Blessing the World

A Sermon by Rev. Larry Fry based on I Corinthians 3:1-9

College Avenue UMC

February 16, 2014

This week, Penny and I got a card and letter from a friend.  Through a mutual friend she had just found out that we were grandparents.  She saw and purchased this card years ago and saved it to send us when we became grandparents.  On the cover of the card, it has two potatoes, looking at their new baby.  The card cover says, “Look, he has our eyes!”  The inside of the card reads, “Congratulations on your new small fry.”  How funny!  We are moved by her thoughtfulness.

This new “small fry,” named Toland, is one of the greatest joys of our lives and now another to have the honor to baptize him, a Sacrament of the Church.  A sacrament is something started by Jesus in which the Holy Spirit brings a special blessing.  Baptism is not necessary for salvation, but it is important and a great help.   Toland’s life journey and his faith journey are just beginning.

So many parts of our culture work against the best kind of spiritual growth, and one of those is the desire for a quick fix for everything.  I love the analogy Paul uses.  Paul is reminding us faith education is a lifelong process.  Like a garden, it takes planning and care. While it is true that God can do things quickly in the lives of people and churches, God often uses long-term growth.

To compare it to cooking, many things do not work well in a microwave.  The amazing delicious smell and taste of yeast bread just does not come out right out of a microwave.  The best things in life often take time.

Growing Disciples Takes Time

Deepak, father of our daughter-in-law, has been studying the Japanese language a long time.  He needs it for his work.  For over 10 years he has been taking lessons, and he is still not done with lessons.  In our culture, we want things done NOW.   Not all things happen in the best way NOW.  Deepak, there is an app for your phone called DUOLINGO.  The marketing ad says that you can learn a language in the 34 hours.  Tell that to a language teacher.

Years ago, this church decided that our education program for children needed to be changed.  We adopted a program called “Rotation” which means rotating classrooms and different learning methods.  One week a video will be presented, another week will have the students acting out the story, another week will involve art or science.  And each age level goes deeper into the meaning of each story.   We live in a culture that does not want to wait for anything … we want it now.  But here at College Avenue, we have designed Sunday School curriculum, rooms, furniture, programs to nurture and grow disciples with plans that stretch over years.  Just recently, our children have been studying the story of Zaccheaus.  Our design for growing disciples has each higher age level going deeper into the meaning.  And by the time we get to the youth, the emphasis is on applying it to the world.  You can see in our lower hallway photos of the drama. 

Paul was writing to a church caught in conflict, needing to grow.  This is the church where Forrest Buhler would be needed for mediation and David Proctor for planning.  They had lost sight of their mission with their energies directed into resentments.  Paul was addressing this letter to people who were not being their best.  They were obviously doing things that were not appropriate for the Christian faith. 

A group developed around Paul as a leader and another around Apollos.  And they had each developed negative feelings toward the other group.  The result was they had lost sight of their purpose as a church.  We have all been around organizations where the whole energy of the group was caught up into small groups wanting to get their way.

I am so glad that Toland will grow up learning good things from two faith traditions.

Here is a quote from a Hindu source:

A mature being does not render evil for evil; this is a maxim one should observe; the ornament of virtuous persons is their conduct.

--Ramayana, Yuddha Kanda 115

Obviously Paul and Apollos had followers and they did not always agree.  You can feel that in the church at Corinth, things were not going well.   They had turned mean.   And to offer a healing opportunity, Paul uses two images for teaching … one a garden and other a building. 

Paul is reminding us not to get bogged down in petty rivalries, or lose energy God intended for other purposes, like blessing the world.  Harvest means that a church should be blessing the world around.   If a church is not blessing the world something is very wrong and Paul reminds us that it is God should be LARGE AND IN CHARGE…NOT ANY ONE PERSON.

Our New Building is to be a New Garden Where We Can Bring About New Life

Not many weeks from now, people will be planting their gardens, and soon after that plants spring up and then, a harvest.   Only God can grow a garden, and only God can grow a church.  That knowledge should give us both humility and excitement.  God is growing something unique here and we get to help.

Back to this truth: it is God who creates and creates all things growing.

In my experience, when a church starts a building project, curious people appear in the door, coming to see what is growing here.  They come knowing that building is one sign of growth.  What they really hope to find is a place of spiritual growth that will help their spiritual journey.  Does this faith family invite, nurture, empower, and send people into the world to bless it?  If it does, they will be interested … very interested.

What we want most is for our church to grow spiritually and through a relationship with God out of which mission and ministry bloom like blossoms and fruit.  The Holy Spirit continues to breathe life into our church.

