Sunday
07/10/16 Freeville/Homer Avenue UMC’s
Sermon Title: “Giving thanks for each other”
Old Testament
Scripture: Psalm 82
New Testament
Scripture: Colossians 1:1-14
Gospel Lesson:
Luke 10:25-37
My brothers and sisters, my friends, welcome again on this
the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost. Eight Sundays after the Holy Spirit moved in
that Upper Room in Jerusalem, and the Christian Church was born. On that day,
the disciples formally went out loving, healing, forgiving, and preaching the gospel
of Jesus Christ. In doing this, the disciples were given different gifts and
abilities from God. The disciples came from different vocations, had different
amounts of education, and had other differences. Yet Jesus encouraged them to
be unified, to be one in the faith.
Many of know that the mission of the United Methodist
Church is “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the
world”. I really love this mission statement, and I think that it covers who we
are called by God to be. This is also I believe, the mission that those first disciples
began on the day on Pentecost. Taking the gospel of Jesus Christ and then going
into a broken and a hurting world to transform it for Jesus.
In the midst of this work though, we gather to worship. In
the midst of this work, we fellowship together, we pray, uphold one another, we
share Holy Communion, we laugh together, we cry together, and we love one
another. While the mission of the church is “to make disciples of Jesus Christ
for the transformation of the world,” that mission is aided I believe when we “give
thanks for one another”. By this, I mean that our mission as a local church, as
a district, as a conference, as a jurisdiction, as a national, and as a
worldwide church, is strengthened when we “give thanks for another”.
Every year at our Annual Conference in Syracuse there are
always special times where we can celebrate people’s ministries and
accomplishments, and there always times to celebrate what God is doing in us and
through us.
This church, much like the first group of disciples, is
made up of different kinds of people. Yet God has called us all, and has called
us all to “give thanks for each other”. Even though we have our own families, even
though we have our own extended families, this church family is also an
extension of our family. This church family is full of different kinds of
people, but God has uniquely gifted us all, and has uniquely created us all.
My big point here, is that sometime we are ever focused on
the mission of the church to “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation
of the world,” and that is a good thing. In the midst of the pursuit of this mission
though, let us also “give thanks for each other”. You see this church, and all
churches for that matter, function because we as a church family do this thing
called living our faith, and we do this thing called ministry together. Not
only this, God made us all so unique and so special.
For all of these reasons, my sermon today focuses on us as
God’s people “giving thanks for each other”. Giving thanks for the love, the
gifts, the encouragement, the help, and the hope that we all give to each
other.
Look around this church for a minute my sisters and
brothers.
This
is your church family. These are the people that God has called here. We are
all different, but God calls us all to “give thanks for each other”. To love, to
uphold, and to treasure each other.
Are we perfect? No, I don’t think so. I remember I heard a
pastor say once, if you want to attend a church service with perfect people,
try a Monday morning church service. Some churches have Monday morning
services, but many churches have no Monday morning services. I heard another pastor
say once, “the biggest problem with the Christian Church is the people. Remove
the people, and the church would be perfect”.
I also remember a pastor or maybe it was a bishop say once,
that the church had put out advertisements to hire new pastors. The big
required qualification for the applicants though, was that all the people who
applied be preachers had to be perfect. This pastor or bishop then said, “we
have yet to receive any applications”. This same person then said,
unfortunately the church only hires sinners as preachers.
So we are the church, with broken people, and broken
pastors, who by the grace of God, through Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy
Spirit can become more whole everyday. We are the people that God has called to
be this church, and to be part of the worldwide universal Christian Church. Do
we truly “give thanks for each other”? Are we truly grateful to God for each other?
In connecting one of our scriptures to this idea of “giving
thanks for each other,” I decided to focus on the Apostle Paul’s Epistle or letter
this morning from the church in Colossae, or the Colossians. The Apostle Paul
begins this letter with his usual very expressive greeting. The Apostle Paul
says, “From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, and Timothy out
brother. To the holy and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae.
Grace and peace to you from God our Father” (Col. 1:1-2, CEB).
To be fair, the Epistles or letters that are largely
attributed to the Apostle Paul were sometimes not all “lovey dovey”. In fact,
sometime Paul did not seem happy with the direction that some of the churches that
he planted were going in. Some of his Epistles or letters spell out that he had
heard some people were straying away from the gospel, or doing this, or doing
that. The Apostle Paul will also address some of his concerns in this Epistle
or letter to the Colossians to.
What struck me when I was reading this scriptures for this
Sunday, was the next part of this Epistle or letter. The Apostle Paul said, “We
always give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray
for you. We’ve done this since we heard of your faith in Jesus Christ and your
love for all God’s people. You have this faith and love because of the hope
reserved for you in heaven” (Col. 1:3-5a, CEB). My friends, my brothers and
sister, do we “give thanks for each other” in this church? Also, do we not just
“give thanks for each other” in our prayers, but do we also tell each other
periodically why we are thankful for them?
In the gospel of the Luke reading from this morning, Jesus
Christ tells us, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all
your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your
neighbor as yourself” (Lk. 10:27, CEB). Maybe we can try to do this even better
today, and from now on. We all know the mission of our church, but I think that
“giving thanks for each other” enhances that mission. Maybe after church today
then, you can tell a couple of people why you are thankful for them. Why they
matter so much to you. I know that in my prayers like the Apostle Paul said, I “give
thanks for you”. Sometimes though, it feels good to hear it from each other, doesn’t
it? To hear from each other that we are “thankful for each other”.
The Apostle Paul then ends this Epistle or letter from this
morning by saying of Jesus Christ, “He made it so you could take part in the inheritance,
in light granted to God’s holy people. He rescued us from the control of
darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves. He set us
free though the Son and forgave our sins” (Col. 1:12b-14, CEB). What powerful
word the Apostle Paul gives us here, as we all have hope in Jesus Christ. As we
are all saved by and told to love through Jesus Christ. Part of our mission then,
I believe, is “giving thanks for each”.
I want to tell you a quick story called “Sir Michael Costa,”
by author unknown. I am telling you this story so that I can better emphasize
what I think that the Apostle Paul was try to say this morning in his Epistle or
letter to the Colossians. Here is how this very short story goes:
“Sir
Michael Costa was a great orchestral Conductor of the 19th Century. It is said
that one day he was conducting a rehearsal in which the orchestra was joined by
a great choir. Midway through the session the piccolo player stopped playing.
It seemed innocent enough – after all who would miss the tiny piccolo amidst
the great mass of instruments blazing away? All of a sudden Sir Michael stopped
the entire orchestra and choir. “Stop! Stop! Where’s the piccolo? What’s
happened to the piccolo?”
“We
may sometimes feel like that piccolo player – that we don’t have much to offer,
that if we stopped our ministry no one would notice anyway. Yet the Great
Conductor notices, and needs us to complete his orchestral masterpiece!”
Friends,
brothers and sisters, we all come to this church, and this church is an
extension of our family. We all, like a band or a chorus play or sing different
parts, and to God we all matter. While we are often pursuing the mission of the
church “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world,”
let us also at the same time “give thanks for each other”. May we this day tell
some of our sisters and brothers, who are part of this church, or who are not part
of this church, how much you are thankful to God for them. May we tell them
what we appreciate about them, and how God has used them to bless us. May we not
say then that “the biggest problem with the Christian Church is the people”.
Instead may we say, “this biggest blessing in the Christian Church is God and
his people”. Let us “give thanks for each other” today, and love our neighbor
as ourselves. May it be so, and Amen.
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