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My heart beats for love. I want to be different. I want to be who I am called to be. WORTHY and LOVED!

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Zechariah Luke 1: 5-19

We are now entering into the season of Advent - the beginning of the Christian year. While the world is winding down the calendar year, we begin anew our Christian journey together by waiting. Not waiting for the ball to drop, as we do on New Years Eve, but waiting for the coming of Christ - both as the babe in the manger and the King who will come in final judgment. 
Waiting is not a word most people want to hear. As a child many of us were told to wait our turn. To be patient. As adults we spend a lot of time waiting - in lines at the grocery store and the bank. Even as we try to make our lives more efficient, we still have to wait - for a reply, for an answer, and for so much more. But even as adults, it doesn’t seem like waiting becomes any easier - so for many of us, an entire season of waiting, Advent, is hard. We would rather fly through the next four weeks so we can sing our favorite Christmas carols and celebrate candle lighting services together. For many its Christmas that holds fond memories, not Advent. 
And yet. And yet, Advent is so important to our Christian walk that it begins our year together, for waiting allows us to become people who seek after God. According to author, Enuma Okoro, Advent is important because it is during this time that, “we are invited to walk alongside faithful men and women who also sought after God and waited upon God to answer their prayers and to keep God’s promises.” In waiting we remember stories that have shaped our faith. In waiting we seek our patient partners in prayer through the people in scripture. As we hear ancient stories anew, we are invited in our waiting to make ourselves available to God in new ways. To come, seeking God, patiently together. 
When you think of the Advent story, who does your mind immediately go to? To Mary? The Angel Gabriel? To Joseph? How about Zechariah. The husband of Elizabeth. Father of John the Baptist. It was he who the angel Gabriel came to first to announce the coming of the one who would prepare the way for the Lord. 
In so many ways, the story of Zechariah is one of waiting and patience. Zechariah was a priest, one who was assigned to holy work in the temple. His wife, Elizabeth, was a decedent of the tribe of Aaron, the priestly line. This morning’s scripture lesson tells us that they were righteous before God and lived blameless lives. But… Elizabeth was barren. In a culture where children carried on both the family legacy and took care of their parents as they aged, barrenness was considered to be a curse from God. Even in a culture where stories were told of barren women who were devoted to God - Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Hannah - barrenness was still seen as a direct result of sin. Barren women were to be avoided, as if the cause of their affliction could rub off on to others.
Elizabeth and Zechariah remind us in their barrenness that even the most devout have questions for God and unanswered prayers. Here are two individuals whose family line and current call were to serve God, which they did faithfully, and yet, their faithfulness isn’t rewarded. Isn’t that how it is supposed to work? That the good guys get good things, and the bad guys get what they deserve? This couple, at the beginning of our Advent narrative, make us come face to face with the uncomfortable reality that sometimes the faithful aren’t rewarded. Enuma writes, “Many of us could probably name someone (if not ourselves) in a similar situation of having led an earnest life of faithfulness and yet living in the reality of unanswered prayers.” Can you identify with Zechariah and Elizabeth, waiting, longing, for a child. In a culture where many families had houses full of children, they couldn’t seem to even bring forth one. Can you connect with what they had to be feeling - the heartache, the sleepless nights, the crying out to God in prayer, asking “Why?” What emotions do you think Zechariah experienced as he prayed for Elizabeth? Did even he begin to doubt her righteousness? Or did he begin to blame God? Did he have doubts? Do we, have doubts? Do we cry out to God when things are not as they should be? Do we bring our pain before a holy God, or do we try to talk ourselves out of it, or avoid pain entirely?
