site: sermons

title: A Bundle of Need

author: Wilson Pruitt

church: bee-creek-umc

themes: incarnation admitting-need vulnerability-of-god rest-in-christ

text:
**Scripture:** Luke 2:1-7; Luke 2:6-7; Isaiah 9:6
**Series:** 2020

> Preaching on the nativity in Luke 2:1-7, the sermon dwells on Jesus arriving as a helpless newborn, a 'bundle of need,' and on Mary and Joseph going to the land of their family yet finding no one to take them in. Against the Christmas impulse to seek the best and to project self-sufficiency, it argues that God enters the world in vulnerability and that we are closest to God precisely when we admit our needs rather than pretending we have it all together. It closes by inviting hearers to stop hiding their need and to rest in being already forgiven and loved, since unto us a child has come.

**Illustrations:** family-christmas-dishes, christmas-shopping-list, home-depot-trips, newborn-bundle-of-need, no-yelp-no-best-obgyn, manger-food-trough, effortless-perfection

---

# December 24

Luke 2:1-7

One of the most universal things about Christmas is that there is a lot of food. Even if you don’t have a lot of guests, even if Christmas is not a large event this year for you, there are foods around Christmas that are special (Family Christmas Dishes)

Your family may have a special dish with a special recipe. (Shopping list, Do I really need macadamian nuts?, Do I really need cranberries?)
(Home Projects, Home Depot Trips)
Christmas is the day we celebrate the birth of a child. If you have ever been around newborn infant, you have seen someone in great need. A newborn needs his mother. There is a deep need. There is little alternative.
As well, a newborn baby is probably one of the most unproductive persons out there. Newborn babies never do a good job. They never clean the kitchen when you ask them. They are always making messes. They never wake up on time. They never go to bed on time. They are up all hours of the night. They wake everyone else up. Newborns are these bundles of need. And this is the way God enters the world. As a bundle of need.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
There was a call for a census and everyone was going to go to the home of their family, and so Joseph, who was betrothed to Mary, took Mary, who was pregnant, from Nazareth down to Bethlehem. They took the road south to the City of David. They were going to the land of their family but they have no family there, at the moment. This is one of the ironies rarely lifted up at Christmas. The whole point of Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem is that that is the land of his birth, the land of his family, but they have no family there. Nobody gives them a room. Nobody gives them a room. They are going to the land of their family but their family is not there.
Maybe they thought someone would just let them in? Maybe they thought people would see the need and respond. People did not. Mary and Joseph were in need. They needed a place to stay. They found a roof. They weren’t looking for anything special.
For most of us, though, when we look for things, we look for something special. When shopping for Christmas presents, you want to get people you love something special, something thoughtful. If you want to try a new dish for Christmas, you check a cookbook, you check some cooking websites, “what is the best chocolate pie? What is the best cranberry relish?” Now, many of you have family recipes that are seen as the best, that are passed down.
But if you are trying to cook something new, you don’t look for the most average dish. “What is the most average way to cook green beens?” You don’t need a recipe for that. Open a can. Heat it up. Serve. Instead, we look for the best, for the great.
Mary and Joseph weren’t looking for the best place to stay. They weren’t checking Yelp. They just needed a place to stop. They weren’t looking for the best hospital. They weren’t looking for the best OB/GYN. They were looking for a place to stop. And then, Luke says, Luke 2:6-7.  Two verses. He is not born. Mary gives birth. Children don’t just arrive, the mother bears them. After nursing, she lays him where she can. She lays him in a manger, a manger, the french word To eat. It is a food trough. The child promised by the angel is set down in a place for animal feed.
Christmas is not about a place, though, but a person. The child is the news. The child is the one who brings the light. This bundle wrapped in torn-cloth and laying in a food trough; probably not very clean. This is God-with-us. This is the one who will save us. This dirty, wet, bundle of need. This child of need will fulfill all our needs and wipe all the tears from our eyes. This child will make us whole. Will defeat death. And yet, we must remember that in our need, we are closer to God. It is counterintuitive. Most examples of strength are people without needs. The strongest, the richest, the most powerful. Effortless perfection. Yet this pursuit of needlessness gets us away from reality and gets us away from God.

When we admit our needs, we are closer to God. When we tell ourselves we have no needs. When we tell ourselves we are fine. When we tell ourselves life is fine, we are separating ourselves from God and other people in our life. You don’t have to live a lie. You don’t have to put on a show. When you don’t have it all together you are closer to God. Let me say that again. When you don’t have it all together, you are closer to God.
We see this at Christmas. Mary and Jospeh didn’t have it all together or they would have had a place to stay. Jesus didn’t have it all together because he was an infant, infant’s don’t have it all together. God humbled himself to the point of coming as a child, as a breakable child. Offering himself to us in a way that could have been broken but he was not. And that is a miracle. And every child is a miracle. Every life is a miracle. Your life this day is a miracle and you don’t have to live just for yourself or just for your family. In fact, you can’t. You can’t be everyone. You can’t do everything. You don’t have to.
God has opened up to you this day a life of love. We cannot rest until we find our rest in God. God is here. Rest this day in the fact that you are loved. Rest this day in the fact that you don’t have to hide your need. You are already forgiven. You are already loved. For unto us a child has come.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

method: authored, not translated

license_apparatus: CC BY-NC 4.0


title: Advent: Don't Be Deceived

themes: spiritual-deception abiding-in-christ truth-telling prayer witness-and-martyrdom

text:
**Scripture:** 1 John 2:26-27; 2 Corinthians 2:17; 2 Corinthians 2:14-15
**Series:** 2020

> An Advent children's/Evensong message built on 1 John 2:26-27 warning against those who would deceive believers, paired with 2 Corinthians 2:14-17 on being people of sincerity who spread the aroma of Christ. Using images of poker-table suckers and snake oil salesmen, the sermon urges staying close to God by abiding in Christ, surrounding oneself with the people of God, and remembering one's identity as a beloved, forgiven child of God. It closes with a call to begin Advent through prayer (the Examen, devotions), framing every prayer as an act of faith and noting that Christianity spread through praying martyrs and witnesses whose shocking love testified to God.

**Illustrations:** poker-table-sucker, snake-oil-salesmen, aroma-of-christ, dylan-gotta-serve-somebody

---

# November 29

## Childrens

Advent

1 John 2:26-27

Playing poker. Look around the table for the sucker.

History of Traveling Salesmen and History of US evangelism.

Snake oil salesmen

Deceivers.

What is a good deal

2 Corinthians 2:17

But what protects us from the peddlers and deceivers? Being people of sincerity. We remain sincere by doing the things of God with the people of God. We remain in Christ by keeping people of Christ around us.

We also remain in Christ by remembering that we are people of Christ. As Paul writes earlier in 2 corinthians 2:14-15

You give off an aroma. No, not just after your work out.

As Bob Dylan says, you gotta serve somebody.

We don't need to deceive. We don't need to pretend or lie. God is love and in God there is no darkness at all. In this season of advent, let us stay close to God by doing the things of God. Let us start with prayer.

This day, pray. Pray the Ex amen. Pray a devotion. Every prayer is an act of faith.

Christianity did not spread around the world through evangelists but martyrs, witnesses, who were all people of prayer. People who act out of love so much that it is shocking.

And so for advent. Pray. Love. Don’t be deceived. Don’t act like you think others want you to. Remember that you are a child of God. You are loved. You are forgiven. God has a purpose for you.


title: Animals and God's Promise (Children's Message): The True Light Already Shines

themes: light-and-darkness presence-of-god creation victory-over-death human-brokenness faith-as-seeing

scripture: 1 John 2:8

text:
**Scripture:** 1 John 2:8
**Series:** 2020

> A brief children's/Evensong reflection built on 1 John 2:8 ('the darkness is passing away and the true light already shines'). Using the shock of absolute darkness in Carlsbad Caverns and Plato's allegory of the cave, it presents light and darkness as ancient metaphors, then distinguishes a teacher who needs external light from Jesus who IS light. Jesus' light reaches beyond the horizon of earthly pursuits (death is no longer all-powerful) and also illuminates the present, revealing all creation as miraculous and imbued with God's love if we have eyes to see. It closes with reassurance: when night closes in, the darkness and brokenness are not your fault; darkness signals not God's absence but what Jesus came to conquer.

