It’s all about love

Matthew 5:21-37

Brothers and sisters, grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Risen Christ.  Amen. So, these texts just keep getting tougher and tougher.  This one is awesome!  We just heard Jesus say that He has come to fulfill the law.  So, are we to assume that these ‘you have heard it said’ texts are Jesus fulfilling the law?  Are we really to take these texts literally?  The more that I think about these texts, the more that I think that there is a deeper message to them than the almost impossible standard of existence that exists on the surface.  Think about it, if you cut off your hand because you feel that your hand has caused you to sin, then you must only be able to sin once.  Otherwise, how would you cut off the other hand?  It would be tough to hold the knife.

Ok, that is sarcasm.  But, is that a little of the flavor of what is being said here?  The people that were listening to this were people that were living a life of confinement in the law.  Jesus shows up to point out that the law was never meant to confine people, it is meant to bring us into freedom.  The Ten Commandments really should not be envisioned as a set of ‘or else’ rules.  They are the framework for our relationship with God, each other, God’s creation, and community.  If they really are some sort of ‘or else’ set of rules, then most of us are in a lot of trouble and I am fairly convinced that God’s work in this world is NOT to find a way to keep us all out of His presence.

If that were indeed God’s vision, then I am also fairly certain that He would not have come to us in the flesh to show us how to love each other His way.  So, if it is true that God came to us in the person of Jesus to show us how to love each other the way that He loves us, then can we assume that everything that Jesus says or does points us to the love, compassion, and grace of God that we so desperately need and are not very good at showing each other?  What happens if we look at everything that Jesus does through that lens?  Can we start to see these texts as texts that do not confine us but instead free us to be who God wants us to be?  Let’s see.

First, let me remind you of a few other parts of scripture that may be useful here.  Two weeks ago, we heard a text from 1 Corinthians the bears repeating.  In chapter 1 we heard, “but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.  Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.  But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.”

Next, listen to the words of Jesus later on in Matthew’s Gospel.  In chapter 22 it says, “When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.  ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

So if Jesus is telling us that these two commandments are the greatest, then maybe we ought to look at the world and how the scripture functions in it through the lens of those two statements.  What happens to these admittedly tough texts for today if we do just that?  How does that change how we hear them?  Does it?  How does that change how we think about ourselves in the midst of them?  Does it?  Maybe, maybe not.  But, I do know that we really cannot encounter the living Christ in the text without being changed each time we meet.  That said, there may indeed be a change in you as you reexamine these texts.  Let’s see. Follow along in the pew bible as we talk about each of these sections.

Take the first one.  What happens if we remember first that we are to love God with all we have and love others as ourselves?  What does the vision of love of God and neighbor do to the vision of relationship with our brothers and sisters?  Suddenly, the need to reconcile with those with whom we have some sort of disagreement becomes really important.  Our involvement in the relationship becomes a lot deeper than just making sure that we have said we are sorry.  Suddenly forgiveness becomes the foundation.  Suddenly the word ‘murder’ takes on a broader meaning.  It is no longer just about ending a physical life, it is about the spirit as well.  The relationship breaks and we find ourselves confined to the prison of isolation and separation.  That can be a tough thing to escape.  We can’t do it on our own, we need Jesus.

Second one.  This is a tough one for many of us.  Really, lust is all around us.  And, it is not just for the physical, it is for the material as well.  Just look at advertising.  There is a new ad for some sort of line of frozen meals that openly and aggressively equates food with sex.  Amazing and yet very disturbing.  When we put anything in our lives in front of the relationships into which we are called, the sin can get a little overwhelming.  I certainly do not advocate cutting of body parts, but it is tough work to leave the object of our lust behind us.  It takes a lot of work and it is painful.  But, again, we need Jesus and His vision of love.

Third one.  Ugh. What can we say about divorce?  This is certainly a tough text to hear if you are involved in an abusive relationship or if your relationship, for one reason or another, is dead.  How do you stay?  If you leave, does that mean that you are to remain alone for the rest of your life?  What if love comes knocking at your door again?  Do you send it away?  Tough stuff.  Again, Jesus and love.

