Take Up Your Cross and Believe

 Sermon John 3:12-21 March 1, 2021 Fourth Sunday in Lent yr B

Take Up Your Cross and Believe

Take up your cross and believe.

Take up your cross is our theme this Lenten season.

Take up your cross and believe is for this Sunday the fourth Sunday of Lent.

In this message from the gospel of John-Jesus calls on the disciples and those around him to look to him lifted up on the cross and believe. Jesus will be lifted high on a cross and in that moment, all will look to him will see that God has truly loved them and has given them life abundant.

The disciples didn’t really understand that Jesus was talking about his own death. But, they did remember the story about Moses they were all taught growing up.

Jesus tells of the time when the Israelites were wandering in the desert and grumbling. Numbers 21:4-9. They were angry at God. They were miserable with the boring same old food and drink. They were frustrated with their way of living in the desert for so long. And they took their anger and frustrations out on God and Moses. So, God sent snakes to bite them. Then the people begged Moses to pray to God for them. Moses prayed and God told Moses to get his staff and put a bronze snake on it. All those who were bit needed to look up at Moses and look at the snake lifted high on the staff. When they looked up they would live and have life.

 

God has always provided for those who had turned away from God to find a way back.

God offered life to those who would look up and would hold their eyes upon the staff that held their sin.

As they looked at the snake, the symbol of their rebellion, high in the air, ascended above them, they experienced God removing their pain, their sentence of death, their sin.

In this act they lived.

 

And so it is as Jesus describes for us in this scripture.

If we look to the cross where Jesus was lifted high,

it holds all of our sorrow,

our pain,

our sins.

It is all there upon Jesus on the cross.

It is not a moment of humiliation for Jesus but a moment of exaltation.

Where there is death and sorrow, God promises us life and hope. God loves us so much that the whole world benefits from this love. It is not just for one group. It is not just for one corner of the world. It is not just for one gender, or one animal classification. It is for arthropods, vertebrates, humans, donkeys and snails. It’s all of creation!

 

The verse we all memorize as one of our first verses is John 3:16. We see it everywhere. We see it at baseball stadiums. We see it on invitation to church literature. We know this verse and we hang on to this promise; even though we know we are not living in a perfect world. God so loved the world he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life! It’s a new life for us now , not only the future. It is a promise meant for us to be fulfilled now in this present time. Eternal life=That’s life in the present that carries us into eternity. Real life that through all circumstances keeps us together and holds us through the hard times, the crazy times, and through the blessing filled times.

 

Today marks one year! “This is only temporary”, I had said. I was certain and hopeful that we would be in a situation that would last only a few weeks or a month at the most. We were all willing to risk whatever it took to make things right for just a few weeks. We were willing to show love and care as we could. Until it started to last too long and we, like the Israelites, began to grumble. It has been too long. There has been too much death. There has been too much separation which has been too painful. There has been frustration and behaviors that make no sense. There has been a lot of darkness. And yet, even in the darkness there has been much light-we’ve just needed to look up to it.

 

To what lengths are we willing to be drawn to the light of Jesus and risk being loved by him?

How can this love from God draw us from our dark places and enter us into the strong blinding light of love?

We are constantly carried by God in the very ways scripture describes for us. God is like a mother hen who draws her chicks under her wings. God is like an eagle who carries us high above the fray. God holds us in the palm of his hand. God takes our burdens and makes them light. God offers us love and life through his cross for all who believe.

Photo credit Joe Valentine

I’ve shared this story before and I believe it deserves to be told many times. It is a story that reminds us that we are not the judge of who deserves God’s love, grace and eternal, abundant life. Because God did not come into the world to condemn it but to offer life to all. Anyone who lives in the light is already living in the love of God. Because God is light.

