December 16
2018 Come to Jesus – Bring Your Good Fruit Luke 3.7-18 Pastor Jacqueline Hines
Story of boy who fell over his shoe strings; the
church’s mission is to warn each other and keep each other from falling….
John
the Baptist had been warning people in a fire and brimstone kind of way. He had
a crowd of people ready to be baptized, [slide # 1 John in water, baptizing] so says the
gospel of Luke in chapter 3. Instead of welcoming them, John rebuked them,
calling them a brood of vipers. It seems
baptism had become a fad. That could explain why there was such a large crowd. The
ancients were no strangers to worshipping the sun, the moon, the trees, and the
stars. There
may have been some who had found little meaning as they worshipped the sun and
the moon and the trees and the stars.
Such worship falls short and may have left them hungering for God’s love,
though perhaps they were looking for love in all the wrong places. Perhaps they
heard baptism could keep them from the fires of hell and damnation because they
had been terrorized by forest fires, earthquakes or volcanoes in the area along
with the stories of the gods taking revenge through nature. Baptism may have
become a popular way to get your feel good on, to fit in with friends and
neighbors. Perhaps they were being socialized to believing that being baptized
was a ticket to keep them out of the fires of hell and damnation.
There are always folks who are religious for all the
wrong reasons. No one complained about the crowd of folks who packed churches back
in the good old days, even if everybody was not trying to live like a saint.
Now that the pews are emptier than ever, we are scrambling around the country –
writing books, attending workshops, waving our magic wands, dreaming that our
churches will soon be packed again.
We always need to remember that growing a church is
like tending to a garden. We control some things, but not all. When the church
is not what we believe it should be, we become very emotional. Our true colors
come out. [slide # 2 true colors show eventually] Sometimes
we humans put on a gorilla suit and act up. [slide # 3 gorilla] Others wouldn’t know what to do with a
gorilla suit if they had one. And that’s a good thing.
[story my dad
and the evening news and the guerillas]
Grieving makes us emotional and reveals the status
of our fruit. [slide # 4 grief-stricken
soldier] Grieving change and loss sometimes means we are in hot water.
Just like a tea bag shows itself when it is in hot water, [slide # 5 tea bag] the
church shows itself. It shows our good fruit – our love, our joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – not
pastor control or committee chair control – but self-control. [slide # 6 fruit of the Spirit]
When a church is in trouble, we don’t feel good about ourselves, we may feel
rotten. So we can get up every Sunday morning and pack up our good fruit – our love, our joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – and
bring them to the parking lot as we greet one another, and in the lobby, and in
the sanctuary, and class, and coffee hour! Come to Jesus and bring your good
fruit. [slide # 7 fruit] as John says in verse 8, we ought to bear
fruit worthy of repentance. [slide
# 8 bear fruit worthy …] May it
never be said that our love is rotten, our joy stinks, our peace is pitiful,
our patience is short, our kindness corrupts, our goodness is gone, our
faithfulness is fair, our gentleness has gentrified, or our self-control has
died on the vine. When we come to Jesus, we bring our good fruit!
At this year’s annual conference at the convention
center in Oaks, we had several trainings by our bishop Peggy Johnson [slide # 9 Bishop Johnson] who is all about
global missions. She is grateful for Bethel and all of her 415 churches that do
missions.
Eric Law an Episcopal priest and founder of the
Kaleidoscope Institute for diversity [slide # 10 Eric Law pic]
prepared us for the vote we will have
during the February 23-26 special General Conference on behalf of our
relationship with the LGBTQ community who are a part of all Methodist churches.
[ share
definition of LGBTQ]
Eric Law taught us that when we look at each other,
we size each other up about what language we speak or do not speak, where we
grew up, our family situation, education, first full time job, travel
experience, religious affiliation, etc. We size each other up and judge one
another and make assumptions about each other. He says if we say we do not make
judgments and assumptions about each other we are lying. No matter how close we
are to someone, there are things we assume that may be correct, but our
assumptions may also may be wrong.
Eric uses himself as an example. [ slide # 10 Eric Law – pic
again] You cannot look at him and know he grew up in a house with 15
pianos because his parents owned and operated a music school with 400 students
per week. You cannot tell that he is a third generation Christian and went to
church all his life. He emigrated from Hong Kong, China to Augusta, Georgia as
a teenager with his family in 1971. They moved to New York where he went to
high school on the lower east side where 30% of the students were Chinese, 30%
were African American, and 30% were Puerto Ricans and the rest were Italians
and Jewish persons. He graduated from Cornell University
with a degree in electrical engineering and worked for Corning glass. He has a
strong foundation for all his diversity work around the world, and all the
books he’s written, training videos he produced, and that is why he wound up at
our Annual Conference back in June, to help us prepare our hearts and minds for
civil dialogue on sexuality issues.
