Romans 12 one-another-ness - Preached at McIvor Church April 23, 2006

*a properly formated copy of this sermon is available upon request

One-of-another-ness
Romans 12

When I was in high school hung out with a group of friends whose common bond was being odd.
Ben was a musician,
A girl whose name I can’t remember was and actor,
Lara was a human rights activist,
And a guy I won’t name was what I describe as an evangelistic atheist,
And another unnamed friend was a fundamentalist about everything.
Rob was the president of the liberal youth wing
And Cathy was smarter than the rest of us put together.
We were ODD. ODD. ODD. some of us are still odd

If the 80’s was a decade of conformity
We were Kelvin High schools non conformists
We were odd
And we liked it that way
We listened to music that didn’t appear on the charts
We read books that would never be best seller
And we wore odd, old and out of fashion clothing before value village became a major clothing retailer
In fact we were desperately trying to be different

Have you ever felt odd?
Have you felt out of step with society?
Have you felt like your expectations and behaviours were different from your co-workers or fellow students?

If you are a follower of Jesus I hope that you could say yes to those questions.

Today we are dipping our feet into the waters of one of my favourite bible passages
Romans 12
It begins this way

1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is true worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world
But be transformed by the renewing of your mind

Lets face it our culture tries its best to make you into a consumer
Our society tries to fit you into a mold
And pollsters call you at suppertime and make you part of a demographic

Paul’s very old letter to the Romans
Sounds like recent and relevant counsel to followers of Jesus in 2006
This is good advice for the church call McIvor
And being odd is an important starting place for the sermon series that we begin this week

Choosing to opt out of the expectations of our culture
Choosing to follow Jesus and walk a different path because of him
Will immediately set us apart as odd
Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world is how Paul the apostle says it

But the next line is considerably more challenging

But be transformed they the renewing of your mind

Being a non-conformist isn’t that difficult
After all, as a high school student I found it remarkably easy to be a non-conformist
All I needed to do was like jazz and wear a 1950s buddy holy tuxedo to grad instead of a 1980’s don Johnson tuxedo
But being a non-conformist is as pointless as being part of any crowd or following any trend or fad

Paul the apostle tells the believers that NOT conforming is important but it is not enough – in fact left there it is pointless
Unless we experience the transformation that comes with the renewal of our minds

Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Paul wasn’t interested in us stopping our journey on the treadmill of conformity only to get off and be individualistic
No – Paul want us to get of the treadmill of conformity so that we could become part of a transforming community.
Paul’s image for this
Paul’s metaphor for us is the body

Grab your bibles or grab a pew bible and take a look

Romans 12
Page 1567 in your pew bible

As you are turning, I want to take a Straw pole

Lets see the hands

Who can think of one person who annoys you?
Who can think of one person you find to be difficult?
Who can think of one person who stretches your ability to love?

Now put your hands away please

Is that person who annoys you a follower of Jesus?
Is that difficult person in this room, are they part of this church?
Does the person who stretches your ability to love in your care group or bible study
Maybe you serve along side them and they drive you nuts.


Now sit on your hands – please don’t raise them

Are you an annoying person?
Are you sometimes difficult?
Do you stretch others ability to love you?

Now let me really push the limits here and ask you to take a look around
Make eye contact with each other
Make eye contact with 4 or 5 others

And as you are looking at each other I want to read you Paul’s encouragement to us

3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

Now turn a few pages to the right and look at

1 Corinthians 12 v 12
page 1585 in the pew bible

Here we find Paul writing to another Christian community in the city of Corinth
And he challenges them with these words
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
Then Paul ends this passage with these words
…there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

This is one of those grace filled passages
Instead of the behaviours and expectations of this world guiding our interactions
Paul is telling us to embrace a new set of behaviours and expectation for our relationships
Not that we get it right all of the time
But we are being transformed
Daily as we move from the individualistic pattern of our culture
To a way of life that is characterized by mutuality - Interdependence

Let me tell you a story here

15 years ago my wife Rose and I were trying to figure out what it means to be married
If there are any newly weds here this morning take courage,
Just so you know
It doesn’t happen right way
15 years latter we are still working at figuring our marriage out

You see, on December 29, rose and I full of lofty ideals recited Romans 12 as part of our wedding ceremony
But within days reality began bumping into our ideals
Marriage was not exactly what we thought it would be
In fact marriage was a good bit different than we expected

What ever happened to the words we said?
About not conforming to the patterns of this world
What ever happened to not thinking more highly of yourself than you ought to think

It gets better
The further on you read in Romans 12 the clear it becomes
This life of one another ness it different
Its strange
Its odd
It doesn’t come naturally NOT AT ALL

Listen to this
verse 9
let love be genuine;
hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good;
love one another with mutual affection;
get this one – outdo one another in showing honour
do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the lord
rejoice in hope
be patient in suffering
persevere in prayer
contribute to the needs of the saints
extend hospitality to strangers

Not a bad wedding text
There is only one problem
Its not a wedding text
And its not a marriage text
It’s a church scripture

Many of us have decided to follow Jesus
Because Jesus we like
But with Jesus comes Jesus’ friends and followers
When you decide to follow Jesus – you are going to have the find a way of being in this relationship called the church

So we think hey Paul – easy for you to say – you’re off writing this in some prison cell
While we have to live this out here in the dangerous roman world

I don’t think it was just a habit of speech that resulted in Paul using the work Allelon more than 56 times
We translate Allelon with the phrase one to another or one of another
Paul understood perfectly what a pain in the butt other believers where
Paul was used to wiping snotty noses, and breaking up fights in the church
Paul lived with no illusions about how difficult it was to be in relationship with a bunch of odd Christians

It seems like the problem that Paul was running into was either
These followers of Jesus where still being conformed to the culture around them and apparently Jesus made no difference
Or maybe the followers of Jesus where no longer conforming to their worlds
But they weren’t being transformed by the renewing of their minds just yet
Its kind of like they were being odd for the sake of being odd
They weren’t being transformed

So, with rose and me
The problem was the moment I got married I stopped being single – I was no longer conforming to the single guy thing

But I wasn’t not really transforming to the married guy thing
Do you get what I mean?
Lets say that while I wasn’t a single guy anymore
I didn’t get the one-of-the-other-ness thing required to make a marriage work
I still wanted the same levels of commitment
The same freedoms
I wanted to keep things the way they always where
Even though I KNEW when I got married EVERYTHING changed

You see – I wasn’t conforming to the freedoms and flexibilities of being a 20 something single guy any more – I got married
But it took a LONG LONG time before anything close to transformation occurred
I had to shake off some of my family system issues
I had a few self-centered bad habits to break
I needed to learn new ways of relating – that’s work
I needed to take responsibility – more work
Transformation I found was as inconvenient,
Inconvenient and annoying as the person I was married to

And I am certain that if I found this to be a challenge – Rose was not to impressed the speed of my transformation into a husband either
I didn’t make being married easy

You see I wanted to do both and I couldn’t
I wanted to be single and be married
I wanted to conform to the way I was, the way that was comfortable and familiar
But I also want to be transformed into someone new different and maybe even more interesting


And 15 years latter I think that rose would be able to tell you that john is finally catching on – the transformation is starting to stick

So what is this NOT marriage text all about

It is about being the church together

You and I become part of the body of Christ, not because of culture, birth or family
We become part of the body of Christ because we follow Jesus
And following Jesus means that we have to make some changes in how we have always done things

To understand interdependence Paul uses the image of the BODY to describe what it is to be Christian and what it is to be the church

And it is really important that we understand this
Think back to Romans 12 and what John / Derek read

Romans 12
Page 1567 in your pew bible

Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. grace given to each of us.

Please for a moment lift up you hand and look at it
Now take you other hand and hold your arm nice and tight– LIKE THIS
And wiggle your fingers
Can you feel the muscles in your arm move as your fingers wiggle?
The interconnectedness of the body is truly remarkable
The interdependence of the body
The variety of parts and functions in our bodies is amazing
The uniqueness and the specialization
The coordination and the cooperation necessary for our bodies to do basic things

If we are the body of Christ, what does that mean?