Fourth.  Don’t make any oaths.  This is a bit easier.  It can be tough to look into the future and know for sure what is coming.  It is best not to swear any oaths that you may not be sure that you can keep, and that is most of them for sure.  This is good advice from Jesus and I think most of us may be able to make this work without much in the way of propping up from Jesus.  We who have faith, a free gift from God, can make this work if we just keep our nose to the grindstone, so to speak.

So, what do we do with these tough scriptural admonitions from Jesus?  Well, I think we need to go back to that Corinthians text where we hear Jesus telling us that He is going to use foolishness to confound the wise.  Think about that for a minute and consider the extreme examples that Jesus is using here.  Does Jesus use what could be considered extreme interpretations of the law to point out our foolishness?  This crowd needs to hear that they are confined by the law and what better message than spelling out the extremes to which people with go to obey the letter of the law to illustrate the foolishness that comes with that.  Then remember that we are to love God with all we have and love each other.  That puts a whole new goal to these admonitions.

It is all about love.  That is what Jesus says.  We have to look at each one of these texts through the lens of love.  We can’t really have effective and uplifting and fulfilling relationships with anyone of we don’t build those relationships on love and maintain that love.  We can’t really love anyone all that much if we are constantly comparing them to some object of our lust.  We can’t really show our love to someone if we just consider our relationship as something that is built on some sort of certificate that can just be unwritten or thrown away.  We can’t really look at our life as one that is grounded in unconditional love if we think of that life in terms of making some sort of arbitrary statement or empty promise or oath that is performance based.  None of this points us toward the love of Christ that is all about compassion and forgiveness and love for the other first.

Jesus means what He says, we know that.  Jesus also means for us to first and foremost live in the love of God that conquers all other stuff in our world.  Go and love like that.  Amen.

Forgiveness

Sermon 07-17-16

Micah 7:18-19 and Colossians 3:12-17

Forgiveness

Brothers and sisters, grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.  So, I have a request.  Come up and pick up one of these glasses of water and hold it above your head.  Don’t worry about how long you hold it, just hold it up and keep holding it up until you can no longer hold it.  Don’t be shy or feel bad about putting it down when it gets heavy.  That is kind of the point of the exercise.  We will come back to that in a moment.

Forgiveness.  This is a tough one.  We ask in the prayer that God would forgive us as we forgive others.  How do we hear that?  Are we to forgive others the way that God forgives us?  If that is how we hear this part of the prayer, we could be in trouble.  We are not a very forgiving bunch, especially forgiving the way that God forgives.  I would say that most if not all of what God does is way above what we can do.  We would certainly not be able to forgive in any way that is close to the way that God forgives.  Hmmmm….

What happens if we hear this in a different way?  What happens if we hear this part of the prayer as asking for God to forgive us WHILE we forgive others?  That may be just as tough.  Do we ask that God forgive us our sins, or debts, or trespasses while we are in the process of forgiving all that for other people?  That kind of ends up like the previous example.  What happens when we humans don’t get to a place of forgiveness?  Does that mean that somehow God is not forgiving us because we are not forgiving others?  That puts conditions on forgiveness and scripture does not say anything about that.

Are your glasses getting heavy?  Keep them up there.  Let’s look at forgiveness in another way.  What if we think about it in a way that says that because we are forgiven, we can forgive others the way that God does.  God forgives freely and completely and does not hold the sins of the past against us.  When we pray ‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us’, can we envision the forgiveness that we have for others as the continuation of God’s forgiveness that flows through us to others?  Can we see the sin of others, and ourselves, as a debt that we are releasing as God releases us?