Disciples Are All Unique and Not Everyone Has to Fit Into a Mold

In Paul’s day, groups were taking sides by defining a disciple in one way.  God never defines disciples in only one way any more than he defines only one size and style of strawberry.   This is a hard time of the year for strawberries.  Several people have mentioned this recently.  The groceries stores have these giant berries … just a few in a box and white on the inside and taste like plastic.  I think these berries make us long for the small berries, each a bit different in size and shape, but so, so good.  We especially love the ones grown in local gardens and sold at the farmer’s market.

It Takes Time to Grow a Church Because God is the One Who Grows It

I can see many ways a new fellowship hall will benefit our children.  It will be a place of fellowship around potlucks, the excitement of games, the joy of dance, a large community forum or a concert or an art exhibit showing what our church children have shown in exhibits.

I know that those on our Building Committee feel that this has been a long, long process.  Yet, every thought, every suggestion, every question, every idea was considered.  Some of the ideas were included and then subtracted. 

The vision is something that will be usable 50 years from now, not by us but by God for those who come after us.  Temples, churches, synagogues, and mosques are places where we both honor God and pass on to those who follow us, our best traditions and our faith.  God has been working on College Avenue only 60 years.  And look what God has done with us!  Within these walls what God has grown is faith and discipleship, and that is what God wants us to expand. 

We will soon be deciding about a building expansion project.  We all know that what is more important than any building is what happens in the building.   A bigger facility is an opportunity to bless the world with the activities in that space.

As we can see all over town, any group can build a building … only God can grow a church.   The moment we decide that we are doing this all by ourselves, we have already shut out the One who builds our spiritual home.

From Christmas to Epiphany

What Brings us to Our Knees, Prompts Us to Give, and Helps us Return to our Work

A sermon by Rev. Larry Fry, Based on Matthew 12:1-12

College Avenue United Methodist Church •  January 5, 2014

Christmas is an invitation to set aside our regular tasks in order to go and see what God has done in the birth of Jesus Christ.  To celebrate the birth, many events take place.  There are programs and concerts and a community meal on Christmas Day.  For many of us Christmas includes worship, family gatherings, time with friends, prayer, and eating together.  It is a time of wonder and joy and fellowship.  Pondering what God does brings me to my knees as a prayer of gratitude.  Christmas is the announcement of a birth.  Epiphany is the baby shower!

Prompted by light and angels, the shepherds set aside their regular tasks in the fields and made their way to the manger to see this thing that had come to pass.  They found the Christ Child, and they were on their knees.  After their visit, they returned to their lives changed, recharged.  Prompted by a star and angels, the Magi came to the Christ Child to celebrate this amazing new gift to the world in Jesus.  They brought gifts to represent Jesus’ royalty, his life of prayer, and his death for our salvation.  The Magi had, in the giving of gifts, been given a greater spiritual gift that brought them to their knees. They knew who Jesus was.  This is not a child who will steal Herod’s throne and crown.  This is not a person who will take advantage of people for his own benefit.  In the manger is the One upon whom God’s Spirit rests.  After their visit, they returned to their lives by another way because they knew that King Herod, or any king, did want to go worship another king.  Herod had other evil plans.  They found what brought them to their knees and it prompted them to give generously, and they returned to their regular jobs praising God.

What do we take away from Christmas?  Hopefully we are renewed, having gone to Bethlehem in our hearts to visit the One who brings us to our knees.  What new loving purpose came into focus that would prompt you to give generously?  What did Christmas change in you that helped you go to your regular life in a better, stronger way?

For many, with children out of school, it was a time for celebrating family: some sledding, some time with grandparents which gave the parents a break, time with relatives you do not see very often.  For others, it was a time to read a new book, time to play with something you bought for yourself for Christmas, time to do a bit a travel, time to go to a bowl game, and to watch some traditional Christmas movies. 

Epiphany is the transition time, as we look to a new year, getting back into gear.  Epiphany is a time of resolutions, new goals, and new classes.  Our Church life begins a new year with new church officers and a new church treasurer.  Our Early Learning Center has been redesigned to make it possible for us to care for more children and help our budget.  Our building committee is active again revising the designs for new addition and remodeling.

In our family, we put a new wall calendar in the kitchen, with all the family birthdays and anniversaries joyfully transferred from last year’s calendar.  Our calendar is one provided by our daughter-in-law, Leena, and every month has a picture that includes our new grandson.  In a yearly transition we shredded a whole bunch old records and we had one of those little tiny shredders that you are supposed put in one paper every three months for it to keep running.  We wore it out completely.  So it is time to start the New Year with a new shredder.

Epiphany is proof that with God, energy and purpose for a new year grow into ever-greater goodness.  Did you notice that the Good News starts with God?  Mary says yes to God’s good news that she is pregnant and then Joseph, then the shepherds, then the whole world knows through the Magi.  Great news for us and the world spreads in ever widening circles.  Each part of the story expands the goodness into more lives.  And the reason that you and I are here today is that the good news came to us.  And we are to spread it.

