title: Rivals

themes: herod-as-rival-to-jesus the-magi grace-as-gift loving-enemies judgment self-examination kingdom-politics

text:
**Scripture:** Matthew 2:1-8; 1 Corinthians 4:5; Matthew 25:34-40
**Series:** 2021

> Third sermon in the Advent 'Star of Wonder' series. Drawing on Matthew 2:1-8, Wilson frames the nativity as a rivalry between Herod and Jesus, Caesar and God. Using flag-football coaching, The Wire, and Herod's biography, he shows Herod alone among rulers grasped that Jesus threatened his throne. But the Donatist controversy and 1 Corinthians 4:5 teach that grace is unlimited and judgment is Christ's alone; we cannot sort the righteous from the unrighteous. The Star of Wonder is a rival first to ourselves, calling us to honest self-examination, to love our enemies, and to receive the good news that we need not save ourselves. Closes with Matthew 25's least-of-these judgment and a prayer for transformation.

**Illustrations:** packers-flag-football-rivals, ross-football-knowledge-jab, the-wire-marlo-omar, cowboys-giants-ou-texas, herod-the-great-biography, donatist-controversy-augustine

---

# December 12
## Rivals

“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. Then Herod secretly called for the magi and found out from them the time when the star had first appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search carefully for the child. When you’ve found him, report to me so that I too may go and honor him.””
Matthew 2:1-8 CEB

I've shared a few times about my experience in coaching Flag Football with the Lake Travis Youth Association. We had a very successful year. We won a number of games. Started off 4-0. One of my cousin’s, Ross, played Division I football at Rice and he had a friend from football who was coaching his kids in flag football for the first time this last year. And his friend was so proud. He told Ross, “We won our first three games. Isn't that awesome?” And Ross was like, “my cousin Wilson knows nothing about football and he won three games. It's not a big deal.”
Well, I think Ross’s assessment of my knowledge of the game is a little harsh, but it is true I didn’t play a lot of football as a kid. I came to coaching with one year of 7th grade JV right guard experience and a lifetime of watching football and playing Madden.
Our flag football team, the Packers, did much better than I expected. I never told the kids that, but we ended up going 5-2 in the regular season and then in the playoffs, we won two games on our way to the championship game. In the semi-finals, we faced the first team to beat us during the season. It was on the backend of a double header and my assistant coach was out and we got clobbered, and they were mean about it. We really wanted to beat the Vikings.

The semi-final game had not started off well and we were down 20-7 at halftime, but the kids didn't give up. We didn’t let the Vikings score in the second half and went on to win the game 28-20. In fact, I thought that we were losing when time expired and my assistant told me, “no, dude, we won.” And I collapsed on the sideline with joy at defeating the rude Vikings. Their coach had been mean after the first game and he didn’t shake our hands after the second one and called my kids brats, but we had defeated them. We had bested our rivals. We then had to play the championship game against a team we had beaten earlier this season, but on a last second two point conversion so we were pretty evenly matched. However, we were tired and missing four out of ten boys. It was our third game of the day. I was tired. We ran out of steam, but I told the kids that I was proud of them. I told them that they should be proud of themselves and thankful that they earned medals and not plastic trophies. As well, I told them that we had won my Superbowl against the Vikings. We won the important game.
Jesus says, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. In some areas of life, it’s easier to figure out who our enemies are. If you run a business, you know who your competition is. You know exactly who you are competing against. You may be cordial and play golf with them from time to time, but you know who they are. If you’re playing sports, you know who you are competing against. But what about life?
My friends, we are continuing our series, in this Advent season, on Star of Wonder. On our first Sunday, we talked about the star itself, theories of the star, and the light which drew the magi from the east to Bethlehem. The light that God has offered for us. Last week, we talked about prophecy and the prophecy of God for the Messiah, but also the righteous prophecy for justice here and now; that God has come to make all things new. Today, we'll talk about a rivalry, a rivalry that goes deeper than the Cowboys and the Giants, a rivalry that goes deeper than OU and Texas. The rivalry between Herod and Jesus. The rivalry between Caesar and God.
 In the third season of HBO's show, the wire . a show from which I cannot show any clips on Sunday morning, we go back to the original gang in west Baltimore. We see what's going on while their leader is in prison and the second in command is in charge, as they're selling heroin in Baltimore. But then there is this new kid who comes along and starts taking street corners. His name is Marlo Stanfield. He starts off small, but eventually, by the end of the series, he takes over most of the drugs in Baltimore. He's a rival to the status quo. He doesn’t play by their rules. Another figure in The Wire who stands above the others is Omar. Omar isn’t a part of any gang. And some people don’t like that and they try and kill him and they fail. And he has this great line, “When you come at the king, you best not miss.”
These depictions of gang violence in Baltimore give us an accurate perspective of the rule of Herod the king. Herod was born around 72 BC, the second son of Antipater the Idumaean. His family were Edomites who had converted to Judaism before Herod was born, but they weren’t seen as on the level with other Jews because of their collusion with the Romans and the way they used the Romans to usurp the Hasmoneans, who were the heirs of the Maccabees. Herod’s father, Antipater, was an ally of Julius Caesar, and so when Caesar defeated Pompey the Great and became Dictator for Life, he appointed Herod, about 26 at the time, as governor of Judea. The Romans loved him because he kept good records and always turned in the taxes on time. Eventually, Herod was named King of the Jews by the Roman Senate. Not by the any Jews.
He rebuilt the temple, even grander than it had been before. He saw himself as the defender of the Jews, maybe even the savior of the Jews.

He was the rightful king of the Jews (according to him). It was his territory. It was his turf. And suddenly these folks come from the east bearing news that there was a newborn king of the Jews and they want to meet him.
And so they go to ask Herod. Now, Herod is one of the few government figures who rightfully sees the threat of Jesus, even as a child. Herod understands what this person could mean.
Pontius Piilate didn't understand. The other government officials didn't understand.
Herod did. Herod saw this boy-king as a threat to his rule. He knew that he was in a precarious position. And so he asked the magi to report back to him so that he could deal with this so-called king. When they never returned, one of the great tragedies in scripture takes place. Herod is angry and declares that all boys 2 years and under are to be killed. Herod sees Jesus as a rival to be eliminated. If Jesus is the Messiah that means Herod is not. If Jesus is the savior that means Herod is not. If Jesus is Lord, that means Herod is not.
Later, after the death of Jesus, the Roman leaders still didn't understand. Romans did not like Christians but more from indifference than seeing them as a direct threat.
Paul in his letter to the Romans says that Christians should submit to the governing authorities. Christians should not be the tip of the spear of violent revolution. And yet that was not good enough. Rome tried different levels of persecution to get Christians to fall in line.
One of the tricks, in the third century, was to bribe leaders of the church, bribe bishops, and go for the people on the top in order to show that since their leaders can be corrupted, it's all false. This came to a head, especially in North Africa, in what was called the Donatist controversy.
There were some churches who witnessed their leaders betray the gospel by accepting bribes and stomping on the cross, and they said that those leaders weren't valid anymore. They called them traditores, the root of the word traitor. They felt that only people who were ordained by bishops who never betrayed the gospel were valid, only churches that had priests who never betrayed the gospel were valid.
So, this controversy goes on for a while around the Mediterranean. And there were these rival churches that each claimed to be right and claimed others to be wrong. We see here early denominations, in fact. Augustine of Hippo responded often to the Donatists and he wrote and preached about how here and now, the church is not pure and cannot be pure. There are people in the church who earnestly love God and give everything to him. And there are people in the church who use the church for their own ends in order to further their own name or wealth.
Both are present, the wheat and the chaff, but our job is not to thresh the church. That is Jesus's job. He will judge us. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, ““Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.”
1 Corinthians 4:5 ESV

Our job now is to be faithful to what God has called us to be. Not to stand out and say, “you are good. You are not good.” Or,  “righteous, righteous, righteous, unrighteous, unrighteous, righteous, unrighteous.”
In the light of Jesus Christ, there is no rivalry. We are not competing against each other to receive grace. We are never in a position to pick who is deserving and who is not. Grace is not finite like money or time or capacity or market share. Faith is not a holier than thou competition. Grace is unconditional and unlimited.

