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INVESTING IN GOD'S PROMISE - from Sunday, September 29, 2019

9/29/2019

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Money, money, money .... MONEY! The most disliked topic comes at us straight on this week - faith and money. Ever thought of investing in God's promise? Not the counsel you're likely to hear from your financial adviser. But you will hear about it in this week's sermon.

Money and what we do with it is a most sensitive topic. Scripture has some teachings that you're unlikely to appreciate.

We start with the prophet Jeremiah who gets a surprise visit from his cousin Hanamel. With Babylonians waging a siege against Jerusalem, the real estate market is full of sellers and no buyers - no surprise. Yet cousin Hanamel wants Jeremiah to buy his land, an ancestral property which bears an obligation for him to buy. As the prophet will explain, he makes the purchase as an investment in God's promise ot his people.

That may not be the financial guidance you were looking for. Right.

Let's consider Jesus' parable which features a rich man and a poor, disgusting beggar named Lazarus who begs at the rich man's gate. These two are at the opposite ends of the worldly order; one on top and one at the bottom. Since Jesus always teaches about the Kingdom, it should be no surprise that there is a reversal. Both of them die, but the despised poor beggar man - Lazarus (he has a name; the rich man doesn't - another reversal of the worldly order) - goes to heaven to stand with patriarch of faith and righteousness Abraham while the rich man is tormented in the fires of Hades.

That would be the end of the story, but the editor had two more pieces to insert. 

The point is clear: the rich man who scorned the beggar Lazarus has invested nothing in God's promise which abided in Lazarus, and his return on his investment is "the first shall become last." Lazarus has always borne God's promise, and though the world would not invest in him, he is given new life in the Kingdom.

What does this mean for us? How would investing be different if our values followed the way of Jesus' Kingdom teaching? Watch and find out below.

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TOTAL FRAUD GETS BLESSING! - from Sunday, September 22, 2019

9/22/2019

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Total fraud gets blessing? Yup. How do we make sense of Bible stories that reward bad behavior? With great difficulty. But we try this week with Jacob scamming his dad and defrauding his brother, and then Jesus telling a parable about a cheating manager, who cheats the boss even more, and then gets commended by the same boss for his deviousness. Like I said, with great difficulty.

We don't like these kinds of stories. They're an affront to what we believe, to our expectations, to our standards of conduct and principle. We like nice, neat, clean stories with a morally uplifting message.

Yet we've got these stories that challenge us gravely.

How can God allow the covenant blessing to be passed not to the entitled elder twin, but to the scheming weasel younger twin? It all hinges on primogeniture, the custom of the society. However, God doesn't seem to care too much about this human tradition. And it shows.

Jesus tells a story - a parable in particular - about a cheat who gets caught, and to deal with his exposed situation, cheats even more. For this, the master who got cheated (both times!) actually commends the cheater for being "shrewd." Really, Jesus?

Being a parable, we need to identify it and strip away all of the commentary that comes after it which is trying desperately to explain it and not doing a really good job. It seems like the confusion of today's Bible scholars is matched by the confusion of the Bible writers; they really didn't get it either. But there it is.

Want some answers? It is waaaay too involved to explain here, so you'll have to watch the sermon video below. Enjoy!

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TOO PRECIOUS TO LOSE - from Sunday, September 15, 2019

9/15/2019

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​Flawed, even failed ... yet still precious? Looking at the golden calf episode in Exodus 32 and Jesus' teaching about the lost sheep and lost coin, we get insight into why God puts up with flawed, even failed people like us.

You probably have that item in your house. You know, the one that is flawed, even failed, yet you still regard it as precious and can't bear the thought of tossing it in the trash heap. Somehow it reflects something special, something in which you may have invested deeply, perhaps reflecting a particular occasion or period in time that would be (symbolically) lost. We have these flawed, failed, and precious items, and so does our God. It's us.

In Exodus 32, God is about to strike out in divine wrath when God learns that this problematic people are ditching God. For these special people, God has provided all things, from liberation to provisions on the wilderness sojourn, now to the edge of the Promised Land. And these despicable ingrates have decided to worship a golden calf simply because Moses has spent a long time on the mountaintop with God. 

