Thursday, September 23, 2010

Sermon – Luke 16:1-10 – Called to Service

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard
Sermon – Luke 16:1-10 – Called to Service
Beaver Dam and Pitts Creek Churches
September 19, 2010

Today I will be continuing with my third sermon on the subject of our calling from God. Two weeks ago we looked at our call to discipleship and considered the cost. Last week we looked at our call to repentance and found that this causes great joy in heaven and on earth when we turn from sin and turn toward God. Today we will look at our call from God to serve others. But before we get to this important work please pray with me.

Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy Heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)

Luke 16:1-13 NIV Luke 16:1 Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.' 3 "The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg-- 4 I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.' 5 "So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' 6 "'Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,' he replied. "The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.' 7 "Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe?' "'A thousand bushels of wheat,' he replied. "He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.' 8 "The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. 10 "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? 13 "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

The traditional interpretation of this Scripture goes like this. An Estate Owner hires a new manager to care for his affairs. The new manager is dishonest and squanders the Estate Owner’s resources. The Estate Owner decides to fire him. But first the new manager writes down the debts of his customers feathering his own nest and squandering even more of the Estate Owner’s wealth. And the Estate Owner and Jesus commend him for acting shrewdly.

This parable from Jesus is one of the most difficult to understand. In it Jesus seems to be commending a dishonest manager. Jesus seems to be saying that we, children of the light, should be shrewder with money like the children of the world. Jesus seems to condoning both theft and lying provided that you use your ill gotten gains to make friends and take care of yourself. Jesus seems to be telling us to be unethical. How does this make any sense? Why would the preacher choose a passage like this for Sunday worship?

Let me tell you the story in a little different way to illustrate what I think Jesus is trying to say.

A wealthy Estate Owner enjoys the view from his penthouse apartment on Park Avenue in New York City. After checking in with the office Friday morning he intends to join his wife at their home in the Hamptons. He has come a long way since growing up on a farm in rural Virginia as the son of a poor farmer.

Through some very shrewd land deals he has been able to buy up most of the small farms around the one he inherited from his father. He did it in this way. He gained control over the companies that supplied the farmers in that community and the companies that brought what the farmers grew. The farmers, many of them his old friends, went heavily into debt paying the Estate Owner high prices for seed, fertilizer and feed, and receiving low prices for their crops, chickens and eggs. And when they could not pay their debts they lost their land. As a result many of the farmers were now leasing, from the Estate Owner, land they had once owned, and they were still accumulating debt.

The Estate Owner rarely went back to Virginia. He knew that he had taken advantage of his old friends and that he would not be welcome back home. So he hired a new manager to supervise the estate and make sure that the money needed to support his lavish lifestyle continued to flow.

The job of the new manager was to carry on all the business of the estate. He was to make sales and loans, and collect, forgive and pay off the debts of the Estate Owner. He would maintain the relationship with customers, and collect receivables and rents. He would be paid by a commission on these transactions. And he was required to make careful records of each transaction.

The new manager saw how the tenant farmers were suffering with high costs and low revenue. He saw how they were going even deeper into debt every year. And he tried to help his friends. He changed contracts to be more favorable to the tenant farmers. He forgave rents in bad years, and he paid top dollar for the grain and chickens that were produced.

Because of this the Estate Owner saw a decrease in his revenue and ordered an audit of the entire operation. The new manager knew that what he had done would be discovered and he would be accused of squandering the Estate Owner’s resources. He knew that he would be fired from his job for being dishonest. But he also knew that somehow he would have to remain friends with the people of the community who had been cheated by the Estate Owner and saw the new manager as the face of an unjust system. So he came up with a plan to protect his reputation and restore the relationships he had with his friends. Before the auditor arrived and before he would be fired, he would write down all the debts owed by the tenant farmers to the Estate Owner to manageable levels. And that is exactly what he did.

After the audit was complete the Estate Owner returned to his rural home to fire the new manager for squandering his resources. He was apprehensive about returning home knowing how many of his old friends now hated his guts. But he had to take control of the estate if he was to continue living in Manhattan with all the perks he was used to. So he flew in his private jet to Salisbury where his Bentley was waiting for him.

When the Estate Owner arrived home after an absence of many years he was shocked by what he saw. His old friends came up to him to thank him for forgiving their debts, lowering their rents, and charging lower prices in his store. His old church threw a party in gratitude for what he had done. The Estate Owner realized that his new manager had restored the relationships he had with his friends that had been broken years before, and now he was welcome at his old home.

By forgiving unjust debts the new manager had been a faithful to his responsibility to the Estate Owner because he had protected the assets that really mattered, the love shared by the Estate Owner and his friends. And so the Estate Owner commended his new manager for a job well done.