If we do this, then maybe we can see ourselves as asking that God release our debt to Him as we endeavor to release others whom we perceive to owe us some sort of debt.  That may indeed be a way to look at this part of the prayer and grasp what we talk about when we talk about sin and its power in our lives.  If we see sin as the power in our life that somehow tries to convince us that we owe someone or God something in the way of relationship, then to release that, or pray that we could release it, may point us to see sin and forgiveness how it really is.  It is a weight in our world and our lives that can be too much to bear, indeed it will crush us, and we need to put it down and let it go.

How are those little glasses of water doing?  Are they getting too heavy to hold up?  Is it tough to hold them?  Maybe this is forgiveness and it is tough as well.  Ok, onward.  Forgive our sins as we forgive those that sin against us.  There is a lot in that.  First of all, most of the folks in churches around our communities did not grow up saying ‘sin’.  The closest translation is actually ‘debt’ although most of us grew up saying ‘trespasses’. However you say it, whatever makes you comfortable, that is probably where you should go with it.  For now, let’s work with ‘debt’.  If you think about this petition and the use of the word ‘debt’, you may start to get a vibe.  We owe God a great debt.  After all, Jesus died so that we would be free from sin to live our lives as God created them to be.  WE owe GOD.  Thankfully, we do not have to repay this debt.  The debt was taken care of once and for all time with Jesus’ death and resurrection. That is kind of the point of this part of the prayer.  God has released us forever from the debt so that we can live free.  That means that we should also release people from that same type of debt in our world.  We should not hold sin against people.

Because God has forgiven us, while we are living a life that was created and continues to be created in a state of constant forgiveness, we should be forgiving those that we consider have sinned against us.  Remember, sin is anything that gets in the way of relationship.  So we ought to live our lives in a constant state of renewal as far as relationship goes.  We need to release the burdens of broken relationship and move on without the weight of what we perceive as someone doing something against us.  That is tough.  We know that.  Humanity is good at holding grudges.  It somehow gives us purpose if we constantly have someone or something to talk about in a way that puts us in some sort of higher, or right, position in a relationship.

This is us trying to wield some sort of power over people.  Our society pushes us toward that.  We like to think of ourselves as ‘righter’ or ‘gooder’, or better’ than others.  We think that this defines us as winners.  We are wrong.  All this serves to do is crush us under the weight of broken relationship.  How are those glasses doing?  Are they getting heavy?  When we hold on to sin, either ours or the sin of others, it gets a little like those glasses of water.  Something that may seem insignificant at the start begins to feel as though we can no longer hold it.  We feel crushed under the weight of our grudge or expectation.  The pain of holding on becomes too much to bear.

Just think, if God releases us from the bondage of sin, the owing of the debt, then why do we think that we need to hold on to it?  Maybe we need someone to blame.  Even if that were so, the weight still becomes a crushing burden.  Even when we think that we know who is at fault for the breakdown of relationship or why that breakdown occurred or where we think that we can point our finger, we still carry the burden of that blame with us and it will eventually crush us and make sure that we cannot see a path to mending the relationship.  All we can see and feel is the pain of trying to hold that stupid, half full, glass of water above our heads.

We can’t see that all we have to do is put it down.  All we have to do is release the debt, or sin, or trespass.  It is easy.  But, our human nature, and in some way the voice of the Accuser, leads us to think that when we put down that glass, we somehow lose.  How many of you felt that, if you put that glass down before someone else, that you were somehow a loser or inadequate?  Was there a competitive voice in your head that said, “Keep holding that glass, you have to beat the others.”?  There may have been.  Or there may not have been.  The point is that we need to see the weight of sin as a debt that will crush us if we do not put it down.

Now, there is a point here that I have to mention.  Forgiveness is mostly for the forgiver.  Notice how most of our time spent here today talked about how forgiving someone is releasing the weight of the debt on you.  You are not responsible for the reaction of others to your forgiving.  Trust me when I say that you will feel a lot better when you release the debt.  Put the glass down and see how good it feels.  Forgiveness is for you.  That does not mean that you will not feel really good when you are forgiven.  We feel pretty good and live our lives in freedom because we are a forgiven bunch of God’s children.  That does indeed feel good.  We know that.