Moses intervenes with a nifty negotiating strategy with God and forestalls the punishment these people actually have coming to them. Yes, they were too precious to obliterate, but they were quite maddening!

Jesus is teaching the same kind of thing. Dining with his usual group of tax collectors and other sinners, the Pharisees and scribes grumble behind his back. Jesus picks up on it and tells them two parables.

First, the lost sheep and the shepherd who leaves the other 99 - his whole flock - in order to find the moron sheep who got lost, and probably not the first time either!

Then, the women with 10 coins who loses one. She stops everything and turns her house inside out until she finds that one coin.

Both the shepherd and woman are wildly exuberant at finding and recovering the one who was lost.

Jesus tells them, and us, that this is how God is, how the kingdom is. The ones most cherished and valued are the ones who are lost, forgotten, outcast, and oppressed.

It is about us and about those around us. Find out the whole story in the sermon video below.

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TREASURE IN CLAY JARS - from Sunday, September 8, 2019

9/9/2019

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The Potter's wheel keeps turning, finding in the lump of clay that treasure which awaits within. Remember that each of us is an unfinished work, and that our life journeys are shaping us on the Potter's wheel. Re-discover how we are treasure in clay jars!

There comes a point when many of us would give up and call it a day. Indeed, sometimes we should because we're unprepared or unready, having more to learn, more tools to acquire, before we can gain what we seek to accomplish.

Jeremiah 18 is an object lesson directed by God for the prophet. Going to the potter's house, Jeremiah sees how the potter deals with flaws and failures in the work-in-progress; pick up the material, slam it down, and start anew. God relates how this reflects what God does with nation-states, acting like a potter in deciding whether what has been created is worth continuing or if it needs to start over.

Paul uses the same imagery in his second letter to the church in Corinth. The fractious faith community there continues to be problematic. It seems that they have been visited by Gnostics, people who believe that there are sacred secrets that can progressively bring the faithful to ascend the ranks of the heavens to the highest level. Paul is masterful when he uses the image of himself and his people as treasure in clay jars.

Find out what it means for us, and for those we might encounter in ministry, that the Potter's wheel continues to turn and create new life for those who remain moist and pliant to the Potter's touch. Watch the sermon video below.

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EXALTED IN THE HUMBLE SEAT - from Sunday, September 1, 2019

9/1/2019

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Be well-positioned. Get the best seat. Climb the ladder. Upward mobility! Except God and Jesus have flipped the order. Downward mobility? Yup. 

Getting the best place can be the difference between a great time or a bad time at the movies, theater, stadium, arena, restaurant, checkout line, or even church. It's one of the first things we do when we enter a place with seating - "What's the best seat?" Having the best position can be critical in racing events. And there is a whole lot more. 

In short, the ways of the world have us always seeking to position ourselves favorably. However, God and Jesus mess things up.

Psalm 113 makes it clear who is in the best position and unsurprisingly that is God, exalted on the throne on high. But God stoops down to look upon creation. The order of things seems a bit wrong and God decides that they should be fixed, raising up the poor and needy to sit with the princes, and blessing the childless woman with a job at happily mothering children. This creates that abomination of all: line jumpers. We hate that, but God does it, raising the bottom to the top and granting blessing to the one believed cursed.

Jesus seems to be reading from the same playbook as his Father-God. At a dinner, he tells the guests a (kind of) parable about an invitation to a wedding feast (read "the messianic banquet at the end of the age"). He teaches that guests should seek the less favored seat lest the host asks them to move down, causing shame and embarrassment. This way, the host could invite you to a better seat, bringing a sense of honor and respect.

Then Jesus teaches about the kinds of guests they should invite to their own lunches and dinners. Not people already known to them from their social circle, but the poor and needy who apparently aren't part of their social circle.

Both are lessons about downward mobility among those faithful to Jesus. There are teachings about the nature of the Kingdom and how to live and act in ministry within it. Find out what this means for those quite comfortable and secure like us by watching the sermon video below.


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