Kaitlyn is a new person in our church family.   She has been involved in our New Adult Class.   Having enjoyed the church, she arrived last Sunday bringing her whole family.  You see Good News is something you go and tell about.  That is why we send out Christmas cards.  The one thing that is certain: when all the Christmas decorations are put away, we do not put away Christmas in our hearts or minds or souls. It is something that spreads to the world around.

This is a great story….these royal scientists have to go check it out.  They go for the hard evidence.  And the amazing thing of it is that they discover something that brings them to their knees.  That is reason for many of our life journeys.   We are seeking something that will bring us to our knees.  They discovered that the God’s love, large enough for the universe of stars and planets, was close enough to include them and you and me.  That is what happens at Christmas: we find again and again, something of God that brings us to our knees.

This story also reminds me that the Christmas story eliminates the possibility of our thinking that the Good News is for one country, our country alone.  It cannot be for one group of people over another, one time over another.  This is “forever” good news. Epiphany is a great celebration of light because God offers divine love and guidance through the Holy Spirit to all people, in all places, at all times.   Light goes out in all directions.  And that expansion of the Good News extended to you and me and then asks us to reflect that light somewhere else.  Students and faculty and staff, scientists and artists, farmers and town people, rich and poor are all included. 

When God created you and called you good….that did not mean that it was for good.  When God created you, that did not end God’s activity in your life.  God does not sign off until you get to heaven.  We get to be God’s project all of our lives and beyond. 

Rosemary Carroll fell recently and has had quite a struggle.  I told her that when I fell off my front porch and broke my ankle, that the pain of the broken bones, was not as great as the pain of my kicking myself for falling.  She agreed.  There are moments when we have a hard time seeing that we are part of God’s work.  In painful we might forget that we are God’s creation.  And with the help of the Holy Spirit we get to be some new manifestation of God Epiphany….a new appearance of God’s light.

One church I know of turns every Epiphany into a baby shower for the Christ child.  They bring baby gifts which are taken to a local emergency shelter.  They send out notices before the their Epiphany service that are invitations to a baby shower.  The bulletin that Sunday has a few silly baby games, the entrance is decorated with baby shower things, and after worship there is punch and cookies.  It is similar to what we are doing with the tree of warmth for the students of our public schools in transition and Odgen Friendship House.

God comes with new beginnings in the midst of difficult times and our world is often a fearful place at times.  Herod, with the cooperation of some of the religious people, will soon figure out how to get rid of Jesus.  They do not succeed this time.  Jesus was born into a world of fear and hatred and war.

What does fear to do to us?  More gates, more guns, more wars, and more prisons.  This is not what God has in mind.  We live in a world full of fear; Jesus came into a world of fear.  Jesus is God’s promise that God chooses again and again to enter into our lives.  He chose to become like us, to live and die for us, as we are.  And he chose to give us the Holy Spirit which helps become all we can become.  And some day God’s purposes will be fulfilled in this world.

Some of you return to difficult jobs caring for a family member.

Some of your return to work knowing that you face very difficult projects.

Some of you are facing surgery soon. 

So let’s begin in prayer as we transition back to a new year of work, bringing our talents and gifts and interests and skills to join God’s promise that fear will not win.  Let’s follow the light of God’s love and purpose with extravagant generosity.

A New Heaven and A New Earth

A sermon by Rev. Larry Fry

College Avenue UMC

November 17, 2013

Very soon our children will again lift our spirits in a Christmas program.  “A Piece of Christmas” takes place on December 15 and you do not want to miss it.  As I repeat again, our children are not perfect, and we are not perfect.  But God blesses us by our participation.  God guides us in our journeys.

Let’s watch this young man who knows the books of the New Testament in order, better than I do.   

He also knows George Strait songs far better than most.  It is always funnier if you are not the parent. 

The whole Bible is a love story about God, to us, from God.  It is in the participation that we discover it is a love letter for us.  Over and over, God makes loving covenants with us, hoping we will be faithful.  Over and over we break the covenants and God works again to restore them.

Isaiah is, in my opinion, the grandest prophet.  He presents to us a glorious vision.  It is God’s dream and one that drives us.  Isaiah invites ancient Israel, and us, to move beyond all that is broken and dysfunctional in the old world.  God is, all day long, working for good in the world, creation a new heaven and a new earth.

A new existence is to be the center of God’s future.  It is a place where all nations, all people will have access to the goodness and guidance of God.  The vision is one of the most powerful of all the Bible.  Infant mortality was a big problem then and it is still is.  Courtney Fowler has alerted us and to other to the need for better Maternal Care in Third World countries.  The Church Ladies have made birthing kits so that some far away have a better chance of delivering a baby with less risk of infection.  In more developed countries children now have the blessing of incredible health care possibilities.  Even the pain of childbirth is eased by modern methods.  Fewer will die because there will be clean water and medicines.  These are some of the ways the United Methodist Church is in mission in 1000’s of places.

