, He then states, (v.7) —IF any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.  The only sinless person there is Jesus.  One-by-one, they leave, in age order (maybe the older ones had accumulated more sins?  Or maybe they were just willing to admit to them?)

So then Jesus turns His attention to the woman:  Woman, where are they?  Has no one condemned you?  She respectfully replies, No one, Sir.  And Jesus responds, Then neither do I condemn you.  Go now and leave your life of sin (sin no more).  The only one who could have legitimately judged her did not.  Instead, Jesus recognizes her sin, but also offers her grace—unmerited, or unearned favor–and forgiveness.  This is a powerful example of love in action.

C.  Our Old Testament lesson and our Psalm provide two more examples of how the Lord views love:

Psalm 36 (verses 5-10) was written by King David.  In it, he describes how he has experienced our God:  To David, God is merciful and faithful; God is righteous and always delivers right judgments; and God is trustworthy and relates to us through His loving kindness.

In verse 7, he writes —All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of Your wings.  David references God’s assertion in Exodus 19:4 —You have seen what I did to the Egyptians.  You know how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself.  David is teaching us that–for those of us who love God—the Lord offers protection, security, rest, and love.

In Isaiah 62:1-5, the Messiah is speaking to Jerusalem from the standpoint of His 2nd Coming.  Jesus will be ambitious for Jerusalem —He will give her a new name.  She will no longer be called The Forsaken City or The Desolate Land.  Rather, her new names will be Hephzibah (The City of God’s delight) and Beulah (the Bride of God).

Since, at Jesus’ 2nd Coming, the Jews of Jerusalem will have come to realize that Jesus is their Messiah, she too—along with the Christian Church—will be the bride of Christ.  The Lord’s love for Jerusalem will be returned to Him, and He will rejoice over her!

The Beatles would have us believe that all we need is love.  But we know that human love—while wonderful—is not enough to nurture and maintain relationships and life.   We need to experience God’s love in our lives.  We need to act out God’s version of love.  We need a boost from the Holy Spirit to love others, especially the seemingly unlovely ones.  And we need to love generously, without expecting something in return.

©️2025 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams 

Posted on by Cheryl Norman

How to Love Well

Pastor Sherry’s message for December 29, 2024

Scriptures: 1 Sam 2:18-26; Ps 148; Col 3:12-17; Lk 2:41-52

I just went with my family to see the biopic movie on Bob Dylan, “A Complete Unknown.”  It was an excellent walk down memory lane as I realized how much his music and songwriting had impacted my life.  But his personal story was sad.  He felt so compelled to write music that his relationships suffered—he appeared to use people rather than to value them.  He also seemed to either suffer from OCD or to be somewhere on the Autism Spectrum.  And it was fairly clear that he had rejected God.  He is still alive, at 83.

How many of you have seen the movie, ”The Blind Side”?  This movie has been out a while and is also excellent (I liked it so much, I read the book).  But, unlike Dylan’s bio, it is a story of redemption!  A wealthy white woman, Leigh Anne Tuohy–a Christian, living in Memphis–takes in a poor, homeless, and very large African-American youth, Michael Oher.  Michael doesn’t really know his daddy.  His mother, with 9-10 neglected children, is on crack and in and out of jail.  So Michael had been sleeping on couches here and there, and overnighting in Laundromats and gymnasiums, before Leigh Anne invited him to live with her family.  The movie chronicles the Tuohys’ and Michael’s adjustments to each other, and how Michael is helped to catch up socially, academically, and athletically.  With the Tuohy’s help, Michael is able to graduate from a Christian High School, and become a superb offensive tackle who is highly recruited.  He goes on attend Ole Miss on a football scholarship, and in 2009, was a first round NFL draft pick for the Baltimore Ravens.

What I liked most about Michael Oher’s story is that it demonstates that the right kind of love can overcome allot of deficits, allot of obstacles.  Bob Dylan could have used this kind of love.  Though enormously talented, his life seems sad and lonely by comparison to that of Michael Oher.

I wish that were the end of the story.  Some time ago, however, I learned that Michael Oher had taken the Tuoeys to court.  They had claimed to have adopted him, but he later discovered they had not—they had instead made themselves trustees of the money he made.  What a disappointment!  It leads us to ask, “So does anyone love well?

I had to give this a lot of thought.  I believe two people who are great examples of folks who truly do love well are the characters in O Henry’s story, The gift of the Magi. Della and Jim are a poor, young married couple with no money for a Christmas gift for the other.  Jim has a gold watch handed down to him from his grandfather and his father.  Della has gorgeous long hair, down to her knees.  Jim sells his beloved watch to buy Della two jeweled hair combs, while Della sells her hair to buy Jim a gold chain for his watch.  They each gave away their most precious asset in order to fund a special gift for the other.  This, then, is a legitimate example of two people who love well.

Our God is a God of love; He has told us to love Him above all things and to love one another as well as we love ourselves. Fortunately, He hasn’t left us clueless about how to do this.  Let’s look at what our Scriptures have to say about how to love effectively, how to love well:

A. Psalm 148 tells us to love God above all things; all of heaven and all the earth’s creation is joined in loving praise of Him.  This is where it starts!  If we get the vertical relationship right [us to God], we know we are loved.  If we get the vertical relationship right, we can let go of trying to make others meet our needs for love.  If we get the vertical relationship right, God empowers us to love generously, to love extravagantly, while holding on to others loosely.  So, it all begins with loving God, praising Him, worshipping Him—like we are doing this morning.

B.  Our Old Testament lesson is from 1 Samue; 2:18-26.  IT tells the story of Hannah and her child, Samuel.  Hannah had been childless until she begged the Lord for a son, promising to place him in God’s service if God answered her prayer.  God does and the previously barren Hannah conceives Samuel [his name means, I asked the Lord for Him].  She keeps her promise and brings Samuel, when he is 3 years old (the age at which Hebrew children were weaned], to serve the Lord at Shiloh, where he will be mentored and trained by the Chief Priest, Eli.

Now this was indeed a risk as Eli had done a very poor job of raising his two sons, Hophni and Phineas.  As Samuel  was growing up, under Eli’s care, the word got around that Eli’s boys were hellions, evil and corrupt.  They helped themselves to the offerings at the altar, even before the Lord was given His portion—thus stealing from God.  YIKES!  They engaged in sexual liaisons with women who came to worship, fornicating in the Temple.  Double YIKES!  We don’t know why they were so bad—some scholars believe Eli may have been too indulgent with them.  By the time of our story today, God was fed up with them and had issued them the death penalty for their rotten behavior.

So Hannah has placed her beloved son among unsavory influences.  But she was a woman of prayer, so we can assume she prayed and prayed mightily for his safety, his intellectual growth, and his moral development.  Furthermore, she visited him when she could, bringing gifts, reminders that he was loved and remembered.  She gracefully models that she loves him enough not to thwart his destiny.  She wanted him to become who God meant him to be:  [1] The first prophet of Israel since Moses; [2] The best of the judges of Israel; [3] And the one who God sends to anoint Saul and David as kings over Israel.

Can we, like Hannah, love enough to take time to pray for our children and grandchildren🡪 asking God to provide for their safety and their physical, intellectual, and moral development?  Rather than determining we want a lawyer or a doctor, we need to look for where God has gifted our children and encourage them to live into their gifting—regardless of our preferences. It may be difficult and inconvenient to commit ourselves to this kind of love, but, as Samuel’s life indicates, it is certainly very effective.   

C.  Our New Testament lesson is drawn from  Colossians 3:12-17.  The Apostle Paul has come to the practical application of what it means to live out a Christian life:  it is to clothe ourselves with Christ, or to imitate Christ.  Eugene Peterson says it this way in his modern paraphrase of Scripture, The Message (p.2148)🡪…dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, [gentleness, patience, self-discipline], …and, regardless of what else you put on, wear love.  It’s your basic, all-purpose garment.  Never be without it!  To this list, Paul adds, be a person who forgives; take hold of God’s peace; demonstrate your appreciation to God for what you have; spend time in God’s Word, so that the wisdom/truth of Scripture is available to you; and encourage others.

I believe the O Henry characters, Jim and Della, live out these characteristics, but I didn’t see evidence of this in Bob Dylan.  It is possible to teach these values and attributes to our children and our grandchildren.  With the help of the Holy Spirit, it is even possible to live them out in our own lives.  Our lives are the best testimony to our children and grandchildren that we can give them.  Sometimes we are grouchy or tired or sick, and so we may not act very Christ-like; but, fortunately, kids who know they are loved tend to be forgiving and to look at the whole rather than a few poor exceptions.

D. Finally, our Gospel Lesson (Luke 2:41-52) recounts the only story we have from Jesus’ youth.  It demonstrates how home, synagogue, and Temple helped form Him.  Obviously Joseph and Mary have brought Him up in the faith.  They attend the Passover in Jerusalem annually.  The Law required believers to attend 3 feasts in Jerusalem each year; however, those who lived far way—Nazareth was 3 days’ journey from Jerusalem—only had to attend one, the Passover.  Men were required to go, but women were not, so the fact that Mary was there, too, is an indication of her own devotion to God.  Surely they had taken Him to Synagogue, taught Him Scripture, gave thanks at the table, and prayed with Him.  The year from age 12-13 was a year of preparation for Jewish boys.  At 13YO, they were declared men and were held accountable for their actions.