There is something very powerful in this scripture that we often miss
Certainly I missed it for the longest time
I am not the body of Christ
WE are the body of Christ
All of us together
Are the body

Our shared life together is being the body
What we do together is what constitutes our being Christian

What you do makes you a hand
Your are not a hand and so you do something
No you do something and because you are cooperating with the body you are part of the body
We are not body parts
We are part of a body

Hold your arm again and wiggle your fingers
The hand is completely connected to muscles, tendons ligaments, nerves and circulation of blood
You hand is not a body part
Your hand is part of a body

You as a Christian are not a body part
You are part of a body

The word that Paul uses to capture this together ness is allenon
Or one of another, some of your bibles make it read a little easier to read by saying one to another, but really it is one-another-ness

We are interconnected and interdependent
There is a deep mutuality

We are interlocked and interconnected to such a degree that we can’t ever function as individuals without affecting EVERYONE else

Just take a look at Ephesians 4 15+ 16
page 1614 in a pew bible

We must no longer be children
Tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine
By peoples trickery
By their craftiness in deceitful scheming
But speaking the truth in love
We must grow up in every way into him who is the head
Into Christ
From whom the whole body joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped
As each part is working properly
Promotes the bodies growth
In building itself up in love

Right about now you are nodding politely
Yup that is what Paul the apostle wrote
So what
What’s your point Neufeld?
WELL, This is more than a challenge – its hard work!!!

Or am I the only one here who finds interdependence difficult?
A community of people who is truly interdependent is ODD, strange, unusual,
Expressing genuine mutuality is rare

In our culture we have set the bar rather low for relationships
Conforming to our cultural expectations means accepting the lie that a low standard for relationships is right – ITS NOT
Conforming to our cultures expectations means “its all about me”
Its not

On the other hand
Not conforming to our culture means we must do things differently
And being transformed by Jesus
Being influenced by scripture
Means that we are going to set the bar higher
We will have greater expectations about what it means to be a community of Jesus
And that just might mean that we are odd
Different and But making a difference.

So what’s it going to take?

How are you going to get over your dislike of someone who is part of your body?
How are you going to address your dislike of your own spiritual self
How are you going to deal with the distaste you might have for the church?

You know, thousands of people have such a dislike of themselves,
such a dislike of their bodies that they are willing to starve themselves and permanently alter their body chemistry
Others will binge
Still others live mostly on junk food
Some get lots of calories but no meaningful nutrition.
And many engage in crazy fad diets like the “grapefruit and chocolate diet”

So you have a problem with the body of Christ?
With this flaw bunch of people called McIvor church?
Are you starving yourself?
And are you starving your church?
Are you starving by withholding your time, your tithe, and your very self

Are you living on spiritual junk food?
Reading about Jesus
But not reading the bible
Hearing about Jesus
But not really listening to him
Tagging along
But not really walking with Jesus

I think that in this day and age,
the eating disorder may be the most relevant metaphor to understand what challenges we face as a church

Are you binging?
Filling up on a Sunday morning high
Then starving yourself spiritually in every other way

Are you with holding your trust of others here?
Tell me how that is mutual affection?
Are you speaking poorly of someone else in this congregation?
Tell me how that is genuine love

Are you going about your business – happy go lucky when someone is sick and needs a visit, or is grieving and wants just to be able to tell the story one more time
Tell me how that expresses one-of-another-ness

Are you great at entertaining friends but never build a friendship with the stranger next door?

Is there any thing sacrificial about your living and your giving?
Do you outdo each other in showing honour?
And when is the last time you have derailed your schedule to pray for your church, your pastors and leaders,
When have you cancelled watching a TV show to persevere in prayer for someone in this church who has cancer, or for the person you cant get out of your mind?


The so what factor in this sermon is not news
The so what factor is hard work
The so what factor is a lot like deciding that we will seek to be interdependent, to express mutuality in ALL of our relationships with other believers
Even when it COSTS US everything

So with Paul the apostle – I appeal to you brothers and sisters
By the mercies of God

May you present your bodies your very selves as a living sacrifice.
May you present your body, the church called McIvor as a living sacrifice
May you be transformed by a new way of thinking and living.
And may your thankful offering be Holy and acceptable
For this is what it is to be the body whose head is Jesus?
For this is what it is to be the body of Christ

two trees - a good friday meditation 2002

Two trees stand centuries apart
Both trees demanding a choice
Both trees unleashing gods saving power
Both trees ending the curse
Both trees ending the power of death
Both trees vehicles of forgiveness and grace

On this day we stand in the shadow of one tree, the cross
And we are confronted with the choice, to look at the cross or to turn away

But to understand this tree
we must look at another tree
In another time To end another curse

Because Jesus said

John 3:14-18
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

It was about 1290 B.C.
One thousand two hundred and ninety years before Jesus was born in a Bethlehem stable

The people of Israel, about three million of them had walked away from slavery
Saved by the mighty acts of God
Ten plagues
Crossing the red sea on dry ground
Water from the Rock
Manna and quail for a diet

And God led them
A pillar of could by day
A pillar of fire by night

The promise land was just around the corner but the attitudes of their heart kept the people of God wandering in the desert for 40 years
A storied journey
But miserable

A misery of their own design
Along the way it says
the people grew impatient;
they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!"

Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died.

The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.

The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

And Jesus said

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

2 trees separated by a thousand years

So what was it that God did with these two trees?
Was the serpent some magical charm that cured diseases?
Is Jesus some quick fix to our sin?

No, God is not much interested in magic or quick fixes
God is concerned with faith, with belief

So what was it that God did with these two trees?

It’s quite simple really

God has given us an opportunity to believe
We become participants in God’s saving activity when we look at what we have done and believe in a God who can save
look and believe

What an irony
the wandering people of God had to look at the cause of their suffering
They had to name, to admit their sin
They had to again believe in God who saves

You and I find ourselves having the same sin sick souls
We have to look honestly at our sin
We have to admit that we are not victims of circumstance but rather we are the makers of circumstance.

We have lifted up our voices against God
And the darkness in our lives it the darkness of our design
We must come to terms with the part we have played

and Jesus said

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

And so God has placed himself on the cross
God was the only one who could gather up our sinfulness
We must look at destructive power of our sin
And believe

Jesus did not invite us into a court of condemnation
Jesus did not play the shame game
Jesus did not demand a price for freedom

Instead

1 Pet 2:22-24
"He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth."
23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

Can you look at the tree?
Can you recognize your sin
Can you accept that God did for you and for me what we where powerless to do for ourselves

Can you entrust yourself to the god who judges justly?
To the god who saves?
Can you look at the cross?

Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say - Matthew 5:33-37

Preached feb 2002

Living Parables that must be heard (michael card song by worship team)

A powerful song…Thank you,
and a great introduction to our scripture text for today, Mathew 5:33-37

And Jesus began to speak and taught them saying
"Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, `Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your `Yes' be `Yes,' and your `No,' `No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

I had never considered the Sermon on the Mount to be a sermon full of parables
The Sermon on the Mount was, in my estimation, a sermon without imagination
Powerful yes, direct, most definitely
Imaginative, well, no, where were the stories that Jesus is so famous for?
The great object lessons and teachable moments
There are no parables

Parable: a story from which a moral message or religious truth is taught.

I confess that until this month I have always viewed the sermon on the mount as a most unimaginative piece of teaching,
I guessed that Matthew must have just eliminated the illustrations because there wasn’t enough room on his scroll

So let me add some imagination to this sermon by starting with a parable
A story that will help us see how we as disciples of Jesus
are parables making Jesus teaching come alive

A young couple built a house
Having a limited budget it had no front steps
So after they scraped together a bit of money they added some front steps
A few years latter they added a nice covered porch
where they could sit on nice summer evenings
The kind we dream about in February.
They would sit out front on the porch and enjoy their very comfortable home

Now in their retirement years the porch was rather old and dry root had made it a bit of a safety hazard
One evening sitting around the kitchen table paying the monthly bills
This fine woman comes to the end of her rope
The porch has got to go

With a sense of determination she opens up the conversation with her husband
Have you ever considered how much we spend on up keep of our porch?
For something that is usable for only four months of the year,
the cost benefit ratio is appalling
Between dry rot, peeling paint and liability insurance
its more trouble than its worth
Let’s tear it down and go back to the way we started,
no porch, no front steps, just one leap up into the house.