Advent is not a finished story.
Who are we in this season? Are we magi looking for the light? Are we Herod threatened by the news of God with us?
Are we threatened by the call God has for us? It may be too much to love my enemy. I dunno if I can handle that. God may be calling me to love the Vikings coach.
First of all, we must be willing to be honest with ourselves. God offers us the space to admit where we are wrong, but we have to do it. We have to admit it. There may be times when I act like the Vikings coach. We have to realize that there are times when we may be acting like Herod.
But in this advent season, may you realize that the Star of Wonder, that the light of Jesus Christ is truly a rival to the status quo of the world. We are not off the hook even if we know the story. It is truly a rival to the way of life that says it doesn't matter what we do. It is a rival to thinking we are finished or thinking that if we do it, therefore it is good. It is a rival to the way of life that is indifferent to how we act or that says, boys will be boys. Christ will thresh the wheat from the chaff. And it starts right here (point to heart) threshing the chaff of your heart away so that only the wheat remains. Only the love remains. Emptying ourselves of all but love.

The Star of Wonder is a rival first to ourselves. It is not about other people. Don't begin this thinking of others, what they need to do to change, but here and now, God’s light is falling on you.
Are you going to dismiss it like Caesar? Are you going to be threatened by it like Herod? Or are you going to seek it like the Magi?
My brothers and sisters, we are not alone. If you want to go to Bethlehem, we are here to go with you. Let us journey together. God did not create us in order for each of us to have the burden of saving the world on our own.
God created us for love. Let us receive the good news that we do not have to save ourselves. Let us receive the good news that we are not our mistakes, we are not our past. We are more in God. Let us receive the good news that Christ has won the victory, that the people of this world who claim to know more, who claim to have the secret insight around, even if they're dressed up in Christian language, they do not speak for Christ and Christ will judge the wheat from the chaff as he says in Matthew 25.

Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who will receive good things from my Father. Inherit the kingdom that was prepared for you before the world began. I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothes to wear. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me.’

“Then those who are righteous will reply to him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we see you as a stranger and welcome you, or naked and give you clothes to wear? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

“Then the king will reply to them, ‘I assure you that when you have done it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done it for me.’

May we do likewise.

Let us pray

Heavenly Father, may we not be threatened by the coming of Jesus but open ourselves up to the possibility of transformation here and now. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


site: sermons

title: Sin as Rebellion: The Freedom Not to Rebel

author: Wilson Pruitt

church: bee-creek-umc

themes: sin-as-missing-the-mark freedom-in-christ via-salutis sacrificial-love justice-and-righteousness new-beginnings curvatus-in-se

text:
**Scripture:** 1 John 3:4-6; Micah 6:8
**Series:** 2020

> A New Year sermon (with a children's message on being honest and true rather than fitting in) that defines sin, via 1 John 3:4-6, as rebellion against God rather than a mere list of dos and don'ts. Pop-culture rebels (Star Wars, American Graffiti, Footloose) work only against an evil empire or oppressive order, but God's order is sacrificial love revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Drawing on the Augustinian curvatus image and Micah 6:8, the preacher argues Christian freedom is not a buffet of choices but the freedom not to rebel against the God who is love, extending faithfulness beyond individual acts to seeking justice and mercy in a changing world.

**Illustrations:** star-wars-rebellion, american-graffiti-rebel, footloose-rebellion, curvatus-construction-destruction

---

# January 3

## Children’s Message

New school year. New impression

God doesn't ask you to fit in but to be honest and true to who you are. You have a chance to be more honest and more true this year, and it can

Every person who practices sin commits an act of rebellion, and sin is rebellion. You know that he appeared to take away sins, and there is no sin in him. Every person who remains in relationship to him does not sin. Any person who sins has not seen him or known him. 1 John 3:4-6

The first time I ever heard about rebellion was watching Star Wars.

American Graffiti

The rebel who does what he wants, or keeps it real.

This idea works when there is an evil empire to rebel against, or folks in a small town he need to get, loose, foot loose.

John, though, defines sin for us here as an act of rebellion against God.

Sin is usually presented as a list of dos and don'ts.

A lot of it comes down to what our point of reference is: is it society, our parents, our country, our political party, the other political party. Who defines rebellion? Who defines order?

The order of God is found in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Sacrificial love is the order God seeks for the world.

Sin is our heart in rebellion to God. And what John says is that we don't need it. We don't need to be contrary to the God who is love. This is Christian freedom. It is not about a buffet line of choice but the freedom to not rebel.

Curvatus. “Are you in the construction business or the destruction business?”

If God is good and just and true then all goodness and justice and truth lies with God.

This is the power of Micah 6:8

As well, our faithfulness to God is not just about our individual actions but what we seek in this world.

In this new year, hear these words: you don't have to fight yourself, you don't have to act against others.

You are loved, so act in love. You are forgiven, so offer forgiveness. Let us work together to seek new forms of justice and mercy as the world continues to change.

method: authored, not translated

license_apparatus: CC BY-NC 4.0


title: Spilling Things: God Offers Us a Chance for a Do-Over

themes: new-beginnings repentance new-birth new-commandment salvation-history conversion

text:
**Scripture:** 1 John 3:11-12; John 3:1-21; Genesis 4:1-16
**Series:** 2020

> A short Super Bowl-Sunday sermon on 1 John 3:11-12. Pruitt opens with football cliches ('it's not how you start but how you finish') to contrast finite games with the unknown length of a life. John points back to the beginning, Cain and Abel, with blunt advice: love one another and don't be like Cain, because a heart without love leads to death and causes death. Drawing on Jesus' words to Nicodemus about a second birth, the sermon argues that people of faith are not limited to one beginning: through the explicit act of repentance and conversion, metanoia, God offers a do-over and a new beginning every day.

**Illustrations:** super-bowl-sports-cliches, finite-games-vs-life, cain-and-abel, nicodemus-second-birth

---

# February 7

Spilling things

God offers us a chance for a do-over

“For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.”
1 John 3:11-12 ESV

Super Bowl and sports cliches
- “one game at a time.”
- “We need to play 60 minutes of good football.”
- “Our guys gave it everything they had” or “they left everything they had out on the field”
- “It is not about how your start but how you finish.

Games like football are finite games. Life is not finite because we don't know when it will end. We also don't know when it will end, but I'll get to that.

The beginning is really important for John. Creation, Eden, Adam and Eve, but then we jump to Cain and Abel and John has some pretty obvious advice: don't be like Cain.

This can seem cliched like all the sports lines: love one another and don't kill your brother. It even rhymes!

But John is getting to a trickier notion: a heart without love leads to death and to causing death.

This is where we get back to the beginning. For most people, you only have one beginning, right? Your birth? It is so obvious in needs to be stated. But Jesus talks about a second birth and John lets us understand what is going on.

#### John 3 and Nicodemus

As people of faith, every day we have a chance for a new beginning. Not just by waking up every new day or a new week or a new year, but through the explicit act of repentence and conversion: metanoia. Turn around.


title: Tell Everyone That Jesus is Alive

themes: resurrection-appearances the-gospel distraction-and-busyness relationship-with-god faith-and-works childlike-faith hypocrisy

text:
**Scripture:** John 20:11-18; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; Matthew 3:2
**Series:** 2021

> Concluding the 'Songs of the Bible' series, this Easter-themed sermon on Mary Magdalene meeting the risen Christ (John 20:11-18) asks where the good news of Jesus fits in an age of 24/7 news, social-media algorithms, and societal mistrust. Using extended illustrations of Facebook's attention-harvesting algorithm, SEO, and engagement-driven outrage, Pruitt argues the gospel cannot and should not 'go viral' or be sold like a product. The good news is simply that Jesus is risen, God is with us, and God loves you in particular. Drawing on Paul (1 Corinthians 2:1-5), James, and Bauerschmidt/Campbell, he insists faith is shown in deeds and fruit, not clever presentation, and that the risen Christ forms living bonds of friendship (the Holy Spirit as grace). Children grasp this friendship best; the church exists to share this still-new news person to person, transformed life to transformed life.