So the nearly adult Jesus is in the Temple, listening to and questioning the religious scholars of the day.  He is involved in learning more about God, and likely what the religious scholars were teaching about His Father.  His response was intended to remind Mary and Joseph that He was deep into preparation for His mission (saving humankind)–discussing theology and questioning men of God about His Father.  His response to their worry is to leave the company of scholars and journey back with them to Nazareth.  He is obedient to His parents, but the 3 days spent at the Temple underscore His devotion to God’s call upon His life.  Sometimes our response to God’s call may cause inconvenience to or even worry for others.  There is a tension between choosing God and choosing family, choosing God and choosing friendships.  Prioritizing is difficult.  Jesus, only a young adolescent, demonstrates the right priority: God first, parents second, and we may assume others 3rd.

Our God has provided Scripture–the examples of Hannah, Mary, Joseph, the teachings of Paul, and the model of Jesus–to help us to live lives characterized by love.   As we approach 2025, Let us intend to love well.  As we approach 2025, let us resolve to love effectively.

©️2024 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams 

Posted on by Cheryl Norman

What’s Love Got to Do with It?

Pastor Sherry’s message for May 5, 2024

Scriptures: Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-5; John 15:9-17

Back in 1984, the singer, Tina Turner, released a song called, “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” Some of you may remember the chorus to this song:

What’s love got to do, got to do with it?

What’s love but a second-hand emotion.

What’s love got to do, got to do with it?

Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

The song had a great tune and was catchy, but the theme was sad. She sang that you can’t trust in love. She sang that she is trying to protect herself emotionally. She was tempted to love again, but feared that if she did, her heart could be broken (and no doubt already had been).

A lot of people go through life this way.  They hold themselves back, afraid to invest in others.  They prefer emotional safety to the potential for hurt and disappointment.  Last week, I talked about how countercultural our God is…this is exactly a case in point:  We are called to love Him and to love others, despite the emotional risk to ourselves.

To quote Tina, “What’s love got to do with it?” Our Scriptures today answer:  Everything!

A. In our Gospel lesson (John 15:9-17) Jesus calls us to love Him, love others, and obey God.  He is essentially repeating and emphasizing the greatest commandments (Matthew 22:37-38)—Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and with all your mind [Be all in with God].  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it:  Love your neighbor as yourself.  He also reminds us that we demonstrate or show our love by being obedient to God.  So, even though we might be disappointed or even have had our hearts broken, our Lord wants us to continue to love Him and to love others.  Love is how we abide in Christ—it’s how we stay attached to the Vine.  Sorry, Tina, holding back out of fear is an excuse Jesus would understand but He would not want us to let that fear limit us.

B.  John, the beloved disciple, says pretty much the same thing, but with a slightly different emphasis (1 John 5:1-6): In verse 1, he defines what it means to be born again.  We believe in Jesus and we learn to love Him.  We are born again through our faith, together with our love.  In verse 3, he stipulates how we prove our love for God—This is love for God: to obey His commands.  And His commands are not burdensome….We believe, we love, we obey.  In verses 4-5, he argues that we overcome whatever evil there is in the world not by fighting, but by our faith (typically expressed in prayer).

C. Today, I want to make two points concerning these truths:

1. 1st, we often find what we are looking for, or what we are focused on: The story is told of two fellows who had been in India and happened to be visiting in the home of the same friend.  The guests were talking about mission trips and missionaries.  The first man—who had been in India all of 5 months–said, “I have no use for missions and missionaries.  I spent months there, and didn’t see that they were doing anything; in fact, in all that time I never met a missionary.  I think the church is wasting its money on missions.”  The second fellow was a quiet older gentleman.  He had not spoken up at all until this point.  He now said, “Pardon me; how long did you say you were in India?  ‘Five months.’ ‘What took you there?’  ‘I went out to hunt tigers.’  ‘And did you see any tigers?’  ‘Scores of them.’  ‘It is rather peculiar,’ said the old gentleman, ‘but I have spent thirty years in India, and in those years I never saw a tiger but I have seen hundreds of missionaries.  You went to India to hunt tigers and you found them.  I went to India to do missionary work and found many other missionaries.”

(As reported by Rev. Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Through the Bible Commentary on 1 John, Thomas Nelson, 1991, pp.143-144.)

In the same way, I had never noticed pregnant ladies in bathing suits at the beach, until I became one.  Then I saw them everywhere.  If you drive a Jeep or a Corvette, I am told, you similarly note them wherever you go. The point is that we find what we focus on.  If it’s on becoming broken-hearted, Dear Tina, that’s what we will notice.  But if we can begin to trust in love, we will begin to notice evidence of trust-worthy love all around us.

Neuroscience tells us that our brains are pre programmed to look for the negative in life.  It was probably adaptive back when we were trying to avoid saber-toothed tigers (speaking of tigers).  To habitually think positively, we have to reprogram our brains, deliberately developing new neural pathways.  We have to train ourselves to think positively and this positive thinking is highly correlated with achieving happiness.  Negativity may keep a person emotionally and physically safe, but it does not lead them to happiness.

2. The 2nd point is that any fight we face in the world is God’s to contend with.  He usually does not call us to fight but rather to obey Him in faith.  Paradoxically, Joshua’s battle at Jericho is a perfect example of this (Joshua 6:1-20).  Joshua was God’s choice to succeed Moses as the leader of the children of Israel.  The Lord charged him with taking the Promised Land and conquering the pagans who inhabited it.  Lest you feel sorry for the pagan Canaanites, please note that the Lord gave them over 400 years to accept Him as God and they refused.  They seemed to prefer sacrificing their babies to the fire, and all the sexually perverse religious rituals they performed, to worshipping a holy God.  So He determined that He—who owns the whole earth—would give the land to His Chosen Ones.

In a strategy that is masterful and brilliant, God first stopped up the Jordan at flood stage so all 2 million Israelites could cross over into Canaan (on dry land, as the text makes clear).  Remember the generation that had refused to trust in God to take the Promised Land 40 years earlier had all died out during the wilderness wanderings.  They had experienced the Red Sea Crossing.  Their younger descendants had not.  So God repeats the miracle, both to show them He is with them and to remind them of what He had done for them in the past.

Now bear in mind that this strategy no doubt freaked out the folks of Jericho, who mistakenly thought they were safe until the Spring floods receded. Then when the Hebrew army approached the city, they simply marched around the outside of the city walls.  The Levites carried the Ark of the Covenant and 7 priests blew ram’s horn trumpets, signaling that the Lord will be taking the city.  The soldiers followed, armed, but did not engage the enemy.  They did this once a day, as per the Lord’s instructions, for six days.  Don’t you know the folks of Jericho were wondering, “What in the world are they up to?”  The truth is that our God was engaged in psychological warfare.

On the 7th day (seven being the number for completion or perfection), they marched around the city seven times.  On the 7th trip, the trumpets were blown, the marching army and the encamped women, children, and elderly shouted in unison, and the city walls suddenly collapsed.  Without their massive walls to protect them—and given how psychologically demoralized they must have been–the citizens of Jericho were quickly overcome.

This is such a great example of how God fights for us (2 Chronicles 20:15)—This is what the Lord says to you: “Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army.  For the battle is not yours , but God’s.”  We often summarize this passage by saying “the battle belongs to the Lord.”  Back in Joshua 5:14, and prior to the circular marches, Joshua had encountered the pre-incarnate Christ, Who calls Himself, the Commander of the Army of the Lord (Remember, when Jesus comes again, He will slay all the evil people at Armageddon; He will return as the “Commander of the Army of the Lord”).  At this meeting, Jesus told General Joshua God’s strategy and said to Joshua, See I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. 

We may not have a similar encounter with Jesus, but it is still true that the battles we believers face belong to the Lord.  Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:12—For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  The forces of evil inhabit this world.  When things look to be inspired by evil, we utilize the main weapons we have—the sword of the Spirit (the Word of God) and prayer.  Upset about the economy?  Pray that God would reverse the policies and the governmental overspending that have led to inflation.

Distressed about strife or broken relationships in your family or difficulties at work?  Pray that God will soften hard hearts and bring about peace and reconciliation.  Out of work? Pray that God would supply the right job and help you to have the right attitude as you embark on it. Troubled about your health or your finances?  Pray.  None of these issues is too difficult for God to address and to transform.  On our own, we can’t but He can!

We worship the God who is love.  So “What’s love got to do with it?”  Everything!  Love is the key.  Love is of foremost importance to God–followed closely behind by our faith and our obedience.  We are usually not called to fight; instead, we are called to believe, to trust in the Lord.

If we love God, have faith in Him, and are obedient, we are indeed His children.  He will and does provide for us.  He will and does protect us.  He will and does bless us and shower us with His love!  Thanks be to God Who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!  Alleluia, Alleluia!