Here is pictured a better communication and closeness between God and God’s people.  There can be a closeness that God will address needs even before those needs are spoken.  This intense closeness comes when we know God’s intense love for God’s people.  The vision of God is a people with greater discipleship with vitality and courage and consistency and compassion.  This is the Kingdom of God.

The people in every troubled land want the same thing: a house to call home, some land to call your own, food and water and education.

The vision is of older people living long lives.  In our day of home health care, we see people living longer lives.  We also live in a day when we are cutting services to keep people healthy.  For example Shawnee County just cut the six home health care professionals from their budget.  The older adults served by them will more quickly now enter nursing care facilities. 

I am convinced that God is calling us to join in the renewing the universe.  And we get to help with that.  Our food packing event last weekend provided over 2,000 meals.  When they get to their destination their village will know greater health and joy.  Please look at the photos on our website and see the joy in the faces of our children as they got to help, even the littlest ones. 

Our church teachers help us become new by touching our lives.  Henry Adams once wrote: “A teacher affects eternity.  Teachers can never tell where their influence stops.”  A teacher’s influence lives on in the lives of those who follow.  Joe Ott sent out a quote with his report of the Harvester’s Food Distribution:  “If you want to touch the past—touch a rock.  If you want to touch the present, touch a rose.  If you want to touch the future, touch a life.”

Just behind this magnificent vision of Isaiah are two simple tenets:

GOD CAN CREATE: EXPANDING WHAT IS ALREADY HERE….TAKING THE GOOD AND MAKING IT BETTER.

The second idea is harder for us to accept. 

GOD CAN CREATE FROM NOTHING AND BRING ABOUT THINGS THAT ARE TOTALLY UNEXPECTED.  THIS IS WHERE WE TRUST THAT IF IT IS GOD’S WILL IT WILL HAPPEN AND THE RESOURCES WILL BE THERE.

God wants us to see the kingdom of God where every village is a joy and every person is a delight.   The whole reason for our building expansion is to create a space where people get made new.

This past summer Penny and I headed to the Mississippi River hoping to see some more of Mark Twain.  When we got there we could not enjoy a river boat because the Mississippi was over its banks in some places.  Sandbagging was going on in many places.  I did read this week a Mark Twain story that fits.  My teacher Harrell Beck once told a story about Mark Twain.  He was notorious for his ability for swearing a blue streak.  His good Christian wife was not a fan of that part of his life but she put up with it for 30 years.  When they moved into a new house in Hartford, Connecticut she thought it was time to change his language.  The showdown come when he cut himself shaving and let go with a whole paragraph of serious swearing.  She walked up to him and repeated every word he said!  He was enough of a 19^th Century chauvinist that he was taken aback.  But then he smiled and said, “My dear!  You have all the words right, but you don’t know the tune!”

In a twist of understanding Harrell Beck was challenging us.  “I want to be the kind of Christian who gets the words right and knows the tune!  Because it’s the tune that the world hears.  It doesn’t matter how much you talk or show up at church, it doesn’t mater if have a fish on the back of you car---it is what people see in your lives every day.”  400 people have looked at our website and looked at the photos of the food packing event we did last week. 

I want to close with a video shown at a recent leadership conference for the Great Plains Conference.  The video is a video presentation showing Isaiah’s dream that was fulfilled in Jesus.  The world needs places where people can be made new.

The tune is Amazing Grace and several of you have commented that the only part of that song you have trouble with is the word “wretch.”  If you understand the origins of the song you know that one who wrote the lyrics was a captain of a slave ship.  He came to realize that to do so was a terrible sin, a wretched thing.  His life was changed by Jesus Christ and he eventually entered full-time Christian service.

This is the song Isaiah dreamed of and the song Jesus live and made possible.  It is our song as well.

Guiding Values Do Guide

Guiding Values Really Do Guide, Thank God!

Sermon based on the Beatitudes, Luke 6:20-31

Rev. Larry Fry, College Avenue UMC

All Saints Sunday and Harvest Sunday go together well.  Today we remember those who have gone before and then we claim our turn to live out our faith in Jesus Christ.   The definition of a saint is a follower of Jesus.  And what a gift to have the baptism of Gage!  In our baptism God commissions us to be saints…the ones through whom the light of God shines.  I am glad to be growing older because I get to know more saints.  Saints are those people who see the light of God in the world and invite us to look there too.

Matthew and Luke gather these sayings of Jesus about what it means to follow Jesus.  They are fascinating and difficult to understand.  Matthew places Jesus on a mountain offering these high and lofty guiding values so it is called the Sermon on the Mount.  It is to everyone.  Luke puts Jesus down on the plains, speaking to deeply committed disciples, putting those guiding values into daily action.  By this time disciples had enemies and people who misunderstood their commitment to Christ.   These guiding values were and are guides our living in the world.