Working as a nurse in ICU’s, burn units, pediatrics, and dialysis, we served everyone without consideration of who, where, or how they came into our care. One Christmas I was dialyzing a man who had had another overdose and was impaired with alcohol. I remember being mad at him because he wouldn’t listen to any of us who cared deeply for him. He was determined to continue his self-abusive behavior. With every appeal to him he wasn’t deterred. We were all crazy about this man-we really loved him. And he was grateful that he could count on coming to dialysis. Yet, his reasons were different than ours. He knew he could count on the treatments which would straighten him up so he could go out and get high again. I sat with him at Christmas mad at him. I was really angry. I begged him to change. I needed him to meet my expectations of who and how he should be. Yet, he looked at me and said. I know I need to change. I know I should do better. But, I also know that no matter what, you all really care about me.

At that moment I was no longer angry. I was in the presence of a man who I cared about and he cared about me, us, the dialysis team-we were his family and nothing could change that. And so, in that moment, I realized what God does for us. That no matter what state we are in. No matter how wrong we are. No matter how we seek to lose our life or injure ourselves or find ourselves without worth. No matter who or how we are, God still descends from heaven to bring us grace and mercy. “Thy kingdom come.” God pours out a constant love that is for ALL the world. We are always precious children of God-always! God’s love is continuous and never, ever, ever, leaves us. IN God’s eyes we ALWAYS matter and are Loved unconditionally!

The cross of Christ is not something to shy away from but the realization that God’s love was so great that it was lifted high in exaltation. God is not afraid to draw us out into the light from the dark shadows of our ways. We do not need to be afraid of the light. It might be blinding at first and hard to see where were going, but it will guide us as we trust and believe. Take up your cross and believe.

Friends believe this good news of the gospel: God so loved us now and forever. 

Amen.

 

Resources: NIB Gospel of John-Gayle O’Day; Working Preacher Matt Skinner 2021

Property of Monica Gould. Sharing is permitted. Please send requests to reprint with permission to mongould@gmail.com

 

Sermon Mark 8:31-38 February 28, 2021 Second Sunday in Lent yr B

Take Up Your Cross and Follow

In the sanctuary at Naomi Makemie we see the cross hanging there. Here at Francis Makemie we do not have a cross but the symbols of pulpit, font and table to mark our church as a Christian church. Many of us wear a cross around our neck as a reminder that we are Christians. The cross is an important symbol across all denominations as the witness to the redeeming work of Christ.

We understand as Paul Tillich taught that the cross is a symbol that points beyond itself by shining on the reality to which it points-the saving love of God.

The cross we look to during this season of Lent is the cross on which our Savior died. It is something many of us are uncomfortable talking about and many of us uncomfortable singing about. We don’t like to sing the songs that mention the cross and especially not songs that mention blood. Eww.  And we are even more uncomfortable trying to explain the cross, blood and death to ourselves, our kids, or our friends.

Yet, we cannot have a resurrection without a death.

We cannot have spring without a winter.

We cannot have bright flowers without the darkness of the soil.

All of our life is a cycle of which we all take part.

Birth, growth, aging, death are our ways of creation from generation to generation.

During Lent we try to take seriously our relationship with Christ. We leave behind the excitement of the baby Jesus coming into the world to make us all new and full of the presence of God. We start to realize the depth of the presence of God with us as we walk through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. As we travel through the scriptures of the life of Jesus we learn about all he did in his life.

The seriousness of his presence in the world then and now begins to hit home. His sacrifice, his suffering, his rejection, all begin to sink in to our thoughts as we realize what he gave up for our lives to be free in love.

But, while we sing of the cross and we sing of what Jesus did, these verses in Mark’s gospel call us out. The hardest part of scripture is when it turns to those who follow Jesus and reminds them of who they are.

Jesus calls out Peter for telling him he can’t suffer and die. Jesus has already been tempted in the desert and doesn’t need his followers to tempt him to go against the plan that God has for him. Peter like so many of the followers of Jesus and so many of us today had their own idea of what Jesus the Savior should look like and act like. Peter and so many followers expected Jesus to be a strong, rebellious leader and overthrow the government of the day. Peter wanted Jesus to take a crown and sit on a throne, but Jesus told him to stop. Jesus could not and would not be a Savior to the demands of others.  He had to tell Peter to back off, just as he tells us to do the same when we turn him into a god of our choosing and desires.