My parable of course is about the relationship between Jesus teaching and the stories that made his teaching come alive
The house is like good teaching
And the parables are where we prefer to spend our summer months and our sermons if we can
The parables provide a helpful entrance to Jesus’ teaching

And this isn’t a bad thing
Jesus told his fair share of stories where this stands for that, where this means that

Alas the Sermon on the Mount has no stories
No parables by which to enter

Then this last week I discovered a sermon full of parables.

Jesus teaching takes what we assume to be normal practice and turns it on its head

In particular I found that Jesus words for us today have the effect of taking what I assume to be normal practice and turning it on its head
Helping us see
the story that is our lives
Just a little more clearly.

Jesus teaching takes what we assume to be normal practice and turns it on its head
Our lives, changed by Jesus, become the front porch by which others enter his teaching
Our lives, changed by Jesus become a parable
This may have been obvious to you but it was quite fresh for me

So to help us understand Jesus teaching let’s go sit on the porch.
Listen to Jesus’ teaching
And tell some stories
And make the changes in our living
That make our lives a parable.

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, `Do not break your oath”

Oh yes, the people of Israel knew this full well and the scriptures where full of stories where people certified that their words where true by swearing, by taking an oath.

Let me remind you of a fine example of oath taking

The people of Israel had made their narrow escape through the red sea and their Egyptian oppressors where 40 years behind them.

And under Joshua’s leadership they crossed the river and took possession of the land God promised them.
One city after another was conquered as they took control of the territory
They where unstoppable
One day a group of weary and somewhat raged travelers appeared at the edge of their camp
And made a plea for peace and an alliance
There was a little deception involved, but that is an aside

Joshua, in a rather hasty move swore an oath guaranteeing their lives and peace.
A few short days latter
they discovered that these travel weary ambassadors where in fact their neighbors

And it says

The whole assembly grumbled against the leaders, but all the leaders answered, "We have given them our oath by the LORD, the God of Israel, and we cannot touch them now. This is what we will do to them: We will let them live, so that wrath will not fall on us for breaking the oath we swore to them."… Joshua 9

This oath taking business is serious stuff
so that wrath will not fall on us for breaking the oath we swore to them.
There is no escape clause when we invoke god as the garniture of our word

This was 10 commandments stuff on two counts
Read them with me will you

You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
Exodus 20

The fact is, I can hardly find a writer in the old testament that doesn’t talk about taking oaths

Swearing Oaths was normal business
The way things where done

The practice was so commonplace that they developed a hierarchy of oath taking
Jewish law permitted oaths,
interpretation resulted in a pattern where some oaths – some statements
were more binding than others.

The basic way an oath functioned was to certify you statement or commitment by appealing to a higher power
Essentially you where giving God the freedom to exact a punishment upon you if you lied or didn’t deliver what you promised.

I am not much of movie watcher
But one of the most riveting courtroom scenes I know occurs in the movie a few good men
Tom cruise, playing a young navy lawyer is examining a witness in a military tribunal
The wizened and hardened old general is being held to account for a murder at gauntanamo bay
Cruise begins with the usual and somewhat un-dramatic
Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God

Working himself into a rage
The general explodes
You can’t handle the truth

On any given night of the week television offers up enough legal court room fare for you to see at least a couple of people formally taking an oath

It’s common practice
Routine
And while it might be a powerful ritual
Do you think for a minute that the people placing their hand on a bible and swearing an oath
Really think that they are placing themselves voluntarily under God’s judgment

Do you think that they have thought of the dangers of dragging god into vouch for them
Do they even believe in Jehovah, the living and holy God,
whose standard for truth and truthfulness is a lot stiffer than the courts,
To they recognize in Yhwh, a god who discerns the motives and attitudes of the heart and mind when adjudicating truth.

With thoughtless ceremony they offer a response I solemnly swear

You can’t handle the truth

At least the general understood the gravity of taking an oath.

The use of an oath was originally a way of cursing yourself
if the statement was false or if the commitment was not acted upon

Jesus says this is how it works

Do not swear at all:
by heaven, --- for it is God's throne;
by the earth, --- for it is his footstool;
by Jerusalem, --- for it is the city of the Great King.
by your head, --- for you cannot make even one hair white or black

Every oath of truthfulness you make implicates God
Don’t go there

Well, then you say I have a problem
How will people know that I am telling the truth?
What am I to do when I am a witness in court?
What about those legal documents that sometimes need to “be sworn”

Jesus answer was not all that complicated.

Simply let your `Yes' be `Yes,' and your `No,' `No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. Matthew 5:37

How novel, let you yes be yes and your no, no.
Say what you mean and mean what you say

Jesus saw through the common practice of certifying ones truthfulness by appeal to the power of God
He saw that it was filled with problems

The first was obvious
It to often was a careless treatment of God
It didn’t take God seriously
Essentially it misused the name of God
It truly became swearing
A careless use of gods name
Or more truthfully a disrespect for Jehovah, The living God

The second part of taking an oath is not as obvious until pointed out
Then it is shockingly clear.

If you have to swear an oath to certify your truthfulness it implies that at other times your word is suspect.

In other words
Swearing an oath raises suspicion concerning the depth of your commitment to the truth and to promise keeping

Jesus said

Simply let your `Yes' be `Yes,' and your `No,' `No';

James the disciple who reminds us of the power of the tongue also reminds us

Above all brothers and sisters, do not swear--not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your "Yes" be yes, and your "No," no, or you will be condemned. James 5:12

Sound familiar?

Now, an oath in court may have a certain amount of gravity, but what about all the other ways we use “oaths”
Both careless and intentional

The scribes and the Pharisee where a professional association of religious lawyers
They held God’s law in high esteem
Even if they sometimes forgot to hold god in high esteem

Over time they developed quite hierarchy of vouching for their words
Some oaths where quite serious
Others where casual
And eventually swearing became a flippant and careless part of conversation

Oaths, had the effect of punctuation a coma or exclamation mark
A meaningless contribution to conversation

Please read the commandment with me

You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

And Jesus said

"Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, `Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' But I tell you, Do not swear at all:

Simply let your `Yes' be `Yes,' and your `No,' `No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

Now you might ask
How can I make the point that I am telling the truth

Its not that difficult really
Just say I affirm that as a follower of Jesus I am always truthful
My words are not careless and I do not need to drag God into this to defend the honor of my words
I am truthful

Some of us have had to testify in court
Or “swear” a document
Or be “sworn” into office

There is gravity to these events
We take seriously the commitments we are about to make.
And are careful about the words we say

But how about the rest of the time?
What about our casual speech?

As a kid, my dad made it very clear to me
No one and nothing is holy except God and God alone
No cow, no smoke, and not Toledo

And the exclamations we make that are based on the name of Jesus; he did a pretty good job of eradicating them from my vocabulary.

If swearing an oath is out because it calls into question my everyday truthfulness as a follower of Jesus
Then the careless use of God’s name, and character is also out of the question,
Let’s call it what it is – profanity.

If you want a story about the danger of oath taking and the seriousness of invoking God as your witness

Remember Peter… the disciple
As Jesus was being interrogated before his crucifixion
Peter was accused of being a follower, or even accomplice to the work of Jesus
Three times denying his association with Jesus
Peter falls back into the trap of cultural habit

It says “he began to curse, and he swore an oath, “I do not know the man”
At that moment the cock crowed

Peter remembered what Jesus said and he went out and wept bitterly.

