title: The Prophecy

themes: biblical-prophecy the-magi advent-expectation need-for-a-savior grace-and-transformation repentance messianic-fulfillment

text:
**Scripture:** Matthew 2:1-6; Micah 5:2-5; Isaiah 9:6; Isaiah 10:1-2; Isaiah 11:6; Isaiah 53:2; Ezekiel 34:2-4; Jeremiah 35:15; Hosea 4:1-2; Matthew 10:34-39; Romans 1:19-20; Revelation 21:4
**Series:** 2021

> Third in the Advent 'Star of Wonder' series on Matthew 2, this sermon teaches that biblical prophecy is not date-stamped fortune-telling but a word that exposes present injustice and points to the need for a savior. The Gentile magi glimpse God in nature and the star, yet only the Scriptures (Micah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Hosea) reveal the Messiah. Christ comes not to affirm the status quo but to transform it, and the prophets' indictment is aimed at us, not 'other people.' Wilson calls the congregation to repent of strayed relationships and unmet needs, and like the magi to actively seek Christ rather than merely wait, living into the new creation now.

**Illustrations:** haircut-for-a-book, scifi-fantasy-prophecies, stock-market-prophet, raymond-brown-magi, nostradamus-year-2000, isaiah-fifth-gospel, handel-messiah

---

# December 5
## The Prophecy

“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the territory of Judea during the rule of King Herod, magi came from the east to Jerusalem. They asked, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We’ve seen his star in the east, and we’ve come to honor him.” When King Herod heard this, he was troubled, and everyone in Jerusalem was troubled with him. He gathered all the chief priests and the legal experts and asked them where the Christ was to be born. They said, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for this is what the prophet wrote: You, Bethlehem, land of Judah, by no means are you least among the rulers of Judah, because from you will come one who governs, who will shepherd my people Israel.”
Matthew 2:1-6 CEB

Growing up, I loved science fiction and fantasy novels. I've shared the story about how I used to always want to grow my hair out when I was a kid, because I wanted to be like my older brother. But every time I was thinking about it, my mom would ask me if I wanted a book. I would get a free book if I got a haircut. And every time I would think, “next time, I'm going to say ‘no,’ next time, I'm going to say ‘no.’ And then we would get to the mall and suddenly we're in Waldenbooks and I have no willpower against the power of a book. So I always kept my hair shorter. The books I loved at that time were science fiction and fantasy. I loved stories like Dune about Paul Atreides. There is a prophecy about the Lisan al-Gaib, which means “the Voice from the Outer World.” I loved Star Wars. I loved all of the Star Wars novels with characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn and many others. I loved DragonLance novels that also had a prophecy, and the Wheel of Time series with a lot of prophecy. I loved the Game of Thrones novels from way before the the show came out. I started reading them in 1995 when I was 13. I read the first novel because my brother was in college and he brought me back the paperback I read all the books and it was my own private world. I didn't know anyone else who had read all of them. And then the show came out, and I was like, “oh my gosh! there's all these people into it. So I guess it's a pretty popular story.” That book has prophecy throughout.

At times, the word prophecy or prophet in the Bible can be very confusing for us today. If someone is called a prophet of the stock market, it means that they predict the future of the stock market. Someone's not going to be called a prophet of the stock market if they go and speak like the prophet Isaiah

Woe to those who make unjust laws,
    to those who issue oppressive decrees,
to deprive the poor of their rights
    and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
    and robbing the fatherless. Isaiah 10:1-2

That's not going to be the kind of prophet that we usually talk about.

My friends, we are continuing our series on Star of Wonder. We’re looking at this first part of Matthew 2, focusing on the star and the journey of the magi to Bethlehem. This week, we’re thinking about prophecy: what it meant back then, what it means today, and what it God wants it to mean for us.
We have the Magi coming from the East, looking for the star, and they come to Jerusalem seeking wisdom.
The magi, whether they be Kings or magicians or simply wise men, were not Jews. They did not know the traditions of the scriptures. They had witnessed the reality of God in Nature and the Star that drew them from their homeland. They understood that something divine was taking place, but they did not fully grasp it.
As Raymond Brown says,

“The proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah is given to magi from the East, the wise and learned among the Gentiles. Precisely since they are Gentiles, they receive their proclamation through created nature. (Romans 1:19-20); but, like Balaam of old who also came from the East…they recognize the salvific import of the Davidic star. Although they hasten to Jerusalem to pay homage, the full revelation of the Messiah cannot be gleaned from nature: it is a secret found in the Scriptures, the special revelation that God has given to the Jews alone. And so the magi must learn from the Jewish Scriptures God’s plan of salvation before they can find the Messiah and pay him homage.”

We should not deny the reality that God can be found in nature, God works in mysterious ways and God’s beauty is evident in creation for those who have eyes to see, but the fullness of God is not found in nature. God may be found in a lot of ways, but the fullness of God is found in the person, Jesus Christ: his life, death, and resurrection. And we don't understand who Jesus is without the scriptures that Jesus read which pointed not only to his coming but to his reality.
The way the scriptures point to Jesus is important. They do not speak of specific dates or times. They speak of signs and actions, the words of Micah and Malakai and Hosea and Isaiah that draw our imagination towards the coming of the Messiah, the anointed, one of God, Meshiach in Hebrew, they do not say, “on December 25th, the year zero, Jesus will be born.”
The words of the Hebrew prophets are not just about the future, but about the present day. Most often, they are about what has gone wrong in the present. They are about how the people of Israel have strayed from God's gifts, how they have turned away from God's promises,
From Ezekiel
The Lord’s word came to me: Human one, prophesy against Israel’s shepherds. Prophesy and say to them, The Lord God proclaims to the shepherds: Doom to Israel’s shepherds who tended themselves! Shouldn’t shepherds tend the flock? 3 You drink the milk, you wear the wool, and you slaughter the fat animals, but you don’t tend the flock. 4 You don’t strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the injured, bring back the strays, or seek out the lost; but instead you use force to rule them with injustice. Ezekiel 34:2-4

Or from Jeremiah
I have sent you all my servants, the prophets, time and again, saying, “Each of you, turn from your evil ways and reform your actions; don’t worship or serve other gods. Then you may live in the fertile land I gave to you and your ancestors.” But you haven’t paid attention or listened to me. Jeremiah 35:15

Or from Hosea

Hear the Lord’s word, people of Israel; for the Lord has a dispute with the inhabitants of the land. There’s no faithful love or loyalty, and no knowledge of God in the land. Hosea 4:1-2

This doesn't sound like the sayings of Nostradamus or the old Conan O'Brien sketch, In the Year 2,000!
The words of the prophets have power for the present as well as the future.
The words of the prophets help us understand even more fully who Jesus was, what he did and what he can be for us. When Jesus preaches in the synagogue in Nazareth, he preaches from Isaiah. I have a teacher who called Isaiah the fifth gospel because of how central the Messiah is throughout. And in Isaiah, we have a physical description of Jesus.
He grew up like a young plant before us, like a root from dry ground. He possessed no splendid form for us to see, no desirable appearance.

We also see the power of Jesus. We have the words that Handel used in his Messiah .

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

And then in Micah

“As for you, Bethlehem of Ephrathah, though you are the least significant of Judah’s forces, one who is to be a ruler in Israel on my behalf will come out from you. His origin is from remote times, from ancient days. Therefore, he will give them up until the time when she who is in labor gives birth. The rest of his kin will return to the people of Israel. He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. They will dwell secure, because he will surely become great throughout the earth; he will become one of peace.”
Micah 5:2-5a CEB

Tye Hebrew prophets speak of the coming of Jesus, but more than that, they speak for the need for Jesus because of the injustice in the world. The status quo of all time should be troubled by the coming of the Messiah. Jesus comes not to affirm, but to transform, and this world needs transformation. Jesus says in Matthew

““Don’t think that I’ve come to bring peace to the earth. I haven’t come to bring peace but a sword. I’ve come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. People’s enemies are members of their own households. “Those who love father or mother more than me aren’t worthy of me. Those who love son or daughter more than me aren’t worthy of me. Those who don’t pick up their crosses and follow me aren’t worthy of me. Those who find their lives will lose them, and those who lose their lives because of me will find them.”
Matthew 10:34-39 CEB

These are not easy words about the future but hard words for us today about the need for a savior and how we must respond. If all things will be made new, not all things will last. Injustice will not last. Darkness will not last. We must not cling to injustice and brokenness but let God cleanse us of those desires and practices through the power of the Holy Spirit.