What the new manager had discovered was his calling from God. God had not called him to serve the interests of money. Rather he was called to serve the interests of the people in his community as a disciple of Jesus Christ, and accept the high cost of this calling. In doing so was able to restore the relationships that had been broken. He helped the Estate Owner to recognize his own sins and accept his call to repent which resulted in great joy in heaven and in his old community. Both the Estate Owner and the new manager realized their true calling from God. This was God’s call to serve not money, but to serve one another in love.

In twenty first century America we take a very short term view of the world. We are focus on quarterly financial reports that tell us how we are doing. Our goals are to maximize the income on each of those quarterly reports as we build up our own wealth. So we pour over quarterly mutual fund and bank statements and try to find ways to generate a little more investment income. We also try to maximize our income from our farms and businesses and jobs. Obtaining maximum income and investment returns is an obsession with many people. But God is not calling us to serve money. Rather we are to keep our attention forward toward the heavenly kingdom where all debts are forgiven and old friends live together in harmony. And the promise of scripture is that we can have a piece of this new kingdom right now. But first we must love our neighbor even more than we love our money.

The Estate Owner sold his Manhattan Condo and house in the Hampton. He built a new home
on his father’s farm near the river. He bought a boat and a golf cart. He started attending his old church and committed the rest of his life to caring for the people in the community who had been harmed by his business practices. And he experienced the great joy of being a repentant sinner and a disciple of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Sermon – “Called to Repentance” – Luke 15:1-10

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard
Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Presbyterian Church
Sermon – “Called to Repentance” – Luke 15:1-10
September 12, 2010

Today I will be continuing with my series of sermons on our calling from God. God calls us in many ways through the world we live it, through scripture, and through our dreams and consciences. We respond to God’s call with prayer and service. Last week we looked at God’s call to discipleship and considered its great cost. Today we will look at God’s call to repentance, which when we respond, brings God great joy. We will investigate what repentance is, and what God’s response is to repentance. But before we embark on this journey let us pray.

“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy Heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)

This morning I will be doing more of a Bible study than a sermon. So you may want to open your Bibles and leave them open to Luke chapter 15 while we go through the scripture together. This technique will be familiar to the men who attend the Friday Morning 6am Breakfast at Our Place Restaurant because we have been studying Jesus’ parables for several month and this is how we have been doing it. So open your Bibles to Luke 15 and let’s take a look at the first ten verses beginning with the first two.

Luke 15:1-2 NIV Luke 15:1 Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."

The setting for our scripture today is around a table, probably a great feast. The religious leaders of the day, the Scribes and Pharisees are concerned because Jesus is eating with the least desirable people. The tax collectors and sinners were people who notoriously disobeyed God’s law. By eating with them Jesus was tainting his own reputation.

Several years ago there was a Catholic priest who would go into a local bar in Bethesda MD every Friday night for Happy Hour. He led a Bible study in the back room of the pub. People would order their drinks at the bar and then go into the back room with the priest to study scripture together. The priest called this “Theology on Tap” and it is still happening in many Catholic dioceses today. I remember thinking, as a Presbyterian, how awful it was for a priest to hang out in a bar and for people to be drinking while studying the scripture. But now I realize that this is the perfect place to go to communicate God’s call of repentance to sinners.

Repentance does not mean “I am sorry for something I have done.” That would be “regret”. Repentance literally means to turn around. You are walking in one direction and you turn around to go the other way. The call to repentance therefore must go those traveling the wrong way calling them to turn around and go in the right direction. And to issue this call Jesus, or the followers of Jesus, must go to where the sinners are and give them God’s call to turn around. The Pharisees and the Scribes just didn't understand that eating with sinners is just where Jesus was supposed to be.

Now let’s look at verses 3 through 6. This is a story Jesus told to illustrate God's desire that we all repent. This story is the familiar Parable of the Lost Sheep.

Luke 15:3-6 3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.'

You have four chicken houses with over a hundred thousand chickens, and you discover that one has escaped and you follow its tracks from the door of the chicken house into the woods. You enter the woods. There you spend three weeks hunting for that lost chicken while ignoring the needs of all the other chicken who are suffering without food and water because you are wandering around in the woods. Would any of you chicken farmers do something stupid like this? Of course not! But God would. God is so passionate that everyone be saved that God will search for every one that is lost no matter how many more have already been saved. God is compulsive about this. God wants all sinners to repent, turn around, and follow God’s lead. So God would leave all of us sitting here if it would mean that one person in Pocomoke would turn away from sin.

This image of God searching for the one lost sheep is a powerful one for the church. For two thousand years, the church has adopted as its own symbol the shepherd’s staff. In some denominations the shepherd’s staff is literally carried by the bishop signifying his role in gathering up the lost sheep. In our Reformed tradition we call Ministers of the Word and Sacrament “pastors” which is just another way of saying “shepherd”. I have placed next to the communion table this morning a picture from the Beaver Dam dining room. It is a picture of Jesus as the good shepherd cradling the lost sheep in his right hand and carrying his shepherd’s staff in his left. This picture, at one time, graced many Sunday school classrooms across America. The image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd must always be in our minds

This brings us to verse 7 where Jesus explains meaning of the parable of the lost sheep. Let’s take a look at what it says.