Life is pretty much the same 2000 years after Jesus said let your yes be yes, and your no no

People still speak out of both sides of their mouth
Deceit, be it a little white lie
Or a with holding of the truth
Or a bald faced deception

Deceit is as common to you and me
as it has been to all of humanity at all times

And regarding cursing
a profound carelessness with the holy
has filled our vocabulary with profanity
cursing uses the name and character of god in a way that brings judgment and with judgment a just sentence

in this matter I would prefer God’s grace rather than by my speech invoke his judgment

Jesus was fed up with it then
And I am convinced that Jesus is fed up with it now

And so he suggests a different way

Let your yes be yes and you no, no
Say what you mean and mean what you say

This is the way we have applied it as a church
This is what we have agree to in our confession of faith

Because Christ forbids the swearing of oaths, we simply affirm the truth in legal transactions. Believers do not participate in secret societies which demand the swearing of oaths or which otherwise conflict with a Christian’s allegiance to Christ and the church. At all times believers are called to live as faithful witnesses in the world, rejecting pressures which threaten to compromise Christian integrity.
Article 12, Confession of Faith
Imagine this kind of life

Jesus teaching has the effect of changing the life of every believer into a parable for use by God
Holy living is notable for how different it is

It isn’t odd, it isn’t prudish, it isn’t weird
But it is unusual enough that it turns your life and mine into a parable
It takes “normal” practice and turns it on its head.

In essence our lives become parables
Stories that grab peoples attention
Not by shock value, or offence
But rather by the power of unquestionable truthfulness
Not an appeal to God by swearing on his name
But rather an affiliation with the God of truth
who establishes our truthfulness
as a mark that his kingdom is coming on earth as it is in heaven.

Why is this so extraordinary?

Quite simply because our human relationships are built on the lie

Ever since Adam and eve and the serpent
We have abandon free speech
We have abandon complete candor with each other and with God

The sign of death in our day is the curse
And our careless disrespect for God

The sign of death in our day to day living is the lie
Sometimes we call it advertising other times disinformation
Either way its pretense

The extent we have accepted this as commonplace is sad
Sadder still we do not even hold ourselves as disciples to a higher standard
Our speech has been corrupted by the lie, the power of darkness

Jesus on the other hand said, let your yes be yes and your no no
As a child of God, truthfulness is you character and identity
Don’t play the old game
Jesus changed the rules

And the Holy Spirit has filled us and empowered us to live lives free of
Free of the curse
And free of cursing

Free of the lie
And free of lying

On my own
On your own
Its not possible
But with God empowering us
It is the new normal

Christians do not need a warranty on their words.

Lets end with a couple of stories about words
A parables for our times

Laura worked in the same office as her brother-in-law Rick

Rick was a Christian, and Laura was not

The power of Rick’s words made a difference in the way Laura saw Jesus

Those of you in sales know that there are clients you dread

One day a call comes to the office for Laura and Rick answers the phone
He knew that this would not make her day
And as he covered the receiver she said “Tell him I’m not here”

Rick passed on the message and lied for Laura.

Latter he came back to her and told her how badly he felt for lying and that he wouldn’t cover for her by lying again

Somewhat surprised and rather impressed
Laura latter told her sister
That’s what did it
That’s when I knew his faith made a difference
Rick’s honesty and truthfulness pointed her towards Jesus
A living parable in the hands of Jesus
The way the truth and the life

Pastor Doug told me about someone who went to court to debate a speeding ticket
He said he wasn’t going as fast as the ticket suggested
The prosecuting attorney asked
That may be, but where you exceeding the speeding limit at all

Yes said the man, I was going a few km over the speed limit

Latter the attorney approached him
I knew I had you the moment you “solemnly affirmed’
Because I knew you would answer me honestly
People who swear on the bible to tell the truth are not as trustworthy


Jesus taught that swearing is unnecessary, irreverent, and ineffective in that it does not really change anything. The critical issue is truthful speech.

When we live out Jesus teaching your life and my life becomes a parable for use in God’s hands

As followers of Jesus
We have a fine house
Teaching constructed thoughtfully
A Weather tight dwelling of faith
And comfortably furnished to, don’t you think?

Our lives are the front porch our neighbors get to see.
Is your paint peeling?
Am I looking a little shabby?
Has dry rot made us a hazard?

Would Jesus, if he where to look up from the bills
Say with some determination – the porch has got to go

Or would Jesus find himself sitting comfortably on the porch
Inviting the neighbors to come over and take a look at his workmanship
A comfortable and attractive entry to his teaching

The front porch to this (raise bible) teaching
The living parables attached to Matthew 5:33-37
Are your lives and mine
When we say what we mean and mean what we say

Sanctity of Human Life - June 2005

Related links to this sermon are
The Sanctity of Human Life, Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith Article 14
Euthanasia and the sanctity of life
What should we think about suicide?
Death And Dying

The seat belt sign blinked of as we passed through 10000 feet on our way to 33000 feet cruising altitude.
Rose let out a deep sigh, the kind that expresses what words cannot even grasp for. In that sigh was a glimpse into the pain of burying a mother, Susana Thiessen.
I wondered aloud if any one had tried to write a theology of sighing. Someone must have tried, because pain, the aquifer from which sighing spring, is a universal human experience

I wish you could have know rose’s mother
She had a sparkle in her eyes that combined mischief and kindness
She delighted in her children and grandchildren
She enjoyed being in the garden
She had a love of life

It had been a long a difficult three years
Roses mom had struggled with an accumulation of strokes
But three years earlier things got significantly worse
She was not the person that Rose had grown up with
I never got to know that Suzy Thiessen

Many of our days were spent in hospital rooms, at her bedside
Some of our days were spent at home, helping her in and out of a wheel chair, feeding her, and helping her with personal hygiene
Most of our days involved visiting her at a nursing home
Maybe she would recognize her children
Maybe not

Finally, the family gathered
A stroke left her in a comma
We sat uncomfortably, not knowing what to say or do
We had choices to make
Difficult choices
Withdrawing feeding tubs
Withdrawing hydration
Withdrawing oxygen

Everyone will die
Of this we are certain
But sometimes death is so complicated
And often it is the living that have to deal with the complications
Complicated decisions and complicated feelings

Of the five years that I knew suzy thiessen I knew her as someone in need
Her value was in who she was not what she could contribute
Certainly her children valued her for who she was
Did the medical staff? Did I

Shortly after Mom died I was faced once again with death
I was going to be a dad – the baby was only a few weeks old
But WE were pregnant
Of this we where certain
Rose was sick and had come to real loathing of Mexican food
A dislike I am glad to say she has recovered from

One day she came home from work and crawled up the stairs
The baby was gone
Died
We lost our daughter Kadi, Levi's twin, at 6 weeks three days gestation

While teaching piano she had gone into labour
And within the hour she had given birth to a peanut sized fetus and placenta
A baby

She was a wreck
I was a wreck

Our child had died
There is a well traveled trail called grief and we hit that trail hard

We cried
I wrote poetry – mostly bad poetry - words were just not adequate for my experience
We where angry and sad
For no specific reason we got mad at each other

In those moments my awkwardness emotionally, spiritually, and physically joined the pain of countless others who did not know what to say or do. This surprised me, you would think that us humans would have found a solution to the problem of pain, because surely, pain is a universal human experience.

These are the natural deaths
The life cycle deaths that take turns visiting our lives

It is easy to say that we value life
When we are speaking about the life of someone we love
When we value a whole package of memories, experiences, dreams and emotions
It is easy to say that this 6 week old fetus or this 63 year old mother is made in the image of good, because we have fallen head over heals in love with them

But if you and I are honest with each other
Things are not so simple

We struggle to love a dying parent that might have treated us poorly all of our lives
Technology has made living forever a possibility with machines and we
don’t know how to decide with life has really ended

Very recently the story of terry schivo was in the media as her husband and her parents fought a court battle and a political battle about the morality and legality of removing life support systems

And in Saskatchewan a few years ago
We witnessed the story of tracy latimer
a youth with cerebral palsy whose father said he helped her die, because she didn’t have a life worth living
he was charged and convicted of murder

the phrases active and passive euthanasia have become a part of our vocabulary
just like the words assisted suicide and abortion
and some in our society are even applying the concept of human rights to the right to die

So what is it to be made in the image of God?
To be made in Gods likeness as male and female?