Matthew’s version includes “Blessed are the peacemakers.”  That is easier to swallow than “Blessed are the poor.”  On the surface this sounds nuts.  Jesus is not saying that all people who are poor are blessed.  Poverty is a terrible condition.  Being poor is not a blessing.  The idea here is that someone who is following Jesus may be poor in things of the world, yet blessed with spiritual riches beyond measure.  Jesus, looking at his followers, said “Blessed are you who are poor.  Again, Jesus did not say, “Blessed all who are poor.”

I will try a paraphrase.  “Love God and your neighbor.  Don’t be discouraged if times get tough.  At least this way you know your need of God.  Not all of your friends are going to understand your Christian commitments.  Don’t give up because you are worrying about what others think.  God has not forgotten you.  God does not promise you a rose garden.  But even in the worst wilderness ever, God will help you grow a rose garden.  God will reward your faithfulness.”

Two women talked to me this week about a wilderness of a deep parental fear.

            One mother talked about the schools having safety week and how they

                        practice drills for tornadoes, fire, and active shooters.

                        When we think that our children are doing those we

                        are both grateful and we shiver a bit, praying that it will never

                        happen at our schools or any school, or airport.

I also ran into a woman who yelled out to me in the hospital.  I had officiated at her wedding and she wanted to tell me that they just had a boy.  She loved being a mom, but she was scared to death when she read about school shootings or when a child was harmed. 

God did not intend for people to be afraid when they walk into an airport.  God did not intend for any person to live in fear.  God did not intend for us to be stuck in twisted agendas and quarrelling or culture wars. God did not intend for people to be in such crushing poverty that it crushes the human spirit.  God did not intend for people whether rich or poor to be totally concerned about themselves with no compassion for others.  It is possible, says Jesus to be so into riches that it isolates you from the world.  If you are full of yourself and selfish desires…that as far as you go in life.  But all, rich and poor, can live sharing with the poor.

In Jesus’ time the Romans lived for wealth and pleasure, and kept working at it through violence, and oppression.  Jesus saw the poor crushed in poverty.  And he saw people who were rich and could help them, yet they did nothing.   He saw people putting selfish pleasure as their top guiding values and in that way their wealth became a barrier to know the Kingdom of God.

            Yet, Jesus gave to us a community of discipleship:

                        Where guiding values were very different

                        Where the joys of life were in love and sharing.

            He knew this community would not fit in and there would be struggles, but

                        new life would come in the middle of this caring life together.

One of the greatest parts of our church are committee meetings.  We have fun, we laugh, we listen to one another, we learn what God wants, we love one another, we lead the church to live out our guiding values in the world.    Instead of quarrelling, we listen and learn.

I was reading one commentary that reminded me of the Monty Python movie the Life of Brian.  Brian is delivering the Sermon on the Mount, preaching to a crowd gathered.  One woman yells from the back…”Speak up.  We can’t hear you.”  What did he say?  I think he said, “Blessed are the cheesemakers?”  What is so special about cheesemakers?  The man next to her said, “I don’t think we can take it literally…it refers to all manufacturers of dairy products.”  By this time I am silly with laughter.

In all of the silliness of that movie there is something that is very profound. The idea beyond the movie the Life of Brian is that Jesus offered truth.  It was the people who misunderstood and quarreled about the meaning.   In the Gospels, we see even the closest disciples missing the point.  The teaching is not off but the understanding and the application are off.  That is why church and small groups are so important…to maintain our life of learning and loving.  The saying of Jesus need the interpretation of the Holy Spirit in our midst.

Jesus challenged the early disciples and he challenges us to put God first and live these guiding values.  It is amazing to know that Jesus was talking about a community with the compassion that weeps when the world weeps.  Jesus presents a kingdom where all (each and every) are ultimately valuable to God.

The early Christians confounded many because they suffered and no matter how much they suffered, they somehow knew the joy of living for God now and knew have the rewards they would have in heaven.

I think of how my mom and dad, and my grandparents modeled the Christian faith for me and I am grateful.  Dad was the church treasurer and choir director for many years.  Every week he called choir member to remind them.  That was before email and you only had to dial four numbers on the rotary dial.  I remember their commitment to the budget of the church to make sure there were programs for me.  Those programs guided me into a life of faith and full-time service.  This church has met its budget and mission share for almost 30 years. 

Think of a world where lives and communities are guided by compassion and respecting the dignity of every person.  Compassion is the deliberate decision that that the wellbeing of another human being is a high priority of our lives.  No matter what they have done we still make a positive, proactive decision to do good things for them.

Think of a world where hospitality and spiritual growth were the order of the day.  Being a disciple means willing to learn and follow Christ with ever greater faithfulness.  It means to say to God, “Let me follow and learn.” 