©️2024 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams 

Posted on by Cheryl Norman

Reckless Love

Pastor Sherry’s message for October 15, 2023

Scriptures: Ex 32:1-14; Ps 106:1-6, 19-23; Phil 4:1-9; Matt 22:1-14

Back in 2017, Corey Asbury, a worship leader at the Bethel Church in Redding, California, wrote a worship song called “Reckless Love.” The lyrics go like this:

Before I spoke a word, You were singing over me.
You have been so, so good to me.
Before I took a breath, You breathed Your life in me.
You have been so, so kind to me.
Oh the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God!
Oh it chases me down, fights til I’m found, leaves the 99.
I couldn’t earn it and I don’t deserve it;
Still You give yourself away.
Oh the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God!
When I was Your foe, still Your love fought for me.
You have been so, so good to me.
When I felt no worth, You paid it all for me.
You have been so, so kind to me.
Oh the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God!
There’s no shadow You won’t light up,
No mountain You won’t climb up, coming after me.
There’s no wall you won’t kick down,
Lie You won’t tear down, coming after me.

It’s pretty clear from his song that Corey Asbury has experienced God’s intentional, loving pursuit of him. He’s a grateful man. He’s fallen in love with God because God has “recklessly,” unrelentingly sought him out. We can all be grateful that our God has not given up on any of us.

Now some well-meaning critics have taken issue with Corey’s characterization of God’s love as reckless. Asbury addressed this in a facebook post:

“Many have asked me for clarity on the phrase, ‘reckless love.’ Many have wondered why I’d use a “negative” word to describe God. His love isn’t cautious. No, it’s a love that sent His Own Son to die a gruesome death on a cross. There’s no ‘Plan B’ with the love of God. He gives His heart so completely, so preposterously, that if refused, most would consider it irreparably broken. Yet He gives Himself away again. The recklessness of His love is seen most clearly in this – it gets Him hurt over and over. Make no mistake, our sin pains His heart. And ‘70 times 7’ is a lot of times to have Your heart broken. Yet He opens up and allows us in every time. His love saw you when you hated Him – when all logic said, ‘They’ll reject me,’ He said, ‘I don’t care if it kills me. I’m laying My heart on the line.’ To get personal, His love saw me, a broken down kid with regret as deep as the ocean; my innocence and youth poured out like water. Yet, He saw fit to use me for His kingdom because He’s just that kind. I didn’t earn it and I sure as heck don’t deserve it, but He’s just that good. Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God.”

This is the theme of our readings today. With God’s reckless love for us in mind, let’s examine them together:

A. Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23, as we have seen before, is an historical psalm. It almost reads as a confession of Israel’s sins of not trusting in God and of continuously rebelling against Him. In today’s portion, the incident of the golden calf is memorialized. Lord, have mercy! They had just been dramatically rescued by the Lord, and then given the 10 Commandments, only to break the 1st and 2nd ones once Moses was away for 40 days. They incorrectly assumed he was dead (Remember the saying, “assume makes an a__ out of u and me”). They further erred in believing that the God Who had just made covenant with them had abandoned them! Rather than trust, pray, and wait to see what would happen, they lapsed into idolatry. What foolishness! God had proven His faithfulness to them.

He had protected them and provided for them. But, by a month or so later, they had forgotten it all. They let their fears overcome their good sense and their past experience with God.

Isn’t this so like us? Things aren’t going well for us. So, rather than remember all that God has done for us in the past, we focus on what He does not appear to be doing in the present. I recommend that you write down on a 3 by 5 card the encounters you know you have had with God—times you know He has been there for you and has arranged circumstances to bless you. Tape it to your bathroom mirror, to your dresser top, or to your car dashboard so you can remind yourself of God’s faithful, reckless love for you. He really does deserve greater faithfulness from us.

B. Our Exodus passage (32:1-14) describes the golden calf incident in greater detail. Aaron, Moses’ older brother, has just been made high priest. His job was to lead worship that glorified God; and help the people develop a right or proper relationship with the Lord. Instead of doing his God-appointed job, he caved to their demands (he became a people-pleaser rather than a God-pleaser) and dared to fashion the golden calf idol! YIKES! Later, when caught (vv.22-24), he will tell Moses he threw the people’s gold into the fire and a golden calf just jumped out. Oops, Aaron also broke the 9th commandment against lying. Additionally, the pagan idol reminded the people of pagan religious orgies. The Hebrew word for revelry is strongly suggestive of sexual misbehavior. Instead of remaining pure and chaste, as God desired of them, a number of them engaged in sexual acts abhorrent to Him.

No wonder God is disappointed and angry! Do you know that anger is the smoke whereas hurt is the burning coals underneath? Anger is generally a response to having been offended or realizing someone we love has been injured. God must have been so hurt that they would abandon Him so soon.

How ridiculous of them to want to worship something made by human hands, instead of the Creator Himself! Where’s the power in something they created? And how can one have a relationship with an inanimate gold statue?

In verses 11-13, Moses intercedes to God for them. It’s fairly easy to ask God to grant us our prayer-needs. In intercessory prayer, however, we offer up someone else’s needs. This is truly an example of loving our neighbor as ourselves. God had contemplated wiping them all out and forming a new nation from Moses and his progeny. But Moses selflessly reminds God of His long-suffering love for them. He points out how killing them all off in the desert will look to the Egyptians. He also reminds Him of His covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: (1) Progeny—they will multiply their descendants until their number is like that of the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the beach; (2) Property—He means to settle them in the Promised Land; (3) Protection from enemies; (4) His Presence with them; (and,5, the promise of Prosperity He made to Abraham).

God listened to Moses. Out of His “reckless love,” God relents. Thank God for Moses’ love and loyalty to the people. Thank God for His own goodness and kindness to them and to us.

C. In our Gospel lesson (Matthew 22:1-14), Jesus continues dialoging with the chief priests and the Jewish religious leaders.

The confrontation began when they challenged His authority (21:23-27).

You may remember that two Sundays ago we learned He took them to task for their willfulness, arrogance, and hard-heartedness. Last Sunday we read that He told a parable in which He predicted His death and also that His Church will take over from the Jews the mission of leading people to God.

In today’s Parable of the Wedding Banquet (Matthew 22:1-14), He issues a third prophetic warning. The certain king is God the Father. It is God Who has prepared a wedding banquet for His Son, Jesus. The Jewish Chosen People had been invited to this banquet, (v.3)…but they refused to come. He invites them again, but some are otherwise occupied and blow off the invitation, rudely and heedlessly offending God. A confession I learned as an 8th grader, from the 1928 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, says “We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. There is no health in us.” The devices and desires are our own plans that get in the way of following God’s plans. Others mistreat or kill the servants (the prophets) He sends to gather them in. As a result, the King (v.7) sent His army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. (This actually happened in 70AD when the Roman Titus burned Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. No doubt any of these religious leaders alive at that time were killed in that punitive action.) Then the King invites anyone His servants can locate—this refers to we Gentiles, to us! He even provides, out of His extravagant love for us, wedding clothes which are the righteousness of Christ. Jesus is thus warning them ahead of time that no one will enter into God’s Kingdom or heaven except through faith in Jesus Christ.

Through Jesus’ teachings and model, the Father had shown His people what was necessary for them to come to His banquet. Really, due to God’s reckless and extravagant love, all are invited (See John 3:16.). However, many refuse to believe in Jesus and miss out. Jesus is graciously and lovingly inviting the religious authorities—and us–yet again, to accept God’s invitation. The choice involves faith in Jesus. Those who reject God’s Son, will be ultimately thrown into…the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (v.13).

Our God has gone to great lengths—including sending Jesus to die a gruesome death on a cross—to redeem us, to save us, and to win our love for Him. He so courageously puts Himself out there, daily, hourly, for each one of us. How many of us would be willing to do so for another? For years I have protected myself with a “three times rule”: Offer friendship or love 3 times and if rejected each time, I stop after three. I tend not to trust that person and to afterward hold them at arm’s length. I forgive them and pray for them, but I am unwilling to risk my heart again. But Corey Asbury contrasts my self-protective stance with that of God: Yet He gives Himself away again. The recklessness of His love is seen most clearly in this – it gets Him hurt over and over. How amazing and how brave! Rather than being as fickle and faithless as the Israelites, or as self-protective as me, let us consciously commit ourselves to returning His relentless, reckless love, now and always. Amen!

©️2023 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Posted on by Cheryl Norman

Love in Action

Pastor Sherry’s message for September 10, 2023

Scriptures: Ex 12:1-14; Ps 149; Ro 13:8-14; Matt 18:15-20

A group of 4-8 year olds was asked, “What does love mean?” Here are some of their answers:

Rebecca — age 8—>“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore so my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.”

Karl — age 5—>“Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.”

Chrissy — age 6—>“Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.”

Danny — age 7—>“Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is okay.”

Bobby — age 7—>“Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.”

Noelle — age 7—>“Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it every day.”

Cindy — age 8—>“During my piano recital I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn’t scared anymore.”