Luke 15:7 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

And so we see that the reason we need to repent, to turn from our evil ways and follow God. It is so that God and all the angels of heaven may rejoice with a great feast, with singing and dancing because a sinner has been saved. And we in worship are privileged to join in the celebration with God and angels along with those who repent. This is really good new that turning from evil ways lead to a great festival with God.

Now let’s turn our attention back to our Bibles and take a look at the next parable in Luke, the Parable of the Lost Coin, verses 8 – 10.

Luke 15:8-10 8 "Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.' 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

You have been laid off and you are down to your last few bucks. There is just a one more night at this rundown hotel before your money runs out and you are living in your car. Every day you count your money and pray for a job. But today you are ten dollars short on rent for this dingy room. You search everywhere for an extra $10. You walk into every business in town, asking to do anything they need for $10 with no result. You stop in every church asking for $10 – nothing. You are so desperate you actually think about stealing the $10. You want that $10 more than anything. God wants everyone to turn from sin and be saved more than anything.

The image of God as a woman sweeping the floor is not one that a male dominated church has emphasized over the centuries. We usually don’t think of God as a woman. An elder once complained when I used the pronoun “she” while referring to God in one of my sermon. But Jesus wants us to understand God both as a man and as a woman. That’s why he gave us these two parables. And the great symbol of God as a woman is the broom. No one has ever painted a picture of God as a woman with a broom weeping the floor even though many of the prophets talked about God with the metaphor of sweeping. But here in the Gospel of Luke the broom is of equal weight with the shepherd’s staff. Both the broom and the shepherd’s staff go together to form an image of women leaving their houses and men leaving their herds to participate with God in finding the lost.

Jennifer Copeland, the Methodist minister at Duke University, once told a story about a prominent woman. She had been the first woman to hold a senior level in her organization. There threw a lavish party for her. And all the women coming to the party wanted to bring a symbol, a divine symbol, because they were all Christians. So they all brought brooms. Some bought new brooms just for the occasion, others just picked up an old one from the kitchen cabinet. The brooms signified their freedom from an ancient stereotype. With a broom God not only searches for the lost, but she also cleans away the dirt. Imagine, if you will, God using her broom to sweep away all the dirt and sin that has accumulated throughout our lives.

Worship is the time when we join with God and the angels of heaven in rejoicing over the repentance of sinners, and that why it is so important for us to talk with sinners and invite them to receive the blessing of forgiveness if they turn from their evil ways and turn toward God. Each time this happens we are entitled to join with God in rejoicing. So get out your shepherd staffs and your brooms and let’s get to work finding the lost and rejoice with those who repent.

Lord Jesus, we thank you for this wonderful image of God with a shepherd staff and a broom searching for lost sinners. Let us join in the search and help up to proclaim the good news of forgiveness for those who repent. Then let us celebrate with you every time and sinner turns from sinful ways and turns to you. Amen.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Sermon – Called to Discipleship – Luke 14:25-33

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard
Sermon – Called to Discipleship – Luke 14:25-33
Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Presbyterian Church
September 5, 2010

This morning I am beginning a series of sermons on the topic of calling. Our creator God calls us in many ways and we respond with prayer, worship, tithing, service, and study of scripture. So everything we do starts with God’s call. And today we will be looking at God’s call to discipleship and its cost. But before we get to all of the please pray with me.

“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy Heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)

A week ago Saturday an extraordinary event happened in Washington DC. A radio and television talk show host, political commentator, comedian, and entertainer hosted a rally on the mall. Many people expected this to be a political rally, but this was not Glenn Beck’s purpose. Rather he organized the rally to call Americans back to God. Beck has assumed the
role of prophet for our nation. A prophet sees the reality of the situation a society faces and calls that society to return to God.

For too long America has refused to count the costs. States and localities thought they could provide excellent retirement benefit for police, fire and teachers without counting the cost. But now they find themselves unable to pay for both essential services and retirement benefits and they look to the federal government for a handout. Corporations thought that they could offer generous benefits to their union workers without counting the cost, but this has led some to bankruptcy and federal bailouts. And many individuals thought that they could acquire possessions without counting the cost and are now buried under a mountain of credit card debt and home mortgages that they cannot afford.

Even the federal government in Washington has failed to count the costs of wars, Social Security, Medicare, and other services and is faces with accelerating debt and the bleak prospect of depression if it squeezes all of the money out of the economy or inflation if it prints money it does not have.