**Illustrations:** carlsbad-caverns-darkness, platos-cave, two-teachers-in-darkness, horizon-of-earthly-pursuits

---

Children’s
Animals and God’s promise

“On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light already shines.”
1 John 2:8 CEB

Carlsbad caverns
Absolute darkness is shocking

Darkness and light are old metaphors

Plato’s Cave (παιδεία vs logos)

If you have two teachers in the darkness. One needs external light to guide, the other is light.

There is a horizon of earthly pursuits. What we can see and what we can't. The light of Jesus goes beyond the horizon of earthly pursuits.

But it is not just beyond the horizon we see here. The light of Jesus illuminates our present. Where we sit. Who we see. Who we love. The darkness recedes from the horizon of our future for death is no longer all powerful. The darkness recedes from the horizon of our present. Life now. All creation is miraculous, imbued with God’s love, and we just need the eyes to see.

And even when darkness seems too much and the night is closing in. God’s light can shine for you. For us. The darkness is not your fault. The brokenness is not your fault. Darkness does not point to an absence of God but what Jesus came to conquer.
the darkness is passing away and the true light already shines.”


title: Antichrist: Becoming the Villain

themes: antichrist self-knowledge truth-telling forgiveness faithful-perseverance god-is-love repentance

text:
**Scripture:** 1 John 2:21-22; Matthew 18:21-35
**Series:** 2020

> An Evensong sermon on 1 John 2:21-22 paired with the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:21-35). Pruitt unpacks the Greek meaning of 'antichrist' (anti- simply means 'against,' as in antidote) to argue that being an antichrist is not just other people's problem; like the forgiven-then-merciless servant, we can each turn from grace to villainy. Using pop-culture heroes (Star Wars, zombie movies, Two-Face's line from The Dark Knight), he notes everyone imagines themselves the hero, but faith lets us admit both the bad we've done and what we're capable of. The remedy: God is love with no darkness, and following through and telling the truth, in big things and small, is itself an act of faith and a sign of God's presence.

**Illustrations:** playing-hunter-promise, group-project-flake, star-wars-luke-skywalker, zombie-movies-collapse, two-face-dark-knight, antidote-etymology

---

# November 15

## Children’s Message
Playing Hunter
Playing with other kids. An agreement that we are going to play together. If I said I was going to play, and then I didn’t, would that be any fun?
If you have a group project and someone says they are going to do it and they don’t, is that fun?
One of the ways to follow God is simply to do what we say we are going to do. This is what John tells his friends and this is what God tells us. And when we fall short, to admit it, repent, and there will be mercy.

1 John 2:21-22

Star Wars, Luke Skywalker, anyone can be a hero
but you get to a point when it is not going to happen.
Then there are Zombie movies

What if everything collapses and I can be a hero?

Most of us see ourselves as heroes and not as villains.

Matthew 18:21-35

This is how we are supposed to understand antichrist here

Antichrist is a very different word in English than it is in Greek. Anti- is a prefix that just means “against”.

Being anti is not necessarily negative. An antidote comes from the Greek anti and didonai, which means to give. So an antidote is something given against.

An antichrist is one against Christ. What does that mean? First, we must realize that we can be antichrist’s. It is not just other people. In the same way, that we must realize that sin is not just other people. Like the unfaithful servant, we can be forgiven one day and turn around and be without mercy the next.

As Two Face says in The Dark Night, “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." It can happen to us. That is the sin of this world. Faith allows us to admit the bad things we have done but also what we are capable of. And yet, it doesn’t end there.

So what does John offer for us? We have been given the Truth that God is love and in him there is no darkness at all. We have shown that Jesus is the way and the truth and the light.

Following through is a sign of God’s presence and God’s love. Telling the truth is an act of faith. Telling the truth about big things, but also little things.

You know the truth. God is love. You don’t need to lie. You don’t need to be someone you are not.


title: God's Love: A Deal Too Good to Be True

themes: grace-as-gift god-is-love conversion receiving-grace resurrection faith-as-seeing

text:
**Scripture:** 1 John 4:7-13; 1 John 1:1-4; Ephesians 2:8
**Series:** 2020

> An Eastertide Evensong sermon on 1 John 4:7-13 arguing that God's love and forgiveness, offered freely by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8), can seem like a deal too good to be true. Using George Strait's ironic 'Ocean Front Property' and the Texas Hill Country as too-good-to-be-true comparisons, the preacher insists the only catch lies with us: we must receive the gift, which means conversion understood (with Augustine) as turning around to see the world rightly. First John's whole letter teaches that right vision, grounded in the reality that God is love and sent his Son so we might live through him. In the Easter season we hold to the truth that Jesus is risen and God's promise is real.

**Illustrations:** george-strait-ocean-front-property, hill-country-robert-caro, augustine-conversion-turning-upright

---

# April 11

### Children’s
Star test

“Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love. This is how the love of God is revealed to us: This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us this way, we also ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. If we love each other, God remains in us and his love is made perfect in us. This is how we know we remain in him and he remains in us, because he has given us a measure of his Spirit.”
1 John 4:7-13 CEB

I am always weary of deals that are too good to be true.

George strait ocean front property has a chorus filled with too-good-to-be-true deals. The song itself uses this ironically, but I didn’t understand irony in 1987 when the song came out.

I've got some ocean front property in Arizona
From my front porch, you can see the sea
I've got some ocean front property in Arizona
If you'll buy that, I'll throw the Golden Gate in free

The Hill Country originally seemed too good to be true. Robert Caro

A lot of Christianity seems like a deal too good to be true. When Paul says “for it is by grace that you have been saved through faith, and it is not your own doing.”

What’s the catch? God loves and forgives you without a price or a cost

God’s love seems like a deal too good to be true.

The catch has to do with us and not with God. The catch is that we have to receive the deal that God gives us.To except this deals from the God who is love means we need to turn our life around. This is what conversion means. Conversion is not about going from an atheist to a Christian or a Muslim to a Buddhist, it is about turning around. Saint Augustine talks about conversion as going from being turned in words on ourselves to standing upright in order to see the world rightly.

And the point of the first letter of John is to teach us to see the world rightly. Starting with the very first words

“We announce to you what existed from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have seen and our hands handled, about the word of life. The life was revealed, and we have seen, and we testify and announce to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us. What we have seen and heard, we also announce it to you so that you can have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy can be complete.”
1 John 1:1-4 CEB

John goes all through what is the light ans what is the darkness and how we need to stay away from the darkness, but behind and above it all is that reality that God is love and we know this because “God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him.”

It is a great deal. It would be too good to be true if it were not.

In this season of Easter, we can hold on and remember that Jesus is risen, Gods promise is true, and the God who is love is here for us all.


title: Hagar, Sarah, and the Birth of a People

themes: covenant-with-abraham grace-not-merit name-of-god salvation-history scripture-interpretation self-reliance-versus-trust

text:
**Scripture:** Genesis 16:1-16; Genesis 17:1-27; Galatians 4:22-31; Hebrews 11:8-16
**Series:** 2020

> Sermon notes on Genesis 16-17 read as a single unit: the birth of the people of Israel. Genesis 16 (Hagar and Sarah) is framed, via Rashi and Ambrose, as humanity's flawed self-reliant attempt to fulfill God's promise, akin to the golden calf, while Genesis 17 (the renewed covenant, name changes of Abram and Sarah, and the promise of Isaac, 'laughter') marks the beginning of the People. The preacher stresses that God blesses Abraham and Sarah not by works but by faith, anchoring the point in Hebrews 11:8-16 and noting that God also blesses Hagar and Ishmael.

**Illustrations:** rashi-hagar-pharaohs-daughter, rashi-multiple-angels-hagar, rashi-naming-ishmael, ambrose-defense-abraham-hagar, golden-calf-comparison, isaac-means-laughter

---

# August 1

Gen 16-17

Gen 16 Hagar and Sarah, Abraham and Hagar

Gen 17. Second covenant with Abram and the changing of his name and changing of the name of Sarah, as well as the birth of Isaac, which means laughter.

## Rashi on 16
“She was a daughter of Pharaoh; when he saw the miracles which had been performed for Sarah’s take he said, “It is better for my daughter to be a handmaid in this man’s house than be mistress in another man’s house.” -Rashi on 16:1

“For each statement (in these three verses) a different angel was sent to her, and this explains why in reference to each statement the phrase is used, “and an angel said to her”” - Rashi on 16:9

“Although Abram had not heard the words of the angel when he said to Hagar “and thou shalt call his name Ishmael”, yet the Holy Spirit rested upon him and he called him Ishmael.” - Rashi on 16:15

## Ambrose on 16

Abraham and Hagar is before the Law of Moses so there is no law against adultery.