Chris — age 7 —>“Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Brad Pitt.”

Lauren — age 5—>“I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.”

Jessica — age 8—>“You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.”

(Borrowed from PASTOR LARRY PRESNELL’S BLOG, 2/14/11.)

These kids have the right idea, don’t they? Love is a positive, generous feeling. But it is a feeling expressed in an action. Kids recognize love when they observe a loving action.

Our God tends to express his love in action and wants us to do likewise.

A. Psalm 149 is a psalm of praise to God because He is both our Creator and our Redeemer. He redeemed the Israelites from Egypt by the blood of the Passover Lamb and through His powerful judgment of Egypt. Just as the Israelites (v.3) Praise[d] His name with dancing and ma[d]e music to Him with tambourine and harp following their escape through the Red Sea, we too can and should praise Him for His powerful, redemptive acts on our behalf. Scripture tells us that God is love. If we have eyes to see, we can confirm that He clearly loves us. As we acknowledge each Sunday in our “Joys” of Our “Joys and Concerns Prayers,” we can and do see clear evidence of His love in action in our lives.

B. Paul exhorts us to make sure our actions are loving in Romans 13:8-14. He insists that those who abide by the 10 Commandments are living a life-style characterized by love, as (v.10)—>Love does no harm to its neighbor. Again, as I have mentioned before, the vertical of the Cross represents our love for God (commandments 1-4), while the horizontal, our love for others (5-10). People who love well do not break these laws.

C. Jesus describes a loving way to address conflict between Christians in Matthew 18:15-20. We are not to sweep conflict under the rug and ignore it. And, rather than talk ugly about a person who has offended us—which many choose to do–we are to go to that individual and try to work it through. I recommend you pray before trying to do this. Ask God to give you the words, the wisdom, and the right heart attitude, and also to be working on the other person before you meet. He often, I find, solves the problem before we even begin the needed conversation.

D. Our Old Testament Lesson (Exodus 12:1-14) provides a perfect and memorable example of God’s love expressed in His actions. You may recall that back in Ex 3:7+, God had told Moses:

I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them. After that, he will let you go. That was God’s promise: He would create a situation that would compel stubborn Pharaoh to let His people go. The Hebrews had been in Egypt about 400 years—long enough for the Canaanites to have time to come to love the true God–which they never did. So the Lord was ready to rescue the Israelites from Egyptian slavery and give them the land occupied by various pagan Canaanite tribes. His method was to judge Egypt with 10 plagues. Each plague was actually a put down of some Egyptian god. Yahweh had declared war on the gods of Egypt:

1st, He turned the Nile to blood—the fish died and no one could drink the water. They had to dig wells. The Egyptians so depended on the river for their water supply and commerce that they equated it with life. By polluting the Nile, God was saying to them, “I, not your river god, am the source of all life.”

2nd, He sent down upon them a superabundance of frogs. Egyptians of that day equated frogs with evil spirits. God is saying, “I can produce animal pests which your numerous gods of nature cannot prevent.”

Similarly, out of dust Moses tosses into the air, God produces 3rd, a plague of lice and 4th, of biting flies. God is saying, “Why aren’t your gods able to counter and destroy these pests?”

5th, God sends disease on their cattle, rams, sheep, and goats–many of which die. The Egyptians had gods for each of these animals. But our God is saying, “I have complete control over animal life, not Osirus, the bull god or Apis the ram god.”

6th, He afflicted the animals that remained—as well as the people—with boils. Even Pharaoh’s magicians couldn’t prevent these painful boils from manifesting. God is saying, “Only I have power over physical health.”

7th, He sends hail, actually fiery ice clumps. Egypt normally gets very little rain. God is saying, “I—not Hephaistos, your god of fire or Porphry, your god of rain—have complete authority over forces of nature.”

8th, God sends locusts to eat up any vegetation left over, then sends them to drown in the Red Sea. Egypt’s gods of nature are obviously helpless to combat any act of the One, True God. Our God is saying, “I can raise up hordes of any destructive creature, deploy them, and then I can put an end to them.”

By now, the Egyptian economy is in ruins, but still Pharaoh will not let his slave labor go free. God then sends the 9th plague, 3 days of complete darkness over all of Egypt–except over the Nile delta where the Israelites live. God is saying, “Your sun god, Re, is powerless before Me.”

Finally, God sends the 10th plague, the death of the firstborn person and animal. Egyptians believed their god, Horus, was the god of life.

They also believed they owed their lives to their Pharaoh, who they believed was divine. But God is saying, “Not so fast, My friends! I am the giver of life and I can take it away when it is in rebellion against Me…even to and including the first born of Pharaoh.

This brings us to chapter 12 and the institution of the Passover: God intended to take the life of every 1st born in Egypt. Those who loved Him, however, were to be spared. Through Moses, He told the Hebrew slaves to select a perfect 1 year old male lamb. They were then to slaughter it on the evening of Abib 14th (meaning young head of grain for the Spring harvest), or the 14th of Nisan (the later Babylonian name). God directed them to re-order their calendar so that Nisan became the first month of their year. Additionally, they were to paint their door frames with the lamb’s blood. The blood of the lamb would signal to the angel or death that they were true believers and their lives will be spared. They were to remain inside their homes, but dressed for travel, as they would be leaving Egypt directly.

Next, they were to eat the roasted lamb, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs. Roasting, rather than baking or boiling, was meant to recall the fire of God’s judgment on Egypt. The bitter herbs were to remind them of their tribulations under slavery. Leaven was a metaphor for sin, so the purpose of unleavened bread (like a pita) was to prompt them to remember that something else—the lamb-had paid the price for their sin. They were protected from the angel of death by the blood of the Passover Lamb. The first born of all of those with no blood over their doors died that night. By the next day, all of Egypt wanted the Israelites to be gone!

This is love in action! God protected the Israelite people from the angel of death by the blood of the Passover Lamb with which they had earlier anointed their door frames. The Historic Jewish Passover finds its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ—it foreshadows or predicts Jesus’ blood shed for us on the Cross. He too was a perfect male lamb—>John the Baptist calls Him, in John 1:29—>…the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world. He was completely without sin. He was God, the only Son of God, so His blood was the blood of God. No imperfect person would have been capable of atoning for our sins. But the writer to the Hebrews says that Jesus is the once and for all perfect sacrifice for our sins. Peter, on trial before the Sanhedrin, testifies in Acts 4:12 that—>Salvation is found in no one else [meaning Jesus] for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. John tells us in 1 John 3—>This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. What perfect love!

We know that God is love. We also know He daily demonstrates His love for us in action. We must have spiritual eyes to begin to recognize His loving actions toward us. The 10 plagues and the Passover constituted God’s strategy for motivating a despot, a tyrant, to let go of a free labor force of 1-2 million people. The plagues and the Passover demonstrate how far God will go to redeem those He loves. Jesus’ death on the cross proves the same truth again: Our God has died an undeserved but agonizing penalty to obtain our freedom from slavery to sin and death. Like His Father before Him, He has gone to extreme lengths to redeem us.

As the apostle John tells us in 1 John 4:10—>This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Alleluia, alleluia!

©️2023 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Pastor Sherry’s messages will return in October following her vacation.

Posted on by Cheryl Norman

The WHY Questions

Pastor Sherry’s message for May 7, 2023

Scriptures: Acts 7:54-8:1; Ps 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Pet 2:2-10; Jn 14:1-14

Remember when your kids or grandkids played “the Why Question Game” with you? We’ve all experienced it. Perhaps we were driving somewhere in the car, or trying to put them to bed, and they would pipe up with a Why question. Example One: We announce, “Kids, We’re going to stop at McDonalds for lunch.” The chorus from the backseat sings out, “Why?” “Because we all like McDonalds!” “Why?” “Well,” we say, “it’s quick and everyone can get what they want.” “Why?” By this time we are beginning to get irritated. But we’re on to them. We know how this goes, so we put a stop to the game. We say, “No more why’s!” From the back seat, accompanied by giggles, we hear, “Why?”

Example Two: The child has been bathed, teeth are brushed, a bedtime story has been read, and prayers are said. We say, “Good night. It’s time to go to sleep.” Just as we go to turn out the light, and close the door, we hear, “Why?” “Because you’ve had a busy day. You need your rest. ” “Why?” “Because your bones grow mainly when you are asleep.” “Why?” And on it can go, ad nauseum, and ad aggravation.

Actually, it’s a very good thing to ask why! Kids can ask why to manipulate or to irritate, but they can also be genuinely interested in cause and effect, and in finding out how their world works. Someone, somewhere once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” In other words, that person meant that we are not to live without questioning our routine and habitual ways of living out our lives. From this perspective, asking Why is among the most important things we ever do.

We must all answer for ourselves the Great Existential (things related to life and living) Questions:

1.) Who am I? (This deals with our identity.)

2.) Who (or what) made me?

3.)Why am I here? (What’s my purpose?)

4.) How do I know I have lived a good life?

5.) Where do I go when I die?

They are not all why questions but they do try to get at the Why? of our existence and of our purpose.