**Illustrations:** facebook-newsfeed-algorithm, al-khwarizmi-algorithm-etymology, zuckerberg-congratulations-tweak, seo-plumbing-job-2009, you-are-the-product, salesmen-from-evangelists, indulgences-prosperity-gospel, writing-childrens-bible-songs, mirror-forgetting-reflection

---

# August 15
## Tell Everyone That Jesus is Alive

Mary stood outside near the tomb, crying. As she cried, she bent down to look into the tomb. She saw two angels dressed in white, seated where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head and one at the foot. The angels asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” She replied, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they’ve put him.” As soon as she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she didn’t know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she replied, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him and I will get him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabbouni” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Don’t hold on to me, for I haven’t yet gone up to my Father. Go to my brothers and sisters and tell them, ‘I’m going up to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene left and announced to the disciples, “I’ve seen the Lord.” Then she told them what he said to her. John 20:11-18

Facebook came out around the time I finished college and went hiking. And when I got back, I was nannying for my sister and my nieces. I had just been taken off the wait-list to seminary and I got my duke.edu email. So I had early access to the Facebook. There was this weird thing going on and you could share pictures and put up quotes and I was meeting people in grad school for the first time and so I was super earnest about it.
And it was just like a more organized aim or instant messenger or ICQ messaging. There was no newsfeed in early facebook. It was just chronological updates of people. You had to have a college email to start an account and it was restricted to only a few colleges first. For instance, first Harvard and then the other Ivies, and then I think Duke was included in that next round. It was a while before they included all universities and community colleges and yet still you needed a .edu email.
The biggest change in the evolution of Facebook wasn’t when accounts were opened up to everyone but when they added the newsfeed. Instead of sharing pictures with you as they were shared, facebook started to use an algorithm. The way the word algorithm is thrown around in popular discourse makes it seem like a magical box, but that is not the case. The word comes from the name of a Persian mathematician from the ninth century, named Abdullah Muhammad bin Musa al-Khwarizmi, which would often be written in Latin as Algorithmi.
A modern algorithm is a finite series with well-definied parameters used to solve a problem or perform a computation. With the case of Facebook, they create a set of parameters that process the inputs of your age, race, job, pictures, likes, comments, friends, family, etc., and then tailor the posts you see based on those parameters. They are trying to keep you engaged as well as find ways to include purchased posts or ads in your feed. The Facebook algorithm changes pretty constantly, usually at least once a month, sometimes more. And it's all hyper-focused on us as individuals. So it's not this idea of the generic human, what a generic person would think is relevant, but who you are. And relevance is also a very relative idea because the point and the goal of Facebook and other social media is to keep you on social media. The point is not to give you things that are interesting or that improve your life. The point is to keep you staring at your screen even more. Because if you're staring at your screen, you're staring at the ads on your screen and they are gathering information and then Facebook can sell your information to marketers. They have a set of micro demographic data of you because of your likes, friends, locations, etc., that's much more precise than any other source of data. They also track you outside of Facebook, which is why you may search for a pizza oven on Google. And then suddenly you're getting ads for pizza ovens on Facebook or Instagram.
Facebook is only one of many active social media companies that seek your attention. And out of this mesh of algorithms and ads is the way most people get their news. News is is a funny word in English. What is news? What is worthy of news? Most of us have news that we trust in news that we don't trust. The church word ‘gospel’ comes from the Greek word euangellion, which means good message or good news. In this era of 24/7 news, social media, and deep levels of societal mistrust, where does the good news of Jesus Christ fit?

My brothers and sisters, we are concluding 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: Tell everyone that Jesus is alive.
What is good news? Let’s go back to Facebook and an early story that transformed the news feed. Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, found out, belatedly, that either a friend or his sister had had a baby and it hadn't come up on his newsfeed. And he was really annoyed. He thought that that's the kind of story people wanted to see. And so he tweaked the algorithm personally to weight the word, ‘congratulations’, more than other words. And so if someone says, congratulations, the posts are more likely to come to the top of a person’s feed. The same thing happens to a similar degree on Google and every other search and social website. The process of trying to get your product high on a list is called SEO or search engine optimization. My job after seminary was working SEO for a plumbing company in 2009, when the economy crashed. I had to think of a bunch of different words for plumbing parts. SEO changes constantly because the algorithms change constantly because the trends and Memes change constantly.
There are so many people all over the world trying to optimize their language, optimize their message, so you will see it or hear it. People constantly doing A/B testing. They make two different posts or emails with different headlines to see which gets more clicks.  So there are people whose jobs are to constantly change the words, change  the meaning of words so that you will stay engaged.
Another thing about Facebook is that there's an early internet adage: if something is for free on the internet, that means that you are the product. We are the products in social media. We are what is produced, consumers with unquenchable desire. Is it ever enough? How can we share good news in a world with this unquenchable market set desire?
The Christian faith has been distorted and abused over the years, as well. We must admit it. There are so many different churches and denominations and messages out there that it is hard to keep them all straight. How do we separate the noise from the really good news?

Tell everyone that Jesus is alive.
Tell everyone that God loves them, too.
Tell everyone that Jesus is alive.
And remember, that God loves you.

 This is good news. Jesus is alive. God loves others. You are not your mistakes. God loves you in particular, even those things about yourself you don’t like. God loves you so much that he doesn’t want you to stay on a path of self-destruction. This is the good news of John the Baptist when he says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is here.” It is about changing our lives to lead towards what builds up rather than what destroys, but someone telling us we need to change doesn’t feel very good. We don’t like to be reminded of the mistakes we have made.

There are very few viral news stories about people admitting their mistakes. We like the idea of heartwarming news stories, but the most shared content on Facebook every week is about how the other side is wrong. It is almost always a tribalist appeal. “Look how foolish they are!” Or “look how dangerous they are!” This is the news that people share, that the algorithms promote. The good news of Jesus Christ can’t compete on the level with this.

As well, for a lot of us today, though, the question may be what is new about Jesus? It is a story people have heard again and again and either accepted it, denied it, or just don’t care about it.

People were talking about Jesus when this country was founded in 1776. The second great awakening, which spread Methodism far and wide across the continental United States, took place almost 200 years ago. There are churches in every town in America and prayers that start most state legislatures and Congress.

Because there is a saturation of Christianity in this country you might think there would be a saturation of Christians and Christian behavior, but that is not the case. Either the good news is wrong or it is misunderstood or it has been distorted and abused and turned from good news to bad news. The first door-to-door salesmen took their cues from door-to-door evangelists. The reason why some sleazy preachers seem like used car salesmen is because used car salesmen learned how to be sleazy from preachers. A whole reformation took place 500 years ago to stop the sale of indulgences only to have indulgences come back in the form of the prosperity gospel.

For some people, Jesus Christ represents the harms that people have done in the name of Jesus. We must admit the harm that has been done by Christians. The good news is not found in the mint condition brand of Christians or the United Methodist Church or even Bee Creek.

The good news is that “Jesus is the one point where God has come to us, fully entered into our situation so there can be no confusion and no excuses, and (God has) revealed what he is really like.”[^1]

Emmanuel, God with us. The good news is not about social mores or who to vote in the next election or what posts to share on Facebook but that God is with us. Jesus is Lord of heaven and earth. Creator of everything out of nothing and Jesus still chooses to be with us and save us and love us.

And like Moses on the mountaintop, we cannot leave that encounter with God unchanged. But the good news does not end there. Because God is with us, we can turn around our lives. Our lives, how we live and respond. Faith is not just a head thing but a whole life thing. James says faith without works is dead. If you hear the good news but go back to doing the same harmful things, it is like looking in the mirror and forgetting what you look like.

Christianity from the beginning, has been shared more with deeds than with words; by the fruit of the spirit more than the cleverness of the presentation. Paul says to the Corinthians,

“When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I didn’t come preaching God’s secrets to you like I was an expert in speech or wisdom. I had made up my mind not to think about anything while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and to preach him as crucified. I stood in front of you with weakness, fear, and a lot of shaking. My message and my preaching weren’t presented with convincing wise words but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power. I did this so that your faith might not depend on the wisdom of people but on the power of God.”
1 Corinthians 2:1-5 CEB
https://bible.com/bible/37/1co.2.1-5.CEB

All this summer, I have been sharing these children’s songs that I have written over the years. I started writing them five years ago when I started to do chapel for the school at my previous appointment. I was frustrated with existing children’s songs. So I started writing songs based directly on the Bible with an attempt to grab the attention of 1 year olds and 5 year olds. Creation and Eden and Noah’s ark were really easy stories to turn into songs because the stories are filled with animals. Some stories in the Bible are trickier to make engaging. Instead of dumbing them down, I have attempted through out to offer the stories of God in clear ways, even when they aren’t as goofy and funny.

Good news is for the two year old as well as the adult. And we share good news not just with words but with singing and dancing and service. We show it because it is not about us at all. This is where Christians have seriously missed the mark. It has never been about us to begin with. If it were all about us, our job now would be to game the algorithm and maximize exposure and protecth the brand. Christians should be an army of online trolls pouncing on any bad word so we can feel better about ourselves by tearing others down.

If Christianity is about us and Jesus is just a brand or a figure who lived long ago and said important and laudable things, then let’s focus on the brand and the next viral message. As Paul says, if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, let us eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. Let us post whatever and do whatever because it doesn’t matter anyway.

But, if Jesus is truly risen from the dead, then everything changes. Paul also says we are not peddlers of God’s word but people of sincerity. We don’t need to sell God because God isn’t a product.