Second, he did not neglect his marriage bed  because of lust or charm but zeal for progeny. Human beings were still few after the flood; it was also a matter of piety.

Third, Sarah asked him to do it.

Fourth, Paul in Galatians 4:22-31 says it is an allegory

Genesis 17 The covenant transformed. If Genesis 12 marks the beginning of history, Genesis 17 marks the beginning of the People.

We need to hold 16 and 17 together as the birth of the people of Israel. Abraham and Hagar is humanity’s attempt to follow God on its own. In a way, it is like the golden calf. The best of intentions do not make a good relationship or good action. And yet, God blesses Ishmael and Hagar in the end.

Abraham and Sarah don’t come off well in this light, but it is not by works that God blesses them.

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance. He went out without knowing where he was going. By faith he lived in the land he had been promised as a stranger. He lived in tents along with Isaac and Jacob, who were coheirs of the same promise. He was looking forward to a city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith even Sarah received the ability to have a child, though she herself was barren and past the age for having children, because she believed that the one who promised was faithful. So descendants were born from one man (and he was as good as dead). They were as many as the number of the stars in the sky and as countless as the grains of sand on the seashore. All these people died in faith without receiving the promises, but they saw the promises from a distance and welcomed them. They confessed that they were strangers and immigrants on earth. People who say this kind of thing make it clear that they are looking for a homeland. If they had been thinking about the country that they had left, they would have had the opportunity to return to it. But at this point in time, they are longing for a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God isn’t ashamed to be called their God—he has prepared a city for them.”
Hebrews 11:8-16 CEB
https://bible.com/bible/37/heb.11.8-16.CEB


title: Half a World Away

themes: praise you-are-not-alone self-revelation-vs-hiding incarnation great-commission hymnody

scripture: Matthew 2:1-12

text:
**Scripture:** Matthew 2:1-12
**Series:** 2020

> A short Christmas Eve Eve homily that uses music as identity (a 6th-grade Nine Inch Nails shirt, High Fidelity's top-five lists, and a song called 'Half a World Away' shared by Chris) to explore how we both hide behind and reveal ourselves through the stories and traditions we choose. Pivoting to the magi who came from far away and the gospel's spread from Paul to Thomas to Spicewood, the preacher argues that people who feel half a world away are not lost to us, and that even in the strange year of 2020 Christmas can bring a 'new song' that sounds and looks different but still carries something amazing taking place.

**Illustrations:** nine-inch-nails-shirt, high-fidelity-top-five-lists, chris-half-a-world-away-song, magi-from-afar, gospel-paul-thomas-to-spicewood

---

# Christmas Eve Eve

## Half a world away

6th Grade. Nine Inch Nails. “I don’t listen to the lyrics.” I wanted to be the kind of kid who wore that kind of shirt.

Music as a way to perform. Not just as a musician, but music taste as a performance. High Fidelity. lists of top 5 like, 9. Rob's top five side one, track ones.

> 'Janie Jones', The Clash;
'White Light / White Heat', Velvet Underground;
'Smells Like Teen Spirit', Nirvana;
'Let's Get It On', Marvin Gaye;
'Radiation Ruling the Nation', Massive Attack.

In the Nick Hornby book, so much of the genre of lists reveals the shallowness of the lead character. Music can be a way that we present ourselves to the world. Saying, “I like this song” because we want to be the kind of people who like this song.

When I listen to Chris’s song, especially the chorus,

Half a world away on the other side of night,
in the places we belong
I’ll be seeing in a new song
when you see the light
Of morning at the same time I see the stars of night

I think of the ways we both find ourself in music and hide away in music.

We can choose to hide behind music or to reveal ourselves. We can choose to hide behind the stories we tell, or reveal ourselves. At Christmas, we can choose to hide behind traditions and practices or open ourselves up to new possibilities in the midst of them.

Are there people in your life who are half a world away? They aren't lost to you. We can still be connected to people we feel far away from, but it may take a new song. The magi came from a long way. In Greek, magi is plural. There are no kings nor three of them. All that came later. Something was happening, though. Paul took the story of Jesus across the Mediterranean. Thomas took it to India. The story has come to Spicewood. There is a new song for the world.

It may not sound like it did before. It may not look like it did before. This Christmas, may receive a new song. Even if this strange year, something amazing is still taking place.


title: Having the Son: Living a More Real Life by Faith

themes: testimony-of-water-blood-spirit christology eternal-life-now faith-as-seeing divine-economics freedom-in-christ idolatry

text:
**Scripture:** 1 John 5:6-21; 1 John 1:1-4; 1 John 3:2
**Series:** 2020

> Preached on 1 John 5:6-21 (Trinity Sunday season, May 30, 2020), this sermon explores what it means to 'have the Son' and thus have eternal life. Using the image of a child pretending to be a pirate who holds together a real and unreal world, Pruitt argues that faith is not pretending but seeing the deeper, more real world beneath this one through the testimony of water, blood, and Spirit and the logos of the cross. Drawing on 1 John's concrete language of hearing, seeing, and touching the Word of life, he contrasts the world's zero-sum economy of scarcity and possession with God's non-exclusive economy where having the Son is not possession but living now as a citizen of God's kingdom. The believer is invited to see as God sees, to refuse the pretense that evil is all there is or will last forever, and to receive God's love offered here and now, guarding themselves from idols.

**Illustrations:** child-pretending-pirate, real-life-minecraft-hunter, house-ownership-scarcity, possessing-car-watch-cat

---

# May 30

## Children’s
Who likes their birthdays?

“This is the one who came by water and blood: Jesus Christ. Not by water only but by water and blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. The three are testifying— the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and the three are united in agreement. If we receive human testimony, God’s testimony is greater, because this is what God testified: he has testified about his Son. The one who believes in God’s Son has the testimony within; the one who doesn’t believe God has made God a liar, because that one has not believed the testimony that God gave about his Son. And this is the testimony: God gave eternal life to us, and this life is in his Son. The one who has the Son has life. The one who doesn’t have God’s Son does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of God’s Son so that you can know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence that we have in our relationship with God: If we ask for anything in agreement with his will, he listens to us. If we know that he listens to whatever we ask, we know that we have received what we asked from him. If anyone sees a brother or sister committing a sin that does not result in death, they should pray, and God will give life to them—that is, to those who commit sins that don’t result in death. There is a sin that results in death—I’m not saying that you should pray about that. Every unrighteous action is sin, but there is a sin that does not result in death. We know that everyone born from God does not sin, but the ones born from God guard themselves, and the evil one cannot touch them. We know we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. We know that God’s Son has come and has given us understanding to know the one who is true. We are in the one who is true by being in his Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, guard yourselves from idols!”
1 John 5:6-21 CEB

Pretending I’m a pirate
Hunter
Real life Minecraft

The child who pretends he is a pirate balances two possible worlds: one real, the other unreal.

It is not just a matter of pretending. The child knows he is not a pirate. He is pretending. But for a child pirate, a stick is a sword, a box is a mighty sailboat, a t-shirt is a jolly rogers flag.

Faith transforms how we see the world and how we live in the world.  John urges the believer to be other than he is, to accomplish in himself an alternative possibility. To live the same life but to live it differently. But it is different than pretend.

Under the shape of this world is another possible world that we see by faith through the logos of the cross, that we see by water and blood and spirit.

This is what we have with the whole of 1 John.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make oura joy complete.

You have been loved in concrete ways by God and you have been transformed by God’s mercy. In ways that we can hear and see and touch. The entire letter of 1 John is filled with a progressively intensifying set of dichotomy, concluding here in chapter 5: “The one who has the Son has life. The one who doesn’t have God’s Son does not have life. “

But we are left with the final question: what does it mean to have God’s Son? What does it mean to have Jesus? We can’t possess Jesus as we can possess a car or a watch or a cat.

The world with which John over and over again contrasts the life of God, our world is filled with haves and have nots. Our world is filled with scarcity. There are a finite amount of resources. Because resources our finite, there have been a lot of debates and governments and wars around who gets what in society. Whether resources are accrued based on who deserves it or based on some other factor.

Now, I don’t really want to go into the pros and cons of different methods of political economy on a Sunday Night. What we need to remember throughout these dichotomies in John and throughout our own experience with God and faith is that the economy of God is not zero-sum. The economy of God is not based on scarcity.