That is not who Jesus was or is today. Jesus lets the crowd know that they are ALL called to be his disciples. Jesus calls the whole crowd to come to him to hear his words. But, the stakes are high. They and we are called to take up our own cross.

What was Jesus asking of his disciples then? And how does that apply to us today?

Jesus was asking his disciples to let go of their ideals. He was telling them that they could not make him be the rebel leader they wanted.

They needed to realize that if they really wanted to follow him they had best be ready to lose their lives in the same way he had.

It meant that they would need to be willing to stand up for the least of these.

They would need to be willing to heal the sick and broken hearted.

They would need to be willing to leave their homes to share the message of the gospel of Jesus beyond their backyards.

They would need to be willing to stand in the way to protect the widows and orphans. And in their willingness to deny themselves,

to lose their lives they would gain their life

and so much more.

When we pick up our cross we too gain so much more.

In Christ our self-esteem is lifted up. When we deny ourselves into the grace of Jesus we discover a God who adores us and tells us how magnificent we are because we are his creation. When we choose to lose our lives over to the message of the gospel we discover the Light of Jesus that seeks to shine through everyone and everything so that all we see is the glory of God in each face. And finally, well probably not finally, when we pick up the cross Jesus gives us we discover how it is not a burden but the sign of Christ’s completion in us.

Oswald Chambers says, ‘If a man or a woman is called of God, it does not matter how untoward circumstances are, every force that has been at work will tell of God’s purposes in the end. If you agree with Gods’ purpose God will bring not only your conscious life, but all the deeper regions of your life which you cannot get at, into harmony.

This season of Lent the theme is Take Up Your Cross. It is a theme for a reason this year. We have been through a lot in the past 11 to 12 months. We’ve seen our friends lose their jobs, we’ve seen our friends die. We’ve seen our family suffer with the isolation and restrictions. It has been a time of suffering, turmoil, anxiety, and so much more. We have not been able to ignore this or make it go away. It has definitely been a cross, a burden, to bear. And probably the last thing we want to hear about in this Lenten season is to take up a cross of suffering and pain. We might look to Jesus, and say nope, not doing it, been there, done that.

Perhaps, that’s why it’s so important this year to look to the cross of Jesus and to hear him one more time ask us to take up our own cross.

Because as we take it up this year we can remember

all the times he has been with us.

We can remember all the good that we’ve discovered in the midst of the sadness.

We can remember that the cross we carried wasn’t as heavy as we thought because there were those around seeking to help us along the way.

We might never know our strength of faith if we don’t’ follow Jesus’ calling and pick up the cross he’s set before us. We give up our life to Jesus in order to gain life. When we commit to being his disciple we are overwhelmed with opportunities to live sacrificially in our acts of love, compassion, reaching out, and serving. There is an everlasting love that is lavished on us as we offer ourselves to Jesus and follow him.

We can do this. 

He’s calling us. 

Look to the cross, 

take up yours, and 

Let us follow. 

Amen.

Resources: NIB gospel of Mark Pheme Perkins, Feasting on the Word year B W. Huelett Gloer & Paul C. Shupe 

Property of Monica Gould. Sharing is permitted. Please send requests to reprint with permission to mongould@gmail.com

 

Take Up Your Cross Begins with Promise

 Sermon Genesis 9:8-17 February 20, 2021 First Sunday in Lent yrB

Take Up Your Cross Begins with Promise

This season of Lent our focus is on the cross we carry. We all know that our time of Lent is a time of reflection. It is a time we begin on Ash Wednesday and say- “we put ashes on our head: to remind us of all those around the world who are mourning and suffering; to remind us that we have sinned and need repentance and must cling to the promises and love of Christ; to remind us that we all die; to remind us of Christ’s suffering and death and resurrection; and to remind us that we are still claimed, named, called, loved, children of God.” This season we will take up our cross because we need to not only figuratively remember God, but we need to literally do the labor and the discipline to remember all that God has done for us. God himself became limited and chose to enter our humanity, to become weak, and to die to save us.