It is my experience that the joys of discipleship are always greater than the troubles of being a disciple.   With Gage and Addison and Gavin a part of our church we now have 70 active children.  I want them to know what it means to be a saint.

I want them to know that joy that comes from knowing that God chooses us, claims us, makes us saints, so the love of God can shine through.

A Celebration of Seniors

A Celebration of Seniors

Rev. Larry Fry

College Avenue UMC

October 20, 2013

Based on 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

For any new generation to have the Christian faith, there has to be another generation or two or three to help them discover and then make that faith their own.  It has been said that any church is only one generation from extinction.  One of the most amazing things about this church is that we have multiple generations worshipping, learning, giving, and serving together.  What an incredible blessing that is for us!  Do I have an Amen?

Psalm 78 is one of my favorites:

            We will tell to the coming generation

            The glorious things deeds of the Lord, and his might,

            And the wonders he has done…..

            To teach to their children;

            That the next generation might know them,

            The children yet unborn,

            And rise up and tell them to their children

            So that they should set their hope in God,

            And not forget the works of God.

When Sarah Biles suggested this as a special Sunday we ran with it.  We want today to honor the older generation in our church, to love seniors, of which I count myself a member.   Claribel Cornford, at 104, gave Sarah a favorite phases:  “We all travel the same road; some hit more bumps that others.”   Some of the phrases like “Do unto others…” does come from the Bible.  Others do not.  But, will use them during the sermon.

Last Sunday may be labeled for all time as pumpkin day.   I wish we had a photo of George Milliken’s smiling face surrounded with a swarm of smiling faces as he gave away his giant pumpkins.  George had a masterful year with pumpkins.  Some of the vines got to be more than 20 ft. long.   He has saved the seeds and maybe next year will be a good year as well.  It is one example of how one generation inspires the next.  All week I received stories of what happened to the pumpkins.

On Tuesday it was pumpkin day as our Early Learning Center went out to a pumpkin patch and they all came back with smiling faces, pumpkins, and shoes with inch of mud on the  soles.  It is great to get out in the out-of-doors and enjoy God creations.   

To grow a great pumpkin, it helps if you have to great soil.   To grow a Christian, it also helps if you have great spiritual base.  God can grow faith in anyone and at anytime, but it helps to have a rich soil of a faith heritage and a loving community of faith.  If you are going to bloom where you are planted, it is great to have parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, Sunday School teachers, family friends, or others church members.  Parents have great influence over their children.  It has been said, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”  Attitudes, faith, and actions of a son or daughter can be a lot like their mother or father.

And if you visit the community gardens or some local gardens, you might see a fence around the garden to keep deer or other critters away.   Fences offer protection for  sprouting plants.  Children also need to be protected and today there are lots of possible dangers.  The internet poses risks, as children can access just about anything and they need protective guards and lots of conversation with parents.  As we all grow in faith we need protective guides to keep out crazy ideas and dangerous theologies.  The old phrase, “A rotten apple spoils the whole barrel.”   The means that the negative influence of one person can grow and affect others.  We also know that this kind of thinking has led some churches to trying to get rid of some people, instead of surrounding all with the loving care that Jesus demonstrated and wants us to demonstrate. 

SOUND TEACHING

The best protection of all is sound teaching.  That is great soil in which we all grow.  We are blessed in this church with great teachers who spend time preparing and leading and help us grow. 

Guidance may come from family members. 

            My uncle always said, “There is more than one way to skin a cat.”

                        One translation of that is one way does not work, try another.

                        Some family member told you “Stand up straight.”  They

                        may have said: “The measure of a person is a firm handshake.”

            When you did not make the time, your grandma may have said,

                        “Every dog has its day.”  That is you will have your chance some

                        Some day when you shine and make it all happen.

            “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”          

            Some family member may have told you to clean your plate because

                        there are starving children in China.  I would ask mom to name one.

Parents and teachers taught us: “Waste not, want not” and “A penny saved is a Penny earned.”  Parents remind you that the “Early bird gets the worm.”  If you don’t get up early and work hard you “won’t amount to a hill of beans.”

BIBLE

At this church we take the Bible very seriously.  Yet the culture does not.  There is a cartoon in the New Yorker magazine which shows a man going up to a bookstore information desk.  He has to spell it out.  “Yes, that is “B-I-B-L-E.”  The woman, looking at the computer screen says, “Yes, we still have one of those….it’s in the self-help section. 

A grandfather told recently told me about his granddaughter who is part of our church family.  He said that this was the year of her first smart phone.  Of course she has apps on her phone and one of the first apps she put on was a Bible.  And that person is Isabella Williams….way to go, Izzy. 

            I believe that as the Bible was formed, God was at work through the Holy Spirit.

            I believe that the Bible contains the Word of God. 