Peter offers, in today’s Epistle reading (1 Peter 2:2-10) some pretty effective answers to the Why Questions of life. As Christians, we know we are children of God, created by our Lord to know, love, and serve Him. That belief answers the Who made me Question. The answer, of course, is God. It also addresses the Why am I here Question: (1) To come to know God; (2) To develop a relationship with and learn to love God; and (3) to serve God and his people.

Peter also offers us answers to the identity and purposeful life questions: In verse 5, Peter refers to us each as …living stones [who are] being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Remember, Jesus is the Rock. He changed Peter’s name from Simon to Peter, which means little rock, or chip off the Rock. As Christ-followers, we too are to live our lives as though we are chips off of Jesus–not just those who follow Christ’s teachings intellectually, but those who imitate Him, in what we do and in what we say.

The Lord wants to use us, as we serve Him, as a holy priesthood. In following Jesus denying Jesus then being lovingly forgiven and received back by Jesus, Peter knows the most important thing for us in life is to be closely connected to Jesus. What is the job/the role of a priest? It is to explain God to people—Who He is and what He wants from us. It is also to help people relate to Him—here’s what helps you draw nearer to Him and here’s what distances you from Him. Finally, a priest assists us to offer sacrifices to God–no longer animals, thank God, because Jesus is the once and for all perfect Sacrifice. But we offer God sacrifices of praise (consider our “Halleluiah Sing” this past Sunday. We each took an hour out of our day to sing hymns to the Lord). We also offer Him our time and talents (to cook, to decorate or maintain the church, to practice and perform music, to operate the Thrift Store, etc.). And we offer to Him money or tithes to help build up His Kingdom here on earth.

Peter goes on to exclaim (v.9) But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Peter asserts that we each were chosen. Here’s a great Why? Question. Why was Israel chosen to be God’s special people? Why were each of us chosen to be Christ-followers? Why did God pick us? While each of us is unique and special, none of us has earned special recognition from God—none of us deserves to be among God’s chosen. So why did God choose us? He chose each one of us because of His love and His grace. It all starts with Him. He initiates relationship and we respond to Him. The “Two Bubba’s and a Bible” say it so well: Why were we chosen, royal, holy [set apart]? Because of the pure, unbridled, unadulterated, unmitigated, unreasoned love of God. Why? …Not why as in, ”Why has God loved us, chosen us, made us royal and holy?” But Why as I, “Why has God called us together, what are we chosen for, what is our purpose, our reason for being?” Peter tells us that God has chosen us so that [we] may proclaim the mighty acts of (the One) who has called (us) out of darkness into God’s marvelous light. (Fairless and Chilton, The Lectionary Lab, Year A, 2013, pp.126-127).

There it is! Our purpose is to know, love and serve God by telling others about Him. Our purpose—as they say in Cursillo–is to “be a friend, make a friend, bring a friend to Christ.” Our greatest purpose in life is to help make Jesus known to others. We can do this by talking, blogging, or writing, recounting from our hearts how knowing Jesus has changed our lives. We can do this by assisting people in need, then giving Jesus the credit if they try to thank us. We can do this by the way we live our lives.

Stephen (Acts 7:54-8:1) witnessed to Jesus as he was being stoned to death. Saul observed Stephen’s death and scholars believe the way Stephen died subsequently prepared Saul to accept Jesus (in Acts 9) on the road to Damascus. We can fulfill our divine purpose in life by praying that people who don’t yet know Jesus to come to know Him.

Our Psalm (31:1-5, 15-16) and our Gospel (14:1-14) further illuminate our reasons to love and serve God:

Psalm 31 is a prayer for deliverance from trouble. Certainly being dragged out by an angry mob to be stoned to death, like Stephen–or crucified, like Jesus–qualifies as “big trouble.” Both Stephen and Jesus quote this psalm as they are being murdered: Verse 5 Into Your hands I commit my spirit. Both Jesus and Stephen exhibit the kind of faith in God demonstrated in verses 15-16 My times are in Your hands; deliver me from those who pursue me. Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love. They knew that whether they lived or died was up to the Father. Both also forgave their murderers as they were being executed.

In John 14:6, Jesus declares that He is…the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. We love and follow Jesus because He is our only route to the Father. People who espouse other beliefs are offended by what they consider to be the “exclusive claims of Christianity.” Jesus is clearly saying no other set of religious beliefs will get us to heaven–neither worshipping the Buddha, Confucius, any Hindu gods, Allah, Baal, Satan, nor even a political party or “the state,” as communists do, will earn someone salvation. The Gospels and the Epistles proclaim that only Jesus can ultimately rescue us.

Jesus goes on to say in verses 9-10 Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father?” Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in Me? In other words, Jesus is the Face of the Father. The Father is spirit and does not take on human form. Jesus fully represented God the Father on earth.

He gave us a human face to look upon; then, He only said what the Father told Him to say; and He did only what the Father told Him to do. He is what people might call “God with skin on.” So, we know we have lived a good life if we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and if we have tried to live a life pleasing to Him, obeying Him and His Father.

One final thought: Our Gospel passage today also answers for us the final existential question—Where do we go when we die? John 14:1-3 is often read at funerals because of the hope and comfort it offers. Jesus promises (per Peterson’s The Message, NavPress, 2002, p.1948) Don’t let this throw you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust Me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on My way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. Where do we go when we die? If we love Jesus, we go to live with Him forever in Paradise, in a room or a home He has prepared for us.

It’s good to ask “the Why Questions.” But it’s even better to know the answers. All of the great existential questions are answered, for those of us who love Jesus, though our faith in our Him.

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord, Jesus Christ. Alleluia! Alleluia!

©️2023 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Posted on by Cheryl Norman

The Miracle of Christmas

Pastor Sherry’s message for December 25, 2022

Scriptures: Isa 52:7-10; Ps 98; Heb 1:1-4; Jn 1:1-14

The story is told of a man who struggled to believe God would send His Son to earth to redeem us. The man said to himself, “There is no point to a God who becomes man,” he mused. “Why would an all-powerful God want to share even one of His precious moments with the likes of man? And even if He did, why would He choose to be born in an animal stall? No way! The whole thing is absurd! I’m sure that if God really wanted to come down to earth, He would have chosen some other way.”

“Suddenly, the man was roused from his reverie by a strange sound outside. He went to the window and saw a small gaggle of blue geese frantically honking and aimlessly flopping about in the snow. They seemed dazed and confused. Apparently they had dropped out in exhaustion from the flight formations of a larger flock on its way from the Arctic Islands to the warmer climes of the Gulf of Mexico. Moved to compassion, the man tried to “shoo” the poor geese into his warm garage, but the more he “shooed” the more they panicked.

“’If they only realized I’m only trying to do what’s best for them,” he thought to himself. “How can I make them understand my concern for their well-being?” Then, this thought came to him: “If for just a minute, I could become one of them, an ordinary goose, and communicate with them in their own language, they would know what I am trying to do.” And suddenly … suddenly, he remembered Christmas and a smile came over his face. Suddenly, the Christmas story no longer seemed absurd. Suddenly, he pictured that ordinary-looking infant, lying in the manger, in that stable in Bethlehem, and he knew the answer to his Christmas problem: God had become one of us to tell us that He loves us.“ (Borrowed from the TCM website, 12/19/2022, author’s name unknown.)

This Christmas illustration is meant to remind us of the real miracle of Christmas: That Jesus Christ—the sovereign King of the Universe, seated in heaven at the right hand of God the Father, the seat of power–would take on flesh and become one of us in order to speak our language/ to get through to us and to save us from destruction.

Our scripture lessons today leave no doubt that Christmas is a miracle:

A. The writer to the Hebrews (1:1-4) wants us to know that Jesus Christ is superior in position and power to all of the prophets who have lived and to all of the angels in heaven and on earth. Previously, God had spoken to humankind through prophets He ordained to convey His thoughts to us. Less often, He communicated through angelic beings who came with specific messages to particular persons. And, then He made His thoughts known to us through the 45 Holy-Spirit-inspired authors of the Old Testament written over 1500 years. But with the birth of Jesus, the Father has spoken to us through His Son, the full revelation of God: (v.3) The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His [the Father’s] being, sustaining of all things by His powerful word. Or, as Peterson paraphrases it in his The Message, By His Son, God created the world in the beginning, and it will all belong to the Son at the end. This son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God’s nature. He holds everything together by what He says—powerful words.

B. That theme of the power of The Word/the Divine Logos is spelled out for us in John 1:1-14.

First, let’s look at where John begins. Matthew and Luke each start with Jesus’ birth, Matthew from Joseph’s perspective and Luke, from Mary’s. Mark omits the birth narratives altogether and jumps into the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry. But John starts with the beginning of time and space! Verse 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Before creation took place, Jesus was present. Jesus, God’s Word made flesh, was with God, distinct from the Father; but also, Jesus, the Word, was God, part of the same deity as the Father. Like the Father, Jesus is fully divine! Verse 2 He was with God in the beginningThe Father and the Son have always co-existed. The Son did not come into being at His incarnation. He, like the Father, has existed forever.