So, are we willing in this Lent to choose to take up our cross and walk with it for these many weeks, these 40 days, and become vulnerable before God and others? We can if we remember whose we are. Our taking up the cross begins this week with promise. The weeks to come we will take up our cross and follow, obey, believe, and be light. We begin this week with promise.

Lent Banner for NMPC

Promises, promises, it’s all we hear anymore from politicians, community leaders, anyone in the public realm, and we are just tired of empty promises. When we hear our children say to us, or we say to them, “I promise” are we even capable anymore of being true to that promise? A promise these days seems so fickle. No one makes a deal on a handshake, or the word of another. The ability to trust seems an ancient pastime. Yet, trust, faith and promises are the very foundation of our faith. And the truth of why they are the foundation of our faith is that we have been a human race of sin, deception, destruction, and disappointment to the very God of our creation.

These first eleven chapters of Genesis are important chapters well known throughout the ancient texts of the beginning of the earth. Every culture in the Mesopotamian delta had and has stories of the beginning of humanity, the fall of humanity, and the great flood that hit the reset button for humanity. Why does this matter? Because it lets us know there was an understanding across all tribes, religions, and developing groups of a sense of the importance of telling the story of the beginning relationships of humans to each other and gods or God.

The story of the flood is taught in Sunday school. It is great biblical literature taught to all children and remembered into adulthood. We remember being taught that it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. We remember being taught that Noah built the ark out of gopher wood. We remember that Noah took in animals two by two. We remember that the waters eventually receded, and Noah landed on dry land and built an altar to thank God. We remember that God said he would never curse the ground or destroy the people again. We remember God placed a rainbow in the sky as a reminder of that promise. What we may not remember is the gift of God’s grace to us through this powerful story.

We have a God who we know created all that is. God created out chaos and nothingness a world of wonder and beauty. We recognize the depth and breadth and height of God’s grace as this moment plays out before Noah. God speaks to Noah after all the destruction is over. God accepts the sacrifice that Noah offers. God renews the responsibility to Noah to be fruitful and multiply and to care for the earth and allows for the sacrifice of animals for food.

And then God looks all around what is.

God witnesses the consequences of the judgment of sin.

God witnesses all that has been lost.  God sacrifices judgment for grace.

God places a limit on God’s own power of judgement.

God looks at Noah and the earth and the creatures of the earth and says, “enough is enough.”

God makes a promise to never, ever, ever, curse the ground again. God makes a promise to never, ever, ever, destroy creation again. In this promise God has set the limits on himself and allows his grace to rule.

Who does that?

Who limits their ability to punish?

Who limits their authority?

Who sets themselves in a position to be vulnerable to the mistakes of others?  

God does.                                                                                     

God loves beyond boundaries.

God loves beyond God’s own self.

God sent his Son into a world to become vulnerable to the point of death.

 Who does that?

DO we?

Are we able to offer ourselves in a promise to another that puts them first no matter what? Are we willing to love and forgive and to live the promise of forever with another? 

It’s those kinds of questions we ask ourselves when we witness what God has done with Noah.

But God goes one step further in this story.

God puts a reminder in the sky for God to not mess up the promise.

Photo credit Pastorale Farm, Rebekah Rodgers

You see God put all the colors in a beautiful giant bow that every creature can see, every human can see, everything that moves and breathes can see the rainbow. God put it there to make sure that God would remember the promise. God put it there because there is no mistake that this promise God has made touches everyone’s life from the past to the present to the future. God will be held accountable to every living creature, past, present, and future. The rainbow is forever!

When God puts the rainbow in the sky as a sign everything has a hope for the future.

All assurance is given that there is a tomorrow to plan for and to rejoice in.

Even amid the continuing chaos God’s promise of the rainbow reminds all that the earth will continue. God will never destroy it again.

So, when pandemics reign and death is at every corner, when sadness and grief is as deep as the ocean, God shines the rainbow and we know there will be another day to live for that will bring sunshine. In the bulb there is a flower. It enters the ground to die, so in spring it can return with the brightness of life. As Sib Towner described it, “ God enters into an everlasting covenant with alligators as well as human beings and guarantees their place within the providential order.”