Davids own child had just died and he was mad at God
And like a little child running and hiding under the bed the psalmist runs and hides
The words of his psalm wash over us

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to [b] me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

In the deepest pain
In the most maddening madness
In the fiercest run away and hide feelings

The writer of the psalm tucks in this little section on god creating a human person
An image bearer
As surely a man and a woman had sexual relations to create a child
God is described as being active in creating

Actively participating in creating you
A co creator with my parents in creating me

Think about what that means

Our value is not in what we do
Our value is in the creators designing of us
And chronicling our days before even one of them occurred

At the beginning of our scriptures we have an account of creation

This what it says in Genesis 1
Then God said “let us make humankind in our image, according to OUR likeness;
Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.
So god created humankind in his image
Male and female he created them…

From the creation story we learn first that
Life is a gift from god
We don’t deserve it, or earn it or prove it
It’s a gift

Secondly human life is of value because it is God that declares its value
Over and over again in the story of creation god delciars “this is good. This is very good”

But humans are something different
We are not like the rest of creation
We are unique
We are image bearers
Made in God’s likeness
With the capacity for relationship with God
And with the capacity for relationship with each other

We don’t earn or aquire our worth
Right from the beginning God valued human life as worthwhile before we did anything
Our value was in who we where not in what we did
This is a very important thing to focus on

Our society is very functional
Our worth comes from what we do
And when something or someone ceases to be functional they are discarded

But god valued us before we did anything
And it is because we are image bearers of the creator
It is because God valued you and me
That we where blessed and given creative and purposeful work on earth

Over and over again in scripture we catch glimpses of Gods value and care for us
And over and over again we are reminded about our responsibility to value and care for each other

In the Old Testament, many of the laws had to do with the protection of life
The punishment for abusing or killing another human being was severe
From the child in the womb to the very old
From the slave who was treated as property to the stranger who was visiting
Life was to be valued, and protected
The more fragile the life, the greater the responsibility of the community to act as guardian, caregiver and protector

This was so strong that we read that if 2 men are fighting and in the process a pregnant woman is struck and miscarries her child, the men are to be punished because they have committed manslaughter

When Jesus came into the biblical story,
he affirmed over and over again that life was of great value

Reminding us not to worry, - look at the birds of the air who are cared for by the heavenly father…then he reminds us … are no you much more valuable than they (mtt 6:26)
And Jesus tells us “even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. – so don’t be afraid; you are worth much more than many sparrows” (mtt10)

And Jesus instructed about the value of children, (mtt 18) - its not our ability to DO that makes us worth keeping

And Jesus even tells us that as far as life goes –
God does not make any distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous (mtt5)
Their lives are of the same value to their creator

And Paul teaches us that our bodies must be taken care of – they are god’s temple and they are not our own – we cant do with them what we want – god has a plan and a purpose for our bodies (1 cor 6:20)

In this quick survey of scripture we clearly see that human life is sacred,
we all have equal value,
and because god extends the same value to each of us,
we also must extend that value to each person

In short all human life is sacred and has dignity
And one of our mandates as Gods people is to protect and care for human life

So what do we do with this?

In a society where moral relativism makes legitimate everything from abortion to active euthanasia or assisted suicide
What do we believe about life and protecting life?

In a society where medical advances to sustain life,
where reproductive technology allow us to take do some pretty amazing things,
where genetic research has create a moral and ethical soup du jour
What are we to say and do as followers of Jesus?
What are the moral implications?

This could be a full semester course
I realize that
So I wont pretend to try to do everything

I began wrestling with the churches inconsistent treatment of life in the womb when I was about 19

For a long time I had been opposed to abortion
I believe, as is the position of our church
That abortion is a betrayal of Gods intention for creation
It cuts short God’s plan
It seizes the power of life and death from Gods hands

But it was on mothers day, when I was 19 that I noticed an odd inconsistency
A painful inconsistency

Mothers, as they entered the church where given a carnation
A kind and thoughtful gesture
Honouring mothers

But a teenage friend, who got pregnant decided against the option of abortion
and carried her baby to term then gave it up for adoption

She was overlooked or ignored
Tears streamed down her face
Wasn’t she a mother too?

And someone else whose only child had died shortly after birth also did not receive a carnation, an oversight I am sure – but a very painful one
Wasn’t she a mother?

Then I got to thinking
Outside the morgantaller abortion clinic I was seeing signs daily that shouted
Abortion is murder

But the couple who had a miscarriage
We didn’t celebrate that life as a church
No rose was place up front like when other birth announcements where made
And we didn’t mark the child’s death as a church
No name was given or no name announced
If we knew of the miscarriage at all we referred to it as a medical event, as an it or a thing not a life or a person
There was no public call for prayer and for care of a family in grief

I was deeply disturbed by the hypocrisy of it all

It was then that I resolved that the best way to declare the value of life
The best way to protest the immorality of abortion
The best way to protect the unborn child
Was to give honour and dignity to the life of the un born child
Even and especially when a child dies while still in the womb

And so Rose and I named our daughter Kadi
Our child
6 weeks and 3 days old

and we remember her daily with a momento purchased
a small clay bear
whose upturned face, half moon eyes and smile with a tongue sticking out
reminds us of a child who lived and yet who we never really got to know

I am not one to take up crusades
I protest and object to the immorality of abortion
But our strongest voice in the defence of the life of the unborn is our honouring of the unborn

And possibly our strongest action is not carrying a sign outside an abortion clinic
But making ourselves available to adopt a child who may otherwise be aborted
A child with downs syndrome
or taking in a 4 year old girl who is pregnant and needs the support she isn’t getting from others,
or adopting this young mothers baby

We often forget that part of the story of the rapid growth of the church in the first century after Christ
Was that Christians would go and rescue unwanted infants who where taken outside of the city to the dump to die
Tens of thousands of infants where spared death because they where unwanted
And where raised in Jesus following homes

Can you imagine making those personal sacrifices to protect and honour life?
Jesus said in Mathew 28 whatever you did for the least of these you did it to me.

Another reason for the incredible growth of the church was the care given to the dying

We sometimes think of the past in terms of the good old days
When in fact they are just the old days


But from the first century until today
The church has been very active in the care of the sick and the dying

We live in an interesting and unique moment in time when the state or the insurance company take care of the sick and the dying

But the greatest part of the missionary movement of the church over the centuries
has been the deep commitment of countless believers to care for the sick and the dying

Hospices and hospitals
Nurses and doctors
Many willing to give their own lives to save a life

How strange it is to have a discussion today about the merits of euthanasia
I don’t want to begin something when I am already way overtime
But the notion of intervening in someone’s life to cause death is completely foreign to the witness of the word of God
The idea that we would hasten someone’s death with unnatural intervention goes exactly against the witness of generations of believers who lived in a way that sought to preserve and protect life

Today we have only scratched the surface a huge topic
We could spend days investigating what scripture has to say about the sacredness of human life and our responsibility to honour and protect life
Would could spend days examining medical ethics and the multitude of choices and conflicts it has created for us

So I want to encourage us as followers of Jesus
To like Jesus lift up the down trodden
Lets be know for how we care the sick and the orphan
Lets stake our wallets and our reputations on how we bless those who are oppressed and how we take the side of life

The overflowing love of God in our lives should be seen as an over flowing love of the living

I began a few minuets ago with stories of death, loss and grief
Stories about my daughter Kadi, Rose’s mother Suzy Thiessen,
No doubt you are reviewing your own stories right now

Each of these deaths was complicated in its own way
I do not know what little or large deaths you might have confronted in your life
Or even in this week
I do not know what losses and what grief’s complicate your feelings and your thinking
I do not know what regrets you have
Regrets about what you have done
Or regrets about what you left undone
I know we are an odd collection of hypocrites who have to often compromised where we should not have
And tonight you might find yourself wrestling with frustration, guilt, shame or confusion

I want to offer you a word of hope
Jesus came to offer comfort when we where inconsolable
Jesus came to lift us out of the mud and the mire to set our feet on a rock and to make our foot steps secure
Jesus came to bring forgiveness because each and every one of us is in desperate need of forgiveness

AND Jesus came that we might have life and have it in abundance

Palm Sunday 2005 - Living Well in the Face of Uncertainty

(Data Projector images available upon request

The year was 1914

And the add in the London paper read

"MEN WANTED: FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES, BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS, CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOUR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS. SIR ERNEST SHACKLETON"

Lord Shackleton was mounting what was to be the last of the great polar expeditions

Who would answer such an ad?
These 28 men above, that's who.