There is injustice in this world. There's darkness in this world. There's pain in this world. and we need a savior. But our amazing claim today is that God has already come. We are in the midst of the world's transformation.
And more than that, we can be a part of it. We can be a part of the new creation and we can live into that reality now. In our future with God, as Isaiah says, The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat; the calf and the young lion will feed together, and a little child will lead them
And as it says in the book of Revelation, there will be no more weeping or crying, no gnashing of teeth, but we can live into that now.
In this season of advent, may you take the words of the prophets, not simply as proof of Christ, but as evidence of the need for Christ today. May you take the words of the prophets to be aimed at you, and not other people. The problem in the world is not other people. The salvation of the world is not based on your side winning or some people losing. The salvation of the world is not about other people suddenly agreeing with us about everything. If the world agreed with me, it would be convenient, but it wouldn’t be salvific. If the politicians I liked were always elected, it might be convenient, but it wouldn’t be salvific. It is not about me. The words of the prophets, the words of Jesus, are for us to remind us how we need Jesus still. Even if you have believed since you were a child, you still need Jesus. This church needs Jesus. How can we as a congregation repent of the ways that we have strayed from God's word for us? How can we repent for the relationships that we have burned? How can we repent of the ways that we have not reached people in need?
In this season of advent, may we not be satisfied with where we are. May we, like the Magi, seek Christ, not just wait for him. May we seek Christ’s prophetic word that may shake the foundations of this world. May we follow the light to where it leads to a child who shall redeem the whole world? Not just the people we like everyone. Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you for your truth which sets us free. Help us to find comfort in your truth and love and not in ourselves. Help us to offer comfort to those who are hurting in this season. Help us to open our eyes to the need for your mercy in this world. Help us to open our eyes to the ways we need to change. Help us seek you like the Magi sought the star. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


site: sermons

title: The Star

author: Wilson Pruitt

church: bee-creek-umc

themes: walking-in-the-light the-magi advent-expectation spiritual-deception discernment gentile-inclusion

text:
**Scripture:** Matthew 2:1-2; Matthew 2:1-12; Genesis 15:5; Psalm 8:3; Acts 8:9-20; Matthew 7:7; Psalm 72:11
**Series:** 2021

> Opening the Advent series 'Star of Wonder' on Matthew 2:1-12, this sermon (Matthew 2:1-2) reflects on the Magi seeking the star. Pruitt surveys astrology's ancient and persistent place in human society, weighs theories about the Christmas star (supernova, comet, planetary conjunction per Raymond Brown), and clarifies that 'star' anciently meant any object in the sky, so the text isn't disproven. The heart of the sermon is that we all seek signs and seek the light; the call is to seek Jesus, the true light offered to all nations, while discerning true light from false lights like Simon Magus, Gnosticism, and self-salvation. It closes urging active seeking through love, study, and discernment, journeying toward the savior in Bethlehem rather than Herod.

**Illustrations:** family-zodiac-signs, st-pauls-1804-attendance, crowley-occult-revival, dark-skies-fort-davis, astronomers-practiced-astrology, raymond-brown-conjunction, pediatric-growth-chart, simon-magus-simony, andrew-of-crete-quote, pascal-wager-and-jesus

---

# November 28
## The Star

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the territory of Judea during the rule of King Herod, magi came from the east to Jerusalem. They asked, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We’ve seen his star in the east, and we’ve come to honor him.”
Matthew 2:1-2

I am a Libra. Ephraim is a Libra too, because we have the same birthday. Dominic is a Scorpio. Alina is a Virgo. Okay. Last month we had a sermon series on betting and gambling called The Wager  on Pascal's wager. Today, we're talking about astrology. Now, astrology in the ancient world had some common characteristics with astrology today. There were constellations which represented certain characteristics. There were people who claimed to see things in the stars. Astrology has never really gone away from our society. One of the important things you realize when you study history is that there is no historical advancement from a so-called primitive culture to what we have now. In 1804, St. Paul's cathedral in London had four people in attendance for Christmas Eve services. In 1904, there were a lot of people who believed in astrology and tarot card readings and fortune-telling, even more than there are today. The stories of Rasputin and theosophy, Aleister Crowley who influences L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology and inspired an Ozzy Osborne song, mMr. Crowley.
The ancient world had a much deeper relationship to the stars. For one thing, there were a lot more of them. There was so little light pollution before electrification that from almost any place in the world, you could see the sky as you do in Fort Davis or Big Bend.
We all seek signs in our life. Signs to let us know the direction our life is going. Signs to let us know where we are right now. We all seek confirmation about who we think we are. We seek something of our future. We all seek the light, Whether you are a Christian or not, you seek the light.

My friends, we are starting a new sermon series for the season of advent called Star of Wonder. In this series, we will focus on a part of scripture that is often sung about, but not often preached about in Advent and Christmas: Matthew 2:1-12. We're going to go through this passage very slowly. As far as the timeline of Jesus's life happens, it takes place after his birth. And yet in the seeking of the Magi, we see how we should not just wait passively for Jesus, we need to seek God wherever the star leads. It's not only about getting ready for the baby Jesus or getting ready for gifts. It is about seeking the truth, seeking the light, following that star, whatever it takes us. Today, we are focused on the star.

Our scripture is just Matthew 2:1-2, that the magi who go to seek the star, they come from the East. Magi in Greek is hoi magoi. It is often translated as wise men or kings but originally just refers to both wisdom and magic. A few hundred years after Jesus, some thought them as kings after Psalm 72:11, which says, “May all kings fall down before him.” By the 8th century, they are going to go from plural to three and are given the names Balthasar, Melchior, and Gaspar. Balthasar is usually the king of Arabia, Melchior the king of Persia, and Gaspar the king of India.

The East is a term which could be basically anywhere east of here. For instance, east of where we are could mean Lakeway or dripping Springs or Austin or New York city. There's a wide breadth of what the east could be. Scholars think it was probably somewhere in either Persia or around that area.
They came from the east, whether three or thirty, seeking a star. They were not Jewish so they came to Jerusalem to ask questions about the star and what it could mean.
Now, like I said at the beginning, astrology has been a part of human society. It's probably the oldest science in general that people have studied and talked about and shared about since 2,000 BC or so. As well, star charts were necessary for sailing, for the navigation of the seas. Sailors had to memorize the night sky to know where they were and where they were going and where they had been. As astrologers discovered the patterns to the stars, they also thought that there could be patterns to their lives.
Thus throughout most of Christian history, there have been Christians focused on the stars. Galileo, Kepler, and Tycho Brahe, all practiced astrology even as they led advancements in telescopes and methods that led to modern astronomy.[^1]
 Many people over the years have asked this question, what was the star at Christmas? Which one? Which star would be bright enough that it would gather people to come to Jerusalem?
One modern theory is that there was a supernova that a star was exploding, but there aren't any records of supernovas during this period.
Another theory is that there was a comet over the sky at that time. Again, the dating of it doesn’t quite fit. We have good dates for comets and for when they would have been seen in the ancient world again, like kept really good records.
These are not exhaustive. There are other theories. The third theory is that there was a planetary conjuncture going on, and this is as Raymond Brown points out in his great book, The Birth of the Messiah , He thinks that this is most likely what was taking place. It was extra bright in the sky. It might have been the conjuncture of Jupiter, Saturn, the moon, and the Sun, or another between Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and the constellation Pisces.
A planetary conjuncture would not make the New Testament wrong, for star did not mean “an astronomical object consisting of a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its own gravity,” as stars are defined today. A star was an object in the sky. Planets and stars were similar in that way. They were up there. They were far away.
The stars were signs throughout the Scriptures. God speaks of stars that they speak of God, setting the stars in the sky.
“Then he brought Abram outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars if you think you can count them.” He continued, “This is how many children you will have.”” Genesis 15:5 CEB

or
“When I look up at your skies, at what your fingers made— the moon and the stars that you set firmly in place—” Psalms 8:3 CEB

Just to clarify, I don't give a lot of credence to modern astrology in that kind of sense. Our ultimate truth is not found there. And our future is not predictable in astrology or a fortune teller kind of way. We know our ultimate end in God, but the proximate end is unclear, for Jesus will come like a thief in the night. When we look to often to the future we forget God’s actions here and now. And yet we still look for signs to see if we are on the right path.

For us this day, what are the signs we are looking for in our life?

We look for signs in our own life. We look for signs about our bank account, our home, our vacations, our car, our spouses, our children, our grandchildren. We look for signs of our life. Am I living a life that is good or not? We look for signs that our kids are having a life that is good. What are they doing? What is healthy? We go to a pediatrician's office and see the chart of their height and weight which shows what percentile they are for their age. This is a sign. When they apply for colleges, that's another. What are the signs we are looking for? What are the signs of love we are looking for? What are we looking for in a partner? What are the signs in our spouse that we look for to show us they still love us?

What are the signs of God we are looking for? If you are not looking for Jesus, you are not going to find him. But there are also a lot of false lights out there that claim to be true. False lights that tell you want you want to hear. In Acts 8, Simon Magus appears. Acts says, “He claimed to be a great person. Everyone, from the least to the greatest, gave him their undivided attention and referred to him as “the power of God called Great.” He had their attention because he had baffled them with sorcery for a long time.” And yet he sees the power of the gospel.
“When Simon perceived that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money. He said, “Give me this authority too so that anyone on whom I lay my hands will receive the Holy Spirit.”
Peter responded, “May your money be condemned to hell along with you because you believed you could buy God’s gift with money!”

