Sunday
03/26/17 Freeville/Homer Avenue UMC’s
Sermon Title: “The significance of Psalm 23”
Old Testament
Scripture: Psalm 23
New Testament
Scripture: Ephesians 5:8-14
Gospel Lesson:
John 9:1-41
Welcome and good morning again my brothers and sisters, my
friends, or “Buenos Dias” as they say in Nicaragua.
Today we are in this our Fourth Sunday of the Season of
Holy Lent. This is the season where we for Forty-Days, prepare our hearts, our
minds, and our souls, for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Many of
the people that I met in Nicaragua are also celebrating this season as well, as
they are in anticipation of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord,
just like we are.
This season of Holy Lent will then soon become Holy Week,
on Palm Sunday, which is Sunday April 9th. In that week, will have a
Holy/Maundy Thursday service, where we will relive the Last Supper, the washing
of the feet, and the call to love each other more. The next night, we will have
a Good Friday worship service, and we will remember and reflect on the
crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
This
holy season that we are living though, ends with resurrection and with victory.
Perhaps for some us this morning, as it says in Psalm 23, we are “walking
through the valley of the shadow of death” in our own lives (Ps. 23:4, KJV).
Yet we are told in this Psalm that no matter what, that our God, that Jesus
Christ is with us. If we are suffering, if we are broken, if we are sad, God is
with us.
I have read the Twenty-Third Psalm at many funerals, and on
other occasions. In reading this scripture it often tells us that person who
has just died, or the person who is struggling is going from this earth to the
next place. That God is with them, and with us.
For many of us, as this scripture is written, Psalm 23 is
personal, and about us and God. While this is true, the Christian Church, which
is worldwide, doesn’t function this way. You see I learned like never before
after being in the country of Nicaragua for two-weeks, that not only is God
with us when we are “walking through the valley of the shadow of death,” but
that we can walk through the valley together (Ps. 23:4, KJV). This is why we
have the church.
This Sunday as some of you may know is UMCOR Sunday. For
those who don’t know, UMCOR is the United Methodist Committee on Relief. They
are the relief organization that aides in disasters, help, recovering, and many
other things. They are the official relief agency for the entire worldwide
United Methodist Church. Some of the money that UMCOR receives in fact, goes to
where I just was in Nicaragua.
The mission team group that I went with just spent a week
fixing up a Maternal House or a “Casa Materna,” in a remote village in Eastern
Nicaragua. Since this Maternal House or “Casa Materna” has been fixed up and
restored, women who are near term to giving birth, will continue to have a safe
place to have there babies. This building is equipped with a new kitchen, toilets,
and medical care. For those who gave to this trip that I just went on, on this
UMCOR Sunday, know that women will live and not die from childbirth in rural
Nicaragua, because instead of these women “walking through the valley of the
shadow of death” alone, you have decided to walk with them (Ps. 23:4, KJV). Sisters
and brothers, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
In Nicaragua the Christian Church is also alive and well.
New churches are being built all over the place, and the people have great
faith. In addition to this great faith, the people live there faith. On this
UMCOR Sunday, and every day we have the opportunity to “walk through the valley
of the shadow of death” alone, or to walk through the valley together (Ps.
23:4, KJV).
Brothers and sisters, as Christians we are called by the love
of Jesus Christ, to be followers of Jesus Christ, and to proclaim Jesus Christ
as the Lord and Savior of our lives. We are also called “walk through the
valley of the shadow of death” together (Ps. 23:4, KJV).
Christian churches that are growing in 2017 go beyond just
belief, beyond just our own personal faiths, to a faith that reaches out and
loves others. A faith that feeds the poor, serves the lesser-thans, and
transforms this city and the world.
So many of us know Psalm 23, and we know that God will be
with us forever, but I wonder brothers and sisters, what if we didn’t “walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,” alone (Ps. 23:4, KJV)? What if we
walked it together?
What if we realized how much God has blessed us here in the
United States? What can we do as a church to transform the world? On this UMCOR
Sunday, when we give to our United Methodist relief agency, you will be saving
lives, because you decided that we shouldn’t “walk through the valley of the
shadow of death,” alone (Ps. 23:4, KJV).
You see brothers and sisters I believe that the gospel of
Jesus Christ is the hope of the world, and part of this hope, is in what God
uses us to do each and every day. Our faith must be more than just what we
believe, it must be what we do. The places we are willing to go, and the love
that we are willing to extend. Churches that do that, are transforming the
world for Jesus Christ. Since Jesus Christ is our hope, how can we be change in
a world that knows so much pain, suffering, and hardship?