The year is about 30 ad

And a rabbi put out an add

“Follow me”

This is what the full text of Jesus invitation to adventure said

34Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

And three years latter when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a colt he reminded the crowd

The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me.

The 27 men who joined sir Ernest Shackelton where all up for adventure
But they where not going into this blind
most where veteran sailors and explorers
Some had been on Sir Walter Scott’s unsuccessful attempts to the south pole

All of them knew that the add in the news paper wasn’t a joke
Safe return was doubtful

So it was no surprise when they ran into problems
So they are trapped in the ice pack of the Antarctic
Their ship is going nowhere
And finally is crushed by the ice like so many toothpicks

Many people followed Jesus,
And they heard the words follow me

Many of them where seasoned sailors also
But the idea of taking up their cross…
Could it be…
Whosoever gains their life shall loose it Jesus said
And whoever losses their life for my sake shall gain eternity

So weeks of being trapped in the ice pack has turned into months
And finally the crew are leaving their ship for the last time
Sir Ernest shackelton gathers his men
You may each take 2 pound of personal effects with you
Mostly toilet paper, diaries, knives and spoons

Leading the way sir Ernest takes off his gold pocket watch and leaves it on the ice
He takes out his gold coins and drops them on the ice
His silver shaving kit is left on the ice

And the pile grows
Discarded uniforms, scientific equipment, books, watches, cooking utensils, ropes, tools, flags, and blankets as all the men dumped their nonessential personal effects.

Finally sir Ernest takes the bible given to him by the queen
And he tears out 2 pages
And lays the bible on the ice
The pages he kept where these verses of the book of job

29From whose womb comes the ice?
And the frost of heaven, who gives it birth?
30The waters harden like stone,
And the surface of the deep is frozen. Job 38

The other page contained 23rd psalm

And so, together on October 27 1915, 28 men, trapped on a massive island of ice
Stood together and said the shepherds psalm

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
5You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Can you imagine saying those words trapped on a ice flow
You ship crushed
And your death almost certain

Surely goodness and love will follow me all of the days of my life
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever

Can you imagine Jesus saying those words
Standing outside of Jerusalem
With only a few days until his crucifixion

Surely goodness and love will follow me all of the days of my life
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever

On palm Sunday Jesus turned and faced into the wind

What is it that causes men to sign up for a polar expedition?
What is it that draws Jesus toward his death?
What is it to take up our cross and follow him

Song

So the story of Jesus entry into Jerusalem gives us the opportunity to think about how Jesus faced a difficult week.

So as people “made in the image of Christ” how do we deal with the trials that look us in the face?
What do we say about God?

The psalmist gives us a different song to sing, a song celebrating Gods goodness.
When we decide that our approach to every situation is worship
When we decide that our approach to every day is worship
Then we gain an incredible sense of destiny.

I am not defined by my circumstances
No mater how difficult they are
I am not defined by my teacher, my boss, my spouse, my parent, or my neighbour
My identity is in Jesus

Surely goodness and love will follow me all of the days of my life
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever

Sure my circumstances are grim
Sure my day is turning out rotten
I am even dealing with people who are only to happy to drag my name through the mud

But I am confident in this

Surely goodness and love will follow me all of the days of my life
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever

I am living psalm 23 already
God’s goodness transcends my circumstances

I am living psalm 23 already
And I know what my purpose and place in God’s plan is.

The psalmist said
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
After he entered Jerusalem on a colt

After he heard the cry blessed is the one who comes in the name of the lord

And Jesus said

27 Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.
28 Father, glorify your name! Then a voice came from heaven, I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.
29 The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
30 Jesus said, This voice was for your benefit, not mine
Can you imagine this?

Jesus is facing the most difficult week of his life
A week that will end with the cross

Yet we see a complete confidence

Jesus says Glorify your name

So what do you say when you face adversity?
What do you say when your character is called into question

If you are anything like me
Your back gets tight
Your voice gets strained
You become defensive
You go on the attack

If I am perfectly frank with you

My response is not Glorify your name

My response is not

Surely goodness and love will follow me all of the days of my life
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever

The reason is pretty simple
I am pretty self reliant
My world revolves around me
And so when I face hard times
Its all about me
And when its all about me the only hope and the only future I have is the one I can muster for myself

But when it is all about Jesus
When my confidence is in the creator of heaven and earth
When my trust is in Jesus who saves
Then I can say

Surely goodness and love will follow me all of the days of my life
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever

When we face grim circumstances we can choose a different response

Psalm 23 and Jesus Palm Sunday journey remind us
That when our world really and truly is centered on God
When our attitude is worship in all we say and do
Then we have a different response to our circumstances

In fact we can recognize that our circumstances no matter how grim they might be
Are opportunities where we can name God for who he really is
We can glorify God

When we recognize who god is
When we accept God’s overwhelming love and care for us
Then we have a different sense of the present
A different perspective

And we have a different sense of the future
God’s perspective

WE can say with the psalmist

Surely goodness and love will follow me all of the days of my life
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever

And we can say with Jesus

Father, glorify your name


The song noted above is a medley of:
I Surrender All & Jesus Lover Of My Soul


All to Jesus I surrender
All to Him I freely give
I will ever love and trust Him
In His presence daily live

Chorus 1
It's all about You Jesus
And all this is for You
For Your glory and Your fame
It's not about me
As if You should do things my way
You alone are God
And I surrender to Your ways

Verse 1
Jesus lover of my soul
All consuming fire
Is in Your gaze
Jesus I want You to know
I will follow You all my days
For no one else
In history is like You
And history itself belongs to You
Alpha and Omega
You have loved me
And I will share eternity with You

Chorus 1
It's all about You Jesus
And all this is for You
For Your glory and Your fame
It's not about me
As if You should do things my way
You alone are God
And I surrender to Your ways

All to Jesus I surrender
Lord I give myself to Thee
Fill me with your love and power
Let your blessing fall on me


Jesus Lover Of My Soul
© 1995 Thankyou Music
Paul Oakley

I Surrender All
Judson W. VanDeVenter / Winfield Scott Weeden

When Life Sucks: Jonah in the belly - Oct 2004

Life sucks: praying and refusing to pray
Jonah sermon -

See also mark 4:35-41 Psalm 107:23-32

Before Rose and I were dating she called me proud, arrogant and self-centered

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines arrogance as
Slide #1
Main Entry: ar·ro·gant
exaggerating or disposed to exaggerate one's own worth or importance in an overbearing manner

Slide #2
Main Entry: self-cen·tered
1 : independent of outside force or influence
2 : concerned solely with one's own desires, needs, or interests

Slide # 3
Main Entry: proud
feeling or showing pride:
a : having or displaying excessive self-esteem
b : much pleased
c : having proper self-respect

So Rose, called me proud, arrogant and self centered

Had she just called me proud,
I might have been able to salvage a positive interpretation from her comments
But she didn’t allow me that opportunity
No no no

Proud, arrogant and self centered
That pretty much excludes any positive interpretation of her meaning

Thank fully much has changed
She agreed to a date, and eventually agreed to marry me
And as of this last week I did a little status check

Rose I said
Am I proud, self centered and arrogant

And I am proud to say
Strike that - lest you interpret “proud” negatively
I am happy to report to you that my reviews are somewhat better
Though only somewhat
And that my rating has been upgraded
Of course most of this has to do with Roses influence on me

I am not feeling very brave tonight
So I won’t ask for a show of hands to see what the general consensus is about the proud arrogant self-centred thing

Now Lets get to Jonah
A guy who could be described as proud, self-centered and arrogant

Here it goes

All of us are like Jonah, ready to flee to some exotic Tarshish rather than face the reality of who we are and, even more threatening, the possibility that we could become different.

Ironically, Jonah is the only successful prophet in the whole Bible,
the only one whom people actually listen to then truly change their ways.
Yet it is his knowledge that he will succeed,
not doubts about a possible failure,
that causes Jonah to flee.