But, when we forgive others, we are releasing the load from our hearts and that, I think, is what God intends.  When our hearts are clean from the burdens of broken relationship, we can see God through that clearing.  To forgive as God forgives may have something to do with Psalm 103:10-18…

¹⁰ He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
¹¹ For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
¹² as far as the east is from the west,
so far he removes our transgressions from us.
¹³ As a father has compassion for his children,
so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
¹⁴ For he knows how we were made;
he remembers that we are dust.

¹⁵ As for mortals, their days are like grass;
they flourish like a flower of the field;
¹⁶ for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
¹⁷ But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
¹⁸ to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.

 

Is this how we ask to be forgiven and to forgive?  I hope so.  Release the trespass and remember it no more and know that God has done the same.  Amen.

Why can’t we all just get along?

Hi all.  So, last night, a colleague’s mom died.  There are some interesting and chaotic family dynamics at work.  I won’t go into it, that would not be cool.  But, it got me thinking, is there really ever an extended period of time where family dynamics are not chaotic?  Think about it.  It started with Cain and Abel.  It continued with Jacob and Esau.  It continued with Joseph and his brothers.  There are even indications that the disciples of Jesus did not get along all that well.  So, that begs the question, are our expectations of family dynamics out of line with how the dynamics really are?  Maybe.  After all we are are human and we have a heart beat and usually things with a heartbeat have a tough time getting along with other things that have a heartbeat.  We have all sorts of personality traits that usually don’t mesh exactly with anyone else.

Does that mean that we who consider ourselves civilized ought to work to reconcile who we are with our personality traits so that we don’t spend our time in constant conflict with our surroundings?  Can we ever not be in conflict with our environment?  We have personality struggles at work, at home, at parties, sometimes even with our own self.  I think that the struggle is unavoidable. It is part of our humanity.  I have always had pets and I would say it is also part of the entire animal kingdom.  Have you ever had pets that just could not get along?  Think about it.  Anyway, the question would then be, is this a bad thing and do/should we do anything about it?

I think that the answers are personal for sure, except for our pets.  They need to be nice to each other.  If we live our lives in some sort of state of constant conflict, we get really unhealthy in a lot of ways.  There are many health risks to that situation.  You can search that if you wish.  I am much more interested in the peace that we can find when we accept this conflict as part of our world and learn to work with it instead of against it.  When we accept the conflicts that surround us and learn to make them part of our lives, maybe we can come to a point where we find them interesting.  I am certainly not saying that this is how I live my life. I struggle with things not unfolding as I want them just like anyone else.  I am just saying that the peace of God would be something to which all of us should set our sights.   This is the peace that comes with accepting that we are not in control of anything except our response to our surroundings.

How we respond to the conflicts that come at us, the relationship troubles that we are inevitably bound to encounter, the stresses of everyday life, and just the stuff that is happening in our world, really defines who we are in this world.  Jesus tells us to be in the world and not of the world.  I think that this is part what He is talking about.  We can act with compassion and care, or we can act with fear and anger.  My daughter just texted me something that she received in her training.  It goes like this, “Happiness is the attitude we call trust – a profound trust – accompanied by a reassuring feeling of confidence that one can effectively handle whatever life may bring, good or bad.  This attitude of trust allows one to live in the present moment in which there are no frets about the past or worries about the future.  This feeling of confidence is pleasant, refreshing, and steadfast.” This comes from her presenter, Shawn Christopher Shea, M.D.

Fun.  That kinds of relates to what Jesus tells us when He tells us not to fear.  Someday, maybe, we will get to this place as a family, as a community, and as a humanity.  Maybe.  Someday, maybe, we will not be afraid of our world and we will learn to get along with it, or at least accept the differences in it.  Maybe.  Someday, maybe, we will be able to celebrate those differences as really interesting things that we should find beautiful and not fight against them.  Maybe.

Shalom

Pastor Bob

What do I use as bait?