The sin of simony comes from that, the idea you can purchase God’s grace. Other false lights were soon around like the Gnostics who claimed God had a secret message for them. Everyone else was wrong but they were right. Other False lights said Jesus wasn’t God. Others said that Jesus wasn’t human. Others said Christians were atheists because they didn’t worship the Roman Gods. There are false lights today that say you can save yourself. There are false lights that say you can manifest new realities with your mind on your own.

And yet, if you are looking for the true light, as Pascal said through the mouth of Jesus, “you would not seek me. If you had not already found me.” As Jesus did say, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”[^2] Like the magi, God’s light is not limited to us or those who already know him. God’s light is offered for all, no matter who they are or where they are from or where they are going. If you have received light, share it. Do not hide, seek it. Offer it. Offer light in your life. Offer the way to the baby Jesus because the light has been offered to you.
In this season of Advent, take an opportunity to seek the star of life. That is Jesus Christ. It is an opportunity to seek the light of life. That is Jesus Christ, the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it.
My brothers and sisters, there are times when it feels like the dark. Not just because the sun is going down earlier in the afternoons. There are times when life can feel dark and we need to look for the light. We need to look for the light that gave light to that star 2000 years ago.

as Andrew of Crete said
He is coming who is everywhere present and pervades all things; he is coming to achieve in you his work of salvation. He is coming who came to call to repentance not the righteous but sinners, coming to recall those who have strayed into sin. Do not be afraid, then: God is in the midst of you, and you shall not be shaken.

What kind of light is this? It is that which enlightens every man coming into the world. It is the everlasting light, the timeless light revealed in time, the light manifested in the flesh although hidden by nature, the light that shone round the shepherds and guided the Magi. It is the light that was in the world from the beginning, through which the world was made

May we seek this light this Advent season. If we wish to understand the star or the stars, may we seek the light. May we live in the light by loving our neighbors, by giving of ourselves. May we study. May we discern the true light from the false light. May we not rush to Herod but we journey together towards our savior in Bethlehem.

Let us pray.
Heavenly father, we seek you as the magi saw the star. We seek you in this season. Have mercy on us for the ways we have strayed to false lights, and let us return to you. In this season of advent, may we go deeper in faith, hope, and love, as we prepare for the birth of your son. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[^1]: An article from ten years ago comparing astrology and astronomy defines astrology in the following way:The influence of celestial bodies on Earth has several obvious manifestations: life on Earth depends on the Sun, seasons are linked to its position in the sky (due to the non-perpendicularity of the Earth’s rotation axis with respect to the ecliptic plane), ocean tides are controlled by the position of the Moon (via its differential gravitation) and of the Sun, and eclipses are due to Sun–Moon–Earth alignments. Astrology extrapolates these factual influences by postulating that the positions of the Sun, Moon and 8 planets other than Earth...with respect to the sky background, as well as with respect to each other, influence terrestrial events and human psychology and destiny.(fn)
[^2]: Matthew 7:7.

method: authored, not translated

license_apparatus: CC BY-NC 4.0


title: The Transfiguration

themes: mountaintop-and-valley sin-as-missing-the-mark identity-of-jesus repentance the-cross discipleship

text:
**Scripture:** Mark 9:2-13; Matthew 11:28-30
**Series:** 2021

> A Transfiguration Sunday sermon on Mark 9:2-13, preached amid the February 2021 Texas ice storm. Pruitt uses the frozen, transformed Lake LBJ to introduce how the same scene can be read very differently, then turns to Peter's misunderstanding on the mountain as an 'adventure in missing the point.' Drawing on Schweitzer's warning that we tend to make Jesus a mirror of ourselves, he insists the transfiguration reveals Jesus fully as God rather than confirming our constructs. Mountaintop experiences are good but not meant to be clung to; like the disciples, we are called back down the mountain toward Jerusalem and the cross. As Lent (rooted in lento, 'slowly') begins, he invites hearers to give thanks for their own mountaintop moments and then follow Jesus down the lonesome valley, not alone but with the Christ whose yoke is easy and burden light.

**Illustrations:** frozen-lake-lbj, wool-comber-brightness, schweitzer-mirror-jesus, sufjan-stevens-transfiguration, texas-snow-day, lent-lento-tempo

---

# February 14
## The Transfiguration

Mark 9:2-13

For my first Sunday at Bee Creek, back in those simpler times of the summer of 2020, my family and I stayed on Lake LBJ and then drove down here in the morning for the service. We had hoped to do something similar this weekend. Kids are off school. We need something to do. We went out on Thursday morning and everything was different. The place where I learned to swim and ski was covered in ice. The boys looked and thought it was snowing. It was not. The whole place was transformed. What was usually brown or greenish brown, was white. It has transformed into something different.

To the boys, it was magical. I just saw the falling tree limbs and possible burst pipes. We stuff around us changes, we don't all look at it in the same way.

Today is Transfiguration Sunday. In today’s reading, Jesus takes his disciples and they go to the top of a mountain and the disciples have a vision. Jesus is bright. There is an odd word here, only used once in the bible, but Jesus is brighter than any wool that a wool comber could ever comb. You would have to comb a lifetime to get wool as bright as Jesus was. And not only is Jesus bright, but they see Moses and Elijah and Jesus all together.
And Peter gets really excited and he was like, “This is awesome. Let's stay here forever. Let's build up some tents.” And Peter, like usual, misses the point. Peter sees a winter wonderland but doesn't understand why Jesus is showing them all of this ans what is going to happen next.

We often miss the point about Transfiguration because we often miss the point about Jesus, about who he is and what he represents.

But like the disciples on the mountain, we needs to start with who we see Jesus to be.
So let's think about who the disciples saw him before they went up on the mountain. Peter and Andrew were called by Jesus during his ministry on the shores of the Sea of Galilee and Jesus comes to them and says “lay down your nets follow me. I will make you Fishers of Men.” He comes just the same to James and John. And they do. They dropped their Nets and followed him. They witness The Sermon on the Mount. They witness the 5000 fed and the blind able to see and the lepers healed. They witness miracle after miracle. They witness and hear Parables. They have the parables explained to them when other people didn’t know what Jesus was talking about. And Jesus turns his face towards Jerusalem. And Jesus takes them up this mountain.
And then back down it, all the way to the cross. So that is the disciples. What about us?

Who is Jesus for us?
Today, most of us have different experiences and different responses to Jesus. We don’t all come from the same place. There have been a few different pastors here in Bee Creek’s short life as well as people who had no experience of Jesus before coming here. All of that influences how we understand who Jesus is. Albert Schweitzer, the great scholar and doctor who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his clinics in Africa, said that, very often, when people look for the historical Jesus, they see a reflection of themselves. You know, that a liberal German is going to see a Jesus who seems very like a liberal German, a conservative Texan like a conservative Texan. A Liberation Theologian is going to find a Jesus who Advocates Liberation and so on.
There is a breadth of possibility here, but there is also a danger.
The danger is that, so often, the Jesus we are familiar with is a construct of our own mind and of our own experiences and not the received revelation of God to us. The same is true for our expectations of what Jesus has done as well as what Jesus can do. And so we get to this moment on top of the mountain that Jesus brings his disciples. This is really the great Mountain Top experience. There are conversion stories in the Bible. Paul's conversion happens on the Damascus Road Peter and John and Andrew their conversion happens by the shores of the Sea of Galilee.
The disciples aren't converted on this Mountaintop; Jesus is revealed, magnificently and fully as God.

The Angel’s sing. Sufjan Steven's has a version of this.

Lost in the clouds a sign
Have no fear, we draw near
Lost in the clouds, a voice
Son of Man, turn your ear.

They see something amazing, but they never want to leave. They think it is going to last forever like a snow day in Texas, forgetting that it is going u toi be 70 next week. Many of you have had experiences like this on the Mountaintop. Experiences of God and one of the connecting aspects of a Mountaintop experience is that we don't want to leave.
This is what happens on mountains. We have a powerful experience of God. We don’t want to leave. It is so good. It is so true that it makes the life we have back down the mountain seem less real by comparison.
And so we are left with the question: What do we do now? We see what the disciples did after seeing Jesus. Peter misunderstood what was going on and wanted to build some houses because he wanted to just stay worshipping God forever, which is good, you know? It is good to desire to worship. God is good. But God has a life for us to live. A life where we connect and grow and receive God in our lives and share God with others.
Peter is not dramatically wrong to desire to be with God, he just misses the point, which gets us to Lent, which starts this week. A lot of the actions of the disciples are adventures in missing the point, especially when they get to Jerusalem.
They don't understand what is going on in the temple. They don't understand what is going on when they enter the city.
They don't understand what is going on in the garden. They don't Get it.
Even after seeing Jesus in this way transfigured, the reality of God in front of him, the voice of God overhead: they still don't get it.
So then, it comes down to what are we going to do? Are we going to respond like the disciples? Are we going to miss the point?
Are we going to fixate on the past? Are we going to forget the heart of the matter.
The coming of Jesus was not just to offer us a feel-good moment but to offer life to this world. To offer a culmination to the Covenant from God to the people of Israel. The culmination of the work of Abraham, of Moses, of Elijah, of Isaiah and Jeremiah and David and Solomon and Deborah and Ruth.
The culmination in the son of Mary and Joseph, the son who walks all the way to the cross. Peter and John weren't ready, then, to go all the way to the Cross. They wanted to stay on that mountain top. They weren't ready to be accused.