But even in the midst of the despair of not being able to conceive, Zechariah went about his work, his calling in the temple, where we encounter him in this passage from the gospel of Luke. Zechariah attended to his faith by doing his priestly duties, even in the midst of unanswered prayers, longing, and waiting. Zechariah was selected to be the one to enter into the holy of holies, while the offering of incense was brought forward to the alter. He was alone in one sense, just him and the Lord, but he also had the community praying for him outside as he went about this sacred duty. Then in the holy of holies the unexpected happened - if there is any place we would expect God to show up, it would be here, where the tabernacle that went with the people of Israel for centuries to symbolize the very presence of God was held. And yet, as Zechariah was going about his job in this special place, he was overwhelmed when the presence of the angel Gabriel appeared at the right of the alter. 
Zechariah entered the temple to intercede for the people - which was both a duty and a privilege. But in that place, at that moment, the angel of the Lord showed up and told him that God has been hearing Zechariah’s prayers and pleas all of these years, and now was the time they would be answered. Gabriel revealed himself to Zechariah as he was going about the task he was supposed to be doing that day. How would you respond if God sent you a personal messenger to tell you that your prayers have been heard? How would you respond if you were going about your daily job and suddenly found your waiting ended, and your prayers had been answered. Would you too need to be told to “Do not be afraid”. In this moment we see grace and divine kindness - a God who listened to Zechariah’s cries, tenderly caring after his immediate needs in the face of unspeakable fear. 
The angel goes on to tell Zechariah that the child he would be blessed with was more than he could have ever imagined praying for. He would be great in the sight of the Lord. He would turn the people of Israel to the Lord their God. The child, to be named, John would be a blessing to the entire nations of Israel. 
Some time ago Whitney Huston released a Christmas Song that asked the question, “who could and would imagine a King?” as she pondered what the parents of Jesus must have thought about their child and what he would become. A similar question could be asked by Zechariah as he listens to the angel Gabriel - who could or would have imagined that this is what their child would become?
Which is pretty much how Zechariah responded - “How can this be so?” Even in the midst of having his prayer answered - a prayer that he had prayed time and time again - he had doubts. Have you ever had a similar experience where God answers your prayer but you can’t quite bring yourself to believe it? Zechariah couldn’t bring himself to believe the good news God was trying to bring him because it didn’t fall in line with his beliefs, or logic, or circumstances. His wife was beyond the age of bearing a child. It was almost as if he prayed, but didn’t believe at this point in his life that God would actually answer his prayer - and it is in the midst of that unexpectedness and doubt that God showed up. 
How can we hold onto a deep belief in God’s promises in the midst of our doubts? How can we cling to the character of God we know to be true, when the answer to our prayers seem so wildly illogical? Many of us know the story of Zechariah because we have lived it - season after season of unanswered prayer. But we keep praying, keep believing that God will come through. But even as we pray, there are still doubts - for as Zechariah has shown us, even the righteous and devout have doubts. The question is what do we do with our doubts? Do we bring them before God? Do we expect God to answer in unexpected ways? Or do we only want our prayers answered in our way and in our timing? 