The joy of the promise of God is that it is universal and eternal. It has a universal effect in the way the outreaching (horizontal bar) of the cross is to all people, to all creation. It has an eternal effect in the way the cross (the vertical bar) is God’s descent to bring heaven to earth and our eternal relationship through the threshold of life to death and resurrection.  

It may be a challenge to take up our cross.

It may be something we are not really willing to do.

It may be fear filled.

It may be all those things.

It may make us uncomfortable.

 

It will make us vulnerable.

It will make us aware.

It will make us open.

It will make us available.

It will make us present.

 

In this Lent we have the opportunity to experience grace as never before.

Embrace the promise of God.

Trust the promise of God for you today.

Trust the God who believes in second chances.

 

Remember as you take up your cross it begins with promise.

Look to the rainbow and rejoice.

Amen.

Resources: W. Sibley Towner Genesis Commentary; Feasting on the Word YrB David Lose

Property of Monica Gould sharing is permitted. Please send requests to reprint with permission to mongould@gmail.com

Walk and Not Faint

Sermon Isaiah 40:21-31 February 7, 2021

Walk and Not Faint

Today is Super Bowl Sunday. Now that might not be a big deal to many of you. Considering how messed up our sports seasons have been this year, many may not even give a hoot about watching this one football game. I do know though, that there are many who will sit down and watch this game just for a semblance of tradition as we’ve known in the past.

Tradition is something we hold dear as sport fans, as Americans, as families, and as Christian church goers. Traditions remind us that life has been worthwhile, and that life will continue beyond ourselves. Today is Super Bowl 55. That’s a lot of years for a sport to hold together a tradition in this fast-moving society. 

Which leads me to the question, "

what traditions do we cling to and why? 

Consider as we sit together today, 

here in the pews and those online, 

those things that bring comfort, joy, security, value, and purpose.

As we reflect, we will discover most of what we are considering involve being engaged with others in community. 

As we reflect on those traditions, they bring us an enormous amount of joy that draws us to a place of remembrance and praise. 

They fill us again with hope and joy.

The prophet Isaiah was talking to a people who had lost hope and were living their lives in the lament of what once was. The people of Israel had been taken captive and displaced to Babylon. They had been there for years. Life as they knew it ceased to exist. They were forced to take on manners and daily routines unlike they had ever experienced. They were full of grief and sorrow. They yearned for the day they could return to their country and return to their ways and their traditions. The people in exile were actually at a point where they were giving up looking forward. They felt abandoned by God. They wondered if the God they once believed in was really the God of deliverance.

As time went by, they became more and more despondent. And they doubted the God of wonders and the God of their tradition.

They had been in exile for so long they began to suffer amnesia and looked to the gods of their captors. Murdock was the sun god of the Babylonians as well as multiple astrid (or star) gods. Their knowledge of their traditions began to fade.

The book of Isaiah is divided into three parts. And chapter 40 is known as the beginning the second part of Isaiah. It is a crucial turning point chapter. It begins the first eleven verses with words we hear every Advent season… ‘comfort, comfort, my people’. Here in these verses we discover a God who has never abandoned his people, yet yearns to bring them from their lament to a life of praise and to return them to their traditions of worship and hopeful living.

I believe in every time and age God’s people have asked the question, “Can God really help us?” And, “Does our God still want to help us?”

Perhaps, that is where we have found ourselves as God’s people these past months. We have been removed from one another as in no other recent time. For many it is the first time in their life they have experienced a crisis. Many here were too young to remember 9/11 or WWII or the depression. But, even in those times communities were not isolated and cut off from each other. The greatest tragedy is when communities fail to function together and individual existence is more important. Even our Bible’s references are always on the universal community response to God as God’s people are called to live together.

How does the tradition of moving in life without fear, 

and seeking to participate together with God’s strength, 

return us to society?

We hear the words of Isaiah to the people of God and we respond to them.
Too many of us have been caught up sitting idle
waiting for things to change;
or waiting for things to return to what was.

Too many of us have socially distanced
ourselves from relationships.

It has been too easy to remove ourselves from society.
We can find all we need at our fingertips from home.