The claim of Christians is not that Jesus was a figure of the past who did some good things and taught some valuable lessons from which we can still learn today. The claim is that Jesus still lives – indeed, is more truly alive than we are - and continues to form new bonds of friendship with people, bonds of friendship in which we come to share in his life. This bond of friendship is the Holy Spirit, whose effect in our lives is what we call Grace. Bauerschmidt 44

Children understand friendship, often better than grownups. Children seek friendship and are open to it quickly without expectation. When we sing songs for children and share children’s time in worship, it is not only because children are cute and we want to teach them life lessons. Jesus said let the children come to me because to them belong the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is here with the child. With the stories and the songs and the playground time.

The good news of Jesus christ let’s us be friends with God at 2 or 22 or 102. No friendship is ever finished, and we show friendship not just by talking but by doing and playing, by giving and receiving, by partying and caring.

Friendship never goes viral. Friendship is concrete. Friendship takes time. The good news for us is we don’t have to sell anything. We don’t have to make Jesus go viral or sell him. In fact, God tells us not to do that. Instead, we share good news by serving and giving and loving and praising and saying that Jesus is alive, with our words and our fingers five. This is why the church exists. To share this news. To live out God’s kingdom here. We worship and pray and serve and give together because of this news. Let us share this news that is still new; person to person, transformed life to transformed life.

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

[^1]: Doug Campbell, 184


title: The Church in the Past

themes: methodist-history stewardship danger-of-nostalgia early-church-community openness-to-the-spirit kingdom-of-god

text:
**Scripture:** Acts 2:42-47; Acts 5:1-11; Joshua 1:1-9
**Series:** 2021

> Opening a 'Church: Past, Present, and Future' series, this sermon reads Acts 2:42-47 alongside the contingency of history (English Civil War, WWI, the Astros, and Bee Creek's own unlikely founding) to argue that the early church and this congregation both exist because people were caught up in God's dangerous love and open to unpredicted directions. It warns against nostalgia, contrasts looking back to a golden age with Jesus inaugurating the coming kingdom, and lands on a pledge appeal celebrating the paid-off debt and casting vision for children/youth, adult education, and missions including Bee Creek Village.

**Illustrations:** history-of-methodism-podcast, buckingham-english-civil-war, laud-prayer-book-bishops-war, franz-ferdinand-assassination, astros-greinke-game-7-2019, faulkner-past-never-dead, peter-pentecost-9am-joke, love-will-not-play-fair-quote, bee-creek-founding-story, ananias-sapphira-church-stuff, joshua-tribes-competing, like-church-not-church-stuff, kids-these-days-nostalgia, wesley-heart-strangely-warmed

---

# October 17

## The Church in the Past

The believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the community, to their shared meals, and to their prayers. A sense of awe came over everyone. God performed many wonders and signs through the apostles. All the believers were united and shared everything. They would sell pieces of property and possessions and distribute the proceeds to everyone who needed them. Every day, they met together in the temple and ate in their homes. They shared food with gladness and simplicity. They praised God and demonstrated God’s goodness to everyone. The Lord added daily to the community those who were being saved. - Acts 2:42-47

I studied history in college. I enjoy history. Not just the stories, but the complexity that emerges out of such study. I have shared in the newsletter about my History of Methodism podcast. I started it a few years ago but stopped after a few episodes. And then, through some encouragement, I started it back up again. I put out a new episode once a month and it covers Methodist history with a very wide lens. Most stories of Methodism begin either at the birth of John Wesley or at his experience in college with the Holy Club. I began 200 years before Wesley with Martin Luther, in order to show the different intellectual and political influences that shaped the movement that shaped the church we are in today.
One of the main reasons for going so far back and into such detail is to realize that a lot of what many people see as John Wesley’s innovations were just him repackaging what others had already done. If you ignore the history, Wesley seems a lot more impressive. When you pay attention to the history, Wesley is not as intellectually creative, but I think that that makes the movement more powerful. It is not just about him but about God moving through him.
Another big reason for going back so far in history is to realize the absolute contingency of most human events. Starting just with English History, if James I had not made his best friend and son’s dancing instructor into the Duke of Buckingham, England probably would not have lost so many battles in the 1620s to make Charles I disband parliament for over a decade of personal rule, which led to Civil War. If Charles had not demanded the Scottish use William Laud’s prayer book, the Scottish would have not revolted in the first Bishop’s War, which also caused the Civil War.

All of human history is filled with these contingent moments. If Franz Ferdinand’s driver hadn’t tried to hide from the assassins in Sarejevo in front of Gavrilo Princip, there would have been no first world war. If the Astros former manager had kept Zach Greinke on the mound for Game 7 in 2019, the Astros would have won their second World Series. This is absolute fact.

Our history shapes our present and our future. Our history did not need to be the way it was. This goes for the world and for the church, as well as the local church.

My friends we are starting a new sermon series on the Church: Past, Present, and Future. Looking at where we have been as a church, where we are, and where we are going.

We start with the past, but as William Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It's not even past.” The decisions and choices of the past shape who we are today. The generosity of the past shapes our understanding, as well, of what is possible today.

Pentecost is celebrated every year as the birthday of the church. Pentecost is the time when Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to the people, as he had promised at his ascension. And earlier in Acts 2, Peter gives a great sermon. He has a fun joke about how people are accusing the Christians of being drunk, but how that is absurd because it is only 9am. Thankfully tailgating was not around at the time.

We then get to this passage at the end of chapter 2.

The believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the community, to their shared meals, and to their prayers. A sense of awe came over everyone. God performed many wonders and signs through the apostles. All the believers were united and shared everything.

This sounds wonderful! A taste of heaven. The believers were united and devoted to God in teaching and prayer and meals. This is the church being the church in a powerful way. They shared everything. They prayed all the time. But the radical thing was not what they did with their money or their time, it is how they let God guide their lives. As one of my teachers once wrote,

“People caught up in the love of God not only began to give thanks for their daily bread, but daily offered to God whatever they had that might speak that gracious love to others. What is far more dangerous than any plan of shared wealth or fair distribution of goods and services is a God who dares impose on us divine love. Such love will not play fair. In the moment we think something is ours, or our people’s, that same God will demand we sell it, give it away, or offer more of it in order to feed the hungry, cloth the naked, or shelter the homeless, using it to create the bonds of shared life.”

I love that line, ‘Such love will not play fair.’ So often we look to God’s love, for it to work within the status quo we find ourselves. If we are at a good place in life, we want it to stay the same. If we are struggling, we want the struggle to change, but not too much. We want to get to the good place.

Twenty years ago, the land we are sitting on was a failed real estate deal from the 70s. There were no plans for a church or anything in the area. The Austin District of the UMC was looking to North Austin with their church plants. This area did not fit the profile. The demographics didn’t fit with what the textbook said would be a good location for a church plant.

Our present existence as a church was contingent on circumstances no one could have expected. Nothing was inevitable. The next year, a group of residents in Briarcliff wrote the Austin District Superintendent about the need for a church here. By the summer, David Payne was appointed. By the next Palm Sunday, in 2003, the first official worship service took place at Resort Ranch on Pace Bend Rd. The original property search focused on that area, especially the land right around Pace Bend Rd and 71, but no plans were firm. The church was chartered that September, which meant that it no longer received support from the Methodist Church and could stand on its own. Chartering less than a year after a first worship service is never done, but it happened with Bee Creek.
That is when the direction of the property search shifted here, to what is now 3000 Bee Creek Road. The dream of the building was a dream for God being present and glorified here, as well as for the community here to be served and cared for. In August of 2005, a few years later, after the land had been donated and purchased, the church approved a loan from the Texas Methodist Foundation of 2.4 million dollars for the building of the original campus and sanctuary. A lot of people have come to Christ here. A lot of people have been baptized and turned their lives around here.

What was true with both the early church and with the beginnings of Bee Creek is that people were open to the movements of God in directions that they could have never predicted. People were caught up in the love of God, but God’s love can be dangerous for our expectations of ourselves. God may ask us to do things we didn’t predict.

As well, in the early church, and at Bee Creek, there has been some church stuff going on. This term comes from one of my parents’ friends, who said, i like church, i don’t like church stuff. People have left. People have been hurt. People have said things that should not have been said. Acts 2 is great and beautiful, but in Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira stop sharing and the church basically goes off the rails. The church, in fact, begins to look like the tribes of Israel in the book of Joshua, after they entered the promised land and got a place for themselves. Brothers started competing against brothers. There was a lot of fighting. There was also a lot of talk about the good old days.

The great danger of our past is nostalgia. Nostalgia makes everything old great and everything new problematic. “Kids these days, I tell you what. If only things would be like I remember, everything would be fine.”