Zechariah was a man of patience and waiting - and yet, when the waiting was over, the time had come for his prayer to be answered, he didn’t know how it could be so - he didn’t know how to respond. Brothers and sisters, how will you respond when God answers your prayers of deep longing? Will you doubt that it could be true? Or will you praise the Lord? And how will you handle your season of waiting? Will you cling to the character and promises of God, or will you turn away from the faith? Will you keep on going - praying and doing what God has called you to do - or will you give up in disappear? Brothers and sisters, during this season of waiting, however long it may be, do not lose hope. Do not cease praying. For as Zechariah reminds us, the day when the Lord will answer our prayers may be just be coming. Amen. 

Sunday, November 16, 2014

“Fear vs. Joy” Matthew 25: 14-30

We’ve reaching the conclusion of our sermon series on being a good steward for God. For some of us this has been an uncomfortable sermon series, for others it has opened up eyes to a new world of possibilities - Kingdom possibilities. 
As we conclude today, I want you to think back on a question that has been posed throughout the course of this series - what keeps you from giving? What keeps you from giving your very best to God - be it time, money, or talents? While it may not exactly how we would phrase it - fear is what blocks our hearts from God. We are afraid to do the wrong thing, or that what we decide will have consequences we are unprepared for. 
The truth is that we all have fears - and we all need to decide what role fear will play in our lives. Will we let fear dictate the course of our lives, or will we intentionally live for something bigger than our fears? Will we take a step of faith, or will we try to ignore that which makes us fearful?
Today’s parable speaks to some of these questions. Jesus presents three examples of folks who were given the opportunity to work for the master, even when the master wasn’t present. They were given an amount of money that reflected their skill and faithfulness in the past. Two of the stewards invested what they were given and came back with a 100 percent return. They weren’t fearful to try their very best for the master or worried what could happen or what if things went wrong. They simply had the master’s best interest in their hearts.
But the other steward, buried his money, returning it to the master, exactly as it was, albeit a bit dirtier, saying that his fear of the master and screwing up had lead him simply to bury the money. And what was the masters’s reaction? One that brought even more fear -taking the money from the steward and shaming him. 
We all have fears in our lives, but we need to decide how our fears stack up against the fear of not giving our very best to God. In the words of Pastor Andy Stanley, “Fear is not so much something to be avoided as something to be leveraged.” Stanley realizes that we cannot get rid of our fears completely, or ignore them and hope they go away, because they won’t. Instead, we need to analyze our fears to find out exactly what we are trying to avoid, what we are hiding from, what is behind them. 
Do you have any fears around money? If so, where did they come from? Watching your parents struggle when you were little? Making a bad investment? The effects of the recession? The question is not if we have fears, because we all do, but if we are letting them drive our lives. Fear can either lead us to act wisely - realizing this world is temporal, thus investing in the work of the Kingdom (like two of the stewards in the parable), or it can lead us to hoard our money, forsaking being generous for God (like the last steward). 
Ultimately this entire sermon series, entire topic boils down to one very large question - do you want to be more financially secure or more invested in Kingdom work? This isn’t a question that deserves a knee jerk reaction. Its one that must be bathed in prayer and brought before God. Because ultimately its asking us where our heart is at and what are we going to do about it. Is our heart to preserve our legacy or Gods? Is it our desire to take risks for the Kingdom or play it safe? As we turn to scripture, especially today’s parable, we find the Word telling us that in the Kingdom of God it is better not to play it safe - but that may not be where you are right at this moment. I encourage you to take time to write honestly reflect on where you are in your relationship to money and how that reflects your relationship with God. Take time to write down your fears and hand them over to God, asking that God does not let your fear block the work of the Kingdom. 
For it is not until we have acknowledged our fears and have them met by the grace of God that we can be freed for the joy of giving. There are some of us here today who struggle to give because we are blocked by our fears - wanting to save up money for the what ifs of the future, or just trying to make it through the day with the mess our finances are in. There are others that give because scripture commands them to, and this is a good start. But they don’t feel the joy in giving yet. The joy of the first two stewards in the parable that went back to their master and were elated to return both what they had originally been given and their profits for the sake of the master. 
Do you experience such joy in giving? Or do you feel that it is more of a duty? For those of you who do possess that joy - do you know the moment that you realized it happened? Or did it happen so gradually that you didn’t even notice?  
As Christians our ultimate goal isn’t just to invest in the Kingdom of God because God says to do so - rather it is to allow God to transform our hearts so that we discover the deep and real joy of giving for the Kingdom of God. The joy of working past our fears to discover the richness of God’s blessings. Do you think the first two stewards in today’s parables didn’t have fears and their own what if questions? My guess is that they did, but they didn’t allow their fears to dictate their behavior. They instead worked hard in order to bless their masters name. Are we willing to invest like this for the Kingdom of God today? Or are we simply burying what we have, trying to preserve it for the future instead of taking risks?
If you are willing to take a risk for the Kingdom of God today, I would invite you to present to God the card that you were given last week. You don’t need to put it in the offering plate or bring it forward. In fact, I want you to take it home and put it some place where you will see it. If God has laid on your heart a number that you just can’t conceive, a number that scares you, pray to God about what the next step is? Making a budget? Using the credit card less? Limiting your style of living? Pray and then take that step of faith.
Brothers and sisters, the truth is that we can never save enough to be content. And we can never spend enough to make us happy. When money holds us in the grip of fear, we cannot fully live for the purposes of the Kingdom. Money itself is neither good or bad, but when money controls our actions, we have a problem. We’ve created money into a score card of sorts - an indicator of our worth - instead of our belovedness as a child of God. 