Our isolation from community has made it too easy
to be isolated and far removed from God.

We sing a hymn and an anthem where the refrain goes, “Come back to me with all your heart Don't let fear keep us apart,  Long have I waited for Your coming home to me And living deeply our new lives.” God is the one reaching out to us and drawing us back to himself.

Isaiah provides us with such grace in the reminder of the wonder and majesty of our God. He returns the listeners to the traditional truths of God.

God is the creator of the universe

and the ruler and power of the nations.

God is Lord of all.

God gives power to the faint and

strengthens the powerless.

Our God loves us to draw us up in our hour of need.

God removes our lament and

restores our souls with the songs of praise.

 

When we hear the song Majesty it too restores us to the tradition of God’s power and grace over all of us.

No matter how exhausted we find ourselves
we have the promise that God will renew our strength.

It is our Lord’s Supper tradition that we come to the Table remembering that Christ is our living bread where we are nourished and renewed, refreshed and strengthened. 

Photo credit Joe Valentine

In this tradition that God has given us

 we too trust that as 

we wait for the Lord 

we shall be renewed in strength, 

we shall mount up with wings as eagles and we shall run and not be weary, and we shall walk and not faint. 

It is the tradition that reminds us that we are the Body of Christ across the whole world. We are a community of faith drawn together through our Savior. Take time to return to the tradition of our faith and join in community here and now through reaching out to us as we reach out to you. Prepare your table before you as we sup as one.

Let us gather now and rejoice and praise God for his wonderful gifts to us. Let us lift up our voices and shout louder than the cheers at the football games, let us lift our spirits with joy! We are about to enter into the joyful feast of our risen Lord, it is time to praise our Jesus! Amen.

Resources: Interpretation Isaiah Paul Hanson; A Commentary on Isaiah Claus Westermann; NIB Christopher Seitz.

Property of Monica Gould sharing is permitted but not to be reprinted without permission.  

No Time to Waste

 

Sermon Mark 1:14-20 January 24, 2021

No Time to Waste

In the last ten months we have been jumping to schedules and radical changes and learning new ways that have been more than we could handle at times. Nothing before us has been like the way we are living now. 

I watched a Wheel of Fortune show last night that was from Feb 2020. It was so weird! They were standing close to each other and they were spinning the wheel with their bare hands. I was shocked.

And then I realized, oh my gosh-we’re now looking at everything pre-covid era and post-covid era. It’s been a real ride of radical change. Nothing before has turned us to quick thinking actions on our feet that we could be prepared to make. Everyday we keep thinking we have a routine until the call comes to say schools are shut down again. And then the call comes to say they are open again. 

Who in their right mind can keep a schedule like that? 

For some, perhaps life is a perpetual hamster wheel and each day is a desire to fill the moments with something to do. It has been a frustration of how to stay energized and part of the everyday life while staying at home.

We’re all realizing though, that there is no time to waste.

Each day there is new learning, new teaching, new methods. The miracle of new networks of friendships have developed in order to navigate in this way of living we never saw coming.

Thank God for the quick thinkers!

Thank God for the problem solvers!

Thank God for the unflappable mama bears out there!

What these mamas have done is no short of a miracle!

They remind me of the disciples who answered the call of Jesus.

Jumping out of a stable setting and running to something and someone most uncertain because the love in the call was so great-that’s the miracle…

In today’s text Mark, the gospel writer, doesn’t skip a beat to introduce us to Jesus. Jesus is baptized, sent into the wilderness and when he emerges from the wilderness we read that John has been arrested. In the same breath of the gospel writer’s announcement of John’s arrest he writes that Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the ‘good news’.  There is no pause for sorrow for John or even for Jesus to acknowledge the passing of the baton.

For Mark, the movement of the power of God is urgent, radical, and forward moving. The calling of the disciples as an opening act for the ministry of Jesus will give the disciples the authority they need to carry on after Jesus is gone.

Jesus comes to Andrew and Simon first and calls for them to follow him and fills them with a promise of a new vocation. His call to them implies a radical break from their former way of living. Immediately they left their nets and followed Jesus. Jesus places the same call on James and John who not only leave their nets but leave their father as well.