Lent has the same root as Lento, which is a music term for playing something slowly. Lent is a season to slow down.

Today, my brothers and sisters, I want you to think back to a mountaintop moment. It may have been a Walk to Emmaues or a youth camp for you, or it may not. It  may not even have been something to do with church or faith, a moment of joy. It may be a snow day oIf God is the God of all creation, God created us in God's image. There was a sense that all joy, even misdirected joy, comes from God. Even the joy that we have for, you know, earthly things are gifts.
So the question is still: how do we respond? Do we respond in giving? Or do we respond and pride and moving on? Do we give thanks for the visions that we see? Do we give thanks for the experiences that we've had? And then are we ready to follow Jesus on this road to Jerusalem. Are we ready to take up our own crosses?
The good news, my brothers and sisters, is that we are not alone. That you are not alone and that you don't have to bear your cross alone. Jesus carried it for us. For me. He says “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Let go of the need to stay on the mountain to be a person of Faith let go of the need to hold onto only the positive. You can walk the lonesome valley of lent because God is with us. We are not alone. We don't have to live by lies. You don't have to live in the past. We can follow God even through the storms and valleys because we know His victory is true.

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


title: The Wager (Part 1)

themes: pascals-wager existence-of-god beatitudes wesleyan-general-rules justice-and-righteousness communion-of-saints

scripture: Matthew 5:3-10; Psalm 13:1

text:
**Scripture:** Matthew 5:3-10; Psalm 13:1
**Series:** 2021

> Launching a new series, the pastor uses being adrift on an unfamiliar sailboat at Lake LBJ to frame Pascal's Wager: because we are already 'embarked' in life, doing nothing about God's existence is itself a choice. He surveys rival conceptions of God, sketches Pascal's biography and the four outcomes of the wager (infinite delight or finite loss versus finite gain or infinite loss), and argues that one comes to faith not by deciding abruptly but by living as believers do, guided by Wesley's General Rules (do no harm, do all the good you can, attend the ordinances of God). Read on All Saints Day, the Matthew 5 beatitudes are presented not as ideals but as a life lived for God, including the exhausting yet satisfying hunger for justice (dikaiosune). The strongest apologetic, he concludes, is not an argument but the lives of the saints who taught us to love; the congregation is invited to remember them, believe, and become kingdom-builders themselves.

**Illustrations:** sailboat-lake-lbj, grandmother-jetski-beebee-gun, blaise-pascal-pensees, pagan-creation-myths, gods-playing-bridge, mortgage-on-black, belief-like-an-outfit, check-yourself-wreck-yourself

---

# November 7
## The Wager (Part 1)

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
   for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
		Matthew 5:3-10

My grandfather bought a house on Lake LBJ before I was born. I grew up going there and having lots of fun. We had sail boats from time to time. Small ones, like a sunfish, that I would take out by myself. The family got rid of the sunfish years ago because it took up a lot of space and I think I was the only one using it. I am not a big ski boat or jetski guy. The sound of the engine is too annoying for me. My grandmother hated when Jetskis first came to our cove and she would often threaten to bring a beebee gun or a 22 up to the lake to give them some warning shots. When I am at the lake, I like to take out a kayak or canoe. Simple to put in, simple to guide.
 Last summer, my cousin bought a sailboat and brought it up and I thought it might be fun to take it out. I had not been on a boat like that in a long time. I thought I would try it. What’s the worst that could happen? I made it on to the water, but that was the best I could say about my effort. I had launched the boat and I had to deal with the consequences. I was pulling up the sail and I was not controlling it. I completely forgot what I was doing, but I was on the water. I couldn’t choose to do nothing. Nothing was not an option. Nothing was crashing. I did not know what to do. I did not know where I was going and I could not get out of the boat.
My friends, we are starting a new series called The Wager. Not many methodist sermons are about gambling. I am not going to help you bet the money line on the Cowboys game or pick a foolproof parley. The Wager is about God, the existence of God, and our pursuit of God. The title comes from the French mathematician and philosopher, Blaise Pascal, and an argument for God that has been translated as Pascal’s Wager. One of the first and most essential points Pascal makes is that when we come to this question of the existence of God, we are not in a neutral position. It is as if we are on a ship already launched into the sea. It is as if we are on a sailboat on Lake LBJ without a sailor in sight. So there isn't this luxury of waiting around. Doing nothing is a choice. Today, we're going to look at the wager itself, especially with regards to the beatitudes and the saints in our life.
 Does God exist?  This is a very important question for the world. Is there a divine being that created everything? Different cultures and different religions have different conceptions of God, different conceptions of creation. Ancient Greece imagined that the sky was Uranus and his wife, Gaya, created everything. And then a Pantheon of other gods that fill up the different aspects and movements of life.
The Babylonians had a set of gods. The Japanese had an understanding of creation myth. The norse though the earth was created to protect against Frost Ogres.
One of the unique aspects of the Jewish faith and then the Christian faith was the uniqueness of God and God’s creation of all existence out of nothing. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not just another God in a Pantheon of gods that all meet together and play bridge and look after their people.
What we call monotheism also had different positions within Greek philosophy before Christianity. Aristotle gives a number of reasons for the existence of a single God in his Metaphysics. Neoplatonism, one of the school of rival schools of philosophy in existence during the early church, talks about God, theos, a lot. In fact, in the early church, the word theology doesn’t  have anything to do with Christianity or faith. It has to do with Greek religion. Early Christians would say, “I am not a theologian.” Theologian is pagan. Theos is a pagan word for God. There is a lot of history and ideas between 33ad and the 17th century, but we’ll skip it for today and come to Blaise Pascal, who was the son of a clerk in France. When he was a young man, he published a set of scientific and mathematical papers that basically launched probability theory. He had another paper that proved there could be a vacuum.
Then in his thirties, Pascal had a mystical experience and he basically stopped researching science. He wrote letters from time to time, but his goal at that point was to worship God, to pray to God, and to defend people whom he thought were offering a good description of God. Pascal died as a young man and the documents that he left were collected by his sister and published in French as the Pensées, or thoughts. They were published in English a few years later. John Wesley knew them and published his own abridged edition.
One of the most famous aspects of the Pensées is le pari, or wager. Gambling was a big part of French culture. There were a lot of different dice games and card games and horse racing, things like that. The Methodist Church in particular used to be pretty anti-gambling because of the social harms it can cause. Husbands putting the mortgage on black to win, losing, and then the family becoming homeless. There's some churches that refuse to have Bingo because it seems like gambling.
Pascal doesn’t advocate gambling or wagering. Instead, he brings his early writings on gambling and probability to bear on belief in God.

The basic summary of the wager is that there are four options.
1. You bet on the truth that God exists by conforming your life to the Lord and you receive an eternity of life and happiness. If it is true great. It is what you really want. Eternal life is not the status quo extended eternally, but a party that never goes old where you are truly appreciated and loved and filled with constant joy. Where there is no pain but constant delight in the God who is love. But what if it is not true?
2. The second position is betting on the truth that God exists, but God doesn’t. Well, then you’ll die and be buried and that’s the end of it.
3. The third position is betting on the truth that God doesn’t exist and you’re right. Well then you live a life of obsessive amour-propre or self-love, terrified of death and doing whatever you can to distract yourself from thinking about death. Whether it is with boats or cars or sports or movies or celebrities or politics. You fill your time so you don’t have to think about the end of your time.
4. The fourth position is betting the truth that God doesn’t exist and you’re wrong. Then you miss out on what you really want, which is joy and happiness and life with God.