Hi again.  So last week, Pastor Craig talked about Peter fishing naked.  We got lots of comments about that.  Go figure.  Anyway, it got me thinking.  If we are being called by Jesus to be fishers of people, what are we supposed to use as bait?  I think about things like this from time to time.  I would not necessarily consider myself a very high church or highly academic theologian.  I am more of a ‘how does this work in our daily life’ kind of theologian.  I am usually concerned with how the Gospel is playing out in a persons day to day activity, especially when it comes to youth.  I sit with a lot of kids who wonder if any of this ‘churchy crap’ makes any difference in their world.  It is a world full of fear and violence and bullying and they sometimes have a pretty hard time trying to connect Jesus to any of it.  A lot of these kids don’t see God active in their world.

So, if I am supposed to fish for these kids, what do I use as bait?  That could probably be the same question that any of you would ask on any given day when you are struggling to clue your kids in to the relevance of any of the things that you are trying to teach them.  How do you connect your kids with the importance of the lesson at hand?  I am not sure that I have any quick and complete answers for you on that.  All that I can do is relate my own personal experiences and what works and see if you can use any of that in a way that works for you in the moment.  Isn’t that the way it works when you seek any kind of advice?  You seek a way to make what you are trying to do work and you look to people that have done something similar to see if they have any wisdom that works for you.  Sound right?

So, the questions still remains, if I am supposed to fish for people, what do I use as bait?  Well, if the purpose of fishing for people is to get them to see that faith is something that is useful in our lives, then I suppose that the best thing to do is to tell folks about the times that faith has been useful in my life and see if any of the stories clues them in to times when faith has shown up in their world and help them to connect those times with the presence of Jesus.  Sorry for the long sentence, it had to be done.  If I can tell people about the times when Jesus helped me through something, maybe they will see the times that Jesus has helped them.  The stories in scripture help, but some of the kids that have heard those stories think of them as far away tales.  In today’s world, scripture seems like something that happened in a land and a time that are far, far away.

The bait that I use is me.  That is the answer.  If Jesus calls us to fish for people, then HE has already given us the bait that we need and that bait is us.  The bait is our life.  The bait is our experiences.  The bait is our relationship, our love, our compassion.  The bait is our story.  The question then becomes, “Are we using the bait?”  Good question.  In our world today, it would seem that there is a lot of fishing going on, but the bait and what is being fished for comes into question.  Are we using the bait that God gives us and just what are we fishing for?  Are we using our lives that are gifted by God to lead people into relationship with Him?  If we are thinking about ourselves and what our fishing means to us as far as building up our pride or our sense of conceit, then I would say that we are doing a lousy job of fishing for people as far as the fishing that Jesus is talking about.

God created us and our world to be in relationship.  We are to be in relationship with God, with the creation that is all around us, and with each other.  When we fish for people, we have to keep that in mind.  If we don’t and we set our sights on what it all means for us, we miss the point.  So, I think that the thought that came into my head as I listened to Pastor Craig was, “How am I doing at using the bait that God gives me to fish for the people that Jesus wants me to fish for?”  Sorry for the bad grammar.  I think that I might be doing ok, or as ok as I can be, as long as I keep listening to Jesus and following where the Holy Spirit leads.

I have had a weekend where I spoke to families whose kids are in trouble.  The bait is in the tackle box.  Time to go fishing.

Peace

Pastor Bob

Ooo that smell…

Sermon 03-13-16

John 12:1-8

Brothers and sisters, grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.  This is quite a text.  There is a lot of stuff in this short paragraph.  But that is kind of how it is with John.  He really packs it in.  So, on what shall I preach?  Should I preach about Jesus’ friendship with Lazarus and the fact that death is in a sense sitting right in this room?  What about this anointing thing and the fact that a women is brushing her hair on the feet of Jesus?  I talked about this text with some of the kids last week and they all thought that this was really strange.  I can’t say that I disagree.  But, there is a point to that and we may get to that.  We will see.

