Sunday 06/29/14 Freeville/Homer Ave
UMC’s
Sermon Title: “Love each other radically”
Old Testament Scripture Lesson: Psalm 13
New Testament Scripture Lesson: Romans 6:12-23
Gospel Lesson: Mathew 10:40-42
My brothers and sisters, today is the
Third Sunday after Pentecost. Pentecost was that day so long ago that the Holy
Spirit moved like tongues of fire over the Apostles and the early Christians,
igniting their passion and faith in Jesus Christ. For the day of Pentecost was
the birthday of the Christian Church, as the Apostles and other members of the
early church finally went forth and proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ, to
the ends of the earth.
In proclaiming the gospel, in
proclaiming Jesus Christ though, believing in Jesus Christ is only the
beginning. You see in the gospels and throughout the whole Bible, we are given
a blue print of how to live, and how to treat one another. You see in the
gospels, some accepted Jesus, yet some rejected him, even though he was and is
the Messiah of us all. Instead of just aggressively and meanly telling people
who he was, Jesus often showed people who he was with great love and with great
hospitality. In this way, we can tell people about Jesus Christ and tell people
about the saving grace and forgiveness found in him, but in addition to this,
we can show people who Jesus is with how we live our lives.
When Jesus went to the women at the
well, he was showing her before he even announced who he was, that he had care
and concern about her. When Jesus told the Apostles to love each other, and
when he washed their feet at the Last Supper, he was not only telling them he
was the Messiah, but he was also teaching them.
The Christian faith then, often grows
not by just telling people this is what to believe, and this is the way to
eternal life, but instead it grows because the people of God display God’s love
and God’s grace to us. When we are sick, and the people of God visit us, we
learn and understand more the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we feed the hungry
at our church food pantry, we are showing the people of this community, that
Jesus Christ is more than just salvation, and more than just the path to
eternal life, but he is our teacher and our leader, who teaches us how to live
this life better every day. While Jesus is the Messiah then, he was also the
very model of love, compassion, caring, and grace.
For these reasons and others, we feed
the hungry, we clothe the naked, and we love those who are hurting and are
broken. We don’t do it just because it is a nice thing to do, but because Jesus
the Christ, the savior of the world tells us every day, there is much more to
me than just salvation. There is much more to me than just “fire insurance.”
For in a world of war, pain,
suffering, greed, and injustices, Jesus lived a life that was for others, that
was for us. He loved us so much that he died so that we may be free. Some might
say, “Pastor Paul, I have faith in Jesus Christ, so why do I need to do all of
these nice things you talk about in the gospels?” The answer is, because Jesus
teaches us that if we have faith in him, that we will live with him in
eternity, yet until we are in eternity, Jesus calls us to love and care for one
another here on earth. In this way, as an older pastor said once, “We should
not be so heavenly minded, that we are useless here on earth.” In this sense,
the gospel of Jesus Christ is more than just salvation and eternal life, it is
the building of the Kingdom of God here on earth, as we await the coming
kingdom of God.
In Matthew 25:35-40 Jesus says, “for I was hungry and you gave me
food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and
you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and
you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him,
‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and
gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and
welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick
or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just
as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you
did it to me.’
You see then, the gospel goes much
deeper than just salvation and eternal life. While these are the core of what
the gospel of Jesus Christ is, Jesus calls us to “Love each other radically,”
and to realize that we all have sin. Yet we so often live in a culture where we
have some sort of “sin-o-meter,” whereby some sins register very high on the “sin-o-meter,”
and some sins register very low on the “sin-o-meter.” Yet to God, to Jesus
Christ all sin separates us from God, whether it is one sin or one million. We
are all in this boat together, and we are all whether we want to admit it or
not, covered in sin. Some less than others, but we should still be careful
about judging others, or being critical towards others, when we ourselves are
sinners.
Given this, Jesus Christ calls us to “Love
each other radically.” This is not always an easy thing to do, but a good place
to start is to realize that we all have sin. Yet the Lord says when we love
others, we love him.
Recently, I have been reading through
a book recently written by one of my seminary professors Chuck Gutenson, called
“Church Worth Getting Up For.” In this book Dr. Gutenson explained that in his
role of teaching and preaching in the United Methodist Church, it often affords
him the opportunity to travel. Dr. Gutenson said in traveling, he gets to visit
other churches while he is away. Yet Dr. Gutenson in the introduction of his
book talked about some of his church visiting experiences. He talked about how
he visited some churches, and no one said hello to him, no one introduced themselves,
the pastor seem unenthused, and there seemed to be no fire of the Holy Spirit. Dr.