Jonah is not afraid that the people of Nineveh will dismiss him as a nutcase
NO, he knows that they will repent.
As he says: "0 Lord! Isn't this just what I said when I was still in my own country? That is why I fled beforehand to Tarshish. For I know that You are compassionate and gracious God. . . .
Please, Lord, take my life, for I would rather die than live."

Rather than face that possibility, he flees.
To the end, Jonah resists any sense of responsibility for the fate of the world or his own fate.
Jonah lacks compassion for the people of the city,
a compassion found in everyone else in the story,
including the sailors, who are extremely reluctant to throw Jonah overboard.

Lacking compassion for others,
he lacks compassion for himself.
Fearing repentance [teshuvah] and change in others,
Fearing change in himself he runs from God,
only to find it at least for a moment in the dark depths of the whale.

Jonah's Prayer
1 From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. 2 He said:

"In my distress I called to the LORD ,
and he answered me.
From the depths of the grave [1] I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.
3 You hurled me into the deep,
into the very heart of the seas,
and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
swept over me.
4 I said, 'I have been banished
from your sight;
yet I will look again
toward your holy temple.'
5 The engulfing waters threatened me, [2]
the deep surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.
6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you brought my life up from the pit,
O LORD my God.

7 "When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, LORD ,
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple.

8 "Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
9 But I, with a song of thanksgiving,
will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
Salvation comes from the LORD ."

10 And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

So what does he find in the gut of a whale?
What is his state of mind?
What does he say?
Where does he find those words?
And does it make a difference?

This has been very bad day

Being angry at god is hard work
And it is a difficult game to win
Jonah is at his wits end
He is desperate defiant and suicidal

Lets step back for a moment and look at what has happened


Its been a very bad day

Jonah has had a change of audience
prophet to the people of God to ► Commissioned to save his enemies

Jonah is running from God as hard and fast as he can
faced with death from shipwreck or lynching ► Chooses drowning

even when he wants to die, he can’t because God interveans
Saved from a certain death (drowning) to ► an opportunity to reflect in the fish

And in his prayer he rediscovers Thankfulness to and then is faced with a thankless task
Sanctuary of the fish to ► the hostility of the ninevites

And being the bearer of bad news it seems that Jonah decided the best way to speak his mind and God’s message was to preached death and what happens? His enemies repent and receive life
Preached repentance to ► witnessing repentance
And what a contrast between Jonah and God
Jonah’s self pity and self contempt ►– yhwh’s compassion

And look at the characters

Conversion of the sailors 1v16
Conversion of Jonah – in the fish 2v1-9
Conversion of the ninevites (individual) 3v5
Conversion of the king 3:6-9 (corporate)
Conversion of God 3v10
Ironically there is no indication of Jonah’s recon version at the end

And talk about childish
Look at Jonah
He runs away angry and sulks three times
To tarshish
After ninevas repentance
After the plant dies

I have gotta say that Jonah doesn’t come off looking very good in this story

As I read this story
As I hear God’s voice rising above the protests of Jonah
And I hear Jonah’s warning to his people Israel
And I hear Jonah’s warning to me

But the fact is I am stuck
Horribly caught in my own destructive thoughts
Caught in a web of relationships that provoke me to self righteousness
I am stuck in my sins, the worst of which are the attitudes I keep
It has an unholy grip on me
I want to change – I think - but find I am powerless to

There are moments where I look around the ship and I refuse to pray
The other sailors urge me to pray
And I just look at them and say throw me overboard

I shake my fist at god
And say, if you won’t get me out of this
Then I will find my own way out
Even if it means throwing myself into the chaos of the sea
And certain death

SOOOOOOOOOOOO

How do you talk to god when your are
Self absorbed

How do you talk with God when you are angry
Even angry at God

How do you talk to God when you haven’t prayed in days or weeks or months

How do you talk with god with you have been avoiding and running and disobeying

There is a saying

“Whenever I am in trouble I pray.
And since I am always in trouble I pray a lot.”


We laugh, because at one level it is true
Most of us find more troubles in life than we would care to have
And so we pray often

You know the kind of prayers
The quick help me out of a jam prayers
Those shoot from the hip prayers
The get it of your chest prayers

We are in trouble a lot so we pray a lot

But just as often our troubles
Are deep troubles
Disturbing depressing debilitating troubles
And our attitudes are fortresses of anger and silence and fear
We are paralized and our prayers dry up like a mud pudle after the rain
And we are nothing but a crust blotch of mud
Then quite honestly
My prayer life pathetic

This is where I find Jonah most helpful

Here is a guy that is as unoriginal as it comes
He begs borrows and steals
His prayer is creative plagiarizing

Jonah, a devout Jew
Learnt to pray
Not by spontaneously coming up with word
Not by striking up what seems like one sided conversations

No, Jonah learned to pray by praying the psalms
Jonah learned to pray by understanding the forms of prayer in scripture

And in desperate times
When Jonah is having a very bad day
When Jonah is shaking his fist at God

As Jonah prays
Not a word of it is original
Jonah got every word
Lock, stock and barrel out of the Psalms

Put the prayer back up on the screen

Its amazing
Prayer, which we often believe to me most honest and true
We think of a spontaneous
The raw expression of our hearts
No Holy Joe intonation, no contrived words or catch phrases

The most honest prayer of Jonahs
Shows up as learned
Borrowed from scripture and filled with more meaning in few words than I can pack into pages

Ironically even though there is ranting and raving in this prayer
Its form is not a lament
Not a cry of human pain
The form of this prayer is a psalm of thanksgiving

Its amazing

When I am angry and self absorbed my words, my prayers are all about me

And Jonah can only be described as angry self absorbed, proud, arrogant and self centered

But his words are all about God

Most of the time
If I am honest

I do not pray because I have nothing good to say
I do not pray because I I cant stand myself, so why would I want to talk about me
I do not pray because I have not learnt to speak of god in good times and bad times
I do not pray because I have not learnt how to be angry at god

But Jonah has no such problem
When he finally prays

His prayer puts things into perspective

Who he is and who God is
This is not a pretty and polite prayer
It is a well designed rant
Jonah is speaking from the gut

But Jonah gets it right in a very important way
Jonah gets it right where so often I get it wrong
Jonah remembers that the main character of the story is God
The main character of Jonah’s story is God
Who is the main character in my story?
Who is the main character in your story?

The main character in this story is God
Jonah’s prayer acknowledges that as much as he would like to avoid, disobey, rebel, rant and rave.
God’s character is certain and unchanging
For I knew that you are a gracious God
Slow to anger and abounding in love
A god who relents from sending calamity
Jonah 4:3

God is a god who hopes that even his enemies would turn from their wicked ways

God is a God of second chances
God is a God who is concerned even for Nineveh,

So how do you pray?

Do you like me mumble and stumble your way through self centred prayers?
Do you feel like your prayers help you see beyond your circumstances?
Do you speak of a God that is vastly bigger than your small world?

Let me draw our evening to a close with a story about prayer that has seeped into my bones

As a 12 year old I spent 9 weeks in the health sciences for a migrane that wouldn’t leave
Day and night I was tormented

My parents lived 500 miles north of Winnipeg and could not be with me the whole time

So they asked Joe to visit me…

He visited every day
Each day reading the same song
Psalm 40

I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.

He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.

Happy are those who make the Lord their trust,
who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods.

You have multiplied, O Lord my God,
your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
none can compare with you.
Were I to proclaim and tell of them,
they would be more than can be counted.

Sacrifice and offering you do not desire,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

Then I said, "Here I am; in the scroll of the book it is written of me.
I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart."

I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation;
see, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O Lord.
I have not hidden your saving help within my heart,
I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation.

Do not, O Lord, withhold your mercy from me;
let your steadfast love and your faithfulness keep me safe forever.
For evils have encompassed me without number;
my iniquities have overtaken me, until I cannot see;
they are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails me.
Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me;
O Lord, make haste to help me.
Let all those be put to shame and confusion who seek to snatch away my life;
let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who desire my hurt.
Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, "Aha, Aha!"
But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation say continually, "Great is the Lord!"
As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me.
You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God.