Glenn Beck has seen all of this clearly and realizes that the solution for all of this lies not in the political process which has led us to this place. Rather the solution rests in our returning to God.

In the scripture that you hear earlier, Jeremiah 18:1-11, another prophet was speaking at another time, but the similarities to today are striking. The people and the government of Judah had indulged themselves for centuries without counting the costs. Their extravagance had finally caught up with them. There was no money left to care for the poor. This injustice was eating the society from the inside just as Assyria was threatening from the outside. Jeremiah was sent by God to call the people to discipleship and count the cost before it was too late.

Five hundred years after Jeremiah God sent another prophet to call the people to discipleship. In the first century BC, King Herod became envious of the great cities of the Roman Empire. He embarked on building programs without counting the cost. He built new cities, new palaces for himself and his family and greatly enlarged the temple in Jerusalem. But as costs increased he heavily taxed his people. The government failed in it responsibility to care for the poor and people became primarily concerned for their own families and their own possessions. People went further and further into debt. Then a prophet arrived and taught the people to pray to their God saying, “Forgive us our debts and we forgive our debtors.” Jesus saw all of this clearly and called the people of his day to discipleship. Listen to what Jesus said about discipleship and counting its cost.

Luke 14:25-33 25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters-- yes, even his own life-- he cannot be my disciple. 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29 For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30 saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' 31 "Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

Jesus was calling people back to God. No longer were they to focus solely on their families, their lives and their possessions. No longer were they to fail to count the cost. Rather they were called to be disciples of God and this required following God's lead at whatever the cost regardless of what happens to families and lives and possessions.

This is a hard message for us in twenty-first century America. We have become used to not counting the costs. We have assumed that everything is free. Consider the church. Someone else will pay for it. Someone else will volunteer. Someone else will pay for our salvation with his life. We enjoy the worship and Bible study but a debt is piling up. We have ignored the cost of being a disciple of God for too long and now the debt is quite high. What are we going to do about it? I am going to suggest four ways we can pay the costs of becoming disciples of God.

The first way we could pay this cost is self denial. Self denial is not the same thing as engaging in self destructive practices. I don’t want you to start drinking alcohol or having sex outside of marriage. Rather self denial is a gift from God that frees us from the deadly poison of love of self. Self denial is a release from selfishness. Maybe you don't need that new car this year. Maybe that vacation should be put off for a little while. With this gift of self denial we are free to love God and our neighbors as much as we love ourselves.

The second way of paying the cost of becoming a disciple of God is cross bearing. Cross bearing is the part of the gift of self denial that allows us to bear suffering. Cross bearing means that we obey God even if it leads to our own suffering of pain and loss. The image of Christ on the Cross helps our imagination to give us patience in bearing pain. We experience cross bearing in a hospital room with a loved one or at a visitation in a funeral home. Cross bearing helps us to heal from the diseases and injuries we suffer, provides punishment and correction for the mistakes we have made, and comforts us when persecuted knowing that Christ is with us in injustice.

In addition to self denial and cross bearing there is also the third way we can bear the cost of becoming a disciple, meditation on eternal life. Meditation on eternal life invites to contemplate the mystery and share in the wonder of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Meditation on eternal life brings us to greater faith which will divide families and communities because radical faith in our risen Lord forces us to make a commitment that surpassed the commitment we have made to our families and to our communities. Sometimes our families and neighbors won't understand our commitment to Christ and and church. We must always remember that anything we might lose when making our commitment to Christ pales in comparison to the rich rewards awaiting us in heaven.

When we contemplate on self denial, cross bearing, and meditation on eternal life we arrive at the fourth way of paying the cost of becoming a disciple, proper use of God’s gifts in our lives. The Bible teaches us that God has given us many blessings for our needs and our delights and we are to use these blessings in the proper way. We should live simple lives balancing undue severity and excessive indulgence. Calvin gave us four rules for living simple lives. First, we should indulge ourselves as little as possible. Second, if we have limited resources we should do without those things patiently. Third, we must remember that everything has been given to us as accountable stewards. And finally, in everything we do we look to our calling from God.

Today as we face rising household and government debt, growing unemployment, and falling stock markets and real estate values we must remember that we are called as disciples of God. We are called to deny ourselves by stopping our practice of assuming that someone else will pay for our needs and desires. We are called to love God and our neighbors even more than ourselves. We are called to face suffering honestly. We are called to faithful stewardship of God’s creation. We are called to use God’s gifts appropriately. Our response to these calls is the cost we pay for discipleship.

Lord Jesus, we follow you as disciples. Prepare us for what this commitment means. Prepared our families and friends to understand our greater commitment to you.
Bless us with self denial, cross bearing, meditation on eternal life and proper use of God's gifts which are the costs of being disciples. And we pray that these gifts of discipleship will pour down on America so that our nation will turn to you. Amen.