We cannot afford to make assumptions about any
community, even the LGBTQ community. Surely, we have enough good fruit to
share, even when we do not agree with how and when it should be shared. Those
who disagree can be found standing or marching with protest signs and songs at
Annual Conference meetings and the ordination service. Others shout and scream
and argue and bang their bibles, and walk out loudly, leaving a 1,000 people
either very upset, nervous, or not ever wanting to go to another Methodist
meeting. Others are super relieved that such disagreeables have left the
building.
The hardest lesson Eric taught us was through a
story he shared about two people who were on a corner when a police car
approaches [slide # 11 police
car] One thought the car was coming to help. The other thought the car
was coming to harass. The lesson is that if two parties cannot agree on the
problem, then there can be no dialogue. That is why our vote on LGBTQ matters
is so hard and painful and complicated. All Methodists do not agree about what
God is asking us to do. Is it good that same sex couples be married in my
church? Should I attend the wedding? If I own a bakery or flower shop, would
God approve if I made a cake or arranged flowers or would God be pleased if I refused
to do so? As a clerk in the township, should I even grant a marriage license to
a same sex couple? As a doctor or psychologist, should I participate if a
couple or single person wants to have children? These are difficult topics to
talk about but we have been talking about them for decades and it does not get
any easier. That is why we are at peace with those churches and individuals who
want to leave the church around our Conference and our country if we affirm
certain gay rights or if we stay with our current position that homosexuality
is not in keeping with the scriptures and we cannot ordain, officiate weddings,
or use our buildings for weddings.
However the vote goes, the church is going to change
and there will probably be some tears shed and some deep losses felt.
Regardless of whether church changes satisfy us or frustrate us, God is calling
us to bear good fruit, to make a difference whether we like it or not.
Certainly, we all know by now that God will provide all the joy we need for
whatever journey even if we do walk the via Delarosa.
Another training at Annual Conference was through a
program called See All the
People. [slide # 12 See All the People]
[share the
many tools to help us remember to see…]
The program urges us to return to our spiritual
roots, to remember Jesus told us to GO
into all the world and MAKE disciples.
There are millions of people in this world. We need to see them, ALL of them. We need to do what
God guides us to do to help them become disciples. A disciple is one who knows
Christ, is growing in Christ, serving Christ, and sharing Christ. We are not all at the same level of spiritual
growth. Mature disciples can make disciples.
The training book for See All the People declares –
“For too long, The United Methodist Church has searched for a quick fix to help
guide our discipleship efforts. We have been busy sending postcards, producing
PowerPoint presentations and studying community demographics. While efforts
like those may be important, they alone do not lead to disciple-making. The most essential step for making
disciples of Jesus Christ is to immerse ourselves in the lives of the people
who are right outside our doors, acknowledging that God calls us to have
meaningful relationships in authentic, organic and consistent ways.” End of
quote…. [slide # 13 see all the people…not about fixing churches]
There are always those in the church who see people
others do not see, the homeless, the helpless, the hopeless. Still, it is time
for a change. God wants us more of us if not all of us to look more
intentionally, more deliberately, more consciously in order to see ALL the people. Something good
is guaranteed to happen because if we do what we are supposed to do, we will be
even more obedient, more powerful, more aware of God’s truths that set us free,
more able to know Christ ourselves, to grow in Christ, serve Christ, and share
Christ.
It is time for a change. Pastor John Wesley, [slide # 14 John Wesley ]
our founding father of Methodism thought about all the changes he saw coming in
the church and he was afraid just like we are. He said, “I am not afraid that the people
called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I
am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of
religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case unless they
hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set
out.
It is time to move from a fix the church agenda to a
building the kingdom or as I like to say – the Kin- dom [slide # 15 KIN –DOM] growing more disciples
rather than bigger churches doing more with
people with a goal of having healthy relationships and not just doing for people. We cannot make
disciples without relationships –relationships that are authentic that is they start from a good place, that are organic that is they take on a
lie of their own, and are consistent
that is a call or contact happens in some regular way.
A few years ago, Wesley Demarco told me about a
church in Lancaster that spoke Japanese. He mentioned that the church was very
loving. He described the love he experienced and I was so intrigued that I went
to Lancaster and worshipped with Wesley and his Japanese family. From the
minute I walked in the door, to the moment I left, young and old saw me, looked
me in the eye and blessed me with a smile, a warm welcome, a bowl of rice. The
atmosphere was overflowing with loving attention. A few days ago, I had dinner
with two women who had spent time in a homeless shelter. They talked about
church. One of them said she had been to Bethel and that it is a good church. They
named two in Chester Springs area where they felt very comfortable even though
their lives had been hard. I plan to go and visit those churches and see for
myself what God is doing to make the homeless feel at home.
[story of
Japanese mechanic who were clear that a good design determines good results]
In January’s leadership workshop, we will be
thinking about change. We will ask ourselves, what are we producing? I believe
God will meet us on January 12th as God always meets us.
Let’s decide together today, to come to Jesus ad
bear good fruit that will change us all for the better. [ slide # 16 We will all be changed] Amen. [slide # 17 See All
the people …city buildings.]
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