The yearning for a past golden age is as old as writing itself. The ancient Greeks spoke of it often.

The troubles of the present always seem new and the troubles of the past always seem minor, yet this is not how God views history or the past. Were that the case, God would be trying to get all of us back into Eden. Jesus says, “You foolish Generation” again and again, but he doesn’t do it in a ‘kids these days’ kind of way. And instead of looking back to the glory days of the temple or of the tabernacle or life with Abraham and Sarah or even the garden, Jesus looks forward to the coming kingdom of God. More than that, Jesus inaugurates it. The kingdom of heaven is here! Repent! Which means, turn around! Turn your life around! You don’t need to follow the path of destruction. The path of life is here.

This building wasn’t built for the people at that first worship service in 2003. This church wasn’t built for the first donors. People didn’t pledge and give to glorify themselves but for God’s future and God’s kingdom. The point was not to recreate the church of the past but to share God’s grace and peace and love now and in the future.

We have shared pledge cards with you all here today and you all watching at home. Pledges for the next year. We are pretty darn excited to no longer have a place to give for debt reduction on the card.

After Pentecost, the church gathered and shared together not because they knew what God was doing, but because they knew that God was there. A pledge is a gift for the future based on an experience in the past. The church has historically understood the tithe as a balanced way to give to God. 10% of our income as a reachable goal for us to honor God. A tithe to God is not a membership fee nor is it a maximum gift. It is a way that Christians have responded to God and found grace in responding. Your pledge helps us plan and budget the next year for what God is doing and we don’t want to slow God down. Paying off the debt is not a moment to rest on our laurels but to continue our mission with untied hands. Next year, we hope to support our children and youth programs even more. Next year, we hope to increase our adult education and bible study opportunities so that everyone has a chance to grow closer to God in the Scriptures. Next year, we hope to build out our missions work here and around the world. We want to start in our community, with a dream called Bee Creek Village, but we also want to intentionally serve the different communities of our mission field, on both sides of the Pedernales River.

The past is not the future, but Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. The same Spirit that floated on the tongues at Pentecost, the same spirit that settled on John Wesley and made his heart strangely warmed, the same spirit that spread Methodists around the country and around the world, the same spirit that planted a church here 19 years ago, the same spirit that dreamed this building 16 years ago, that same spirit is with us this day, and that same Spirit is not finished with us.

May you receive God’s grace this day. May you be caught up in the love of God, but may you also be ready for God to push in directions you cannot imagine. God is here for you, but not just for you. God wants you to be here for others. That is why the church is here. That is what our past is about.

Let us pray,

Heavenly father, your grace was sufficient at Pentecost, your love filled the hearts of the early Christians, may we receive that same spirit this day. May we remember that the love of God continues to transform lives and transform the world, and may we be willing to be transformed by God. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


title: The Church in the Present

themes: gentile-inclusion faithful-disagreement living-in-the-present stewardship church-as-field-hospital

text:
**Scripture:** Acts 15:6-12; 1 Corinthians 13:12; Matthew 18:20; Acts 2:44-46
**Series:** 2021

> Second in a past/present/future series on the Church, this sermon uses the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 to argue that faithful disagreement is built into the church's life. Drawing on the pastor's high-school debate experience (and the manipulative tactic of 'spreading'), it contrasts shallow talking-point culture with the humble, Spirit-led discernment of Peter, Paul, Barnabas, and James over Gentile inclusion. The present is the unsettled time where the church has agency and choice; God includes debate in Scripture as a model. Applied to current UMC General Conference tensions and the pastor's own delegate role, the call is to be a field hospital rather than a private club, to discern together, and concretely to support the church through a stewardship pledge and a Helping Hands give-away.

**Illustrations:** high-school-debate-spreading, politicians-talking-points, aggie-longhorn-fans, lincoln-douglas-ideal, church-under-bridge-screamer, mikveh-circumcision, general-conference-kansas-city, field-hospital-private-club, eighty-twenty-organization, glass-darkly, helping-hands-giveaway

---

# October 24
## The Church in the Present

The apostles and the elders met together to consider this matter. After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers. And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” The whole assembly kept silence, and listened to Barnabas and Paul as they told of all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles. - Acts 15:6-12

When I was in high school, I was on the debate team. I enjoyed it because my friends were there. It was an excuse to leave campus because we would go to debate tournaments in the middle of the day. And so you got to get out of the class, which was great. At tournaments, I mostly did foreign extemporaneous speech. I had done a lot of research and would draw a random topic and have about 5 minutes to prepare a speech on it. I also did LD, Lincoln Douglas, which is a one-on-one debate format that goes back and forth a few times, but I was much better at extemporaneous debate.
I had friends who did CX or cross-examination debate, which is a format where you have a partner and there is one topic for the whole year. For instance, this year, the topic is “Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its protection of water resources in the United States.” There's an affirmative team and a negative team. So even if you personally think that the US should increase protection of water, you have to find arguments against the resolution. And, if you disagree, you have to make arguments in favor of it. The point, though, is not to convince the other side, but to convince the judge, who was usually either a college kid who had done debate in high school, or a parent who had no idea what was going on.
 I had a lot of fun practicing CX, even though I didn’t compete in it. That's where I learned how to spread. For instance, here is the preamble of the constituon spread

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The point of spreading is to talk so fast that your opponent doesn’t understand all of your argument, because they are taking notes, but the judge does.

Outside of the formal area of high school debate, the language of debate and argument changed dramatically because of the internet. There used to be this hope for honest debate. People would imagine that they were like Lincoln and Stephen Douglas laying out extensive arguments and people could be persuaded by them. But the reality is far from that.  Every politician says their talking points and little else whenever they speak or write or tweet. Even during an interview or debate, they try to race back to their talking points as soon as possible. A lot of online interactions seem to be people who have absorbed the talking points of politicians or podcast hosts, which they then spew those back and forth in this consistent regurgitation of what other people say. Attempted political dialogue online is as reasonable as an Aggie and a Longhorn talking about whose fans are better.

The church from the very beginning has had debates about how to be faithful to Jesus Christ. These debates can also be contentious. It often seems like it would be easier and nicer if everything was already resolved. And we could just go through with what other people had already agreed to or what God had directly told us to do. It would be great if we didn't have to think, if we didn't have to persuade, if we didn't have to debate, but that is not the church we have. That is not the world we have. Ours is not a world of robots, but of humans made in the image of God, seeking the good of Jesus in the midst of a broken and challenging generation.
My friends, we're continuing our series on the Church: past present, and future. Last week, we talked about the church of the past and how it forms and shapes us. Today, the church of the present. Sometimes the church of the present is not as comfortable as the church of the past or the church of the future.
We'd like things to be settled. The present is the most unsettled time because the present is the time when we actually have the opportunity to change things. We have agency over our now in the church and outside of the church. For instance, one of you, at this moment, could choose to stand up and start screaming at me.
I've been at a sermon where someone stood up and started screaming at me. It was actually at church under the bridge, under interstate 35. When that happened, I just kind of kept going, but it could happen anywhere. There is this potential of something really weird taking place. It's not likely, but there is the potential. We all have choices in our life.
You have the choice to get up in the morning. Now, if you don't get up in the morning, there are consequences. For most of us, if you don't go to your job, you may not have that job again, but it is a choice you can make.
The church at present is filled with opportunity, but also everyone does not agree about everything. It would be nice in some ways to go back to the church in Acts 2 where everyone lived of one accord.
But like I said last week, that perfect church did not last very long. Here, in Acts 15, after the martyrdom of Stephen, after the conversion of Paul, we have the great Jerusalem council. A debate is going on about whether or not Gentiles can be Christians, whether or not circumcision is necessary.

What we understand as Baptism came out of ancient jewish practice. It was a cleansing called the Mikveh, which means immersion. John the Baptist did not invent it. Orthodox Jewish communities practice it during conversion. Someone interested in becoming Jewish is immersed in water to be cleansed. After that, if you're a male, you have to be circumcised, whether or not you were eight days old or eight years old or 80 years old, you had to be circumcised in order to become Jewish. Jesus was a Jew. Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day.
A lot of circumcision talk today, not what you expected, but that's where we are with the Bible. In Acts 15, they trying to figure out how important circumscision is for the faith of Christians.  And the debate that took place in scripture at Jerusalem was this: what was the breadth of inclusion in the church of Jesus Christ?
What steps need to be taken to receive grace? There were voices on both sides, the results of the debates and the act of the Holy Spirit was to include Gentiles into the faith. But I think what we need to hold onto today is that God in God's wisdom includes this debate and argument in our holy scriptures. We have a model of what debating about the faith can and should be.
The church has debated many things since that time. There've been many church councils about what faithfulness looks like. Some of them have to do with the person of Jesus Christ, another looked at what the person of the Holy Spirit is, another tried to figure out what to do with images, whether or not images are inherently wicked and idolatrous, or whether we can pray to God through representations of Jesus and the prophets where icons can be holy. These councils and debates didn’t always end in unity. And yet, to seek the faithfulness of God, I think we should be like Peter and Barnabas and Paul and James and seek God with humility without control. We should realize that we are not finished by God's grace. At this moment, we are not now in glory. We do not currently see God face to face and so we should seek and trust others who are seeking the truth together.