            I believe that the Bible offers one of the clearest pictures into the heart of God. 

            Scripture is inspired by God; scripture stimulates creativity and life.  Yes, it contains history and letters and poetry and you can see how ideas developed over the centuries.  But it is also the Word of God for the people of God to help them discover the glory of God. 

Children can get from Seniors the message that “God made us.  God loves us.  Sin distorts us.  God forgives us.  Jesus saves us.  And heaven awaits us.”

Paul is older and he wants younger to follow in this ministry.   He wants the work of Christ to continue.  So Paul calls on Timothy to take the challenge of spreading the good news of Jesus Christ to world, near and far.   Any church is one generation from extinction, unless the younger generation catch the vision and guiding values.

ITCHING TO HEAR

Paul is warning Timothy that when he preaches, don’t preach just what people want to hear, to make them happy.  He told Timothy the people were “chompin at the bit,” wanting to hear words that make them happy.   The Word of God offers something much better than happiness….a God-given joy that accompanies risk-taking adventures.  And Brad and Susie Shaw and Mark Fowler are just back from helping build a church in Panama.  This week Courtney Fowler joined Bishop Jones at a leadership conference for the Great Plains Conference meeting at the new conference Lay Leader.  And she tells me she will present a workshop at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa in February.

Mark Twain once said, “I am not worried about the parts of the Bible I don’t understand.   I am very concerned about the parts I do.”  Scripture holds up a mirror so we may see ourselves reflected and to know we are not always ready to hear the challenges; we would rather hear the comfort. 

So many time when we read the Bible, we are wanting to make it into what we believe, what we agree with, what is easy.   If we avoid the temptation to hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest, the Bible suddenly changes everything.  Instead of us examining the Bible…the Bible examines us.

           

When this happens we are “chompin’ at the bit to run this race of faith, wanting to hear, strained forward to listen….

What are you itching to hear:

            Congress has made a deal to keep the government funded…thank God.

            The scores for the baseball games – Detroit or Boston.

            New stories about our grandson or even better videos and photos.

                        What is he doing?  I itch for those every day.

Seniors, help us itch for the stories of what God has done.  Then we will have itching ears for what God is doing now and we will be more ready to join God in what lies ahead.

           

Paul was saying to Timothy: don’t race after every new fad.    “All that glitters is not gold.”  Just because something is new it may or may not be what God wants. 

Thank God, for seniors can help remind us what is most important to God and not just what seems cool at the moment.

Children can see in Seniors the message that “God made us.  God loves us.  Sin distorts us.  God forgives us.  Jesus saves us.  And heaven awaits us.”

A Letter of Hope: A Sermon offered by Rev. Larry Fry

College Avenue UMC: October 13, 2013

Based on Jeremiah 29: 1, 4-7:

These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

I often have the privilege of visiting senior adults who have moved and downsized their belongings.  This may have been a move into an apartment or some form of residential living.  After selling or giving away so much, something treasured and kept are letters.  Letters are pieces of history you can hold in your hand, as you hold love ones in your heart.

It used to be that someone might say:  “I owe someone a letter.”  I still hear that among a few older persons.  In earlier times, you kept letters because they were treasures.  My mother recently showed me a letter written by my great-grandmother about my birth.  You kept letters.  In fact, Penny and I have saved all the letters we sent back and forth when I want in Boston and she was in Kansas.   And, no…I am not going to read any of them.  But I loved getting each one.  They had a great impact on my life. 

Letters in an earlier time were treasured much more than the emails.  With the cost of regular mail, emails are the current way to write.  Skype, Twitter, and Facebook have changed the way we communicate.  But a handwritten letter was a valuable thing.  You know that the person who wrote it out by hand had touched that letter.  You could tell some things about the writer by the handwriting.

The letter we read from Jeremiah changed the course of history.   This letter so impacted lives it is included in Scripture.   Jeremiah wrote to a people deeply distressed about their unsettled world.  Israel and Judah, the Jewish homelands had been devastated by war.  The people where going through post-traumatic stress syndrome at the very least.  Prisoners of war had been taken to the city of Babylon and were now thinking of their homes back in Jerusalem and the people they loved.  War had separated families and faith communities.  People were angry and depressed and they wanted to know how long this was going to last.

Our faith ancestors were wondering what to do in the meantime.  Seek revenge?  Try to escape.  Start fires, make bombs?  Spit at them.  Throw shoes or rocks.  Stay away from these disgusting Babylonians.  Worship God alone.  Don’t cooperate with the other side.

Jeremiah gives great advice for any age:

Do your best!

The better you make your life, the better everyone’s life will be, including your enemy.

Continue to grow!

Learn all you can and work together.

Build houses, have children, you are going to be here a while.

Even if it is for the long haul…love your enemy.

“Bloom where you are planted.”