So with the first two positions, you have a chance of either infinite delight or finite loss. With the second two choices, you have the chance of finite gain (being right but dying all the same) or infinite loss.
 We need to make a choice and live our life accordingly. And like I said at the beginning, we are already launched into the waters, we are already launched into the lake. We are on a boat already floating. We can't sit idly by. We need to make a choice.
The point is not to make a choice one day and change your belief as if you are changing an outfit. “I think I will wear red today.” No true belief is that fickle. Pascal, instead, says that if
“you’d like to arrive at faith and you don’t know the way…you ask for the remedies. Learn from those who were bound as you are and who now bet everything. These are the people who know the way you’d like to follow…Begin as they did, which was by acting as if they believed.”(LG 397)

And so what Pascal says is that we make the choice by how we live. If we don't currently believe, we start by doing something different, by doing the things that Christians do, not in the sense of going through the motions and in your head and knowing that this is foolish and this is false, but earnestly building new habits of mind and body.
And what are the things that Christians do? There's a number of ways of thinking about this and talking about this. In the Methodist tradition, I like to talk about the General Rules of the Methodist Church .  Rule not as in right or wrong, but rule as a measure of what is a good life.
The first rule is do no harm. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Am I currently harming someone in how I am living? If so, I need to stop that.
The second rule is do all the good you can. Again, check yourself, not check other people, check yourself. Am I doing all the good I can? Or is there other good I could be doing?
The third is in pretty archaic language, but I appreciate it. Wesley says to attend upon all the ordinances of God. That is, the things that God ordained for us to do. This is where the rubber meets the road. Pray, worship, come to the table, talk to other Christians, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those who are in prison, visit those who are widows and widowers: do these things.

. It can be tiring to do no harm. Sometimes harm is a lot easier than not harm. It's a lot easier to go through life and not think about the consequences of your actions than it is to imagine them. It's a lot easier in life to not try to do all the good you can, but to just do enough good so that you can feel good about yourself and then you can go about your day. It's a lot easier in life to not continue to follow the ordinances of God, but again, to choose what you will or will not do. It is a lot easier to follow amour-propre, self-love, and do whatever your heart tells you to do, even if it harms yourself or people in your life. And yet we are embarked in this life. Is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Jesus Christ who raised Jesus from the dead real.
Then we should follow him with our lives. We should praise him with our lives.

The beatitudes from Matthew 5 have been historically read for All Saints Day. The beatitudes are not about an ideal but a life lived for God.

When we come to the point of our spirit becoming poor, we should remember Jesus's words in Matthew. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Happy are the poor in spirit. Macarius, happy are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Again, if we are pursuing God, if we are putting our chips in on the side of God, it'll make us look at the world in a different way. It'll make us look for justice in this world. Righteousness and justice are translating the same word dikaosune. And once you start looking with the eyes of God, you start seeing a lot more injustice in this world, and it can be exhausting to hunger for justice. It can be draining to thirst for justice because you see how long it's going to take and how far away our world is from the justice of God at this time, like in Psalm 13,

How long, Lord?

And yet in the beatitudes, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for justice, for they shall be satisfied. Satisfaction is not found in completing the task, but in seeking God and hungering for justice in this world, I can go on and on with the beatitudes.
I think that they are so helpful to guide us and help reframe what life can be. That is, if God is real, if God exists. And if this God who exists, loves us so much that he gave his only son, so that whoever believes in him, whoever leans on him, whoever puts the chips in on him, will not perish in the wild sea of this world, in the wild lake of this world, but have eternal life, if this is true we should do the things of God.
Which brings us to All Saints Day. Somebody taught you about Jesus. Somebody showed you about Jesus. Somebody offered you an opportunity and the possibility that Jesus is real, that God is true and that God loves you Today, we lift up the saints of the church that we have lost in the past year, but those are not the only saints that we have lost. And a year in a life that is grieving is not a long time.
Many of the people who have shaped us and loved us have long since passed to life eternal. But here, when we are on this boat and on this rough sea, when we come across challenges to our faith, when we come across challenges in our life, challenges to faithful living, challenges to justice, God in God's infinite mercy offers us hope in the people who have shaped us.
The closest we come to Jesus is not in an idea in our head, but in the flesh of our neighbor. Offering love as well in the people who showed us how to love, who showed us how to not give up, who showed us how to forgive Jesus calls his friends, his mathetas, disciples, which means students.
To be a follower of Jesus is to be a student of Jesus. And we learn at the feet of the people who shaped us and taught us and showed us how to live, how to build habits of faithfulness. From the very beginning of the church, the most powerful evidence for Jesus have been in the lives of his followers.
The most powerful apologetics is not found in an argument, it is not found in a syllogism or a wager, but in the lives of the faithful. We've all witnessed such faithfulness in some ways or else we would not be here today. Even if you do not currently believe you have seen love in this world.
That's the powerful thing of All Saints Day. It is not just about remembering those who have passed, but embodying the same spirit that they had. That not only have you been shaped by those who came before, you can now be a shaper of others in your life. God offers you the power and opportunity to teach another how to love, to teach another how to show mercy.
And this is for us right now the wager. Are you willing to bet on God? That God's love for you is so great that even you can become a kingdom builder, even I can become a kingdom builder.
This world is full of so many obligations. So many time commitments. So many people pulling us, needing us, craving our attention. But we are already embarked. Let us remember those who taught us how to live, and we need just step forward into a life that only through grace, we can claim this day, God exists, we can claim this day. Jesus is real. And Jesus has a message of peace for this world. That even when we are tired, we will find rest. Even when we hunger for justice. We will be satisfied, thanks to the living God. And when we are disconcerted, when we don't know where to turn, we will share the stories of the people who shaped us.
We will have patience with the people in our lives who don't yet know. We will have patience with ourselves. We may feel like we are inadequate to the task. We may realize that we are on the waters. We may not remember how to sail yet, but God will not leave us alone to crash. Arrogance took me on lake lbj, humility brought me safe to shore.
This All Saints Day, may you remember. May you believe. May you take a new step towards God, towards those you love, towards your future life in eternity. Let us pray,

Heavenly Father,
May we receive your mercy this day. May we remember those we have lost with lightness this day. May the Spirit that moved in them move in us this day. May we decide to believe in you this day. May we decide to follow you this day. In the name of the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.


title: The Wager (Part 2)

themes: existence-of-god problem-of-evil suffering pascals-wager grace christian-community

text:
**Scripture:** Psalm 14:1-7; Job 38:4-5; Ecclesiastes 3:1-2; Matthew 7:3-5; Matthew 11:28-30
**Series:** 2021

> Part 2 of 'The Wager' series moves from Pascal's wager to the wager in Job, anchored in Psalm 14's claim that the fool says there is no God. Finishing his sailboat story (he crashed the boat and was paddled home), the preacher pivots to those caught in an endless loop of blameless shipwrecks and suffering. Where Pascal's wager has us bet on God, Job's wager has God bet on us. Engaging the problem of evil honestly rather than burying our heads in the sand, the sermon argues suffering cannot be answered by simple argument or the wide road of God-talk that ignores pain; instead Jesus calls us to stand with sufferers, take up his easy yoke, and rely on the Holy Spirit and the church. The conclusion proclaims grace: God bet everything by sending his Son, drawing us closer to the cross when we stand with the hurting, and inviting us to be fools for Christ rather than for the world as Advent approaches.

**Illustrations:** sailboat-crash-lake-lbj, bob-dylan-gotta-serve-somebody, freshman-dorm-room-debate, book-of-job-wager, gutierrez-job-commentary, spiritual-preach-like-peter

---

# November 14
## The Wager. (Part 2)

Fools say in their hearts, There is no God.
    They are corrupt and do evil things;
    not one of them does anything good.
The Lord looks down from heaven on humans
    to see if anyone is wise,
    to see if anyone seeks God,
        but all of them have turned bad.
        Everyone is corrupt.
        No one does good—
        not even one person!
Are they dumb, all these evildoers,
    devouring my people
    like they are eating bread
        but never calling on the Lord?
Count on it: they will be in utter panic
    because God is with the righteous generation.
You evildoers may humiliate
    the plans of those who suffer,
        but the Lord is their refuge.
Let Israel’s salvation come out of Zion!
        When the Lord changes
        his people’s circumstances for the better,
        Jacob will rejoice;
        Israel will celebrate!
Psalms 14: CEB

Last week. I told the story about taking a sailboat out on Lake LBJ for the first time in 20 years, I was by myself on a new boat. I didn't know the rigging. I didn't know any of it. I didn't remember the word rigging from prior small boat experiences. I didn't finish the story last week. I talked about how I was out on the water and i had to make a choice. The point of the illustration is that we are already out on the water in the life of faith concerning the existence of God. We are embarked, And no choice is a choice about God.
No choice is a choice about following God. It's like Bob Dylan said, you gotta serve somebody. It may be the devil, it may be by the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody. Well, I need to finish the story. I didn't magically appear back on land. I didn't have a divine moment of inspiration. I dropped the sail and crashed into a dock a few hundred yards down the cove.
I crashed, I did not know what I was doing. I did not make the proper decisions. And there were consequences for that. I called to Dominic to bring a paddle and we slowly, painstakingly, humiliatingly, meandered the boat back to our dock. Praise God, I didn't break the boat, I didn't break another dock, I didn't break myself, I didn't break Dominic. I walked away, unscathed, a little humiliated, but okay. Some of us, though, go through periods of our life, where it feels like we're getting into a shipwreck every single day and we're not the pilot and it's not our fault.
And we're on this boat and it keeps on crashing into shore. And it's exhausting. Some of you may not be in this place right now. I Promise you, someone you love is, whether or not they've told you, someone is in a position where they are feeling like they're stuck in a never ending wreck. The words of Ecclesiastes can be guiding: to everything there is a season. A Time to be born, a time to die, et cetera. But How can I believe in God in those times when it seems like God is so far away? How can I believe? It seems like those around me, who don't believe or barely believe, are receiving more blessings than me.
## Series Intro

My friends, we are finishing our series on The Wager, looking at the existence of God, how we respond to God in this world. Last week, we talked about Pascal's wager and the possibility of God's existence and investing our lives in God’s existence by doing the things of God and how the greatest reminder of that is in the people whom we love, especially those saints who have gone before, who taught us how to love, to care, to give, to offer ourselves.
This week, we're taking another step deeper. Our scripture comes from Psalm 14, which is an interesting text, quoted a few times in the New Testament. Fools say in their hearts, There is no God. They are corrupt and do evil things; not one of them does anything good. but all of them have turned bad. Everyone is corrupt. No one does good— not even one person!