Over the last few years, the United Methodist Church has been in deep debates about its future. The UMC is found in the US, Europe, Africa, and the Philippines. The regular meeting that makes decisions for the church, General Conference, was supposed to meet in 2020, but it did not. Now, it is scheduled for next year in Minneapolis. I am a member of our conference’s delegation so I have been a part of a lot of these conversions.

I'm going to go to Kansas City this afternoon to be a part of another one of those talks. I want to be open with Bee Creek about these conversations about our future because they start right here and now in the present. We cannot put our heads in the sand. Conversations about how to read the Bible together, how to love people, how we can be church together, how we can make tough decisions together, how we can talk to each other. Even though it may feel good sometimes to put our heads in the sand or try to fast forward life, we have agency over this. The church of the present has agency over choosing who we wish to be, who we wish to follow, choosing this day to be a church of Jesus Christ and not of ourselves. We say the creed at 9am during communion to remind us what has been revealed about God. What is non-negotiable. The Trinity, Jesus as all human and all God, creation, redemption, the Holy Spirit active in the world. Our need for grace. Beyond those, there are still a lot of choices we can make

We can choose this day to be a church that is not a private club, but a field hospital, caring for the wounded in this world.[^1]

In a lot of see ways, it would be easier to be a private club. You don't have to think about other people outside the gates there. You just think about your members, give them what they want, make sure they're happy. This is not how Jesus ministered or preached or lived or loved because to love someone is not to let them stay in states of self-destruction. He doesn’t just go around, correcting them either. Jesus comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. As well, we aren't given this perfect method of knowing exactly what we need to do. We have to discern it together. We have to be the church together.
We have to invest in this together. We have to take the time to talk to each other about difficult things. We have to take the time to not just regurgitate talking points or spread like a did in debate, talking so fast and sharing so much information that no one has time to respond, but instead, to hear and listen and seek faithfulness to God.
The church of the present is a church in the midst of ever-new self discovery of who we are. Part of that is how we read the Bible together, how we worship together, how we serve others together, how we share the good news together. It's also how we are generous to God and to each other, how we show Christ's generosity in our lives. Questions that may seem obvious to us are not as obvious when we talk to others of different circumstances.
Last week, I talked about pledges. I’m talking about it again today because the pledge is an opportunity for the church today to be a part of what God is doing here. For us to commit to this continual journey of self discovery as the church. We are not just our past. We are not just our potential. We are the body of Christ right now.
And when we submit a pledge, we are making a claim about who God is for us and who this church is for us and who this church can be. The claim is not based on earning anything or membership fees, but it's wholly on the grace of Jesus Christ that God has offered to each of us. Generosity is an opportunity to grow closer to God, to let go of control over all aspects of our life and offer it to God in the form of this body of Christ. Where we come together to worship, serve, love, listen, discern and pray about the best use of the resources that you have given us, seeking to be the hands and feet of Jesus in this community to draw people closer to God, to invite people to make a commitment to Jesus, to raise our children in the faith, to form believers into disciples, to share mercy with those who are hurting to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to give as a body, not just for ourselves to give our own tide as a church, to ministries of mercy and sacrifice.
God doesn’t call each of us to put the weight of the world on our backs or the weight of the church. The church is not just another 80/20 organization where 20% of teh people do 80% of the work. Sometimes it seems like that with the same people volunteering for the same things, but the difference is that this body is present now and in eternity. The church is the place where God’s yes is said, which is stronger than the no of the world. We do not ask you to have all the answers but we need you to be the church. We need each of your to respond to God’s yes in this place. We are more together. We will be more tomorrow than we are today. Your pledge of support now let’s us look forward to what God can be doing here. This week, as well, we will start collecting for our community give away. We will be collecting fall/winter clothing, shoes, linens, pots and pans, dishes, utensils, and small kitchen appliances to give out for free at Helping Hands Crisis Ministry on November 9.  It is an opportunity to lighten your home in order to share what you have with those in need. It is a chance to see where you are, but sometimes we don’t like to look where we are. We would rather look to the future or the past.

The church of the present is not always easy, but it is always meaningful. Sometimes it means that people will disagree with you. In most aspects of life, if you come across someone who disagrees with you, the easiest thing to do is to just leave, go somewhere else or ask them to go somewhere else.
We don't have a debate judge, like I did in high school. What we do have is the holy spirit where Jesus tells us where two or three are gathered there I will be also. Where we are gathered, we open ourselves up to God, Christ is present here. And now my brothers and sisters, Christ is present with us.
Christ is present not to resolve all things that are confusing here and now, but to offer love in the midst of this brokenness, when we still do not see God clearly, as it says in first Corinthians 13, when we are with him, we shall understand all. But now we see through a glass darkly. In this darkened glass, we are offered life. Help us be the church together, commit to support the church here and now. We have agency, you have a choice. We cannot decide today who we have been We can decide today who we are. We can decide to be the body of Christ here and now as fully and expansively as humanly imaginable.
In fact, beyond our imagination, God can be present here. We can choose to be a part of it. So take that choice. My brothers and sisters take that choice in prayer. Take that choice in love. Take that choice in self-sacrifice offer to God this day and God will meet you. Let us pray

Heavenly Father, you did not make us to be puppets but to be friends. Help us to accept the responsibility of friendship with you by faithfully serving you and our neighbors. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[^1]: Pope Francis


title: The Church of the Future

themes: congregational-future jubilee-and-debt-forgiveness grace-as-gift rejection resurrection-hope evangelistic-welcome great-commission

text:
**Scripture:** Acts 28:28-31; 1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 1 Corinthians 15:54-55; Leviticus 25; Isaiah 6:9
**Series:** 2021

> Concluding a three-part series on the Church (past, present, future) on a celebration day, Pruitt reads the abrupt ending of Acts (28:28-31) where Paul, frustrated but not rejecting, keeps ministering under house arrest. He argues the church's story is unfinished—God is still writing 'Acts 29' through the congregation. Paul's frustration (echoing Isaiah's 'eyes but do not see') models persistence, while the resurrection ('spoiler alert, Jesus lives') is the known ending that frees us from anxious speculation about an unpredictable future. He develops Leviticus' Jubilee as a 'trumpet blast of liberty': God's economy cancels all debt, an 'inefficient' economy of grace that creates a moral-hazard objection (why be good if saved anyway?). Answering with Peter Maurin's 'I try to make it easier for people to be good,' he casts the pastor/church's task as removing roadblocks to faith. Free in Christ and entering its own Jubilee, the church must still respond to grace—feeding the hungry, welcoming new people, and being the body of Christ, closing with 1 Corinthians 15's promise that death is swallowed up in victory.

**Illustrations:** bible-as-solved-mystery, movie-twist-spoilers, frustrated-parent-chores, acts-29-network, leviticus-jubilee, mortgage-amortization-grace, black-swan-future-speculation, peter-maurin-easier-to-be-good, removing-rocks-from-childs-feet, failed-real-estate-deal-beacon, jesus-likes-to-party-cana-song

---

# October 31
## The Church of the Future

“Therefore, be certain of this: God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles. They will listen!” Paul lived in his own rented quarters for two full years and welcomed everyone who came to see him. Unhindered and with complete confidence, he continued to preach God’s kingdom and to teach about the Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 28:28-31

I love the sense in a mystery novel or movie or show, of trying to solve the puzzle. I love being in the position of figuring out what happened. Whodunit? One of my teachers said that we should read the Bible like a mystery novel in which we already know the ending. Spoiler alert. Christ is risen. The Bible is one of those great mysteries where you can go back and see all the clues even after you know the twist. You know who Kaiser Sosé is. You know who Luke’s father is. You know whodunit. Every mystery has two narratives on top of each other. One is obvious and contains a lot of misdirections and red herrings. The other is only revealed at the end, usually by the lead detective. It doesn’t take much time to tell the second narrative, but in that moment, the whole truth is explained.