What about the cost of the perfume?  That would seem to be a point of contention for some in the room.  How dare such a costly thing be used for such a frivolous purpose?  Then there is this whole ‘Judas’ thing with him being the one who will betray and a thief and all.  That may seem to be a good topic.  But, no.  The last sentence really got to me.  “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”  That may seem to be a good place to go and a great concept to consider.  Think about it, what does it mean for Jesus to say ‘you will not always have me’?  But, I want to go somewhere else with this.

Two things came to mind as I pondered upon, prayed over, and talked about this text.  One is that whole thing about the fragrance wafting through the whole house and the other is the statement about the poor always being with us.  Let’s talk about death first.  Death is all over in this text.  We start the story by talking about Lazarus, Jesus’ friend, and how he is in this house.  He should be, after all, it is his house and Jesus is the guest.  One could assume that they were good friends and that Martha and Mary were friends as well.  We get that from the text.  Just how good of friends and what the history behind their friendship is we do not really know beyond the scripture stories.  In any case, we know that they were fairly good friends.

So, the story starts with death.  The story ends with death.  The story ends with Jesus telling us of his own death.  Then, in between, we encounter something interesting as far as death is concerned.  ‘The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.’  Here is where my head went with this.  Think of a smell that means something specific to you.  For me, it is the smell of a dairy.  When I was a kid, I would ride along as my dad went from farm to farm picking up milk cans.  Then he would drop them off at the dairy.  Years later, as I was a manager at Happy Joe’s in Minot, I had to make a run for ice cream.  As I walked into the dairy, all those memories came back.

For some that may mean Vicks.  For others, maybe that is Icy Hot.  Both of those things have a very distinctive smell that means something very specific to most.  When you smell either Vicks or Icy Hot, you know what is going on.  You instantly know that someone is not feeling well or there is a sporty person in the crowd who is feeling the effects of their workout.  Either way, you know what is going on by the smell that you smell.

In this case, I wondered if the nard that was used was an ointment that was customarily used for the preparation of the dead.  If it was, would most people that smelled that smell instantly know that someone had been prepared for burial?  And, if that is the case, does that mean that the smell of death was filling the house?  Death is there (Lazarus), Death is coming (Jesus), Death is foreshadowed (anointing). Death was all around and through this story.  In the midst of this almost complete presence of death, Mary does something scandalous and serves Jesus in the most humble of ways.  She prepares him for death using her hair.

I am not going to spend a lot of time on the whole ‘Judas’ thing except to say that it is obvious that John did not care for Judas.  Anyway, in the midst of the smell of death that permeates the house, Jesus rebukes Judas and tells us that we will always have the poor.  You bet we will.  There will always be some section of society that is suffering and needs our attention.  The text could just as well have read ‘you will always have the oppressed’ or ‘you will always have the abused’ or ‘you will always have the addicted’ or you will always have the imprisoned’ or the neglected, the marginalized, the forgotten.  We will always have people in our world that need our attention.  This statement from Jesus points us to that.

So, let’s tie that in to the smell that was permeating this house.  Judas and Mary each contributed to this smell in their own way.  One of the resources that I checked put it this way, ““Mary in her devotion unconsciously provides for the honour of the dead.  Judas in his selfishness unconsciously brings about the death itself.” Again, death was everywhere.  Just as we will always have people in need, we will always have death.  The two go hand in hand in this text.  So what do we do?  Do we hide our heads in the sand and pretend that neither of those two exist in our world?  Do we pretend that if we somehow ignore death or the needy that they will both magically not have an effect on us?  I would submit that this is indeed an impossibility.

Another of the theologians in the commentary that I read put it this way, “Care for the poor is a sacred duty because it is the concern of God’s own heart.  Those who share in His life will share in His concern for the poor and will act appropriately as He guides.  The diversion of funds from the poor for the sake of Jesus’ burial implies that the funds would usually go to the poor and that this is the proper thing to do.  John’s ‘suggestion’ that Judas did not care about the poor has implied in passing that Christians should care.” As it turns out, doing for the poor is not a onetime thing, we should always do for the poor.