The fool doesn't believe in God and fills their life with self-love, seeking that most of all. Now the idea of the existence of God, the question of the existence of God, can seem like a simple intellectual exercise.
It can seem like the kind of debate you have in freshmen dorm rooms, not the kind of debate you have when you have one kid in college and two on the way and are having challenges in your marriage.
I mean, the reason why people aren't in church today rarely has to do with apologetics. It rarely has to do with someone coming to a point in their life where they cease believing in God. Most often, it has to do with a negative experience at church, a negative experience around Christians. Or maybe God starts to seem unnecessary.
Many of us here are blessed to be in positions where we can make those judgements on cool and calm waters. But there are some times when we are stuck in the endless loop of shipwrecks, and there are some people who feel stuck in that place.

## Job
The book of Job, in the old Testament, contains what seems like an endless loop of shipwrecks. It also starts with a wager. The wager is between God and shatan, the accuser, The connection between the Shatan, or Satan, of Job and the Satan or Beelzebub of the New Testament is tenuous at best.
Attempts to develop cosmologies of good and evil in the Bible most often look a lot more like Manichaeism. That is, they look like dualistic faiths where good and bad have equal power and position. That's not the Christian faith. That's not the Jewish faith. Evil does not have equal standing next to God.
In the book of Job, Job is a righteous man with a family and cattle and land. Job has a nice hill country estate that is all paid off. Shatan says to God, the reason why Job believes is because you've blessed him with this wonderful land and family. God says that that is not the case. And so Shatan basically says, prove it. This is the wager.
A series of trials take place in Job's life. The people he loves die of disease. He loses all his property, his home. There was a title dispute so even though it was all paid off, turns out he never actually owned and he is in the street. And then he becomes diseased and sick.

All of this takes place really early in the book. Most of the book of Job contains a series of dialogues between Job and his three friends: Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. And then a fourth friend, Elihu, who's younger and comes in later. Finally, there is the revelation of God in the whirlwind
Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?
    Tell me if you know.
Who set its measurements? Surely you know.
    Who stretched a measuring tape on it?

Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian theologian, wrote a commentary of Job where he connects the book of Job to Pascal's wager. Gutierrez writes, “Pascal issues his shrewd and subtle wager to unbelievers. The wager in Job thrusts with a beautiful radicality into the world of nonpersons…Pascal confronts the winners of history, Job seeks out it's losers.”
 What does the existence of God matter to the losers of the world? What does the existence of God matter to those who are now suffering? Not just those who are suffering far away in other places in the world, but those who are suffering here and now. Those in our church, those in our community who are hurting, who are in pain. The wager in Job is different from Pascal's wager. For Pascal,
we are the ones who make the bet. In Job, God makes the bet on us.
In Pascal, we hold the keys. We are the ones who choose. We are the ones on the boat. In Job, God is the one who pilots us out of the wreck in the coast.
## Suffering and the Problem of Evil
How do we deal with suffering in this world? Theologians and philosophers have called this the problem of evil: why would a good God create a world that contains evil?
If you get to a point in life where you have a mature faith, you must have confronted this question. Why? Why suffering? Why pain? Why grief? The question is not stupid. Our faith is not to bury our heads in the sand about the question. Jesus never avoids questions. Jesus redirects questions. Jesus turns the wrong question into the right one.
The fool says in his heart, ‘there is no God.’ The fool lives his life as if there is no God. The fool treats the people around him as if they are non persons. The fool sees himself as a winner in history. The fool prays in the street corners. The fool gives thanks to God that they are not like the sinners. The fool only sees the speck in their neighbor's eyes and never the log in their own. The fool ignores the consequences of their actions. The fool thinks justice and righteousness are overused terms or virtue signaling.
The reality of suffering in this world, of those wrecks that go on and on, cannot be answered with a succinct and simple argument. Like I said, Job is a series of dialogues between job and his friends. His friends were saying he needs to change. They tell him it must be something he did. Job says no. Job isn’t passive about his suffering. Job is angry with God, job cries out for his suffering. Job cries out for the suffering of those around him. Job cries out for justice.
Near the end of the book, God appears from the whirlwind, and speaks to Job with a number of words that come down to the reality that all of creation is a gift from God.
It is all gift. It is all free. It is all offered to you.
To talk of God with those who are suffering. It is just flatly not easy. There are a lot of missteps you can take. It is easier, it's a much wider road to avoid such talk or to talk over it. It's a much wider road to talk about God's plan instead of the reality of suffering. It’s a much wider road to look to the future and ignore the present or the past. It is much easier to blame the victim instead of to stand with them. But following Jesus does not take us on the wide road. Jesus calls us to lay down our burdens at his feet, to pick up his yoke. His yoke is easy when we let go of the desires of the world. It is hard when we do not.

## Conclusion
And so we're left, my brothers and sisters, with this wager of God. Can we follow Jesus? Can we stand with those who are suffering? Can we hear their cries? Can we bandage their wounds? Can we seek justice in our lives?
One thing is that we cannot do it alone. We need the Holy Spirit. We need each other. We need to stand with others while they are suffering. Someone in your life is in this endless loop of ship wrecks. Are you willing to board their ship? Even when you know it's going to crash. Are you willing to be patient, even when you know you will get burned. Again, on your own, it is impossible. That is why God offers us the church.
We don't have to be Holy like Job.
Like the old spiritual says

If you cannot preach like Peter,
if you cannot pray like Paul,
you can tell the love of Jesus,
who died to save us all.

We have Jesus and Jesus gives us each other. We have each other. The people in this church are not just friends for the good times, friends for all times.
God sent his son to be with us, to be friends with us, to offer a way that we can be friends with God. And we can truly be friends with each other because we realize our friendship in Christ is not based on an exchange of goods and services, but purely on the gift of grace. God's love for us is based purely on grace.
May you realize that God exists, that God is here for you, in blessings and in suffering. May you also realize that God, the father, offered Christ, the son, for us all. That in suffering and pain and grief, we are not distant from God. In many ways, we are closer. We are closer to Jesus. The early church saw Job as a forerunner of Jesus in his sufferings. We are closer to the cross when we stand with those who are hurting.

God bet everything on us by sending his only beloved son. God bet everything on you. You are loved in good times and in hard times. You are loved when you are up and when you’re down. You are loved. You are forgiven. And you can share mercy in this world. You can stand with those who are suffering. You don’t have to be a fool for the world. You can be a fool for Christ. God bet everything on you. As we prepare for Advent, may you receive Gods mercy and may you respond with your life.

Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, you believe in us even when we do not deserve it. Help us to not be afraid of your love for those who are suffering. Help us to stand with those who are hurting in our lives and to live lives of hope in you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


title: Trinity Sunday: In the Beginning (Song of Creation)

themes: creatio-ex-nihilo trinity divine-providence creation passing-faith-to-next-generation new-beginnings

scripture: Genesis 1:1-5

text:
**Scripture:** Genesis 1:1-5
**Series:** 2021

> A Trinity Sunday sermon launching the 'Songs of the Bible' series with the song of creation. From Genesis 1:1-5, Wilson moves from the reality of creation out of nothing through Russell-vs-Aquinas and the Big Bang to affirm that the universe had a beginning. He rejects the deist 'divine watchmaker' for the Triune God who continually sustains all things, identifying Father, Word/Son, and the Spirit (ruach) hovering over the deep as the love-song that sang creation into being out of sheer gift. Tied to his children's song, the message lands on God's ongoing love: today can be a new beginning because God is here making all things new.

**Illustrations:** russell-aquinas-big-bang, aquinas-five-ways, chocolate-fountain, divine-watchmaker, in-the-beginning-childrens-song, spirit-song-of-love, hebrew-waters-above-and-land

---

# May 30
## Trinity Sunday

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. Genesis 1:1-5

In the Beginning, there was nothing. Like a total absence of anything. Nothing existed. Nothing was there. Think of a thing. Anything. A chair. A cat. A baby. And then it is not there. The not there part is what everything was. All was emptiness and void.