For instance, if you own your house, that means your neighbor does not. But to be with God is non-exclusive.

We get back to this question: what does it mean to have God’s son?

This is to live in the world but as a citizen of a different world. As John says in his Gospel, “Here and now we are God’s children. What we shall be has not yet been revealed.

So we come back to the child pretending to be a pirate who occupies two possible worlds. What Christ offers us not a pretend life, but a more real life. A deeper life that we can live today. God’s love is offered to you. You can see now as God sees. The letter for John is not about other people or universal concepts but right here and right now, God is love and God’s love is offered to you. You don’t need sin. You don’t need darkness. You don’t need to pretend that the evil of this world is all there is. You don’t need to pretend that this evil will last forever. “We know that God’s Son has come and has given us understanding to know the one who is true. We are in the one who is true by being in his Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. “

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy SPirit.
AMen.


title: Holding the Faith: Doing What You Say

themes: faith-and-belief doers-not-hearers temptation discipleship christian-perfection

scripture: 1 John 2:4-6; 1 Corinthians 10:13

text:
**Scripture:** 1 John 2:4-6; 1 Corinthians 10:13
**Series:** 2020

> An Evensong sermon on 1 John 2:4-6 arguing that anyone can claim to be a Christian, but genuine faith is shown by holding to it and doing what one says (illustrated by the Seinfeld rental-car reservation bit). John generalizes sin as missing the mark; temptations differ by person and life stage, and 2020's compounding challenges press on faith. The remedy is communal: we hold to Christ and are perfected in love together through 4th Day groups, Sunday school, and deep discipleship friendships.

**Illustrations:** seinfeld-rental-car-reservation, chocolate-cake-chips-salsa, 2020-compound-disasters

---

1 John 2:4-6 CEB
“Seinfeld, i made a reservation for a midsize.”
“Let me see here…(type, type, type) I’m sorry we don’t have a midsize available at the moment.”
“I don’t understand. Do you have my reservation?”
“Yes we do. Unfortunately, we ran out of cars.”
“But the reservation keeps the car here. That’s why you have the reservation.”
“I don’t think you do. If you did, I’d have a car. “See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to hold the reservation and that's really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them.”
-------------
Anybody can claim to be a Christian, it is the holding to the faith that is the key. It is the doing the things you say you are going to do.
John generalizes sin and missing the mark. This is helpful.
In different periods, we are tempted by different things.
What is tempting to me is not tempting to you and vice versa.
The thing about temptation is that it is tempting.
e.g. Chocolate Cake.
e.g. Chips and Salsa

When we look at what John talks about here…In different periods of life, there are different challenges to doing the things of Jesus. There are different temptations that pull us from faith.
Common expression…God never gives us more than we can we can handle.
1 Corinthians 10:13.

Life can be challenging. As well, how we understand life to be challenging changes. 2020 vs. any other year.

If there were a flood with a fire tornado followed by Thunder snow next week, Or if Covid combined with the flu to produce super flu,

We hold on to Christ together. We do the things of faith together. 4th Day groups. Sunday School. Discipleship relationships. Deep friendships. We hold faith together. We are perfected in love together in faith.


title: How to Live Our Story

themes: sacred-story discipleship power-in-weakness generosity suffering christian-perfection christian-community

text:
**Scripture:** 2 Corinthians 4:7-10; Acts 2:42-47; Matthew 5:48; Luke 18:18-23; Genesis 2; Jeremiah 18; Luke 19:1-10
**Series:** 2020

> Closing sermon in a 'Sacred Story' series. Using language-learning as an extended metaphor, Pruitt argues that living our sacred story is a daily practice, not a one-time intention. Drawing on Paul's treasure-in-clay-jars (2 Corinthians 4) and the early church's daily sharing (Acts 2), he insists faith is no get-out-of-pain card but reveals Jesus through our brokenness. Citing Bonhoeffer, Matthew 5:48 ('be perfect/completed'), Zacchaeus, and the rich young ruler, he calls the congregation to day-by-day discipleship marked by generosity over scarcity, trusting that God is not finished with them or with Bee Creek.

**Illustrations:** learning-hungarian-alina, thunder-bay-english-variation, language-metaphor-sacred-story, clay-jars-treasure, bonhoeffer-faithful-daily, zacchaeus-pledge, rich-young-ruler

---

# How to live our story (Manuscript)

Every language in the world is hard to learn.

When I met Alina, I didn’t know any Hungarian at all. When we went to Hungary…

Other English Countries—Thunder Bay

Language is not the same from one country to the next, from one place to the next. As well, our stories are not the same. Language is a very helpful metaphor for what we have been talking about over the last few weeks of our sacred story. Each of our stories is like a language. There are different grammars to it. There is a different vocabulary. We each have a different vocabulary to describe who we are, where we have been, what we care about. We don’t use the same words.

The world pushes down on us a story about what we should care about and what we should strive for. As well, a certain vocabulary about that story. To live our sacred story is not just to have good intentions, but to have practices in this world shaped by love. Our sacred story has a grammar, a vocabulary, a history beyond ourselves. We have to practice it like we are learning a new language. And the best way to learn is live it. We learn our story by living our story to the fullest.

We are finishing our series on our sacred story today.
- We began, three weeks ago, talking about what a sacred story is - Zaccheaus
- The next week: how my sacred story is from yours - how God cuts through the lies we tell ourselves.
- Last week: the story of Bee Creek and how our story is not complete.
- which brings us to the words of Paul today.

> 2 Corinthians 4:7-10

Paul uses this expression clay pots or clay jars. Paul alludes both to the creation of humans in Genesis 2, as well as Jeremiah 18 and the journey to the potter’s house. But what Paul points to next is that even though God is this amazing treasure inside us, life happens, stuff happens, trouble happens. In fact, he talks about clay pots and then talks about bunch of stuff that would break clay pots (dropping, harassing, troubling), yet we are not broken.

Life with God is not easy. Life with God is not absent suffering and trouble and danger and loss and grief. Faith is not a get-out-of-pain-free card. Our pain is not our story. Faith in Jesus offers us a story beyond ourselves. And God is revealed in us living our story together. God is revealed to the world by you living your life. We are vessels to God. And, in our struggle and hurt that the brokenness of this world forces us to face, we reveal Jesus even more.

We see it right after Pentecost at the very beginning of the Church in the Book of Acts.

> Acts 2:42-47

We see all of the apostles sharing everything, devoting themselves to God and to each other, which is a hard teaching. Giving away. Sharing…everything. We need to be the kind of people who can look at these sayings and not dismiss them. Who can look at these people and not dismiss them.

There are some powerful verses here. It says, day by day they did this. Day by day, they shared. Day by day, the worshipped in the temple. Day by day. There is a habit going on. It is not just this one time thing of sharing. There is no longer space for what happened in the Rich Young Ruler in Luke 18. Instead of the grand dramatic gesture called for when Jesus was alive in order to follow him, it is the day by day act of generosity, the day by day act of worship, the day by day act of sharing food, the day by day act of having generous and glad hearts, the day by day act of having good will towards other people. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Who can really be faithful in great things if he has not learned to be faithful in the things of daily life?”

It is essential for us to understand this daily nature of our sacred story with God. That if we believe that we are loved, if we believe we are forgiven, if we believe that God has a purpose for us, there are daily things which we get to do. And so if we think that our sacred story does not aline with our actions or if our sacred story does not align with the way we practice generosity or live our lives, what are the things that we can do?

How we live our sacred story begins with hope beyond ourselves. It does not begin with faith in ourselves but in faith in the God who raised Jesus from the dead. Our hope is that the God of transformation is not finished with us yet.

In Matthew 5:48, Jesus says, Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. A better translation is ‘be completed’ Find your end as God knows God’s end in love.

Day by day we can practice our end in God. Day by day we can learn the syntax and the vocabulary of life with God in this world, a life of love and compassion and mercy. But we can’t put limits on God like the rich young ruler, that is like saying you are fluent after you learn the alphabet. The most radical thing for us to do this day is live our sacred story day by day. This is what we call discipleship.