But what happens after you solve the case? For a lot of mystery writers, you just publish the next book the next year and people read them on airplanes and that is a successful career. But what happens for you and me once we solve the great mystery of our life, the great puzzle of our life, what happens next?
What is our future?
My brothers and sisters, I'm concluding our series on the Church: past, present, and future looking at where we have been as a church, where we are now and where we are going. Today is a very special day, a celebration, but a celebration does not an ending. Our existence does not end today. God has more in store for us, but what exactly is that?
The acts of the apostles, which covers the earliest actions of the church ends in Rome. The apostle Paul is in Rome. He is under house arrest. He had been accused of actions against Rome. He is a Roman citizen and so he had the right to appeal to the emperor, which he did.
He also took the time to minister to the Jewish and Christian communities in Rome at the time. In the passage just before my reading, just before the very end of the book, Paul reads from Isaiah and says that the prophet is describing the church in Rome. It's the same passage from Isaiah that Jesus quotes: “they have ears, but do not hear they have eyes, but do not see.” Paul was frustrated by the people. Frustration is a common occurrence in life. It happens when things you think are going to happen don’t happen. That tension can lead to frustration. The things your kids say they're going to do, and they don't do. Brush your teeth. Make your bed. Wash your hands. And you get frustrated. Why didn't you buckle your seatbelts? These are always things we need to do. I'm not angry. I am frustrated.”
Frustration is not rejection. You can be frustrated with someone, but that is not a way to reject them or to give up on them or to walk away. Paul is frustrated with the people, but he does not walk away. He stays and ministers to them and the book of acts ends with the words of Acts 28.
There is a church network movement called the acts 29 network. A number of churches around the country are involved with, at emerged in the early two thousands, especially with, the Village in north of Dallas and the former Mars hill in Seattle. Churches with a very heavy Reformed mentality. This is following the works of John Calvin, focusing on total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and the perseverance of the saints, focusing on these five things that come from the Synod of Dort, but they call themselves the acts 29 network.

I don’t agree with the theology or most of the churches, but I like the name. I like the idea that the God is writing Acts chapter 29, now, through us. It is very biblical. What happens after Paul, after Peter and James and John? What happens after Polycarp and Ignatius and the great fathers of the early church? What happens after Perpetua and Felicitas and the mothers of the early church? Paul, in reading from Isaiah, points to the prophecy and frustration of the old way of knowing God, as well, he points to frustration in the new way of knowing God after the resurrection. After the existence of church, there is still frustration in this world.
There are still moments of having eyes but not seeing, having ears, but not listening. Being a church often fluctuates in those moments. And yet, we know the end of the story. We know of Christ's victory. We know of the resurrection. Spoiler alert, Jesus lives.
What happens next Is our future with God. We know what brought us to this day. There was a vision for a church in this place. People responded to God's word, proclaimed God’s mercy and lives were changed, hearts were transformed, A failed real estate deal from the seventies, turned into a beacon on a hill. We are not done. The end of acts 28 does not mean the end of the church. Our story does not end God's story. Jubilee is not an ending but a new beginning.

A trumpet blast of Liberty. That is a Jubilee in the book of Leviticus. The third book of the bible stipulated that after a Sabbath of Sabbath years, so seven of seven years, then there shall be a trumpet blast of Liberty. The debts shall be free. What you owed will no longer be owed because all the land was given by God, The title to the promised land, if you follow the title all the way back, it goes to God.
This is one of the reasons why land transactions in ancient Israel did not happen very often. There were no large landowners because the land had been given by God to the tribes and would always return back to the original owners.The system of Jubilee did not continue very long, though. There aren't many recorded instances of Jubilee. Modern economists might use the term moral hazard with Jubilee.
If you know that your debts are going to be paid off, why pay back any of them at all? Here we get to how the economy of God is very different from the economy of man. God doesn't fluctuate between good debt and bad debt, between the red and the black. All of this is a gift from God and all has been paid off.
One of the most fascinating things for me, in growing older is the long term planning of mortgages, of pensions, of saving for vacations. When I was younger, none of that seemed possible. As I grew older, as I got married, these sorts of plans around future debts, future expectations, crept into my life.
The church of the future does not have an easy amortization schedule, though. There's not a 30 year fixed or a 15 year fixed rate for God's grace. The economy of grace is entirely inefficient. The economy of grace of God offers a deep, moral hazard.
Why, if I am going to be saved anyway, why should I be good? Why should I be kind? Doesn't it make more sense just to do whatever I wanted to do anyway and then ask forgiveness at the end? “God forgives, i don’t” or some other macho mantra. Doesn't it make more sense? Shouldn’t we just be happy with what we've got here? Why should we invite new people? We like the people here. What if we don't like the people we invite? What if we invite the wrong kind of people? What if people move to our area that don't act like we think they should act? What if instead of becoming more like us, they want us to become more like them?
What about the stuff that's going to happen? What about people who are going to die? What about that? I am going to die.

There's this downward spiral of future speculation that we all can suffer from, whether we're 16 or 60 or 106. There's no end point to the speculation. Sometimes, there's solace in financial planning because that, at least, has some basis of past history, but there are still black swan events. Many things we cannot predict about the future.
We don't know the twists and turns our life will take. There are probably some red herrings or paths we are going to go down and then have to turn around. We don't know the twists and turns our faith will take, we don't know the twists and turns this church will take, but we know the mystery, we know who did it. We know the secret: Christ is risen.
One of my great influences in Ministry was a man named Peter Mauron, who was a French hermit. He traveled around and wrote these poems and helped Dorothy Day start the Catholic worker movement in the 1930s. In one of Peter Maurin's poems, he says, “I try to make it easier for people to be good.”
I try to make it easier for people to be good. I can't make people be good. I can't make someone make a good decision with their life. I can't force it on them, then it wouldn't be theirs. What I can do is make it a little easier. Take away some stumbling blocks. As a parent, I can remember the places where I tripped up and then try and move those rocks from my child's feet.
I know they're going to trip. I know they're going to fall, but maybe they won't fall in exactly the same way as I did. As a pastor, I know the ways I've fallen in faith and that God has lifted me up. And I know that people at my church are going to fall and get hurt. People are going to be sick, but maybe just maybe, through God working through me, I can help it be a little easier on them. I can help take away some of the roadblocks to faith for our children and youth.
I can help take away some of the roadblocks to faith for those going through hard times. As a church, even if this is your first Sunday with us, we are stepping into our own Jubilee future, our own trumpet sound of liberty, I think that's what the point of Jubilee in Leviticus is about. It's great to be able to build a beautiful sanctuary like this. It's great to be able to build a wonderful church where people can feel at home, where we can worship God, where we can share mercy, where we can teach the faith, where we can say, I love my church, But it's also great not to be limited by past decisions, which is what debt is. All debt is using the future to pay something now in the present. Paying off debt is freeing our future from the obligations of the present and the past. It is having a wide open footing for God's grace to act now and in the future. It's great to be nimble in responding to God's call on our life. This is why we are celebrating after the service. As I wrote in a children’s song about the wedding at Cana. Jesus likes to Party, he doesn’t want us to feel sorry. When others think that their not fine he turns the water into wine.

A trumpet sound of Liberty. You are free in Christ. You know the end of the story. Jesus is alive. Death has been defeated. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15

“Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?””
1 Corinthians 15:51-52, 54-55 NRSV

Our future in Christ is free. Our Jubilee makes it easier for us to be good, but we still must respond to God's grace. We still must respond to God's call to feed the hungry. We still must respond to God's call to gather together to be the body of Christ here and now, to welcome in new people, to seek out those hurting in this time and in this place to offer mercy and love, to live out the mission that God has called us to. Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we are so honored by your mercy and love and faithfulness. Help us to honor your faithfulness towards us by building the church of the future now. We know the end of the story. We know of your victory over death, let us live into that truth now together. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen


title: The Gift

themes: generosity the-magi gift-of-the-heart humility forgiveness trust-in-god

scripture: Matthew 2:1-12

text:
**Scripture:** Matthew 2:1-12
**Series:** 2021

> Closing the 'Star of Wonder' Advent series on Matthew 2, this fourth-Sunday-in-Advent sermon asks why we bring gifts at Christmas. Drawing on the magi's gifts and Christina Rossetti's carol 'In the Bleak Midwinter,' Wilson argues that God's love is a gift we cannot reciprocate, which can humiliate us or free us in humility. The only true gift we can offer is our heart, understood not sentimentally but as mercy and the concrete letting-go of resentment, trusting God enough to step into the freedom of humility.