God, though, was not a part of this nothing. God is. God always was and was separate from the nothing. Out of the nothing, creation. Matter. Life. Existence. Planets. Stars. All the things that used to not be here but now are here.

### Series intro.

My friends, we are starting a new sermon series called Songs of the Bible that looks through the scriptures in a way guided and retold in music. There are a lot of explicit songs in the Bible, but the Bible can, as well, be turned into song. For God’s love for us is so great that we cannot help but sing.

Today is the song of creation.

We start at the beginning with a song titled: In the beginning. What a children’s song forces you to do is focus on what matters in a passage. What should children understand about creation? What should we all understand? For that, we must start at the beginning.
בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם
In the beginning, God created the waters above or heaven, and the land. In Hebrew, the word for heaven is literally waters above or upper waters. Mayim is waters, she-mayim waters above; upper waters. When you look out at an ocean and you look out at the sky over the ocean, they look very similar. It's easy to get a sense that these are similar concepts. And with the waters above, we have eretz, the land in Hebrew. It's not this concept of a globe as we understand it, but the land and the land that is gift. When we look at this, when we sing of all creation, we need to rest in this moment of pure gift. There was nothing, and then there was something.
In 1927, the philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote a book that attempted to refute proofs of God's existence. Russell was very famous around the world in Philosophy and Math and Logic, he was also friends with important people and very respected. He was also a strident atheist and frustrated by continued belief in God. So Russell writes this book to refute proofs for God's existence, especially the proofs of Thomas Aquinas, which, if you grew up Catholic, you probably still remember them.

- The First Way: God, the Prime Mover
- The Second Way: God, the First Cause
- The Third Way: God, the Necessary Being
- The Fourth Way: God, the Absolute Being
- The Fifth Way: God, the Grand Designer

So Russell, starting with the first proof of the prime mover, said that obviously there was no need for a beginning to the universe, so this is just silly. His argument is longer than that but rests on this point that there is no need to assume the universe has a beginning. There is no evidence either way. Christians and other theists are flat wrong to emphasize this point. This was in 1927. In 1929, Edwin Hubble, who had already discovered galaxies beyond the Milky Way, was able to prove that the universe was expanding because galaxies were moving away from the earth in proportion to their distance. This replicated the work of the Belgian physicist and priest, Georges Lemaître. That is, the farther away, the faster they moved. He proved that space is expanding. It's growing. We can extrapolate from Edwin's, we'll call him Edwin. Edwin's realization is that if space is expanding, it can't be expanding infinitely. So there has to be a point when the expansion began.
So there's either a point where all existence began or, an infinite source, like a chocolate fountain, like a heavenly chocolate fountain. There's always more, you dip your strawberries and there's always more chocolate. So that would be the other hypothesis, but that hypothesis was quickly squashed. Although an infinite chocolate fountain would be really great to have in the narthex, maybe if we can work on that, Linnea, but instead, this leads to the scientific theory of the big bang.
With this evidence, Thomas Aquinas comes out better than Bertrand Russell.

What we come back to, though, is this moment, this event, when there was nothing.
And then there was. We know there was something because we are here. You are here. I am here. There is life. There is a world. There are birds. There are air-conditioners. All of these things, chairs and children and skies and sparrows. We know there are things we know that there had to be a source of the things. For a long time, many Christians believed that God created everything and then kind of let creation be. This was a famous argument in the late 18th century called the divine watchmaker. That if you found a watch in a field, you would assume a watchmaker. When we see the complexity of nature, we assume a creator. But this argument is that God created everything and then let it be. This is not the Triune God we worship. For Christians, creation is not just this passive moment that happened long ago with little effect. Creation is God’s continual sustainment of all reality. In Genesis, with these first words, we have the reality of God and God's self as Father, Son, and Holy spirit.
We have, in the beginning, the Triune God. We have God, the Father, we have God, the logos, the word of God, the son. the word of God is what is spoken, what is expressed from God. What is thought from God. Logos in Greek encompasses word, reason, thought, logic, and more.
So God the Father is present. God the son is present. Then we have in verse two, the spirit of God, the breath of God floating over the deep, the ruach of God, what Christians call the Holy Spirit. The love between God the Father and God the Son. We have that here in this beginning, this source. A medieval mystic said that the Holy spirit is the song of love sung by the father to the son.
God as Trinity. We have the Father, Son and Holy spirit singing life into existence for the sake of it. Not out of need or necessity, not to win an argument just to allow it, to offer it.
All of that history comes to bear on our understanding today of the triune God's creative power in this moment and forever after. God is not just far away but with us, flowing over all things, sustaining all things. God is not a part of creation but the source in whom we live and move and have our being.
What I tried to do in the song, in the beginning, is to share some of that possibility on a level for children to sing and remember and connect with as they grow.

In the beginning, God created everything
In the beginning, even bugs with little wings.

How do we understand all of creation? Look, let's think of things. Even bugs with little wings. Also, with Children’s songs, I have found that having animal sounds and motions helps kids a lot.

In the beginning, God created dark & light.
In the beginning, God created day & night.

And then God said it was good.

Throughout the story of creation, we receive affirmations from God that creation is good. And then at the end of the sixth day, after the creation of humanity, God said that it is very good.
Friends. Creation is not a distant thing, Trinity is not a distant thing. Genesis and creation aren’t just fun stories for kids or for confirmation or anything like that. Trinity isn’t just a concept for theologians or academics but who God is. Trinity points to the reality that God created us out of love and desires not only to save us but to be with us. Creation is not just an event long ago but the constant and persistent existence of all things due to God’s amazing mercy. It impacts us directly where we are in our every day life.

The love the Father has for the Son is the Spirit that flowed over creation and flows over us here today as we worship and pray, as we listen and forgive and sing. The Spirit that allows mercy and new life this day to be possible. Today can be a new beginning for you because God is here. You don’t have to leave this building as you walked in, because God is making all things new, including me, including you.

You are loved. Christ's forgiveness and mercy is found in the very act of creation. Your children are loved. When we share songs with our kids, when we share Bible stories with our kids, it's not just to help them be good people, but to share the overwhelming love of Christ, from the beginning of all things until the end of all things.

In the beginning, God created everything. And then God said that it was good.

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


title: Us and Them

themes: us-vs-them political-division readiness-watchfulness purpose-of-the-church evil-as-corruption-of-good

text:
**Scripture:** 1 John 4:4-6
**Series:** 2020

> Preaching on 1 John 4:4-6, the sermon resists reading the passage as a rivalry between the children of God and the world. Drawing on Texas sports rivalries and the way sports-radio language has turned politics into a team sport, it warns against dividing the world into 'us and them'—insisting there is no 'them' to God. Yet God's love must not be received passively or complacently, like a windfall inheritance; evil is the corruption of good, and the human heart can corrupt any gift. The remedy is to be the church: worshipping, serving, and praying together to be one and to not grow complacent.

**Illustrations:** texas-sports-rivalries, sports-radio-politics, summer-of-george, rich-uncle-severance

---

# March 21

“You are from God, little children, and you have defeated these people because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world. So they speak from the world’s point of view and the world listens to them. We are from God. The person who knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God doesn’t listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”
1 John 4:4-6 CEB

- Sports rivalries
- Oilers and Cowboys
- College station and Bryan
- UT and A&M
- tu
- T-sippers

Us and Them
I grew up surrounded by rivalry.

In this passage, John can be read as describing a rivalry between the children of God and those of the world.

Over the last 30 years, the language of sports radio took over politics in this country so that now it is basically a team sport.

John doesn’t want us to divide the world into us and them. The word of God for us this day is the word of God for us. It is not about them. There is no them to God. And yet we must not grow lazy with God’s great love.

Summer of George actual plot.

What is actually not from God does not exist. It is evil. It is corruption of what is Good. The human heart can corrupt anything good. We cannot simply receive the gift of God and assume it will turn out well.

We must not treat God’s love like a team sport. We must not treat God’s love like inheriting the estate of a rich uncle of getting a three month severance package. How do we protect ourselves from this temptation?
By being the church. By doing the things of God. By worshipping together, by serving together, in prayer.

May we pray to be one. May we pray to not grow complacent


title: When You're Lost, God Will Find You

themes: god-seeks-the-lost grace-as-gift prodigal-son seeking-god pilgrim-people everyone-matters incarnation

text:
**Scripture:** Luke 15:3-13
**Series:** 2021

> Third sermon in the 'Songs of the Bible' series, set to the preacher's own song. Walking through Luke 15's three parables (lost sheep, lost coin, prodigal son), it argues that being lost often goes unnoticed, that everyone matters to God who refuses to settle for 99 of 100, and that salvation is grace all the way down. God seeks us first, has already come to the far country in the incarnation, and calls us to our true home as pilgrims of a heavenly nation.