The psalm has seeped into my soul
It frequently fills my prayers with words that I could not have found myself
These words, 3000 years old enlarge my world
They put things into perspective
They help me pray
They introduce me to a God Greater than myself

They take a sometimes proud
Sometimes arrogant
Sometimes angry
Sometimes self-centred self-absorbed guy named
And put things into perspective

Even when I am having a very bad time it is not all about me
I am part of Gods plan for something bigger
You are part of God’s plan to show others compassion and grace

-----
notes
http://www.m-w.com/
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/Yom_Kippur/Overview_Yom_Kippur_Community/Prayer_Services/Jonah/Jonah_Strassfeld.htm?OVRAW=jonah&OVKEY=jonah&OVMTC=standard

Crazy Family Stories: lent, the red sea and baptism

Do you have any crazy stories in your family history?
The kind of stories that get handed on from generation to generation?
The stories sound so outlandish that they couldn’t be true
But by the same token sane person would make up a story like this and expect people to believe it
What’s more these stories often have so many witnesses that the details that have survived are the details that everyone could testify to

Its both odd and true how these stories define you,
they tell you where you have come from
and they hold a promise of destiny,
they tell you where you are going

My grandfather was 10 when his family fled the Soviet Union in 1926
They left a small farming town in the Ukraine called Sergievka
Life was very hard back then, the brutal violence of the bandits, the white guards and the communists was almost the same, just different uniforms

They were on the last ship to leave the Soviet Union
Late in the season travel by sea is more treacherous
The role of the ship was so terrible that my grandfather remembers chasing bowls of sugar cubes up and down the tables, the first sugar he had ever tasted
The storms they encountered where so bad that the captain of the ship assembled the passengers for their own funeral, and so they worshiped together before they would die

This epic journey from the terrors of the Soviet Union to Canada was brutal and dramatic.
My family had a clear and powerful awareness that God had rescued them
Their salvation was real – they where alive to tell the tale
They had miraculously crossed the sea
They had moved from a difficult life to certain death
And when the storm was darkest and the future the bleakest they called on God.
And God came through

Do you have any crazy stories in your family history?
The kind of stories that get handed on from generation to generation.
Family stories that have become your story
Its both odd and true how these stories define you,
they tell you where you have come from
and they hold a promise of destiny,
they tell you where you are going

Tonight we are sitting around as a family telling stories
there are recent stories – we might call them announcements
there are epic stories – we sing them in our songs
and then there is THE story
the one where everyone leans in
the suspense and danger are real
even though everyone knows the ending
This is the family story, the one that tells us who we worship, who we are, and what we are about
When this story is your story, then you know you are part of the family

Moses the great CAA travel consultant and Hebrew prophet was in trouble
after 10 plagues the Egyptians wanted him out, mosses and all the people gone, good riddance, leave and don’t come back
frogs, flies, grasshoppers where bad, a river of blood was worse,
but when all their first born died, both their children and their livestock they had had enough
they wanted to get rid of their Hebrew slaves so badly that not only did they allow them to leave they sent them packing with back pay, gold and food

listen to the send off story

At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh…, to the firstborn of the prisoner… and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. 30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.

During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the LORD as you have requested. 32 Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me."

The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. "For otherwise," they said, "we will all die!"… The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. 36 The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.

The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. 38 Many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds…

40 Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years. 41 At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the LORD's divisions left Egypt. 42 Because the LORD kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt, on this night all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honor the LORD for the generations to come.

Crazy isn’t it

And we aren’t even at the good part yet it gets better

So we have 60000 men, and their families – sorry single guys –
in the olde days you weren’t a man if you didn’t have a family

So 600000 men and their wives, and their children
(remember that this was before birth control)
so lets make a conservative guess of 3 kids each,
that comes to something like 3million people who ask for and get their neighbors stuff, all the good stuff, and make a run for the boarder

Now as you can imagine 3 million people marching on foot don’t move fast,
so the Egyptian slave masters who had just given away their new 52 inch flat screens wanted them back –
they wanted the free labor for their fields and they wanted to watch football on Monday night so they set out in hot pursuit

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, "If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt." 18 So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt ready for battle…

the red sea eh? That’s a dead end, a blind ally, it’s a trap

21 By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. 22 Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.

To weird, can you imagine? Keep going!!!

1 Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 "Tell the Israelites to camp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea.

They’re trapped between the mountains and the sea

When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, "What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!" 6 So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him… 9 The Egyptians—all Pharaoh's horses and chariots, horsemen and troops—pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea…

As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. 11 They said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? … It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!"

Moses answered the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still."

This gets weirder all the time

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, 22 and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh's horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. …

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen." 27 Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place… and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived... 30 That day the LORD saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians,

That’s my story!!! (reader 1)
And my story!!! (reader 2)

So the family story is the story of exodus
The story of Gods saving action
The story of crossing through the waters
The crossing of the red sea set a boundary
The story of no going back
This is a crazy story and it is our story
its my story and If your part of the family its your story

To this day every devout Jew celebrates Passover to remember this story
To remind each other that they worship the God who saves

So lets try a little word association game
I will ask a question and you fill in the blank
One of the important things families do is celebrate
Our celebrations are not usually optional
Are you ready to play?
We mark Babies with showers and birthdays with a cake
Engagements with rings, Marriages with weddings and anniversaries
Studies with graduations, and Deaths with funerals

And Jews remember the exodus with Passover
Here is a tough one
Jews celebrate belonging with circumcision at birth and a bar mitzvah for coming of age
Christians remember Christ’s birth with Christmas
His death with good Friday
His resurrection with Easter Sunday
And the coming of the spirit with Pentecost

But how do Christians mark belonging? Baptism

That’s right, and baptism is no more optional for followers of Jesus that circumcision is for a Jew.

There is another story
It is also a wild crazy and outrageous story
And it is also our story
We are much more familiar with this story
And the outlines of this story are kind of the same

A people held as slaves – that’s us
Not slaves to the Egyptians, but slaves to sin
And our rescuer is the Yahweh the God who saves
Yasuah – Jesus is the God who saves

In the most improbable of stories
Jesus enters our world, a baby with a mission
Jesus lives among us, a man facing all the temptations and frustrations that you and I face
Ultimately Jesus dies
To the watching world he died for no good reason,
or he died because he was a political hot potato

In the economy of life and death,
Jesus died for us so that we could live for him
But lets face it – we will all die
The miracle is the resurrection
Jesus rises again – beats death at its own game

Jesus rises again so that those of us who completely identify with Jesus in the dying would find that Jesus completely identifies with us in our living
And we to can cross through death and into life
That boundary we cross
That commitment we make
Is marked with Baptism

If this isn’t a crazy family story I don’t know what is
The Jesus story is our story
Its both odd and true how these stories define you,
they tell you where you have come from
and they hold a promise of destiny,
they tell you where you are going

Just as Jesus was a Jew, the red sea story is our story
And the Passover is our supper –
we have stripped down an elaborate meal called the Passover and we call it communion – bread and cup
remembering our salvation with thankfulness

Just as Jesus is our savior – the Man/god who saves
We identify with him in baptism
He crossed through death and came out on the other side dry and alive
And baptism is how we mark our belonging

We join the story and we retell the story
When in our baptism we make public what Jesus has done in us and is doing in us each and every day

The apostle Paul tells it this way

Stand with me and let’s declare with passion the story that is ours to tell – Please read the bold text
Romans Chapter 6 1-11 (TNIV)
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.
For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Its both odd and true how this story defines you,
The Jesus story tells you where you have come from
The Jesus story offers you a promise of destiny,
The Jesus story tells you where you are going

Song – he reigns

So let bless you as we go with these words
May you grasp on to Jesus and onto the Jesus story as your very own
May you tell the story over and over again so that others may join the story
May you take the next step in living out your part of the story, whether it is seizing the promise, sharing the cup, getting baptized or following Jesus on the next part of the journey
Go with Jesus who tells you where you are going

There’s coffee in the back – don’t forget to express your thankfulness in the treasure box and start a conversation with someone you have never said more than hi to.