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 A NOTE OF EXPLANATION: The Sermon is posted on the Web and church e-mail on Thursday or Friday prior to the Sunday it is delivered because: many persons have valid reasons why they cannot be in church on a particular Sunday, but still want to have the days message available on that weekend. SOME OF YOU HAVE SAID THAT READING AHEAD OF TIME SPOILS THE EXCITEMENT OF COMING TO CHURCH. A PERSONAL SUGGESTION: DON'T OPEN THE SERMON BEFORE SUNDAY. YOU ARE IN CHARGE OF WHEN AND IF YOU OPEN YOUR MAIL. This is service made available at no extra charge. It is yours to do as you wish. There are no demands for pre-service reading. Thank you for understanding. Pastor Larry
Garrison Keillor on Methodists: If you were to ask an audience in New York City, a relatively Methodistless place, to sing along on the chorus of "Michael Row the Boat Ashore," they will look daggers at you as if you had asked them to strip to their underwear. But if you do this among Methodists, they'd smile and row that boat ashore and up on the beach! And down the road! Many Methodists are bred from childhood to sing in four-part harmony, a talent that comes from sitting on the lap of someone singing. It's an emotionally fulfilling moment. By our joining in harmony, we somehow promise that we will not forsake each other. I do believe this: People, these Methodists, who love to sing in four-part harmony are the sort of people you could call up when you're in deep distress. If you are dying, they will comfort you. If you are lonely, they'll talk to you. And if you are hungry, they'll give you tuna salad. Methodists like to sing, except when confronted with a new hymn or a hymn with more than four stanzas. Methodists believe their pastors will visit them in the hospital, even if they don't notify them that they are there. Methodists usually follow the official liturgy and will feel it is their way of suffering for their sins. Methodists drink coffee as if it were the Third Sacrament. Methodists still serve Jell-O in season and think that peas in a tuna noodle casserole add too much color. Methodists believe that it is OK to poke fun at themselves and never take themselves too seriously. And finally, you know you are a Methodist when: It's 100 degrees, with 90% humidity, and you still have coffee after the service. Donuts are a line item in the church budget, just like coffee.
Thank you Garrison Kiellor for your observation of Methodists. Some of it is still correct. We, like other denominations have our way of understanding what it means to faithful followers of our Savior. We like reading special scripture like the 23rd Psalm and the Beatitudes. We re-read our favorite passages because it makes us feel good and gives us a sense of direction in our daily life. Were you one of those kids who always got picked first? Or did you get picked last when gym class chose up teams for a baseball, soccer or dodge-ball game?
It was always good if your best bud was "captain" that day. Then, no matter how good or bad you played, at least you knew you'd get picked early. The disaster days were when your worst sport and your worst enemies came up on the same day. Gradually, all the kids around you would begin to funnel into one
Learning what it feels like to be an outcast is a painful lesson that stays with us all our lives. Having felt the sting of rejection as a helpless child shapes the way we relate to people as adults.
Wonder why some people close down?avoiding any risk of rejection by never really opening up to others? Wonder why some people buy their way into popularity and acceptance?they flatter and cajole, offer foolish gifts and false compliments?anything, just to make sure they will always find a welcome mat instead of a closed door?
It's fear?not uptightness, not a genial, generous temperament?that drives these frantic attempts to achieve acceptance. Don't waste your breath, your time or your energy on dreaming about being loved and appreciated by everyone you meet. That is a false and puny dream, guaranteed to stunt your soul and suck out your spirit. Jesus offered this week's remarkable list of "blessings" and "woes" to warn against a shrinking of his disciples' outlooks and dreams and to demonstrate what kind of dreams Jesus' disciples should be dreaming.?The poor shouldn't just dream about finally getting a roof over their heads or shoes on their feet. The dream-come-true for the poor that Jesus offers is that they will receive nothing less than all the glory that is the kingdom of God. The kingdom is theirs.?The hungry Ennobled and enrobed, enriched and empowered, satisfied and fulfilled, joyfully alive?this is the soul Jesus dreams of for his people. This is the DreamSoul Jesus intends for you.
Compare Jesus' vision with your own best hopes and visions for yourself and your future. Are you guilty of starving your soul? Are you dreaming puny, Pygmy, pint-sized dreams instead of the amazing, the outstanding, the out-of-sight, the out-of-this-world dreams that God intends your soul to feed on? Do
One of the most conniving, convincing dreamscapes with which we have tried to satisfy ourselves is the "make-a-difference-diet." The paltry portions of the "make-a-difference-diet" keep so many of our souls skinny and sickly that, like the Kate Moss anorexic-chic of the fashion industry, we have come to The "make-a-difference-diet" starts out sounding pretty good. Charting our dreams for the future, plotting out our dreamscape, we vow that what we really want to do is "make a difference" in the world.