**Illustrations:** lost-at-galleria-mall, home-alone-kevin, ninety-nine-percent-odds, lost-keys-loser-metaphor, nouwen-return-prodigal, thirty-rock-handsome-doctor

---

# August 8
## When you’re lost, God will find you

Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose someone among you had one hundred sheep and lost one of them. Wouldn’t he leave the other ninety-nine in the pasture and search for the lost one until he finds it? And when he finds it, he is thrilled and places it on his shoulders. When he arrives home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Celebrate with me because I’ve found my lost sheep.’ In the same way, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who changes both heart and life than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to change their hearts and lives. “Or what woman, if she owns ten silver coins and loses one of them, won’t light a lamp and sweep the house, searching her home carefully until she finds it? When she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Celebrate with me because I’ve found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, joy breaks out in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who changes both heart and life.” Jesus said, “A certain man had two sons. The younger son said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the inheritance.’ Then the father divided his estate between them. Soon afterward, the younger son gathered everything together and took a trip to a land far away. There, he wasted his wealth through extravagant living. Luke 15:3-13

When I was about five or six, my family went to the Galleria mall in Houston. This was in the late eighties. It was a unique place. Sure, we had a mall in college station, post Oak mall, but it was nothing compared to the calories. Yeah. There are gallery with its multiple food courts, which is what i was excited about. We were going Christmas shopping, I believe. And my older brother and older sister were all together with my parents and we were making a day of it. I'm sure it was a Saturday or a Sunday. And I was obediently following along and I was holding my mom's hands and looking at things and holding the hand and looking at things and holding the hand…and I looked up and i was no longer in my mother's hand that I'm holding. And I didn’t know where she was. I was lost in the Galleria mall.
My memory of this experience is very different from my parents' memory. My memory of it is more like the movie, Home Alone, when Kevin goes to the store (although I didn’t have my dad’s credit card). “I wonder what's over here. This is odd. This is funny.” Just walking around, making observations, thinking about things. Eventually, my parents found me and we went and had a good meal at an Italian place. It was a unique day in my life.
When we're lost, sometimes we don't even notice we're lost. How does God seek us when we're lost, even when we don't notice it? How does God help us when we lose what we care about most, even when we're blinded by distress?

My brothers and sisters, we are continuing our series on songs of the Bible that looks through the scriptures in a way guided and retold in music. There are a lot of explicit songs in the Bible, but it all can be turned into song. For God’s love for us is so great that we cannot help but sing.
Today: when you're lost God will find you.

Luke, chapter 15 is one of my favorite parts of the Bible. It contains these three parables back to back to back. I could spend a month or a year preaching on each of them. The first is the parable of the lost sheep.
It's important to realize that we don't have the perspective of the lost sheep. We don’t know if it was male or female. We don’t know why it got lost. We don’t know if this was a common occurence or a rare occurence. Let’s assume a male sheep. The sheep’s brother’s could have nicknamed him Losty because he got lost all the time. We don’t know. We have more of the perspective of the shepherd who loses the sheep. I imagine the sheep doesn't think that there is anything wrong going on. The sheep is not with his brothers and sisters but just trying to get an extra berry before he has to go back to the pen and then he gets stuck, stuck in the brambles.

Let's put ourselves in those moments when we've been kind of stuck and we know we should be somewhere else, but we're not. We know we should have been listening to the shepherd's voice. We're not, we know we made a mistake, but we are stuck.
Sometimes it may feel like the end of the story. A shepherd goes out with a hundred sheep, 99, come back. It's pretty good odds. 99% success rates. I mean, most businesses, if you sell 99% of your product, that’s a good day. If you're shooting a basket and you make 99 out of a hundred, you're going to the pros. If you are hitting a baseball and you hit 99 out of a hundred in a month, you're going to the hall of fame.
The shepherd goes out with a hundred sheep, comes back with 99 and that is not good enough. Everyone matters. Every sheep matters, even the ones that get stuck in the brambles. Even the ones that don't listen to the master. Even the ones that stray from where they are expected to be. Even they matter. Even you matter.
 Then we have the woman who has 10 coins and loses one of them and spends the whole night looking for the last one, and then she celebrates. A coin is less connected to a human than sheep. We can connect, though, more to what it means to lose something. The emotions of losing something are just as powerful as the emotions of being lost. When you lose something, it often feels like a moral failure. It is easy to turn losing your keys into a metaphor for life. “I lost my keys. I am a loser. I lost my coin. I am a loser.” You are not a loser. You are not a lost coin. God does not give up on you. God is not satisfied with a 90% completion rate. God will find you and bring you home.
Finally, we bring it all together with the parable of the prodigal son. It's about a father who has two sons. One of them wants his inheritance. So he tells his father this (which is like saying, “you are dead to me”) and the father kindly, miraculously agrees.
And then the son was prodigious with his inheritance. He acted like his father was dead. And then he spent at all. We have these three figures and this story. As Henri Nouwen eloquently puts it, there's a way that each of us can find ourselves in each of the figures: the father and the oldest son and the younger son. We're usually principally focused on the prodigal son. I mean, it is in the title. We focus on what it means to give up everything, to lose everything, to dismiss everything we have been given, to not honor our father, to not honor where we come from, to throw it all away.
Even then, at that moment in a pigsty, watching the pigs eat better food than you, love is not at an end.

when you're lost, God will find you
when you're lost, God will find you
when you're lost, God will find you and bring you home.

This is probably my favorite song that I wrote in this series. Both because it tells these parables that are not often told to children, but it also emphasizes how all of it is grace. When you're lost, God will find you and bring you home. The sheep is brought home. The coins are brought back together. They are brought home by God. We see the power of God working with the spirit of the prodigal son. There is a synergy between God's spirit and ours. The Prodigal Son is not a puppet coming home against his will. Grace doesn’t work like that. The son doesn't even understand what he is looking for or what to expect. We see pure contrition here. He is sorry for what he did. He wants to come home and be a servant to his father. He offers all he knows but God’s yes is greater than we can imagine.
The son came humbly to serve his father so he could at least eat what the pigs eat, but when he returns, instead of a whipping or an “I told you so,” there's a feast that takes place. They take the fatted calf, the special one, most likely set aside for a wedding, and they share a meal for everyone in honor of the lost son. And then we have the older brother, too. He didn't leave home. He did what he was asked to do. And he is jealous of the attention that his younger brother is receiving. He thinks that it's not fair. Like I said, many of us have been in the position of the younger brother. Many, as well, have been in the position of the older brother, thinking, ”What this other person is receiving is not fair. Aren't I worthy? Aren't I special? Aren't I worthy of a celebration?”
We're all in different places in our life. We all have different experiences of being lost or being challenged. Some of us may have never felt like we were lost. We always knew what we wanted to do. We always knew what was going to happen. Life kind of unfolded as we expected it to. Some of us may have been protected from the consequences of our actions by circumstances beyond our control.
There's an episode of the old sitcom, 30 rock, where the main character, Liz Lemon, starts dating this doctor who has moved into her building and he's incredibly handsome. And she's like, “this is too perfect.” Over the episode, though, she realizes that he is an horrible doctor. But because he is so handsome, he was able to coast through life. He was able to coast through medical school. Everyone fell in love with him immediately so that he didn't actually have to do anything.
His handsomeness got him out of dealing with the consequences of his actions. He ends up cutting off his own hand because of his incompetence. It goes against the story he told himself of his life and he becomes lost. Coming to grips with being lost is incredibly humbling.

The first step for us, though, is not recognizing we're lost. The first step isn't even about us. The first step is that God comes out to seek us and find us. God is not satisfied with 99 out of a hundred. God is not satisfied with those odds. You may feel like you're one in a hundred, that you are not special. That there's nothing interesting going on with you. You may think that if you weren't there, the lives of people around you would be better or they may not change at all. And yet when you're lost, God will find you and bring you home. And maybe that is the key: where is your home? Where is your true home? It may not be the house you live in or the apartment or trailer that you live. God may be calling you somewhere else.
The early church called Christians, pilgrims or wayfarers on this journey, citizens of another nation, a heavenly nation. Our nation is with God and God will call us home. God has already come down to find us. God has already gone all the way to the far country to find us. God has already been willing to become humble in the form of a human and take on human flesh, take on human weakness, take on even death. For what God has assumed, God has transformed. In God becoming human in Jesus, humans can now be friends of God.
When God finds us, we need not push him away. We must admit the ways that we have been lost or are lost and realize that we don't need to prove anything to God. We don't need to earn our salvation. When we're lost, God will find us. Let us admit those times that we are lost. Let us look for our ultimate hope. Let us seek our ultimate home. Let us be willing to be brought there. Even if it seems like we don't deserve it, especially when it seems like we don't deserve it because we do not deserve it. It is grace all the way down.
when you're lost, God will find you
when you're lost, God will find you
when you're lost, God will find you and bring you home.
In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.