Zacchaeus makes a pledge out of the freedom Christ offers to him. Christ matters more. He changes his story because he gives up on total control. He changes his story because his own comfort is no longer the most important thing in the world to him. He changes his story because he no longer sees himself at the center of it. In seeing the person Jesus, Zacchaeus finds a purpose worth living for. In gathering around the tables in Jerusalem after Pentecost, the disciples and new believers find a purpose worth living for. It is not merely survival. It is not merely an unknown future or generational wealth. It is the abundant life of the triune God. Life together, offered to us, but not completed with us. We are not the end of God’s story. Today is not the end of your story. Today is not the end of Bee Creek’s story. God has more for us. Day by day. Do we live lives of scarcity or generosity? Is grace scarce? Is grace limited? Or is grace overflowing to us especially during those times we don’t deserve it. Grace is offered to you all. The grace of mercy. The grace of faith. The grace of love.

We learn to live our sacred story through the practice of a faithful life. We live it by not putting a limit on what God can do for us. We live it by not ignoring what we can do for others, and what we can offer for God. We live it by accepting the gift of the story of others, by accepting the gifts of life together, and by sharing in the promise and victory of God.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.


title: How to Live Our Story

themes: sacred-story power-in-weakness discipleship generosity suffering christian-perfection transformation

text:
**Scripture:** 2 Corinthians 4:7-10; Acts 2:42-47; Genesis 2; Jeremiah 18; Luke 18; Matthew 5:48
**Series:** 2020

> The final sermon in a four-part 'Sacred Story' series. Using language-learning and 'deceptive fluency' as a metaphor, Wilson argues that our sacred story has its own grammar and vocabulary that must be practiced daily rather than merely intended. From 2 Corinthians 4's image of treasure in clay jars, he insists faith is no get-out-of-pain card — God is revealed precisely through our enduring brokenness. The Acts 2 portrait of believers sharing 'day by day' models discipleship as habitual generosity, worship, and shared life, contrasted with the rich young ruler's grand-gesture limits. Hope rests not in self but in the God who raised Jesus; Matthew 5's 'be perfect' is read as 'be completed' — finding our end in God's love. Like Zacchaeus, we change our story by surrendering control and self-centeredness, living lives of generosity over scarcity, day by day.

**Illustrations:** deceptive-fluency-language, alina-hungary-translation, canada-washrooms-walmart, zacchaeus-pledge, rich-young-ruler-limits, bonhoeffer-faithful-daily

---

# How to live our story

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. 2 Corinthians 4:7-10

Every language in the world is hard to learn. There is no easy language. They each take work and time to master. Some languages are comparable to others, some are radically different, but none are easy.

When I met Alina, I didn’t know any Hungarian at all. When we went to Hungary, she was with me and could translate. Which was amazing. When you travel to a place with someone who can speak the language, it is radically different. There are a lot of people all over the world who speak English. But still, it is a completely different experience to be with someone who speaks the language.

Sometimes we can go to a place like England or Australia or Belize and they speak the same language, but it is different. And sometimes it takes a while to realize the differences. Or even Canada. I remember going to Canada, to Thunder Bay, and going through a Walmart trying to find a restroom. But they do not have restrooms in Canada. they have washrooms.

I call this deceptive fluency. We deceive ourselves into thinking that we understand what is going on. And i think language is a very helpful metaphor for what we have been talking about over the last few weeks of our sacred story. Each of our stories is like a language. There are different grammars to it. There is a different vocabulary. We each have a different vocabulary to describe who we are, where we have been, what we care about. We don’t use the same words.

The world pushes down on us a story about what we should care about and what we should strive for. As well, a certain vocabulary about that story. To live our sacred story is not just to have good intentions, but to have practices in this world shaped by love. Our sacred story has a grammar, a vocabulary, a history beyond ourselves. We have to practice it like we are learning a new language. And the best way to learn is live it. We learn our story by living our story to the fullest.

We are finishing our series on our sacred story today. We began, three weeks ago, talking about what a sacred story is. And thinking about whether our sacred story matches up with our actions. Do the things in which we say about ourselves match how we act? Zacchaues the unrighteous man. Zacchaeus the sinner, who was more than just short. He was a criminal who stole from people and cheated them. He grew wealthy off of the backs of others, and yet, he saw Jesus and Jesus saw him. And said, Zacchaeus, I am coming to your house tonight. And Zacchaeus repented. He converted. He was going one way and he turned around because of God. And he made a pledge. He makes a pledge of restitution for his sins, he makes a pledge of gratefulness to God. The next week, we looked at how my sacred story is different from your sacred story. So often, the world presents a story as a set of costumes that we are supposed to wear. But the word of God cuts through those costumes. Last week, we told the story of Bee Creek and how our sacred story is not yet complete. We have a story for the future. But we don’t know what the future holds, which brings us to the words of Paul today.

> But we have this treasure in clay pots so that the awesome power belongs to God and doesn’t come from us. We are experiencing all kinds of trouble, but we aren’t crushed. We are confused, but we aren’t depressed. We are harassed, but we aren’t abandoned. We are knocked down, but we aren’t knocked out.

Paul uses this expression clay pots or clay jars. Paul alludes both to the creation of humans in Genesis 2, as well as Jeremiah 18 and the journey to the potter’s house. But what Paul points to next is that even though God is this amazing treasure inside us, life happens, stuff happens, trouble happens. In fact, he talks about clay pots and then talks about bunch of stuff that would break clay pots (dropping, harassing, troubling), yet we are not broken.

Life with God is not easy. Life with God is not absent suffering and trouble and danger and loss and grief. Faith is not a get-out-of-pain-free card. Faith in Jesus offers us a story beyond ourselves. And God is revealed in us living our story together. God is revealed to the world by you living your life. We are vessels to God. And, in our struggle and hurt that the brokenness of this world forces us to face, we reveal Jesus even more.

We see it right after Pentecost and the very beginning of the Church in the Book of Acts.

> They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. Acts 2:42-47

We see all of the apostles sharing everything, devoting themselves to God and to each other, which is a hard teaching. Giving away. Sharing…everything. We need to be the kind of people who can look at these sayings and not dismiss them. Who can look at these people and not dismiss them. How do they effect our story and the story we tell to others?

There are some powerful verses here. It says, day by day they did this. Day by day, they shared. Day by day, the worshipped in the temple. Day by day. There is a habit going on. It is not just this one time thing of sharing. There is no longer space for what happened in the Rich Young Ruler in Luke 18. Instead of the grand dramatic gesture called for when Jesus was alive in order to follow him, it is the day by day act of generosity, the day by day act of worship, the day by day act of sharing food, the day by day act of having generous and glad hearts, the day by day act of having good will towards other people. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Who can really be faithful in great things if he has not learned to be faithful in the things of daily life?”

It is essential for us to understand this daily nature of our sacred story with God. That if we believe that we are loved, if we believe we are forgiven, if we believe that God has a purpose for us, there are daily things which we get to do. And so if we think that our sacred story does not aline with our actions or if our sacred story does not with the way we practice generosity or life our lives, what are the things that we can do?

How we live our sacred story begins with hope beyond ourselves. It does not begin with faith in ourselves but in faith in the God who raised Jesus from the dead. Our hope is that the God of transformation is not finished with us yet.

In Matthew 5:47, Jesus says, Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. A better translation is ‘be completed’ Find your end as God knows God’s end in love.

Day by day we can practice our end in God. Day by day we can learn the syntax and the vocabulary of life with God in this world, a life of love and compassion and mercy. But we can’t put limits on God like the rich young ruler, that is like saying you are fluent after you learn the alphabet. The most radical thing for us to do this day is live our sacred story day by day. This is what we call discipleship.

Zacchaeus makes a pledge out of the freedom Christ offers to him. Christ matters more. He changes his story because he gives up on total control. He changes his story because his own comfort is no longer the most important thing in the world to him. He changes his story because he no longer sees himself at the center of it. In seeing the person Jesus, Zacchaeus finds a purpose worth living for. In gathering around the tables in Jerusalem after Pentecost, the disciples and new believers find a purpose worth living for. It is not merely survival. It is not merely an unknown future or generational wealth. It is the abundant life of the triune God. Life together, offered to us, but not completed with us. We are not the end of God’s story. Today is not the end of your story. Today is not the end of Bee Creek’s story. God has more for us. Day by day. Do we live lives of scarcity or generosity? Is grace scarce? Is grace limited? Or is grace overflowing to us especially during those times we don’t deserve it. Grace is offered to you all. The grace of mercy. The grace of faith. The grace of love.