A radical departure indeed. 

They dropped everything and turned to a new way of life. 

Not unlike what so many of us had to do ten months ago and keep doing everyday!

We often get hung up on the ability of the disciples to have the will and the obedience to leave everything behind. But, if our focus is on what they did, then we miss the point of the power of God to change us and to turn us to a new way of life. 

Jesus CALLS them and they come running because Jesus’ call is undeniable and irresistible!

Barbara Brown Taylor suggests we’re missing something if we lay our focus on the yes of the disciples. 

“If we spend all our focus on what the disciples 

gave up and how they were so saintly and self- sacrificing 

we really miss the point of the message. 

These verses are about the miracle of God’s work 

in God’s encounters with people. She says, 

“the power of God to walk right up to a quartet 

of fishermen and work a miracle, 

creating faith where there was no faith, 

creating disciples 

where there were none 

just a moment before.”

Yes, God is at work with miracles within us. Jesus is calling us and we are without any apprehension following him through all that faces us because we understand the power of God.

Kate Huey suggests that we also get hung up on the idea that this disciple making or disciple becoming is something that we do. 

We think if we fix ourselves or shape our lives; 

if we determine our destinies, 

or take hold of the future 

then our independent choice of becoming a follower of Jesus is how we please God. 

But, it is God who works power within us 

and we can’t resist but follow. 

It is beyond our choice but a force so strong we know its right.

Taylor reminds us, “What we may have lost along the way is a full sense of the power of God – to recruit people who have made terrible choices; to invade the most hapless lives and fill them with light; to sneak up on people who are thinking about lunch, not God, and smack them upside the head with glory" (Home by Another Way). Whether we're ready or not, God acts.

I honestly believe God has acted in the lives of our saints during these radical times. 

We could not be here today in a secure and strong congregation 

without the miracle of God’s presence 

among us to stir us to action. 

The miracle is that God stirred our hearts 

to give us the strength to say 

that we would be the church through all times. 

God called us out of the darkness around us 

and puts us to work. 

We responded not out of our own ability but the 

strength of Christ within us.

At the PEVA Zoom presbytery meeting yesterday, I learned of all the ways the churches in our presbytery also heard God’s call to them that there was no time to waste. They turned to offering ministry and mission in their communities to meet the needs of many. They redid their food pantries and their child care. There was so much retraining and learning to work together with new technologies and assisting the home bound. Each church had a miracle story. We have our miracle stories.

You see when Jesus comes along and calls to us from the seashore, 

we drop everything and run to him knowing there is no time to waste. 

We are the church because the miracle of his call is still at work within each of us. 

We are the church because the power of Christ is irresistible! 

You see mamas know that when there is a challenge in front of us 

we don’t run and hide, we run to it for the sake of our family. 

Jesus called those disciples and they went running to him. 

They ran to him not because they were leaving anything behind 

but because they were running to him knowing it would be for the sake of many.

The little diddly put together to encourage the church in 2003 at First Pres in Harrisonburg, VA goes like this.

I am the Church

My church is composed of people like me. We make it what it is.

It will be friendly if I am friendly.

It’s pews will be filled (that’s online pews too), if I fill them.

It will do great work, if I work.

It will make generous gifts to many causes, if I am a generous giver.

It will bring people into its worship and fellowship, if I bring them (online too).

It will be a church of loyalty and love, of fearlessness and faith, and a church with a noble spirit, if I, who makes it what it is, am filled with these traits.

Therefore, with the help of God, I shall dedicate myself to the task of being all the things I want my church to be.

 When we see the face of Jesus and hear his voice, there is no time to waste. We come running to shore and follow him. 

Let each of us today heed his call and follow. 

There’s no telling how our lives will be. 

There’s no time to waste. 

Amen.

Resources: NIB Gospel of Mark Pheme Perkins; Barbara Brown Taylor; Working Preacher-Kate Huey 2012

Property of Monica Gould sharing is permitted but not to be reprinted without permission.