Today’s parable is speaking directly to how money can affect our relationship with God. My question for you this day is which steward do you recognize yourself in? Are you in the place in your relationship with God that you want to be? Because we only have two choices, friends, to save for our personal future or to give for the future of the Kingdom of God. My hope and prayer is that you have invited God into your finances through this sermon series, and now can begin the hard work of setting aside your fears of the temporal to find the joy of the eternal. Amen. 

Sunday, November 9, 2014

The New Deal with Sowing Matthew 6:24

For the last few weeks we have been talking about viewing stewardship in a new way - as our opportunity to decide how we want to partner with God in the sowing of the Kingdom message. Today we will get into the nuts and bolts of what that could look like, if we so choose.
There are very few people who go through life without some concern about finances along the way. Even those who have many financial resources still hit bumps in the road. The question we need to ask ourselves is if we are going to invite God into our finances at all time or only ask for God’s help when things do not go as planned.
At the church across the street from my parents house there is a sign that reads “Do you check the foundation before or after the storm?” The answer should be before, but many of us live our lives where we only check the foundation - if we are building our live on God’s love, presence, and word - when things go wrong. It is not uncommon for folks to claim that they will be more dedicated to God or more faithful in their church attendance or giving, if God would only bring them out of a horrible situation. Sadly, that is not a solid foundation and many return to old habits when life is made aright. 
How we treat finances is part of the foundation in our growing relationship with God. As the gospel of Matthew reminded us this morning - we cannot serve two masters - both God and wealth. Yet we seem to have bought into this cultural idea, that we can love both God and money. That its okay to keep God out of our financial decisions and situations. 
Because Matthew is talking about slaves relationships to masters, the image that is conjured up is that of stewardship. Slaves were stewards of their masters household, representing the needs and values of the master when he was away. It was not the slaves household to make their own decisions with - instead they were to make decision that reflected their master’s wishes, even in their absence. Pastor Andy Stanley states, “When we no longer enjoy managing our money, we shift our strategy and start focusing on how to persuade God to come to our rescue”. In other words, we don’t even see ourselves as managing what God has gifted us with. Instead we see it as ours to do with what we wish, until we make a wrong decision or something unexpected happens - then and only then - do we want God to intervene. 
The question is what keep us from asking God into every aspect of our lives, including our finances, before things go wrong? It is as if we fear that asking God into this private part of our life will result in a change - and it probably will. We fear not knowing what God may lead us to do, so we become irrational, trying to keep God out of this particular part of our lives. Or we make decisions about whether to trust God with issues around money or not based off of feeling. Here’s the thing - many of us wouldn’t buy a car without test driving it, just because we had a good feeling, or buy a stock because it feels right. Our theology around finances should not and cannot be dictated by our emotions.  In fact, its often hard to be generous when our emotions come in to play, especially when we are overwhelmed with concerns. Instead, we are asked to take a step of faith and put our emotions aside in order to put our finances to work for God’s interest. It needs to be a decision, not a feeling. For it is only after that we take this step of faith that we can begin to trust God in all areas of our lives and have our perspective about giving change.
