December
9 2018 Luke
3.1-6 Come
to Jesus – Bring the One You Need to Forgive Luke 3.1-6 Pastor Jacqueline Hines
You heard the gospel
reading, so I ask you, who does that? Who goes around telling the world to
repent and change for the better? Yes. The Church does, the pastor during a
sermon, our Bishop Peggy Johnson in her blogs, those commercials about children
dying from starvation in Africa do, and those emails about those suffering on
Native American reservations, or in the caravans, or those retraining police officers
to kill when needed but to abstain from murder, those begging us to understand
that we are likely to operate with skin-deep biases and unconscious attitudes toward
the poor, hatred of the sick, the weak and God only knows who and what else.
We hear the clarion
call to repent, to change our ways, to give up pugnacious attitudes, [ slide # 1 boxing ring] puppy
mills, [slide # 2 puppy
mill] and pornography…[slide
# 3
red light district ] [story
of sex trafficking in our area, church, and serial killer Ted Bundy’s
relationship to pornography.]
We hear about repentance, which is the call to
change in lots of places. Verse 3 says John the Baptist went into all the
region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance…[slide # 4 repent and live]
We know what he did, but Luke tells us why
he was proclaiming repentance….verse 3 says he was proclaiming a baptism of
repentance for what??? ….for the
forgiveness of sins, We hear
clearly the call to repentance. We may have to listen more carefully to hear that the REASON we are called
to repent is so there will be forgiveness of sins – our sins or
somebody else’s sins. [slide
# 5 forgive]
A wise person noted that reason for education
is to get rid of ignorance. The reason for medicine is to get rid of disease,
and the reason for Christianity is to get rid of sin. When we repent and forgive, sin takes a back
seat. [slide # 6 back
seat]
Bethel knows a lot about forgiveness! It is an
everyday thing for Christians to step on each other’s toes, but like the
energizer bunny [ slide # 7
energizer bunny] we keep right on lovin’. Somedays we may roll our eyes
at someone who just doesn’t get it. [slide # 8 eyes rolling] Other times we may say
something sassy and brassy, [slide
# 9 gossip...rumor…] but for the
most part, we support one another and care for one another and get over it. We
can do that because we have been forgiven ourselves. We can forgive because
Christ lives in us. [slide
# 10
Christ lives in me]
When we forgive each other, we are saying
there is no debt to be paid, that we do not owe each other anything. When we go
to the store and pick up a loaf of bread, we owe anywhere from two dollars to
five dollars. We must pay what we owe or there will be penalties and
consequences. We are held accountable. [ slide # 11 pay
up]
When we offend one another, we must pay up in
great or small ways. I went to the laundromat where a code of courtesy was if
you your clothes were dry and you had time left, you would offer it to another
person waiting to dry their clothes. So, a young gentleman offered me 15
minutes of dry time and I thanked him, and went about my business. [slide # 12 dryer] A
still small voice, I believe it was the Holy Spirit, spoke to my heart and said
“He wants to be paid for those minutes.” So I gave him 50 cents or so and he
received it gratefully. Another week, another gentleman offered me time
leftover on his dryer and, remembering my earlier experience, I offered to pay
him 50 cents for the dryer time and he was vigorously opposed. I insisted,
thinking he was being polite and he seemed insulted and refused to take the
money.
Everyone is not the same. We all live by different
rules. What one needs is not the same as what another needs. What one of us
thinks is not what everybody thinks. We need to get to know one another and we
need to listen to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit and understand that
what we understand does not always apply to every situation.
Just like parents know that every child you
raise is different, [slide
# 13 …we ae not all the same] God
knows that every child of God has their own needs and their own wants and their
own ways. Some children love Reese’s candy. [slide # 14 Reese’s] Other children would have to
be taken to the emergency room if they ate a Reese’s.
We want to live by a rule that says we treat
everyone the same, but instead we have to pray about everything because we are
not all the same. The Holy Spirit is our guide and our comforter as we figure
out what to do. [slide # 15 pray about everything]
Every now and then the church universal is
challenged to forgive. We have different ideas of what it means to forgive.
Forgiveness never means we should ignore unacceptable behavior and smile and
say anything goes here. You
can do and say anything you want to the children of God and God want us to
forgive and forget even when the situation is neither safe no sound. [ slide # 16 with
you I feel safe and sound]
A pastor Dana tells the story of a college
girl who came to him and said her boyfriend hit her, and she was having a hard
time forgiving him. By forgiving him, she meant deleting the hurtful event from
her mind and trusting him again. To forget the event and trust someone who is
untrustworthy is not forgiveness but foolishness. God is not asking us to do
that.