Verse 3 Through Him all things were made and without Him, nothing was made that has been made. John sometimes repeats things to help insure that we don’t miss his point. Jesus made everything. John knows Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He just does not want us to miss the fact that Jesus was present at Creation. You see, the Father conceived the plan; and the Son, the agent of creation, spoke it into existence. Jesus brought all things to life because He is the life-force (the way, the truth and the life, John 14:6)!

Verse 4 What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people. John makes a word play, in the original Greek, on life and light. Spiritually speaking, Jesus’ life brings light into ours. Later, Jesus will say, I am the light of the world (John 8:12) and I am the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). So, as God He is both light and life, and willingly offers both to us.

Verse 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. He came to dispel the darkness, the darkness surrounding us today: unbelief, sin, death, oppression, bondage, violence, the power of evil. But because we have free will, some of us will miss His gift. Some of us will refuse to believe in Him. Some of us will continue to live in spiritual darkness.

Verse 10 But to all who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave power to become children of God. Those of us who believe in Him are not His biological heirs, or heirs through any human effort, but we are spiritual children of God, through Christ’s blood and the Father’s plan. You see, those of us who have accepted God’s perfect gift—Jesus—receive another gift: the privilege to become daughters or sons of God.

As if that weren’t enough, (v.14)🡪The Word [Jesus] became flesh and made His dwelling among us! This is a total break from all non-Christian thought–the agent of Creation becomes a Creature! Jesus encased Himself in baby flesh and comes to earth as one of us. If I were in charge, I would have had Him come as a King or as a victorious general. But God, in His wisdom, has Him arrive as a vulnerable and totally dependent, nonthreatening babe.

There has never been—nor will there ever be–a human as important as Jesus Christ! He is fully God, and He is fully human. What a miracle!

C and D.Our final two readings look forward to Christ’s millennial reign on earth, His second coming. The Isaiah passage (52:7-10) speaks to what it will be like when what we pray in the Lord’s Prayer comes to passThy kingdom come. Jesus’ rule and reign on earth will be fabulous! Peace, justice, mercy, grace and forgiveness will characterize the behavior of all people. There will be no more wars, murders, illness, death, sexual assaults, human trafficking, slavery, injustice, lying, fraud, etc. Can you even imagine such a state? How wonderful! No wonder everyone will experience great joy!

Our Psalm too (98) celebrates the righteous reign of Christ. Verse 1 Sing to the Lord a new song for He has done marvelous things! The psalmist predicts how joyous celebration will begin in the congregation (Christian Church and Synagogue of Messianic believers); then it will spread to all humans; and finally will impact all of creation. Remember, God cursed the serpent and the ground at the Fall, but not the people. Paul tells us (Romans 8:20-22) For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the One who subjected it [God the Father], in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God [waiting on the Second Coming of Jesus Christ].

At His 2nd Coming, the Righteous Judge will set all things right. That is a miracle for which I can hardly wait!

So we say, “Happy Birthday, Lord Jesus, on this Christmas Day, 2022!” Thank you for taking on flesh and dwelling among us! Thank you for saving us from the penalty for our sins! Today,

“May our Christmas gifts remind us of God’s greatest gift, His only Son.
May our Christmas candles remind us of Him who is the “Light of the world.”
May our Christmas trees remind us of another tree upon which He died.
May our Christmas cheer remind us of Him who said, “Be of good cheer.”
May our Christmas feast remind us of Him who is “the Bread of Life.”
May our Christmas bells remind us of the glorious proclamation of His birth.
May our Christmas carols remind us of the Son of whom the angels sang, “Glory to God in the Highest!”
May our Christmas season remind us in every way of Jesus Christ our King!”

(Again, borrowed from the TCM website, 12/19/2022, author’s name unknown.)

Blessed Christmas to each one of you!

©️2022 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Posted on by Cheryl Norman

Advent Expections

Pastor Sherry’s message for December 11, 2022

Scriptures: Isa 35:1-10; Lk 1:47-55; Ja 5: 7-10; Matt 11:2-11

The story is told of a baby boy born into the Lane family in 1958. The father, a man named Robert, chose to name his boy Winner. How could the young man fail to succeed with a name like “Winner Lane”?

Several years passed and the Lanes had another son. For unknown reasons (this is a true story), Robert named this boy “Loser.” What a terrible thing to do to the baby—(like Johnny Cash’s “A Boy named Sue”)—Robert and his silent wife seemed to have doomed their 2nd son’s prospects. I wonder how many years he spent in counseling trying to overcome that moniker.

Of course, everyone who knew the boys probably thought they could figure out how they would turn out. After all, the psychological concept of the “Self-fulfilling Prophecy”–or you get what you expect from a child–is well known (Consider the “Pygmalion in the Classroom” research in which 4th grade teachers were told their students were brilliant—when they were actually ordinary—and watched how they treated these kids. By year’s end, those kids had performed excellently and had even raised their IQ points, demonstrating that teachers’ expectations had an important effect on kids’ performance.)

But contrary to everyone’s prophecies, Loser Lane succeeded. He graduated from college and later became a sergeant with the NYPD, shield # 2762. Nowadays, no one feels comfortable calling him “Loser.” His colleagues simply refer to him as “Lou.”

And what about the other brother? The one everyone expected to be a great success? The most noteworthy achievement of Winner Lane is the sheer length of his criminal record. Inmate #OOR28Q7 has nearly three dozen arrests for burglary, domestic violence, trespassing, resisting arrest, and other assorted acts of mayhem. Sometimes things don’t quite turn out as we might expect.

(Borrowed from Tom Hughes, Down to Earth: How Jesus’ Stories Can Change Your Everyday Life, NavPress, 2019, p.13).

These examples demonstrate that we need to be careful about what we expect of our children and of others. Often our expectations may be too high or too low. They can put emotional pressure on those we love and thus limit or frustrate them, disappointing them and us. This time of year, we also tend to have expectations of Christmas which may or may not be appropriate.

The best way to keep our Advent expectations realistic is to check them against what Scripture records and predicts:

A. Our psalm this morning is the Song of Mary, also known as “The Magnificat” (Luke 1:47-55). (The custom in the early church was to name psalms after the Latin rendering of the 1st word or two; so, Magnificat for “My soul magnifies….” Notice: We would expect the whole psalm to say, “YIPPEE, God picked ME!” Young women from the tribe of Judah grew up wishing and believing they might be the one to bear the Messiah. And despite her challenges of being unmarried and poor, Mary does rejoice in God’s choice of her.

But the majority of her focus is on glorifying/praising God for what He is doing (through her) for His people! How mature! She wisely takes the focus off herself, and sets it upon God’s activity. She praises Him for His mercy to those who respect and revere Him; His past works of power; His surprising, unexpected propensity to reverse worldly fortunes (the low are raised up and the lofty are brought low); and for His fulfillment of His promises (Genesis 12, 17, and 22) to Israel: a king from the lineage of David; and a messiah who will bless all nations on earth.

What does Mary have to teach us about expectations? She had been raised to expect the Messiah to come. She knew from Scripture that He would redeem His people.

What does Mary have to teach us about love and joy (We lit the candle for joy today)? Because she loved God, she was willing to bear up under public criticism and condemnation. Because she loved God, she surrendered to His will. Because she loved God, she praised Him, with great joy, for keeping His promises to His people.

B. In our Gospel lesson today, Matthew 11:2-11, Jesus has sent the 12 out to put into practice all He has taught them. He, Himself, continues to preach and teach. JtB (John the Baptist) has been imprisoned for some time now, and—as often happens—he begins to doubt his earlier faith that his cousin Jesus is the Messiah. He deploys 2 disciples to ask Jesus (v.3) Are You the One who was to come, or should we expect someone else?

No doubt JtB expected Jesus to set him free. Jesus does not do so. Instead He reiterates His job description from Isaiah 61:1: the blind see; the lame walk; lepers are healed; the deaf hear; the dead are raised to life; and the Good News is preached to the poor. Because He avoids saying He will…proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, JtB learns Jesus will not be leading his jail break. The response comes back to him, “Yes, your cousin is the Messiah you proclaimed at the beginning of His earthly ministry. But no, He will not be supervising your prison release.”

Jesus does not meet JtB’s personal expectations. Apparently, it suited God’s purposes for JtB to leave the scene (decrease) so Jesus’ ministry could increase. But He does proclaim him the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. Hopefully, JtB understood this need to exit the world stage and began to prepare himself to meet his Maker.

C. In fact, JtB probably knew Isaiah 35:1-10, a Messianic prophecy from 700 years before Jesus’ birth. He would have remembered that in the predicted Messianic Age (the 1000 year reign of Christ). The material earth will be restored to the time before the Fall. Scholars believe it will be returned to what the Garden of Eden was like. When Adam and Eve sinned, God cursed the ground and the serpent, but not the people. Paul will later assert (Romans 8:22) We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Paul had learned from Jesus that creation, too, would be redeemed at Jesus’ 2nd Coming.