So what does giving look like for God’s Kingdom? And what does God’s word have to say about how much to give or when or why. If we look back to the scripture we reflected upon last week from 2 Corinthians 9 (verse 7), Paul tells the Church to give what you have decided in your heart to give. Paul doesn’t make it about net vs. Gross income or a percentage or even a set amount. Instead he tells them to give from their heart. To intentionally think and pray about how much they are to give. 
However, that’s a bit hard for us to wrap our human minds around. Many of us feel like we need more leading, more prompting, a bit more of a plan then to give from the heart. So Pastor Stanley purposes the three ‘P’s of giving.
First, Priority Giving. The first check you write out of every pay check should be to the local church. Why the first? Because according to Stanley, “Whatever you place first with take precedence over everything that comes later”. This is what Jesus is trying to remind us of in this mornings scripture. The reason we cannot serve two masters, either intentionally or unintentionally, is because something will always have to win out and take priority in the end. If we choose the one we will hate the other. 
We all have priorities in our lives - with our time and schedules, with our money. With just about every aspect of our lives. If we make giving to God a priority then we are declaring that we trust God and everything else will be taken care of. If we wait to give what is left over, we are equally saying that we need to wait and see what we can give to God. Both stances reflect what we think about God and money, if we sit down and truly consider it. 
The second ‘P’ is percentage giving. Percentages help us remember that we are the stewards in today’s gospel message, not the masters. It also helps us keep perspective about the sowing. Part of the hiccup with percentage giving is that too many of us are living beyond our means. It is as if God hands us a dollar and we try to give God the dollar back, but God tells us that all that is desired is ten cents. We should be grateful, first and foremost for recognizing what a gift God has given us, what a responsibility God has entrusted us with. To have given us 90 percent of our resources to choose what to do with. However, some of us have a hard time even giving the ten percent back, because it seems like too much when we look at our check books instead of too little when we consider all that God has done in our lives. But even with the 90 percent, we are to make wise decisions that reflect God’s will as the master, not our sole desire as the steward.
The third ‘P’ is progressive giving. This means that we progressively increase the percentage of our giving over the years. As we grow more in love with God and align our will more towards that of Kingdom purposes, we should want to give more. We should intentionally choose to give more. Now I realize that this is scary. To think about giving even more than 10 percent. But what would it look like to prayerfully make the decision to increase your giving by one percent every two years? Trusting that God will use that for amazing things in the lives of those who need to hear the Gospel message? Or maybe you pray and find that you are to increase two percent every ten years. That is between you and God. The point is that we want to give more to God as we recognize more clearly what God has done for us. 
There is also a fourth ‘P’. Prompted giving. This is very frightening if we are making financial decisions off of feelings. Sometimes God will ask us to stretch out in faith and give more. This doesn’t mean we stop giving the first three ‘P’s to the local church - its not either/ or, its both/ and. Which often won’t make sense when we are looking strictly at the numbers, but is often when God is inviting us into the biggest opportunities for the Kingdom.