What's so bad about that? Sounds respectable, honorable, intentional and most of all (here's the catch) -- doable. But guess what? We were not put on this earth to "make a difference." Jesus didn't offer us the kingdom of God, eternal life, utter fulfillment, the peace that passes all understanding, the joy of the Lord, just so we could "make a difference." God sent Jesus to die on the cross not to "make a difference in the world," but to make a different world; not to make adjustments and accommodations in the existing order, but to throw out the existing order and replace it with another; not merely (to borrow Bonhoeffer's phrase) to bind the wounds God sent Jesus to redeem and re-dream the world. As Jesus' redeemed and redreamed disciples, we are to join in redreaming the landscape of life?not to "make a difference in life," but to make life different. If we truly want to be part of God's mission to redeem and re-dream the world, we must stop being hack dreamers. We must get off that "make-a-difference-diet" and start stuffing our souls with God-sized dreams.
What's happened to our dreams, church? William S. Burroughs has said that a society without dreams is a dead society. Are we dreaming anymore, church? Are we ministering by sweet dreams or sour schemes? Are you dreaming anymore, Christian? And if you are, do you remember your dreams? People leave jobs, not because their work is completed, but because their dream is dead. Institutions, friendships, marriages, corporations fall apart not "at their seams" but "at their dreams."
Why not "at their seams?" Because their dreams are their seams. Dreams are what tie everything together. What's happened to your seam-dreams?
When our kids want to say something is really good, they say it is "bad." Let's borrow our children's language and declare that Dr. Luke is prescribing for us in this morning's text some BAD dreams and some BAD souls?that is, Big Audacious Dreams and Big Audacious DreamSouls. In fact, you could say we should really be cultivating in life BHAD Dreams?Big Hairy Audacious Dreams and Big Hairy Audacious DreamSouls. When we continue to think small, when we labor under the "make-a-difference" mindset, we think that if we work hard enough, do well enough, jump through the right hoops
In today's list of "blessings" and "woes," Jesus warns his disciples that as purveyors of BHAD souls, they will experience hate, exclusion, rejection and even excommunication from those who would prefer to hear safe "just-make-a-difference" dreams and schemes. Offer the world Jesus' message of
It's not too late to reinvent your life, recharge your soul with big dreams.
Dream on, disciple. Don't make a difference in the world.
Dream on, disciple. Do make the world a different place.
My friends, the Scriptures challenge us to make life different, to have God-sized dreams, to alter the landscape of life so that it more nearly coincides with the kingdom of God. We cannot settle for making just a little difference.
Church history is filled with stories of Christians who have accepted Christ's forthright challenge: the apostles who turned the world upside down so that it would then be "right side up;"the martyrs of the ages who have faced down the "principalities and powers" even unto death, proclaiming Christ
There are many such heroes of the faith who carried with them God-sized dreams, who helped to make the world a different place. We can draw inspiration from their stories, but hear them not simply as spectators, but as people looking for personal ways to remove ugly blots on life's landscape.
One person who comes to mind, particularly apropos as we commemorate Black History Month, is last century's William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879). Garrison was a Massachusetts newspaperman, an uncompromising foe of slavery. He tried
Still, Garrison never gave up. He was president of the American Anti-Slavery Society and continued to work diligently at his audacious dream to abolish slavery in the United States. In the words of Norman Vincent Peale, he "beat with his hammer until his hammer grew and became a mighty sledge whose thunderings could be heard throughout the land" (from Peale's "Dream the Impossible Dream"). When slavery was indeed abolished, Garrison turned his attention to other causes: helping women gain the right to vote, working for fair pay for Native Americans and promoting prohibition. He was literally "the conscience of the
Another dreamer comes to mind: William Carey. When you travel to Leicester, England, today and ask any clergyman about William Carey's place, you will be directed to a storefront on which you will find a large sign with these words embossed on it: "Expect great things from God; Attempt great things for God." These words were William Carey's motto. He believed it with all of his heart and made it a reality in his entire life.
Carey was not born of wealth or high social standing. As a young adult with a brilliant mind, he found himself cobbling shoes in downtown Leicester. But, as he would say, he cobbled shoes "for the glory of God." And God respected his dedication. Unlikely as it may seem, shoemaker Carey went to church authorities and offered himself as a missionary to India. Sadly, the church was rather sleepy about missions at the time, and he was not accepted. Some, no doubt, wondered about his ability.
Still, Carey knew that he had a calling and that when God finds a soul totally committed, God provides a way for God's work to be done. So, on his own, Carey founded a missionary society in 1792 and in 1793 he was on his way to India. It turned out that Carey's intelligence enabled him to quickly learn three of the several languages spoken in India: Bengali, Sanskrit and Marathi. Thus he was able to communicate the Good News everywhere he went. He became a professor at a college in Calcutta and led many people to Christ. He was a man of such unquenchable missionary devotion that today church historians call him the "father of modern missions."
Garrison and Carey were not content to merely make a difference. Rather, they were boldly determined to make the world a different place. They challenge us to remember what God can do with those who dare to dream Big Audacious
In short, we make the world different by making ourselves different. And we make ourselves different when, relying on God-provided love, we choose to respond compassionately to the human needs that exist around us.
We make ourselves different when, relying on God-provided insight, we see the face of Christ in the face of the homeless. We make ourselves different when, relying on God-provided energy and courage, we attempt what others say is impossible.
God's people are different people, and as such we can all go forth to dream on about life's new realities in ways that were previously known only to the mind of God! We can make a difference only if we act out our Christian beliefs and commitments to a Christian way of life. That is why we have the be at
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