Gutenson then said, if he had not been a lifelong Christian, than he would not waste
his time getting up a second time on Sunday morning for the some of the
churches he attended.
I remember when I used to be an in
home tutor for the Ithaca City School District. My last three years working for
the school district I was in seminary. As it turned out, I had an inquisitive
student who asked me countless questions about seminary and the Christian
faith. In fact, he came into the library one day where I was working with him,
and he proclaimed, “Paul, I am going to visit a church this Sunday.” I of
course told him that I hoped the service that he was going to attend would be a
deep and a powerful one. Yet on Monday morning when this student came in, he
seemed jaded and distant. I finally asked the student if he was ok. He then
told me that he had gotten up really early the day before, and that he put on a
nice pair of slacks and a nice button down shirt. He then went to church
service in the city. While he didn’t tell me which service he attended, he told
me it was awful. I asked him what he meant by this, and he said as soon as he
walked into the sanctuary, he got looks from church members like “what are you
doing here.” He said no one said hi to him, and he felt like that he was
intruding in the church that all of these folks attend. After the service was a
coffee hour. This young man said that he got coffee, and that he sat down at a
table all by himself, and no one said anything to him.
This young man then said, “You know
Paul you seem like a caring and cool minister, but I don’t think that I am ever
going to back to the church that I visited yesterday.” I then leaned across the
table and told the student, “I don’t blame you, I wouldn’t go back either.”
You see my brothers and sisters we now
live in era where churches tend to do one of two things, grow or die. When we
live the gospel, and when we “Love each other radically,” the church grows,
people accept and see the saving power of Jesus Christ, and the world is made
better. So I don’t think some churches today are shrinking because they don’t
have the right signs out front, or they don’t have the right kind of coffee,
they are shrinking because after people leave those churches, they say, “this
is not a church worth getting up for.”
My brothers and sisters, we attend a “Church
Worth Getting Up For.” In this church we love all people, when people are sick
or hurting, we are all hurting. We are not just members and attenders of this
institution, we are a family that seeks to live out the gospel and build God’s
kingdom here on earth. For is the church just speaks it and doesn’t do it, don’t
you think young people like me can tell the difference?
Even though I picked this sermon
title months ago, I laughed when I got to chapter four of Dr. Gutenson’s book
called “Radical Hospitality.” You see the early Christian Church invented the
public hospital, as they cared for and fed the sick and the poor. They grew not
just because they told people of the saving power of Jesus Christ, but they
lived the gospel he taught them. In this way, we might never remember anything
specific that people like Mother Theresa said, but we will remember them by how
they lived the gospel, and how they showed us Jesus.
In Psalm 13 from this morning, the
Psalmist said, “But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in
your salvation.” Does our faith compel us to radical love and hospitality? In
the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans reading from this morning, Paul said, “present
your members to God as instruments of righteousness.” Paul then tells the
church in the Rome that it is by the grace of Jesus Christ that we are saved
and have eternal life, not from the old law from the Old Testament. For in
Jesus Christ we find forgiveness, freedom, and we are freed to love others.
In this morning’s gospel reading, the
Lord speaks to us in the gospel of Mathew account. Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes
you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” Jesus
then said, “Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a
prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person on the name of a
righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous.” The Lord then
concludes this reading by saying, “and whoever gives even a cup of cold water
to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of
these will lose their reward.”
So our faith, the gospel of Jesus
Christ goes much deeper than just salvation and eternal life, it includes the
here and the now. Jesus calls us to “Love each other radically.” Jesus teaches
us that the ground at the foot of the cross is level, as we are all looking up
to what we can be, and what we should be. To live for and like Jesus, and as
the song says, “They will know we are Christians by our love.”
I would like to close this message
this morning with a brief story called The Fish
tank.
Here is how it goes: “Once upon a time two brothers bought fish tanks. The
younger brother’s setup was very simple – a fishbowl with some gravel and weed.
The older brother’s was much more elaborate – a larger, enclosed tank with a
filter, lighting and much better decoration.”
“The younger brother rarely cleaned
his tank. The older brother was vigilant in keeping his tank clean. The older
brother couldn’t understand then why his fish died but his brother’s lived. It
turns out the cleaning chemicals the older brother was using were
toxic to fish. Whenever he cleaned the tank tiny traces of the chemical
remained, but these were enough to keep fish targets down.”
“Which all goes to show that when it
comes to serving others good intentions aren’t enough. If we want to have
transformative impact we need to match good intentions with good practice.”
This my brothers and sisters is the
whole of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is how we “love each other radically.”
Amen.
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