Over the next week I want to invite you to prayerfully consider which ‘P’ you need to start out with. Consider what God is leading you to give to the church in the coming year. Not to keep the lights on, but to expand the Kingdom. Not because we feel like we have to, but because we make the decision to do so. Then next week you will be invited to write this amount down as as covenant between you and God. No one else will see it. It is simply a reminder for each of us, to trust God, in all realms of our lives, including finances, for the sake of the message of Jesus, as we declare that he is our master, not money. Amen. 

Sunday, November 2, 2014

2 Cor 9: 6-11 “Trading Places”

The old adage says “You reap what you sow”, but did you realize that was a Biblical concept well before it was a cultural phrase? In today’s scripture lesson the Apostle Paul is speaking to the Church in Corinth about sowing and reaping for the bounty of the Kingdom. 
Whether we realize it or not, we are all investing in something. Investing in daily living. Retirement. Our family’s future. And what we invest in is determined by what lens we we view the world from. Aren’t sure what your lens is: what is the first thing you think of when I say the word “money”? Spending? Saving? On what? For whom? 
The lens we see the world through colors our perspective. As Christians, is the lens we view all else through God? Do we trust God with our money? Do we trust God enough with the harvest to invest in the sowing? Do we focus more on our basic needs or on expanding the Kingdom of God? 
Paul is telling the Church that each of us needs to decide what exactly we are going to invest in - what exactly we want to be a part of. It has to be a willful decision, not one that we make only when we have to or half-heartedly. Paul is essentially asking the people in Corinth, and us today, what we are going to sow - God’s word, or something else?
A little background - Paul is writing this section of 2nd Corinthians as a thank you to the people in the Corinth Church for investing in another Church he ministered to, people they would never meet in this life time. Its an odd way to say thank you for your generosity isn’t it - or is it? Paul is trying to affirm the choice the Church has made to sow generously so that other’s may come to know the message of Christ. 
Now I can hear the argument forming - but Pastor Michelle - the people in Corinth didn’t have the same financial obligations as we have today. You are right -they didn’t have the same bills - the auto insurance, health insurance, life insurance, and utility bills - but they were heavily taxed - more then we can even imagine today, and made a lot less, having a lot more children to feed. The vast majority, over eighty percent, of folks during the New Testament Era would have been considered poor by their own standards, let alone ours. In order for the Church in Corinth to give to Paul for the sake of the gospel message in this magnitude they had to be generous and make sacrifices.
Have you ever noticed when your generosity becomes limited? Is it at certain times of the year? Or when certain bills arrive in the mail? Our generosity is most quickly limited by our desire for surplus above sowing. When we want to make sure every I is dotted and every t is crossed for the future. But here’s the thing, the future is beyond our control. We don’t know what the future holds - when the next stock market crash will come or when we will receive a pink slip. That’s why being generous for the sake of the Kingdom is a risk, an act of trust. When we give sacrificially we say that we believe God’s Kingdom is worth investing in. We are proclaiming that while we may not know what the future holds, we want to give abundantly. And we are willing to sacrifice the mirage of being in control that accumulating wealth and saving for a rainy day can bring in order for more people to come to know the One who is in Control.
So Paul is thanking the Corinthians for their generosity so people could come to believe in another city. He is trying to use this moment to teach them that God used them to meet the needs of another group of people, and that God will meet their needs as well. It is God’s desire to meet the needs of God’s people - but the first step is trust.
Paul begins this portion of his thank you by pointing out that whoever sows sparingly will reap the same, and whoever sows bountifully will reap beyond measure. In other words, whoever sows generously will reap generously. But reap what, exactly? When we give, we receive something back in return for giving. Sometimes it is a peace in our spirits. Other times it is seeing lives being transformed. And yet other times it is a growth in our personal trust of God. We get something back, not because we deserve it, but because God is a God of bounty and blessing.
A word of caution, this passage has been used by a plethora of preachers to say that when you give, you get back even more and become materially rich. Note that is not what Paul is saying. Paul is speaking more of receiving God’s rich spiritual blessings. We should never give because of what we expect, or demand to get back, in return, even if it is as simple as a thank you. We give as an act of faith of who God is. Paul is trying to tell that Church not to fear that they are going to lose what every they are giving way, but instead see it as an investment for God that will effect both others and them. In the words of Pastor Andy Stanley, Paul is trying to say “The farmer doesn’t lose seed in the end. He gains a crop”.
Paul goes on to tell the church that God loves a cheerful giver. A person in this parish once told me that it is fun to give money away. Its fun to spread the word of God through our generosity. And once we begin giving, we don’t stop. Sometimes we give simply because it makes us feel good, cheerful. But I think its also so much more than that - we need to think about why we feel good when we give money away. As Christians we feel good because we recognize that we are giving to something bigger than ourselves. Recognize that God is up to something in the world. Recognize that God is inviting us to be part of the Kingdom work before us. The reality is God is going to do God’s will with or without out - but God is inviting us to be a part of it and to see the bounty of God! 
Paul is proclaiming that God wants us to share abundantly in and for every good work! God wants to use us to distribute for the sake of the Kingdom to the very ends of the earth. The apostle even says that God will supply seed to the sower (that is the giver) in order to increase the harvest. Once again, this verse and accompanying concept has been abused by preachers in the past to mean that God wants to give you everything that you want. But that isn’t what Paul is trying to say. Instead he is pointing out that if people are faithful in putting the Kingdom of God first in their lives, including in their finances and giving, that God will provide what you need, which is not the same as everything you want. God is going to to give the giver or sower what they need to keep sowing, because God wants to see us continue to be good stewards. 

At some point you need to just go for it. You need to just give in order to be a steward of what God has blessed you with, however meager you may think that is. At some point you need to take the leap and invite God to be a part of your finances whether they are good or bad. It was true in Paul’s time and its true in our time, often money is the very last door we open to God in faith. Are you willing to take a risk? Are you willing to open that door? Are you willing to sow for the harvest of the Kingdom of God, giving God control? Amen.