This is how we are to live our lives.  We need to live our lives in a constant state of caring about all those that are marginalized in our world.  If we are all God’s children, and I think we are, then we ought to care deeply about those that are in need in all corners of the world.  That is how we live our lives.  That is how we embrace death.  There is an old song by Lynyrd Skynyrd called ‘That Smell’ about how we just can’t escape the smell of death that is all around us.  Now they use some pretty harsh examples about just what that smell entails.  I look a different direction.

To me, the smell of death that is in this story from John is a smell of promise.  They probably did not know it then, but we have hindsight.  We know what is coming for Jesus and what it means.  So we can tie the smell of death in this text to a smell of promise and grace and compassion and sacrifice.  This smell may be a smell that is not offensive but one that points us toward what Jesus is about to do and does for us over and over.  This smell points us toward Easter.  That is kind of cool.  It is also a smell that points us toward how we are supposed to live in response to Easter.

Our houses are filled with the fragrance of Jesus and his death.  The question would seem to be, “How do we react and respond to this smell?”  We can certainly hide and try to ignore.  But, I don’t think that is what Jesus is calling us to do.  Jesus calls all of us to respond and live our lives in a constant state of smelliness.  We are to be the fragrance of Jesus’ death to everyone that we meet.  People ought to be able to recognize that smell when they meet us.  People ought to be able to recognize that smell when we go out into our communities and the communities of those around us and serve those who need to be served.

In my ministry world, when we have a rummage sale, people should smell Jesus.  When we go into the woods and clean up campsites or create trails, people should smell Jesus.  When we go to a National Youth Gathering and worship with 30,000 other kids, people should smell Jesus.  When we clean our rooms because mom or dad told us to, they should smell Jesus.  When we say our prayers at dawn, at meals, or at bedtime, we should smell Jesus.  Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are indeed surrounded by ‘that smell’.  Breathe it in.  Amen.

I think it is time to start

Hi all. I have not really used this space for much and for that I apologize. I think it is time to start. There is so much going on in our world for which I have opinions, so let me opine. I, as many of those who know me can affirm, am somewhat of a news junkie. I listen to and watch the news because I think it matters. In the moment, I think it really matters. There are a lot of people that are trying to become our elected leaders. This matters more than it used to, at least to me, because now I have grandchildren. That is not to say that it did not matter when I began to have children of my own or when I got married. All I am trying to say is that as my family grows, so does the relevance of the things that are said by people that want to be our leader.

That said, I would like to throw out a few opinions on what is going on in that world. I would love to know how people who want to lead our great nation convince people that they are Christians by what they say instead of how they act. For those candidates that say that they will strike back when they are hit, do you not remember the admonition of Christ to turn the other cheek? And, how do we call ourselves a Christian nation that ought to be concerned with the strangers, travelers, widows, and orphans of the world when it would seem that we are excited about instituting policies that do none of that? Those are just two examples of the hippocracy of those who are attempting to gain our votes. Why does that matter? It matters because we are a small world that is getting smaller.

In my world, I interact with kids. It is what I do and who I am. In my time at this call, roughly two and a half years, I have had the opportunity to interact with about six kids under the age of 15 that have either tried or are thinking of trying to end their lives. I think that this is a problem that needs to be addressed a whole lot more than whether or not a candidate sweats too much. This is getting ridiculous and the world is laughing at us. Our need to raise the trivial to the obscene is making us look like fools instead of a nation to which other nations should look for guidance.

I think it is time to look at what it is going to take to bring one another together instead of ways to drive us apart. If we are indeed a Christian nation, then we should be listening to Christ for our wisdom. I would submit that we are not a Christian nation, but a nation with Christians in it. We cannot ignore that this country was built on diversity and it is exactly that which we should celebrate and welcome. Christ came for ALL of us, not just those who fit into a mold that is created by someone who thinks that they know what Jesus is thinking. We don’t know what Jesus is thinking, that is the point. If we did, why would we need faith.