God is asking us to repent, to change our
ways, and to help each other repent and grow in character and become better
Christians and I see that happening at Bethel and in many places.
When we repent, we are ready to be forgiven.
That is why John the Baptist went around proclaiming repentance; it was so that
our sins could be forgiven. It was to remind us that we ought not forgive
someone until they repent! The purpose of repentance is to be forgiven and to
start fresh, to start over, to do the right thing and not the wrong thing.
It is easier for some churches to forgive and
forget the hurtful things that are done, than to draw a line when repentance is
what is really needed. [slide
# 17 turn around]
The meaning of forgiveness in verse 6 means to
release from bondage or imprisonment, pardon, let someone go as if they have
never done anything wrong, it is to have them go with no penalty, to free them
up to go and not pay. When we forgive one another we are saying “It’s all good.
We are good!” We dare not communicate that if it is not good. That just makes
us superficial and keeps us from deepening our roots in love. [slide #18
forgiveness…form of love]
When we go to the market, we get free samples.
It’s all good, but if we could load up our baskets with groceries and not pay,
the store would soon be bankrupt and the economy would be broken. (Maybe that
is the world economy is broken, because too many are stealing...)
As I served in First Church Germantown, I met people
from all walks of life. I will never forget the day I served communion in the
front pew to a wealthy lawyer, an immigration lawyer. Sitting next to him was
another man dressed in women’s clothing who was known to roam the streets.
Perhaps he had lost half of his mind, but the other half had found the church
to be a safe place where he was content to partake of a Holy Communion. I did
not ask him if he were baptized and confessed Jesus as his savior. I knew all I
needed to know!! I served him communion.
Another woman I met in Germantown lived in
extremely sparse conditions. She looked like a movie star on the outside. On
the inside she was emotionally disturbed. It is said that 51% of the population suffers
from some type of mental disorder at some point in their life. This mother came
to service with her children, and she beat the living daylights out of them in
the pews during worship, until one of the ushers stopped her. I went to her
home and explained to her that she was not to beat her children in church. Later,
it seemed the children were taken away from her, for she was not capable of
repenting, changing and rising to a standard that most hold dear – a standard
of child protection. [slide # 19 promise to protect… ]
Her children are probably grown by now and in
the best of all worlds has found God’s hedge of protection to keep their mother
and anyone from hurting them. Perhaps miraculously mom got the right therapy
and medication and changed her ways and has a healthy relationship with her
children.
In any case, it is good that the children not
let mom of the hook until she repents. We should keep each other on the hook
until we repent. Comedian Kevin Hart wanted to fulfill his life -long dream of
hosting the Oscars. [slide
# 20 Kevin Hart] This week he
stepped down from hosting or was asked to step down because of some anti-gay
tweets that he shared a while back. That was wicked and unkind. It was perhaps
more savage than human.
More than ever we are seeing that our past may
come back to haunt us. But, when we hurt someone, we need to help each other understand
what that person needs to be – as Judge Judy – or any lawyer of a U.S. court of
law would say – what that persons needs to be made whole again. We cannot turn
back the hands of time, but need to do something that would help us or someone else
to recover and get back to a state of wholeness and health – which would be
holiness.
I am not sure Kevin is there yet. He said he
did not want to apologize again because he already did it and that should be
enough. Perhaps those who understand and love Kevin should help him understand
that maybe he needs to listen, that perhaps there is more to be said or done or
less to be said and done.
Perhaps he may recognize that he does not get to decide for every LGBTQ person
what is enough…that there is a higher court and a higher judge. We are all
children of God, but we are all different.
We must also keep in mind that some people do
not want to be whole or holy. Sometimes our first priority is to punish, get
revenge, ignore, belittle, backbite, withdraw, run away, hold a grudge, have a
pity party, discredit, or get attention – for “po’ strokes are better than no
strokes” But, as Romans 12.18 tells us “If it is possible, as far as it depends
on you, live at peace with everyone.“
We live in peace when we hear God’s call to
repent, [slide # 21
kneeling in repentance] when we keep each other on the hook until we are
made whole and holy. It is possible to love each other and hold each other
accountable at the same time. It is healthier than just pretending or being
polite. [slide # 22 change
ahead sign]
We are Christians. We want to be on the Lord’s
side. That’s where the power is. So we have to ask ourselves - what’s more
powerful repentance and forgiveness or being beat down with bitterness? When we
do our part everybody wins who wants to win and nobody is mad but the devil. [ slide # 23 beautiful
blessing…repent…] Amen. [slide # 24 still
going…energizer bunny...]
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