**Illustrations:** young-wilson-loves-receiving, nine-inch-nails-shirt-call, baby-its-cold-outside, little-drummer-boy, in-the-bleak-midwinter, wedding-ring-sign, mismatched-gift-exchange, loved-more-than-ps5, cousin-and-neighbor-resentment

---

# December 19
	## The Gift

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. Then Herod secretly called for the magi and found out from them the time when the star had first appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search carefully for the child. When you’ve found him, report to me so that I too may go and honor him.” When they heard the king, they went; and look, the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stood over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were filled with joy. They entered the house and saw the child with Mary his mother. Falling to their knees, they honored him. Then they opened their treasure chests and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Because they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went back to their own country by another route.”
Matthew 2:1-12

My favorite part of Christmas as a child was not the story of Christmas or the real meaning of Christmas. It wasn't the baby Jesus or the shepherds or the carols. It was the presents. I enjoyed the presents. I enjoyed the receiving. The receiving was great. Giving. Receiving was awesome. People may say it is better to give than receive, but ten-year-old Wilson would say you are dreaming. Receiving is in a completely different league than giving. Receiving is like the majors. Giving is like junior high baseball. Receiving is where it is at.
There are different traditions and ideas of where Christmas gifts come from. One of the most prominent ones has to do with the wise men, with the magi that we have focused on in this series. Usually Matthew 2 is read after the birth of Christ during the season of epiphany because the wiseman didn't arrive on the first night Jesus was born, but the gifts are important.
They brought gifts to Jesus. They brought gifts to the child. And over the centuries, traditions developed of offering gifts at Christmas, participating in that action of giving. The child Jesus is a gift to the world, and we then bring gifts to the child.
Why do we bring gifts?
My brothers and sisters, we are finishing our series on the star of wonder, looking at Matthew two and the journey of the magi. We started by looking at the star itself. Then we spoke about the prophecy and the power of prophecy. Then we talked about the rivalry of Christ coming today. On this fourth, Sunday in advent, we will speak of the gift. But before we get to that, I want to share a story about music.

When I was in sixth grade, my English teacher gave a call to my mother. It was not the good kind of call. There were no rewards involved. The rough transcript went as follows. “Hello Mrs. Pruitt. This is Mrs. Meyers. I think you should know that Wilson is wearing a t-shirt of the band Nine Inch Nails.” All of this is entirely accurate. I totally was wearing that shirt in sixth grade.
I believe she went on to describe a music video of one of the band's songs and thought that it was inappropriate for a person in sixth grade. And she thought my mom should know. So my mother, being a very discerning woman, decided to ask me about it and not just confront me or just say you're wrong, et cetera. So she asked me about it and she was like, “Wilson, I got a call from Mrs. Meyers about a shirt you wear and this music, I'm wondering if you think this music is appropriate for you.”

My response to her was, “mom. It's okay. It's okay. I don't listen to the words. I just listened to the music,” My mom let it slide. She had no response. She had no way to call me on it.
Like she probably didn't believe me that I was just listening to the music and not the words, but it was a good response. It was one of my better kid responses in life. I don't listen to the lyrics. I just listen to the music. How can you prove it otherwise?

Music is a private experience. It is inside us. I may say I like this song or that song, but you have to trust me. I may be listening to the lyrics. I may not be. You have to trust me. Sharing music is an act of trust. If I say, “I think you’re going to like this song,” it may because I like it, or I know you like similar songs, but there is still an element of trust.
One of the wonderful things about the season of advent and Christmas and the Christmas spirit is the plethora of my Christmas music and carols and songs that are familiar, but don't get old because we only listen to them in a certain time of year.
Music has an amazing power to draw us both into ourselves and out of ourselves. When we listen to a song, it enters into us, literally through our ears. Often in Advent, we hear a song that we've heard before that brings us joy. It changes us. Children, before they can speak, listen to music. Babies recognize songs that they heard when they were inside their mother's belly.
Music is powerful but we are not ready for all kinds of music all the time. There are songs we like and songs we feel like we should like, as well as songs that we’ve never really paid attention to.

Sometimes you can read the lyrics of a Christmas Carol or a Christmas song, and it doesn't seem very Christmasy.
For instance, the pop song, baby, it's cold outside.

I really can't stay
Baby it's cold outside
I gotta go away
Baby it's cold outside
I simply must go
Baby it's cold outside
The answer is no
But baby it's cold outside

It's really just, it's a really creepy song. No means no.
Some other Christmas carols seem out of place. The little drummer boy, there's no drummer boys in the Bible Pretty much the entire song is made up.
Even if you are a great drummer, Mary probably didn’t feel like a drum solo from the little drummer boy right after Jesus was born.

The other problem with the Little Drummer Boy is that it takes a central idea from one of my favorite Christmas carols, which we're going to sing, based on a poem by Christina Rossetti: In the bleak Midwinter.
Now there are some people who have a problem with in the bleak Midwinter because it doesn't describe what ancient Palestine was probably like, but The goal of a Carol or a hymn or a praise song is not geographic accuracy. Praise music, hymns, and carols at their best or iconographic. What I mean by that is that they draw us to God. They draw us to the true God. They don't draw us to a time and place long ago, they draw us right now. We hear them and we sing them to our risen Lord, Jesus Christ.
Sometimes that is done with the lyrics. Sometimes it's done just with the music, with the familiarity of the music. The tune is by the German composer, Gustav Holst, who had a gift for melody.

### In the Bleak Midwinter

In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron
Water like a stone
Snow had fallen
Snow on snow on snow
In the bleak midwinter
Long, long ago
The song draws me from where I am now to that moment long ago. It is not snowing here. It may not have been snowing in England, but the world before Jesus was cold. It was a world in need of the fire of God’s love. It felt cold even on warm, sunny days.
Angels and Arc Angels
May have traveled there
Cherubim and Seraphim
Thronged the air
But only his Mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshiped the beloved
With a kiss

There are a lot of reasons that people give gifts. Some are out of obligation, some out of exchange. Some because you feel sorry for someone. Some are because you went to delight another. Some are because you've always done it.
The gift offered by God to us is not a gift that can be reciprocated. There is no material equivalent to God's love The best of gifts function as signs of something deeper. A ring at a wedding is a sign of love, whether made of wood or diamond, The sign is the gift.

It can be humiliating to receive a great gift. It can be humiliating if you give someone some Chex-mix and they give you a car or a diamond. Or if you give a ruby and get a paperback novel.

If we stop and think about what God has given us, if we stop and reflect on what we have offered to God, we may feel humiliated by the paucity of it. “Who am I to receive so much? I dont deserve it.”
Or we may find, as God intended, freedom in that humility. Freedom in realizing that there is no gift that I can possibly return to God as great as God's gifts towards me. God's gift of mercy that I am forgiven. That I am not my past. I am not my sins. I'm not the mistakes I've made. Change is possible. A future is possible. God's gift of new life. God's gift of resurrection. I cannot reciprocate this.
None of us can, but we can tell the story and we can realize what God seeks of us is not reciprocation, it is not statues of gold.

What can I give him?
Poor as I am
If I were a shepherd
I would give a lamb
If I were a wise man
I would do my part
But what I can I give him
Give him my heart

We cannot reciprocate God's love for us. And God doesn't need the things we have. And yet, there's absolute freedom in realizing that if God doesn't need it, I don't either. There is freedom in realizing that the childish desire to receive and be fêted is nothing next to the overwhelming love of God. You are loved more than a PlayStation five. You are loved more than a new car. You are loved so much that you have been forgiven and offered to be a part of a new people that walk in this absolute gift together.

The Magi gave a gift to Jesus, not knowing who he was. They sought to honor him as if they were visiting a foreign ruler. In this season of advent, when we draw close to Bethlehem, when we draw close to where Jesus rested, may we bring a gift, not a drum solo, not a tchotchke,  not a white elephant, not a car, the only gift that is truly ours, our heart.
And not heart in a sentimental way. Heart in a mercy way. Giving our heart is letting go of resentment. Your cousin who said that thing. Your neighbor who blew leaves in your yard. Loving God is a concrete action. For some of us, it may be easier to give God a thing than to give our hearts and let them be transformed.
Trust God. Trust God that it is going to be okay to let go of resentment and step into the freedom of humility. Trust God, even if you listen to the music and the lyrics. Confess the ways your have strayed and return to the side of the manger where love has come.

May we see that God has come into human form as a child to give us life. May we give our hearts. We give our desires. May we let go with the ambitions of gifts, of keeping up with the Joneses of the rivalries of this world. May we seek first God's kingdom.
Let us pray.
Heavenly father, before we were our own, we were yours. You gifted us life. You gift us new life. May we hold on to you. May we respond to your love with the gift of ourselves freely offered to you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.