When I was in Nicaragua last Sunday, I had the pleasure of
worshiping with an Evangelical Methodist Church. While there, the president of
the entire Evangelical Methodist Church of Nicaragua was present. He hugged or
greeted every single person in that church. He then asked all the pastors
visiting from the United States to come up front, and he gave us big bags of
Nicaragua Coffee. So moved by this, I gave this head of the entire Evangelical
Methodist Church of Nicaragua my wood cross necklace with the United Methodist
logo on it. I have had this necklace for nearly five-years. As I gave this
necklace to this great man, I told him that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the
hope of the world. He looked at me with great love, and said amen, may we live
it together.
My brothers and sisters, it is not enough to just believe,
we must also live it. The world out there is still filled with poverty,
suffering, injustice, and hurting. We believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ,
the hope of the world. So are we willing to then transform the world for Jesus
Christ? Are we willing to go on a mission trip, or to raise money to put a
water well in a poor country in Africa, or help people who are struggling, and or
etc.
The group that sponsored our United Methodist Volunteer in
Mission Trip was called “Accion Medica Christiana” or “Christian Medical
Action”. The scripture that this organization lives by Matthew 25:35 which
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” (Mt. 25:35, NRSV).
If we truly have hope in the gospel of
Jesus Christ then, are we then willing to live this out? When we put our
beliefs into action my brothers and sisters, this is when we can change the
world. How then has God called you to love, live, and change the world? Let me
know, because I want to help to do what God has called you to do.
The organization that sponsored out
trip, the “Accion Medica Christiana” or “Christian Medical
Action” presently supplies prescription drugs to 200,000 of the 6.2 million
people that live in Nicaragua. This organization provides services and things
that are unbelievable. I was even told by a leader, that if the churches and
other non-governmental organizations left Nicaragua, the country might
collapse. Sure its government does some, but for us who think that the gospel
is the hope of the world, we do the rest.
I just went my brothers and sisters, to a country that has
very little, and in this country we have so much. I believe that I am
understanding more then, what the global Christian Church is. That we are not
just a church here, or in the United States, but we are worldwide church,
living the hope we have in the gospel of the Jesus Christ.
For as the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians, we are to “Live
as children of light—for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good
and right and true” (Eph. 5:8b-9, NRSV).
In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus Christ, the
savior of the world, tell us that he is the “light of the world” (Jn. 9:5b,
NRSV). This morning in the gospel Jesus heals a blind man. The blind man, who
can now see, say of Jesus Christ, “One thing I do know, that though I was
blind, now I see” (Jn. 9:25b, NRSV).
My trip to Nicaragua opened my eyes more, and I seeing more
clearly than ever before.
Brothers and sisters, Psalm 23 says “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they
comfort me” (Ps. 23:4, NRSV). I wonder though my sisters and brothers,
if we need to walk alone? Churches that are growing and flourishing in 2017,
believe that we must walk forward together.
I want to share a story in closing for you, on this UMCOR
giving Sunday. The first day that my mission team group was on the Eastern side
of Nicaragua, we went to visit a remote indigenous village. These people we
Native Americans, or Indigenous people.
These people lived in simple wood houses, or huts. They did
have electricity, and maybe television, but little else in the way of possessions.
These people had virtually nothing.
I then met the pastor of this small village. This pastor
told me that about One-Hundred and Sixty years ago, Moravian Christian missionaries
came and taught then about Jesus Christ and the gospel. The Moravian Church
which is a sister denomination of the United Methodist Church is still every
strong in Eastern Nicaragua.
This pastor was proud of his local Moravian Church, and his
people. He then told me that on March 14th of that week, that his
village, his church would be taking a collection to help the starving people in
different places in Africa. He told me, he was doing this because this is what
Jesus has asked us to do.
I almost burst into tears, as these people had virtually
nothing, but this pastor was basically telling me that even though we “walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,” that we won’t do it alone (Ps.
23:4, KJV)?
They had very little, like women who gave the two copper
coins in the Bible, yet they gave freely of what little they had.
This is the gospel of Jesus Christ my brothers and sisters,
and when we embrace it, and when we live it, God can use us to change the
world!
Never
underestimate you calling from God, and the power that God gives you to change
the world each and every day!
May
you all be blessed this day and always in the name of Father, the Son, and Holy
Spirit. Amen.
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