We learn to live our sacred story through the practice of a faithful life. We live it by not putting a limit on what God can do for us. We live it by not ignoring what we can do for others, and what we can offer for God. We live it by accepting the gift of the story of others, by accepting the gifts of life together, and by sharing in the promise and victory of God.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.


title: Jesus Our Advocate

themes: holy-spirit-as-advocate sin-and-grace regret-and-counterfactuals guilt-and-shame justice-and-righteousness logos-christology

scripture: 1 John 2:1

text:
**Scripture:** 1 John 2:1
**Series:** 2020

> An Evensong sermon on 1 John 2:1 reminding hearers that though God does not wish us to sin, mistakes happen, and we are not left alone. Jesus Christ the righteous one is our advocate, and the Greek 'Iēsoun Christon dikaion' shows that our advocate is justice itself, the Logos and Torah of God. Drawing on the preacher's own childhood guilt over stealing fruit and a recent personal mistake, the message insists that being a Christian is not about new ways of feeling guilty or inadequate. When we sin, God does not cast us out but draws closer, standing with us. The closing call: do not be afraid, for God offers life not guilt, hope not shame; may we let Jesus advocate for us.

**Illustrations:** stealing-fruit-as-a-kid, downloading-wrong-video-resolution, building-a-garden-for-the-long-term

---

# August 30

1 John 2:1

Children’s:
How many of you like making a mistakes? How many people wake up in the morning, saying to yourself: gosh, i hope i make a bunch of mistakes today.
But it happens, right? For me, being caught in a mistake is one of the loneliest.(stealing fruit as a kid). Deny, divert, or distract.

Our reading today reminds us that we have an advocate in Jesus.

“My little children, I’m writing these things to you so that you don’t sin. But if you do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one.”
1 John 2:1 CEB
https://www.bible.com/37/1jn.2.1.ceb

- Same question as the kids. How many of you like making mistakes?
- Downloading 1080p instead of 740p was and lagging like crazy.
- Being a Christian is not about having new ways of feeling guilty of inadequate.
- God doesn't wish us to sin, but it happens and we are not alone. We have an advocate. Who is justice
- “Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν δίκαιον,”
- Our advocate is justice itself.
- Jesus is the Logos of God, the Torah of God
- Meanings of Torah.
- We don’t like making mistakes. It is good to seek a life of excellence. It is good to build a garden for the long term even if it means a few more weekends and hours. God doesn’t want us to cut corners.
- 1 John reminds us that life happens and that sometimes you don’t want you wish you would have done, and that is not the end of the story. God does not cast you out when you sin. God draws closer to you. God stands with you. Jesus advocates for you, helps you. Do not be afraid.
- I had to preach to myself this morning about my own mistake.
- Do not be afraid. God offers life not guilt. God offers hope not shame. May we accept God’s. May we let Jesus advocate for us.


title: Keeping the Fire of Love Burning

themes: walking-in-the-light love-vs-hate abiding-in-christ spiritual-discipline holy-spirit everyone-matters

text:
**Scripture:** 1 John 2:9-11
**Series:** 2020

> An Evensong reflection pairing 1 John 2:9-11 with the image of building and tending a fire. The spark (like new friendship or sudden awareness of God's love) is exciting but fleeting; love and mercy are the fuel that keeps the fire burning. Walking in the light means continuing to love; when we stop loving we slip into darkness and begin seeing brothers as enemies or rivals. Staying in the light requires daily relighting, gathering fuel, and planning ahead, with the Spirit present to sustain us. Closes by tying into a morning-started series on each person's sacred story: God's prior love, forgiveness through mercy, and a purpose and mission in the world.

**Illustrations:** tending-a-fire, spark-of-friendship

---

October 4

Starting a fire (fuel, spark, oxygen)
The spark of friendship is the most exciting but the spark doesn’t last.

The fuel makes the fire burn. The fuel of love and mercy.

If we claim to be in the light and hate someone, we are still in the dark. But if we love others, we are in the light, and we don’t cause problems for them. If we hate others, we are living and walking in the dark. We don’t know where we are going, because we can’t see in the dark. 1 John 2:9-11

Starting a fire (fuel, spark, oxygen)

Staying in the light. How to stay in the light How to keep the fire going?

Daily you have to light it again

You have to gather fuel
You have to plan ahead

We can’t light the fire once and think it will burn for ever. The Spirit is there with us and for us, but if we stop loving, we are going to stop seeing as God sees. If we stop loving, we will start seeing our brothers as enemies or rivals.

This morning, I started a series on the sacred story on how God has a sacred story for each of us. How God loves us from before we know it, How we are forgiven no matter what we have done when we seek mercy, and how we have a purpose and mission in this world.
Awareness of God’s love can happen like a spark or


title: Learning to Abide: The Means of Grace

themes: abiding-in-christ means-of-grace works-of-piety works-of-mercy the-gospel gods-unconditional-love advent-expectation

text:
**Scripture:** 1 John 2:23-25; 1 John 1:1-4
**Series:** 2020

> An Evensong sermon on 1 John 2:23-25 (and 1 John 1:1-4) exploring what it means to abide in God. Pruitt opens with learning to ride a bike as a picture of how God's love and forgiveness become internalized. Using The Dude from The Big Lebowski as a foil for the word 'abide,' he explains that the church has received the kerygma (proclamation) that Jesus is risen and God is love. To abide in this good news is to abide in God, and just as living in a house involves daily tasks, abiding in God's house means practicing the means of grace: works of piety (scripture, prayer, fasting, sacraments, conferencing) and works of mercy (good works, visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry, seeking justice). He closes by noting that Advent begins the next week as a season of preparation.

**Illustrations:** learning-to-ride-a-bike, big-lebowski-dude-abides, things-around-the-house

---

# November 22

Riding the bike for the first time. Does anybody remember.
You have a few instructions.
Those instructions sit in you and then you don’t have to think about them.

We learn and then it is in us. This is the same with God’s love. Once we truly learn that we are loved no matter what and forgiven no matter, it is like riding a bicycle.

1 John 2:23-25
The Big Lebowski

He only cares about his rug, man, and he is pulled into a criminal conspiracy.
The Dude abides,

What does it mean to abide?

Let’s go back to the beginning of the letter.
1 John 1:1-4

We have received something, in Greek it is called the kerygma, which means proclamation. It is the heart of the good news of Jesus Christ. He is risen! God is with us! We are not alone. We receive this with our hands, with our arms, with our ears.

And then we have freedom about what to do with it. Because the good news of Jesus Christ, that God is love and in him there is no darkness at all.

When we abide in the good news that Jesus is risen, we abide in God.

And when we live somewhere, we do certain things.

The Dude doesn’t do things, except try to get his rug back, but we humans do certain things around the house or certain things to support the house.

Things around the house to do (dishes, cleaning, cooking, planning)
Things around God’s house are the means of grace

Works of Piety: reading, meditating and studying the scriptures, prayer, fasting, witnessing, regularly share in the sacraments, Christian conferencing, and Bible study

Works of Mercy: doing good works, visiting the sick, visiting those in prison, feeding the hungry, and giving generously to the needs of others,  seeking justice, ending oppression and discrimination, and addressing the needs of the poor.

Advent begins next week. It is the start of the church year. It is a time of preparation for Easter.


title: Love Neighbor

themes: love-of-neighbor good-samaritan contemplation-and-action advent-expectation radical-welcome

text:
**Scripture:** Luke 10:25-37; Luke 10:21; Luke 10:38-42
**Series:** 2020

> Concluding sermon in the 'Mapping the Future' series, preached during the COVID-19 pandemic on the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Pruitt argues Jesus turns 'neighbor' from a noun (who is near me) into a verb (whom will I prove neighbor to). He gives the Samaritan, priest, and Levite their real biblical context, treating the priest and Levite sympathetically as rational people protecting their livelihoods, and confesses he is often more like them. Drawing on Dunbar's Number and childlike playground openness, he challenges the impulse to keep our circle small. Bridging to Mary and Martha, he frames neighbor-love as both contemplation and action, and urges the church to prepare their lives in advance so they can afford to be interrupted to show mercy.