Additionally, JtB would recall that the bodies of human beings will be renewed. Verses 5-6 state …the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. Jesus accomplished the healing of many individuals during His 1st Advent. But when He comes again, all of humankind will be spiritually, physically, and emotionally healed. How’s that for a truly wonderful Advent expectation (and promise)!

D. No wonder we have the James 5:7-10 passage assigned for today as well. The 2nd coming of Jesus Christ will right all that is now wrong with our world. However, as James counsels us, we need to (v.7) Be patient, then, brothers [and sisters] until the Lord’s coming. Scripture has told us what to expect. We just need to wait with faith, as a farmer waits for his/her crops to grow. When I was in seminary in Pittsburgh, I planted crocuses around my house. Even if there was still snow on the ground, these were the first blooms of Spring to manifest. They made such a beautiful display against a white or dirt background. Unfortunately, there were also many deer around my place, and they dined on those flowers about as fast as they came up. James also recommends we meditate on the lives of the prophets—including JtB—who prophesied the wonders to come, but did not get to experience them during their lifetime on earth.

Remember how, as a child, it was so difficult to wait until Christmas morning to see what Santa left under the tree or to unwrap our gifts? We would be so anxious and excited we could hardly sit still. As grown-up believers in Jesus, we can have this same excitement over Jesus’ appearing, while we patiently wait, in faith, for that great day. We just want our Advent Expectations of Jesus to line up with what Scripture promises and describes.

Thanks be to God, Who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Alleluia, Alleluia!

©️2022 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Posted on by Cheryl Norman

When Rule-Breaking is Justified

Pastor Sherry’s message for August 21, 2022

Scriptures: Jer 1:4-10; Ps 71:1-6; Heb 12:14-29; Lk 13:10-17

The story is told about… “Fiorello LaGuardia, who, when he was mayor of New York City during the worst days of the Great Depression and all of WWII, was called by adoring New Yorkers ‘the Little Flower’ because he was only five foot four and always wore a carnation in his lapel. He was a colorful character who used to ride the New York City fire trucks, raid speakeasies with the police department, take entire orphanages to baseball games, and whenever the New York newspapers were on strike, he would go on the radio and read the Sunday funnies to the kids. One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself.

“Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She told LaGuardia that her daughter’s husband had deserted her, her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving. But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges. “It’s a real bad neighborhood, your Honor.” the man told the mayor. “She’s got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson.” LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said “I’ve got to punish you. The law makes no exceptions–ten dollars or ten days in jail.” But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into his famous sombrero saying: ‘Here is the ten dollar fine which I now remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Baliff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.’ So the following day the New York City newspapers reported that $47.50 was turned over to a bewildered lady who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren, fifty cents of that amount being contributed by the red-faced grocery store owner, while some seventy petty criminals, people with traffic violations, and New York City policemen, each of whom had just paid fifty cents for the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.”

(Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel, Multnomah, 1990, pp 91-2.)

This is a story of grace in action, isn’t it? The mayor exacted the lawful penalty, paid it himself–just as God has done for us through the saving work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. Then, by fining each person present 50 cents, he made everyone aware of the fact that no one should have to starve in NYC. It was a wise move by an elected official. It makes me wish we had more persons like him as mayors in big cities today. He didn’t break the rule; instead he enforced it and took it a step beyond.

In our Gospel lesson today (Luke 13:10-17), Jesus demonstrates for us a criterion for when rule-breaking is justified.

The Gospels mention 5 healings by Jesus on the Sabbath:

1.) The first (Luke 4:31+; Mark1:21+) is of a demon-possessed man in the synagogue at Capernaum. Interestingly enough, the demons recognize that Jesus is the Son of God. He has to tell them to hush, as He sends them out of the guy. Everyone present is amazed at His power to heal and His authority over demons (the supernatural realm).

2.) The 2nd (Luke 6:6+; also recounted in Matthew and Mark), Jesus heals a man with a withered right hand. Again, the people are delighted; but, by now, the Scribes and Pharisees are feeling threatened by Jesus and are looking to discredit Him for violating their interpretation of what it means to keep the Sabbath holy. This time before healing the man, Jesus asks, Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it? He had just asserted in verse 6, The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath [He is uniquely qualified to establish and interpret the law]. Now He equates healing with doing good and saving life. It is alright to break the Sabbath rule about not working when it involves healing a person. He has challenged their interpretation of what can be done on the Sabbath and this infuriates the religious establishment.

3.) 3rd, John 5:1-18 the man at the Pool of Bethesda or Bethsaida. The religious officials do not see Jesus heal the man—remember He said, Get up! Pick up your mat and walk. Instead, they bust him, the man who had been an invalid for 38 years, for working on the Sabbath. Carrying his mat was construed by them as doing work. He tells them he is just doing as he had been told. They want to know who healed him, but he doesn’t know. He later learns it was Jesus and “rats Him out.” Such ingratitude!

4.) The 4th account is recorded for us in today’s Gospel. The poor woman has been bent over for 18 years. Did she have severe scoliosis? Or a bad bend like a “Widow’s Hump” from osteoporosis? We don’t know the nature of the affliction, but we can become quite vividly aware of what this would be like. Stand up, bend over half way, and take a minute to notice what this feels like. If you were out in public, you would not be able to see peoples’ faces. Your behind is pointed up, which would leave you feeling very vulnerable. And, just like with people in wheelchairs, you might be overlooked or dismissed due to your shortened stature. I once flew to a conference with a fellow named David who was wheel-chair bound. He had a Labrador named Zeus as his PAWS service dog. Zeus wore a small saddle with a handle by which he could tow David when the man tired. Whenever we approached an airline gate, I noted that the attendants usually spoke to me rather than David. He would then speak up and say, “I am right here and can respond to you about me,” to redirect them to his status as an adult.

In our Gospel lesson today, the Synagogue ruler is indignant: He insists, “Today is for worship; healing can take place the other 6 days of the week.” Jesus then addresses everyone who agrees (v.15) You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham who Satan has kept bound for 18 long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her? Her condition cries out for a healing, which Jesus graciously provides. Again, the rule can be broken when doing so might promote someone being healed.

The conflict between Jesus and the religious authorities now intensifies as (v.17) The people were delighted with all of the wonderful things He was doing. But the synagogue ruler and however many Pharisees and scribes were present … were humiliated.

5.) The 5th and last Sabbath healing occurs when Jesus is dining at a Pharisee’s house (Luke 14:1-6) A man with “dropsy” (accumulation of fluid in the legs; Elephantiasis?) appears. Before He acts, Jesus asks, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? As any good teacher would do, He is reviewing with them what they may have learned. He is asking, “Have we learned anything new about how we apply the rules for Sabbath-keeping? Have your hearts changed at all?” The answer is “crickets.” They respond with silence. Jesus then heals the man and asks, If one of you has a son or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull him out? Again, they do not answer. There was provision in the rules for such a rescue. Their Sabbath rules permitted loosing/untying a bound animal on the Sabbath so it could access water. However, Jesus knows their hearts are hard and that they are opposed to Him and to His teaching. I believe the man may have been a set-up, which Jesus would have ascertained.

Notice that Jesus acts compassionately, anyway. Like Jeremiah, called to preach an exceedingly unpopular message to Jerusalem (“Repent! The end is coming!”)—Jesus is now healing at his own peril. Don’t you admire His courage? They are even now plotting against Him, but He continues to go about doing the will of His Father.

Let’s look again at the Bent-Over Woman: She doesn’t approach Jesus. She’s been miserable and perhaps in pain for a long, long time.

Nevertheless, Jesus calls her forward (Remember, Rabbis typically did not speak to women). But Jesus participated in a theological discussion with the unnamed woman at the well (John 4:1-41); spared the unnamed woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11); and forgave the unnamed woman who washed His feet with her tears and dried them with her hair (Luke 7:36-50). I believe these women are un-named because the Lord wants us to identify with them. Jesus correctly recognizes that she is crippled due to demonic activity. He has authority over the demonic, so He touches her and speaks a rhema healing word to set her free. In the original Greek text, this is a play on words: Satan has bound her but Jesus loosed her.

He uses a style of rabbinic argument they would have recognized if you would do this for your animals (the lesser) than why not for a person, a daughter of Abraham (the greater)? They are not logical in their zeal for the letter of the Law. They have let their focus on upholding the Law obscure their love for a neighbor. They have let their jealousy and envy of Jesus’ power blind them to the spirit of the Law. They seemed to have missed that God, the Lord of the Sabbath, sometimes works on the Sabbath.

People can still be bent over today due to disease, right? But what else keeps people bound? Habitual sins like alcoholism; drug-addiction; pornography and sex addiction; and choosing the pursuit of money, power, fame, etc, over pursuing God.

What is our response to them supposed to be? Respond with the compassion of Christ. Like the former mayor of NYC, we can keep the law but also exhibit compassion. Like Jesus, who created the Law, we may break a rule to mend a broken life. This week, look for any opportunities God sets before you to demonstrate compassion. Take the risk of being rejected or of looking foolish. You may be used by God to utter healing words. You may be used by God to demonstrate love to the unloved or unlovely (what Jesus called …the least of these). By doing so, you might just save someone’s eternal life.