If we thought for a second that we knew what was on the mind of Christ, we would be in trouble right along with Adam and Eve. We all know where trying to be like God got them. We FOLLOW Jesus, we are not the leaders. Maybe if we remembered that every now and then, we would remember that Jesus leads us where we are needed and to whom we are needed. That usually does not have a whole lot to do with our own wants and visions.

More later.

Life Lesson: Human Trafficking

Thanks to Windie and Christina for a great presentation on January 21, 2015.  The trafficking of human beings, no matter what the reason or cause, is always a tough subject.  This lesson was shocking, upsetting, starck, and at times hard to hear.  The stories brought tears.  That is all to be expected.  This should be a tough subject.  I hope that we as a community of faith can walk alongside parents as kids face subjects like these and give families a faith foundation from which to have conversation about topics like this.  Again, thank you to all that attended and presented.

          This subject is especially hard for parents.  This scares us.  But, we are not alone.  You are not alone.  There are a lot of people that want to make sure that your kids and grandkids grow up safe and are able to live out their own dreams.  I know that is what God wants.  The bible is too full of places where that is spelled out to put in this blog.  Again, if you or someone you know is in trouble, tell someone.  Tell us.  Love will indeed win the day and when the dust on this crazy world settles, the monsters that do this kind of stuff will be left in that dust.  Remember, God wins in the end.

As you watch this clip, keep a couple of things in mind.  We, your youth ministry team, are here for you.  If you, or someone you know, is in trouble in any way, don’t hesitate to call us.  It is important for youth that are either trapped in this situation or being lured into it to know that there is someone that they can talk to that wants to help them.  We are beautifully and wonderfully made in the image of God.  That is an undeniable truth.  When we latch on to this truth, we find that we cannot deny that every one of us has a worth that is gifted by God.  That worth is so much more than a price tag as an object.  You are not an object.  You are a person.  You are the only you that there is and there are lots of people around that love the you that you are just as you are.  Find those people and allow them to help.  Listen to them as they speak love to you that values you.

If you know of someone that you think may be in trouble, tell someone.  That is how you love them.  Help them.  John 15:13 says, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  That does not necessarily mean that you have to die for them, but that does call us to think about how we live our lives for others.  Maybe one way is that you risk a little when it comes to telling someone that one of your friends is in trouble.

Questions and answers from kids/parents:

Comments from parents:

“Thank you for planning a lesson on something so real and important!!!”

“I really do appreciate these Life Lessons as I feel they teach the kids in ways that parents cannot.”

These questions are from the FAQ page http://sharedhope.org/learn/faqs/

How do traffickers or pimps recruit victims?

Many pimps often use a “lover-boy” technique to recruit girls from middle and high schools. A lover-boy will present himself as a boyfriend and woo the girl with gifts, promises of fulfilled dreams, protection, adventure – whatever she perceives she is lacking. After securing her love and loyalty, he will force her into prostitution.

What makes a child vulnerable to child sex trafficking?

Age. Age is the primary factor of vulnerability. Pre-teen or adolescent girls are more susceptible to the calculated advances, deception, and manipulation tactics used by traffickers/pimps – no youth is exempt from falling prey to these tactics. Traffickers target locations youth frequent such as schools, malls, parks, bus stops, shelters and group homes. Runaway or homeless youth as well as those with a history of physical and sexual abuse have an increased risk of being trafficked.

LINKS:

For warning signs and who to call. http://sharedhope.org/learn/report-trafficking/

Movie: www.sharedhope.org

Speaker Windie: www.4herND.org

Christina/Project FUSE: www.projectfuse.org

To report anything suspicious: Call local authorities, school social workers or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children 1-800-THE-LOST or http://www.cybertipline.org.

Blessings.

Pastor Bob Caranicas

Shot across the bow…

Here is my first run at the GSLC blog in my name.  I just got done presiding at my first worship here.  It was cool.  I feel like God is doing something with me.  Of course, when is God NOT doing something with me.  More to come…