Stay non-violent and do not seek revenge.

Seek the Peace of the City

Seek the Kingdom of God

Search for ways make the worst better too and make the best better.

Jeremiah is saying…seek the welfare of even those you hate, pray for them…for we are all in one world together.  Don’t close off the world.  Instead open your hearts and minds and doors.  Learn to grow in the midst of foreigners. 

Jeremiah had warned them over and over.  God is not pleased when the people of Judah turned their backs on orphans, widows, the poor and sojourners.  How these people are treated is what can make a nation great in God’s eyes.  But Judah did not do well in that department, so God let this happen.  You are here and you are not going home any time soon!   Jeremiah said, “God has not forgotten you.  But this nightmare will not be over tomorrow.  It is going to last 70 years…two generations.   For this time we are going to have to deal with what we brought on ourselves."

The notion of praying for the welfare of the enemy remains as controversial as ever, though the prophetic message is clear.  God intends the well-being for all peoples.

Our faith ancestors did learn from Jeremiah and they did make it through the exile.  Some of our Old Testament was written there.  After the exile was over they people did get to go back to their beloved Jerusalem.

And even today we are following Jeremiah’s advice. 

Build houses with Habitat for Humanity. 

Plant community gardens and share their produce. 

Settle down and the live the best lives possible. 

Create churches as places where people will say: God is there!

This week I have spent a bit of time with the family of Roger Johnson.  While in ICU he was to put on his wall chart goals that we wanted to accomplish.  His wife Linda and his daughters were there to help him define the goals. The first was that he wanted to learn how to swallow again.  And the second goal was to go to jail.  That means that we wants to return to his work with the literacy program at the jail, helping people with language skills.  Carol Ott does that as well.  

There are many similarities of what was happening then and now.  Many of us have felt helpless during this time of much upheaval.  We have experienced a government in neutral, divided over what is best for our country.  We have looked at Syria with enormous sadness.  80,000 doctors have fled the country and 90% of the hospitals have been destroyed.  It used to be that all soldiers tried to avoid civilians, schools, and hospitals.

Jeremiah had faith that the current circumstances, as bad as they were, did not limit what God was going to do.  Faith is the refusal to be defined by what the world may look like at the moment.  Faith is the belief that God is at work through an invisible power.

Faith is a powerful force:

Kansas was settled with the faith of pioneer settlers.

Kansas and Nebraska churches were formed through the faith of circuit riders.

There is a faith when an artist sits at the easel.

There is faith when a woman gives birth to a child.

And just marvel at the faith of a child to try new things.

Faith is that inner vision which enables a forward movement of one’s whole being even in adversity.  The Christian is one who has faith that God’s work and love are seen, not just in the past, but for now and in this place. 

Thank goodness for people on this planet like Malala Yousafzai.  She has been getting lots of publicity that inspires us all.  She was targeted by a radical and violent religious extremist group that does not believe in education for girls.  At age 12 she countered them with her belief in education as what is best for everyone, especially the city.  She found out that she was a target but thought surely they would not come for a girl.  She imagined what she would do if she confronted an attacker and she thought of throwing a shoe, but thought that then she would be no better than him.  Then she thought she would tell the attacker that education makes life better for everyone and she even wished it for his own daughter.  They did attack her and shot her in the head.  The bullet narrowly missed her brain.  After miraculous surgeries she now says she has a second life.  People have prayed to God to spare me and I was spared for a reason—to use my life for helping people.

In the midst of tragedy, we must find sources of hope.

Fredrick Buechner, one of my favorite writers, offered the following:

Is God all-powerful?

Is God all-good?

Terrible things happen.

You can reconcile together any two of those statements.  But you cannot put together all three of them.  The problem of evil is perhaps the greatest single problem of religion.  Christianity offers no theoretical solution at all.  Christianity merely points to the cross and says that practically speaking, there is no evil so dark and so obscene that God cannot turn it to good.  Jeremiah told the people that God had not abandoned them.  God is still here and there.  “Don’t give up.” 

One of the amazing things of this church is the number of people who volunteer in the community:  OFH, Shepherd’s Crossing, Flint Hills Community Clinic, the Crisis Center.  I will invite you next week to put on the registration pad the places that each of you volunteer.

In the New Testament we see faith in a family having an unexpected and divine baby, the humility of a carpenter, the poverty and spiritual wealth of Jesus, the public disgrace of the condemned, forsaken and crucified, and how he established a new kingdom without borders or walls.  We see Jesus welcoming and healing dreaded Samaritan and telling how Samaritan have gratitude and faith.

A church is a place where all ages learn of God’s love shown in Jesus Christ.  God has given us a God-size vision.  Each one of us who follow Jesus has been given a life vision and the gifts to make it happen.  Each one of us may claim our mission in life because we know that the Holy Spirit will help make that happen.