©️2022 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams

Posted on by Cheryl Norman

Packing Light, Packing Right

Pastor Sherry’s message for June 26, 2022

Scriptures: 2 Kgs 2:1-18; Ps 77:1-2, 11-20; Gal 5:1. 13-25; Lk 9:51-62

I would have liked to preach the passage about Elijah and Elisha, or the one from Galatians, but the Lord told me to preach the Gospel lesson today. I wrote my sermon, then looked back over my sermons for the past 6 years, and realized that I had preached this Gospel lesson (Luke 9:51-62) twice already, in 2016 and 2019. The Lord must believe we need to hear this lesson yet again.

The story is told of a dairy farmer who decided he needed a new pick-up truck: “He had seen an ad in the paper about discounts and factory rebates, so he decided to trade in his old clunker. [My farmer son-in-law just replaced his pick-up truck; it had 470,000 miles on it!] He chose a new model and was ready to write the check for the full amount. The salesman said, “Wait, I haven’t given you the final cost yet.” The farmer said, “Isn’t it the price I saw in the papers? The salesman said, “No, that’s for the basic model, all the options cost extra.” So after the options were added, the farmer reluctantly wrote a check and drove off in his new pick-up.

A few months later the car salesman called the farmer because he wanted to buy a cow for his son’s 4-H [or FFA] project. The farmer assured the car salesman he had several good milk cows for sale for $500. The salesman drove out and selected a cow and took out his checkbook. The farmer said, “Wait. I haven’t given you the final cost yet.” Then he handed the salesman a bill that read:

BASIC COW $500

Two-tone exterior $45, Extra stomach $75, Milk storage compartment $60, Straw recycle compartment $120, Four handy spigots @ $10 each $40, Leather upholstery $125, Dual horns $45, Automatic rear fly swatter $38, Natural fertilizer attachment $185.

GRAND TOTAL $1233.

Whether you’re buying cars or cows, it’s important to get to what we call “the bottom line.” What is the “bottom line” of following Jesus? You may go into sticker shock when you discover it. Many people are only interested in the basic model of Christian living. They want just enough Christianity to keep them out of hell without intruding on their fun. You don’t find the full cost of discipleship advertised very often these days. Few preachers discuss it because it is unpleasant; it doesn’t fill churches. It isn’t the prosperity gospel that says, “Believe and you will be rich and happy.” As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his classic book, The Cost of Discipleship [and he should know as he died for his faith], “When Christ calls a man, he bids him to die.” (borrowed from a sermon by David Dykes, Don’t Waste Your Life, 8/31/2011.)

Pretty sobering, isn’t it?

Now consider, if you felt called to follow Jesus (and I hope each of you does), how would you pack? You might take a change or two of clothing; your Bible; your toothbrush, comb, and some toiletries; and your prescription meds and any supplements you use. But Jesus doesn’t concern Himself with any of these practical items. Instead He tells you to count the cost, to be sure you are prepared to do what it takes to be His follower. He is more concerned with your priorities than your creature comforts. He is most concerned with your heart-attitudes.

Essentially the message of our Gospel lesson today is to “Pack Light and Pack Right” (Luke 9:51-62). Jesus is headed to Jerusalem and to His crucifixion. He knows His time left to disciple/train His followers is brief. So He takes the shortcut, from His 3rd tour of Galilee in the North to Jerusalem in the South–which involves walking through Samaria. He has sent messengers ahead to a village to prepare for His arrival. He now travels with a retinue including the 12 disciples and a number of women who help pay their expenses from their own wealth. Unfortunately, the messengers discover the Samaritans there don’t want Him to sojourn in their village. YIKES! They reject Christ!

John and James are so outraged that they ask Him to call down the wrath of God on that community. They must have forgotten His admonition to them at the beginning of Chapter 9, when He had sent out the 12, two-by-two to practice on their own what He had taught and demonstrated for them: (1) They were to pack light, depending on God for their provision; (2) They were to preach, heal the sick, and cast out demons in Jesus’ name; (3) And they were to shake the dust off their feet and leave behind any who rebuffed them. There was to be no punishing of those who rejected them or Jesus.

In a sense, rejecting Jesus embodies its own punishment: eternal damnation. Remember, the pig farmers from last week’s Gospel (Luke 8:26-39), preferred saving their livelihoods to saving their souls. Jesus didn’t even rebuke them. He just got back in the boat and returned to Galilee. Jesus’ way is not to take revenge, not to try to ruin those who disagree with Him—so counter to our cancel culture of today. Instead, Jesus modeled for us to be patient, and to pray for and offer grace and forgiveness to those who reject Christ, or who mock or spurn us because we follow Him.

In His subsequent encounters with 3 would-be disciples, Jesus teaches that following Him takes commitment. The 1st man says confidently (v.57) that he will follow Jesus anywhere. Perhaps he has in mind the idea of following a traditional rabbi. Students walked beside or behind him and absorbed his teaching. Later they would convey it to others, saying: Rabbi Hillel said this…Rabbi Gamaliel said that. Have you ever noticed that Jesus never referenced another rabbi, saying instead, you have heard it said ________, but I say ________. There was no more important authority than Jesus, the Father or the Spirit.

But the apostles could have told the man that following Jesus was more like following a prophet. It included a kind of peripatetic “home-schooling.” They learned from Him while they walked with Him, listening to His wisdom and witnessing His miracles. Additionally, a prophet lived off of donations from those who responded to his ministry. So Jesus tells the guy, I’m homeless. Can you commit to being homeless too? I’m rejected. Can you live with being rejected too? Interestingly, Scripture doesn’t tell us the guy’s answer.

Jesus Himself recruited the 2nd fellow (v.59), and the man seemed to have a legitimate reason for hesitating—First let me go and bury my father. Jesus’ reply seems severe: Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Biblical scholars believe the guy’s father may have been alive still and thriving (Jesus would know that). He was asking to delay until a later time, like…wait until my kids finish high school; until my daughter gets married (and I have paid off the wedding); until my health improves; or until I win the lottery. Jesus was nearly out of time, so this excuse didn’t wash with Him. Nothing, not even family obligations, should come before what we owe God. Whenever there is a choice, God comes 1st.

The 3rd man volunteers to follow Jesus, but wants a brief delay to bid farewell to his family. Again Jesus offers him what seems to our ears a harsh admonition (v.62) No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God. (If someone pushing a hand-plow looks back, they are sure to plow a crooked row.). Jesus’ exacting sounding response means that the man cannot hang onto his old life and also adopt the new. Being Jesus’ disciple means not looking back but looking forward to what might be a rough road ahead.

Recently I read a true story about a preacher who was standing at the door shaking hands as the congregation departed. He grabbed one man by the hand and pulled him aside. The preacher said to him, “You need to join the Army of the Lord!” The man replied, “I’m already in the Army of the Lord, Preacher.” The preacher questioned, “How come I don’t see you except for Christmas and Easter?” He whispered back, “I’m in the secret service.”

Given what Jesus says in today’s Gospel, how many of you think our Lord would be pleased by what the guy in this story said? Jesus may have been amused, but I think He would then have taken the guy to task. The writer to the Hebrews exhorts us (10:25)–>Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another….We encourage each other when we worship together. We have also seen that there is power in corporate worship and power in corporate prayer. Furthermore, once you get into the habit of attending church, you feel like your whole day is amiss if you skip it. Times I have almost not come to church (before being ordained), I would discover something was preached or a Scripture was read that I was exactly meant to hear. If I had not attended that day, I would have missed out on something the Lord meant for me to learn!

When we follow Jesus, we sign on to more than the “basic model” of Christianity, which is…we love Him; we obey Him; and we love others. But we also pack Light—only the essentials—and we pack Right. We choose Jesus above all relationships and all things. He comes 1st. We follow Him, even if it means we suffer rejection and perhaps persecution (On Pentecost, 50 Nigerian Christians were killed while worshipping in their church—most likely by Nigerian Moslems. I know an Anglican Bishop there, Ben Kwashi of Jos, Nigeria. He has for years slept on a concrete floor instead of a comfortable bed, anticipating the day his Moslem neighbors arrest and imprison him. We don’t experience that kind of persecution—yet. But you may have noticed increasingly negative remarks about Christians in the media, and you may have experienced being mocked for your faith.

A number of you have heard me say that I had a vision of Jesus right before I was ordained. He wore the crown of thorns and a white robe, and smiled at me. I believed then and still do that His smile meant He approved of my entering the ministry. He didn’t say a word, but He reached behind Himself and pulled out a crown of thorns for me too. Later, I realized He was warning me that the cost of discipleship is high. I thought to myself at the time, At least it wasn’t a cross! But recently a pastor friend told me one of our seminary professors said in class, If you want to be ordained, you should ask yourself, “How do I look on wood?” Ordained or not, following Jesus is not a walk in the park. it is a death to self. However, embracing Jesus and dying to self is the only route to God’s heart.

©️2022 Rev. Dr. Sherry Adams