**Illustrations:** mister-rogers-neighborhood, cup-of-sugar-borrowing, neighborhood-pickup-games, family-move-during-pandemic, brethren-baptism-still-vs-moving-water, samaritans-purse-nonprofit, seinfeld-finale-good-samaritan-law, dunbars-number, children-playing-on-playground, mary-and-martha, sports-preparation-blown-call, helping-hands-ministry, upper-room-resources

---

# Love Neighbor
Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” Luke 10:25-37

Who is my neighbor? That is a question that is asked to Jesus point blank, it is a question it is important for us to ask a lot, and it is a challenging question in this season. My family and I have moved and it is hard to meet the neighbors. It is hard to knock on doors and say, “Hi, how are you?” since you don’t know the dynamics about how people are going to respond in that situation. I have been able to meet a number of you in the Bee Creek community, but I wasn’t able to meet all of you. We weren’t able to have a big blowout reception after our first Sunday. It was a quick in and out. And it has been nice seeing people at Evensong on Sunday Nights, and it has been really nice in the shade with the breeze from the lake coming in, and greeting people and saying, “Hi” from a distance, and making those connections which are hard online, but it is not sufficient. Who is my neighbor?
We use ‘neighbor’ in a lot of different ways. We have this great, cultural impression of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and …”Could you be mine? Would you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?” That connection, for, at least, my generation growing up, was a major connection of what it meant to be a neighbor. We have the people next door to us. When I was still a kid, we would knock on the door and ask for a cup of sugar or two eggs if we were just close to our recipe. It seems like a crazy thing today, but it was a common enough occurrence of connecting as neighbors. In my neighborhood growing up, there were a number of boys my age all along the block and we would spontaneously all meet up. We never called each other, we would meet and play football and baseball and other games, and that was part of being in the neighborhood. Who is my neighbor?
My brothers and sisters, we are finishing our series on Mapping the Future at Bee Creek. We started by looking at the map of our area in a new way, thinking about how we could make our own new map in this time. As well, what we can do in this season, how God is asking us to live a full life now, and not just put off everything until there is a vaccine or some unknown future, but to act faithfully in the present, to respond to needs in the present. And today we are talking about loving our neighbors in this new map.
There is a spatial reality to a neighbor. A neighbor is someone close and that means you must be aware that we have bodies and that we live in space. A neighbor is not just an intellectual idea, it is a concrete reality. A neighbor is a person with us in this world.
Our Scripture for today comes from the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 10 starting in verse 25:
> And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.”
>
> But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed mercy on him.” And Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

The parable of the good samaritan: it is a good story, but it has a few words that are sometimes tricky without the biblical context. What is a Samaritan? Sometimes we hear that Samaritans are oppressed or an othered people. The Samaritans were cousins to the Jews. They weren’t of a different race. They weren’t of a different ethnicity. They were basically like Protestants and Catholics in a way. The Jews, Jesus’s people, believed in the centrality of the Temple and the sacrifices of the temple, and the Samaritans believed that there were high places where God could also be worshipped. Needless to say, that most Jews lived near the Temple, and most Samaritans lived a good ways from the Temple. It is like a sect of brethren in Pennsylvania which split because one group said that you had to be baptized in moving water, and the other sect said that you could be baptized in still water. One group lived by a river, and the other group lived 10 miles from a river, so there are these contexts which matter and impact the lived lives of people. So Samaritans weren’t like randomly other people or radically different. They were seen as unclean because they did not participate in the sacrifices of the Temple. The second terms that come up are the priests and the Levites. And the priests and the Levites were two different groups that participated in the cult of the Temple directly. The priests had the official job in the Temple of making sacrifices and the Levites were of the family who were connected to the Temple. They both had specific jobs related to the Temple.
As well, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho is a steep road, a kind of winding road down hill but it is not too far away, so it could be made in a day’s journey and there could be people who walked that road regularly.
I think, as well, something super important about the parable of the good samaritan is that the Levite and the priest probably had somewhere to go. And they had a reason to not touch the person who was wounded and beaten on the side of the road. They had plans. They had expectations. They had people who counted on them. If they stopped, if a priest stopped and went down and touched a person wounded and touched their blood, that priest would become unclean, so then he could not do his job. He could not go to the Temple and make his sacrifices. He would have to go through a purification period in order to make himself clean again. He would basically have to go through his own quarantine. So he knew that if he touched that person, it would deeply impact his life. And it is a similar thing for the Levite. If he stopped and helped that person on the side of the road who was wounded and bloody and in need, it would impact his life to a great degree because of his employment. And I think that that is so important, because of it is told by saying, “Look at that uppity priest! Look at that uppity Levite. They could stop, but they are too full of themselves.” When there is a way to read it and understand that the priest and the Levite are quite rational in saying that. They are quite rational in saying that. You can easily imagine a situation where the Levite and the priest see a man wounded on the side of the road, “Gosh, I wish I could stop and help, but I can’t. My family is counting on me. My wife and children are counting on me to do this. If I don’t do this, I might lose me job.” I think it is so important, because often enough, we present good samaritans, like, “Wouldn’t be nice if we could all be good samaritans? There is a big non-profit called Samaritan’s Purse. Some people have good samaritan laws. The last episode of the TV show, Seinfeld, hinged on a good samaritan law in a small town, that you can’t just sit around and watch while someone is being hurt. Lifting up this good samaritan, this person who was walking by and saw the wounded man on the side of the road and stopped and radically changed what he was doing in order to care for this person. But most of the time, I will confess first, most of the time I am more like one of the priests and the Levites, and not because I work in a church and not because I’m a preacher. But because whenever I think about helping the person on the side of the road or the person in need, some of the first thoughts I have are “how is this going to impact my life? How is this going to impact my family? In a pros and cons kind of way, how am I going to do this? And Jesus says this parable rather swiftly. He is not being really wordy in this. Jesus gets right to the point. And it comes from this question of the neighbor. Who is my neighbor? And so we have this category of neighbor. This category that is filled for most of us by who is next to us. Who are the people next to us? Who are the houses next to us? Who are the people we see in church? Who are the people we see on the golf course? Who are the people we interact with?
Oftentimes neighbor, for many people today, falls in what the anthropologist Robin Dunbar called, Dunbar’s Number, is about 150. It was published in the mid-90s, and it became popular in Malcolm Gladwell’s, The Tipping Point,peopleas this is the number of people that any one person can really know. And I think that Dunbar, in his first article on this, he talks about the Dunbar number by imagining all of the people whom you would be willing to have dinner without of the blue. Some of us probably have smaller Dunbar Numbers, some of us have a little larger ones, I mean 150 is a good chunk of people. And Dunbar’s argument has to do with our prefrontal cortex and the size of our brain, and other scholars have responded back and forth about whether it should be higher or lower or if we should even think about this. But when we think about neighbor, it can often who are the people I am willing to talk to? Who are the people whom I can have over to my house for dinner? Who are the people who I am going to catch up with? Who are the people whose names I don’t forget after a year?
Jesus, radically this category, this noun “neighbor” to a verb “to neighbor someone.” This is often not touched: Jesus responds to the question, “who is my neighbor? He responds to it with a question himself: Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” The one who showed mercy. For Jesus, being a neighbor is not about how other people live but how we live our lives. It is not about what other people are doing. It is not about whether someone brought us Chicken Spaghetti last year or if they water our lawn we are out of town or if they house sit our pets, it is not a translational thing in that kind of way. Being a neighbor is about what we are willing to do for other people in our life. And like Dunbar’s number, so often we want to keep that circle small.
Earlier in the passage from Luke 10, he says, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was your gracious will.” That you hid them from the wise and revealed them to children. And this is really important. It is not just a metaphor. If you are around kids, most kids that I have ever experienced, when you go to a playground, kids want to play together. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. But kids like playing together. When a bunch of kids meet at a playground in a non-pandemic time, it doesn’t take long for kids to click and play, play, play. And it doesn’t matter the color of their skin or where they live or what language they speak or what their parents job is, kids see each other and play together, offer time together, share together. The older we get, the more “wise” we get, the harder it is to see another person and see in them someone whose joy we can share. Someone whom we can play with. Whether that is watching a game, having a drink, having a round of golf. Usually, you have to go through a certain set of steps of protocol before we are willing to accept the other person as someone whom we are willing to “play” with. But to the child, no. A child sees another child and sees an opportunity to share joy. Now there are a lot of reasons for the wisdom of the world and suspicion about people we don’t know, but I think it is important to question: why is my circle so small like this? Why am I satisfied with my circle being small like this?
For the church, we can expand not only the circle of the people participating in the ministries of the church, but also the people in our community. As an ordained Elder in the United Methodist Church, I am appointed not specifically to the church, but to the mission field around the church. I am appointed to the community. And how we as the church, we as the people of Bee Creek United Methodist Church, we in our area can minister and serve and act neighborly and prove neighbor to the people around us. Including the people who may get in the way of what we wanted to do. We should be on guard to make sure that we are not acting like the priest or the Levite, not acting as if whatever is going on in our world is the most important thing in the world, and be ready to receive the Holy Spirit who may veer us off the course of our expectations. In this season, my brothers and sisters, we are all a little off kilter. Nobody’s routine is the exact same as it was a year ago. And in this time, maybe we can pray that the Holy Spirit will act afresh in us and that next time, we will be more open to receiving God’s presence in this time, to see our neighbors in a new way, but also to see our neighbors not just as instruments for our betterment but as ways that we can love God.
Luke 10 finishes with the story of Mary and Martha. After Jesus talks to this lawyer and they have this nice, lawyerly conversation, he goes to the home of Mary and Martha. And this brief passage is very famous in the history of the church, but also famous in the way, are you a Mary or a Martha? Martha, Martha, Martha. Are you the one behind the scenes, in the kitchen, or are you the one out at Jesus’s feet. And usually, growing up for me, Martha was seen as slightly negative, whereas Mary was seen as positive, but the context of Jesus’s words do not hold one sister as negative and one sister as positive. They are both good, but one is better. Being at the feet of Jesus is the greater share. In the early church, it was often seen as the difference between contemplation and action. And Mary as the figure or type of contemplation and Martha as the figure of action and you need contemplation and action together. You can’t contemplate our Lord if you don’t have food to eat, if someone is not cooking that food. So they both work together. And I think that it is so wonderful that this passage follows the good Samaritan. I think Mary and Martha is another to answer the question: how are we to be neighbors to people: by contemplation and by action. That is how we start right now. Contemplation as another type of prayer. We spend time with Jesus. We take the time with Jesus. Starting with five minutes, with just a little bit of extra prayer in our day. That is not the beginning of our day or the end of our day or a meal to decide, I am going to spend this time with God. The Upper Room has a number of resources online, especially for the pandemic, that are really great. As well, just taking the time to breathe. To take a bible verse to hold on to. And in that contemplation, we are also preparing for the actions, for the time behind the scenes and neighbor love. And part of that in proving ourselves neighbor to others is preparing our lives so that they won’t be so radically disrupted if we stop and care for someone. That we are ready for that. And this is one of those things that is missing for the Levite and the priest. The problem was what they didn’t do before the trip. They weren’t ready to stop and love the person on the side of the road. It would interrupt what they were doing.
It is kind of like every sports ad that talks about the preparation for the big game and not the big game itself. Or whenever a referee blows a call at the end of the game, and some people respond, "You know, you shouldn’t put yourself in to a position to need that call where you need that call to win. And that is what we need to think about as individual christians, as people, but also as a church: how can we prepare to love our neighbors? How can we talk to our spouses and partners and children and neighbors about preparing our lives to be disrupted and plan for that? How can we participate in ministries that are already happening like Helping Hands, that is this wonderful ministry that members of the church that the church still supports is doing great things. How can we prepare ourselves for that? Prayer and action. Realizing that God is going to put people in our life who are going to be in need. God will offer the opportunity to love our neighbor: can we be ready for that? Can we be ready to show mercy? My brothers and sisters, I pray for you all in this season that God is mapping our future as we speak. We can participate in that future. We can either choose to live the old maps of our old habits, of the old things we did, or we can receive the opportunity that God is giving us this day and this season. The opportunity that God is giving us as a church, to see our area in a new way, we can receive it as parents, as kids, as grandparents: God is offering us a new opportunity in this time. A new opportunity to plant gardens, to live our best life now, a new opportunity to love our neighbors, a new opportunity to show mercy, a new opportunity to expand our circle: may we accept it together.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.


title: Love of God, Love of Neighbor

themes: love-of-neighbor love-of-god self-giving-love spiritual-discipline works-of-love loyalty

text:
**Scripture:** 1 John 4:20-21
**Series:** 2020

> Preaching on 1 John 4:20-21, the sermon uses game theory, John Nash's equilibrium, and Albert Tucker's Prisoner's Dilemma to set up a contrast: the 'rational' move is mutual betrayal, but the Christian life is not lived in such high-stakes traps. John insists that claiming to love God while hating one's neighbor makes us liars; the visible neighbor is precisely where love of the unseen God becomes real. Most of life consists not of dramatic dilemmas but of millions of tiny daily moments, each an opportunity to show love.

**Illustrations:** game-theory-nash-equilibrium, john-nash-beautiful-mind, prisoners-dilemma, always-wanting-to-stay-silent

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# May 2

“If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
1 John 4:20-21 ESV

Game theory

John Nash, a beautiful mind

Albert Tucker created the game called The prisoners dilemma

	Two members of a criminal gang are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of communicating with the other. The prosecutors lack sufficient evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge, but they have enough to convict both on a lesser charge. Simultaneously, the prosecutors offer each prisoner a bargain. Each prisoner is given the opportunity either to betray the other by testifying that the other committed the crime, or to cooperate with the other by remaining silent. The possible outcomes are:

	If A and B each betray the other, each of them serves two years in prison
	If A betrays B but B remains silent, A will be set free and B will serve three years in prison
	If A remains silent but B betrays A, A will serve three years in prison and B will be set free
	If A and B both remain silent, both of them will serve only one year in prison (on the lesser charge).

I am usually bad at these games. I always want to remain silent, but according to the Nash equilibrium, the rational position is for both prisoners to betray each other. There is a lot of math surrounding this.

If we say that we love God and we don’t love our neighbor, we are liars. This is how John puts it. Even more starkly, John points out that in our neighbor, we have the opportunity to visibly show love.

Most of life does not consist in prisoners dilemmas. Most of life does not consist in having a gun to her head, having to choose between faithfulness and disobedience. Life is instead filled with tiny choices that seemingly have a little to do with one another. Millions of moments each day to decide whether we are going to show love to our neighbor. Millions of opportunities.


title: Not a New Commandment: God's Love Is Old, Not Trendy

themes: new-commandment god-is-love resisting-fads-and-trends cheap-grace anti-supersessionism anxiety forgiveness

text:
**Scripture:** 1 John 2:7; 1 John 1:1-4; 1 John 4:16; John 10:30
**Series:** 2020

> An Evensong sermon on 1 John 2:7 arguing that God's command to love is not a new trend but the ancient commandment heard from the beginning. Against a culture of FOMO and trendiness (diets, workouts, churches, investments), Pruitt insists we need the unchanging God revealed in Jesus, the Alpha and Omega. He invokes the early church's rejection of Marcionism to affirm that the God of creation is the God of love (1 John 4:16). Making love trendy cheapens grace and forgets mercy; the closing assures hearers they are loved and forgiven by a God whose love, unlike the passing world, will never pass away.

**Illustrations:** fomo-uninvited-party, trendy-diets-workouts-churches-investments, marcion-two-gods

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Does anyone like to feel left out? Like, do you like it if you hear that all of your friends went to a party but didn't invite you?

New things happen all the time. FOMO.

But God’s love for us is not something that we can miss, nor is it new. You are loved not by a trend or party but by the God who made everything.

Scripture
Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word that you have heard.

Trendy diets (paleo, keto, lion, cleanse), trendy workouts (crossfit, yoga, pilates, pelaton), Trendy churches (Summit, Soma, Vertical Church, Impact, Image), Trendy investments (the next Apple, the next Tesla, the next Uber)

The next big thing can sometimes seem like the next thing we need, when what we need is the God of all creation revealed to us in Jesus Christ. We need the Alpha and Omega, who was and is and is to come.

1 John 1:1-4
And then eventually getting 1 John 4: “So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”

“God is love” is not new, though it may sound new to some ears.
Marcionite
They thought the old was bad, the OT is bad. There is an angry Old Testament God and a happy new testament God.

The early church saw the problem in this, pointing out that if the God of creation is evil than creation is evil and Jesus is a liar when he says, “I and the Father are one”

The new (old) commandment to love one another is not easy or simple but can be fulfilled because God is love. When we make love easy, we make it trendy. When we make church trendy, we cheapen grace. When we cheapen grace, we forget mercy.
You are loved. You are forgiven. You can love. You can forgive. You can be love by another. Even though you did that thing, you can be loved. Even if you can’t love yourself, God loves you. This is not something new that is passing away. The world may pass away, but God’s love will not pass away.