He will quickly grant justice, sermon by George Hollis, Oct. 17 October 18, 2010

As we read in the last verse in our Luke lesson (Luke 18:8), “I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”  While God will always help and love His children, will those same children recognize God’s providential action in their lives?

Jesus just finished telling the parable of the “Un-Just Judge.”  The judge that neither feared God nor had respect for any person.  Jesus is contrasting God to the un-just judge.  The message he wants to convey is that even a horrible person, who has the ability but not the desire to help other people, will help, if he can gain something from it.  In this case, the un-just judge gains a little peace from a persistent widow who came to him every day asking for justice.

As an important note, while God has chosen every person to live in heaven forever, there is a question left to complete our salvation.  Have we chosen God?  Have we recognized that we have lived going our own way which many times is rebellious to God?  Have we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord, where we will live to love other people as Jesus loves them?  And, have we given our free will over to doing the will of the Holy Spirit?

God who is love personified in this world, will He not come quickly to our aid?  I think we do live knowing God loves us and wants to give us piece and contentment.  Why does Jesus add that last part to the last verse, “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Jesus said to Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  In 2 Corinthians 4:18 Paul says, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.  Jesus says in John 9:41, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”

But, the vast majority of people do not recognize the answer to their prayers.  Many people have good things happen to them, but may take credit for it themselves or say a good coincidence occurred.  After Jesus tells the disciples this parable about the unjust Judge, He must have recognized the confusion in their faces.  So, He immediately tells another parable. 

In a previous church, our Board of Trustees had the job of selling our current church so we could build a new church.  We did everything we could think of to sell that church but after two years, nothing had happened. Right after we gave up, things began to happen — the pastor of another church called with a firm offer that just “happened” to be exactly our asking price. Such is the providence of God.  It took less than an hour to finish the details.

Just think how many people were involved in this transaction.  There were three main groups, two churches and a hospital, all wanting to buy and sell.  Then of course there must have been hundreds of people who were spouses, advisors, encouragers, prayerful people, committee members and so forth.  It took God two years to get all of these free wills to say yes.  It could have been done in a day, but when people who could help say no, God needs to begin another plan.  God never stops.  You cannot always see God working, but there is a quiet persistence.

Perhaps we are now seeing the results from our own 40 days of prayer leading up to Easter, as we embark on the construction of a new playground and other renovations and begin hosting a new ballet class in our building.  Can we connect the dots?  Can we see the prayers and see God’s resulting action? Yes, it requires faith that the good things that happen to us are the result of prayers.  The longer you are in the world, and the more faith you have, the more you see the providence of God.

However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?  We may be praying.  We may still be reading our Bibles.  We may still be receiving good things from God, but will we have faith that connects the good things from God with our prayers?  Will we have faith that we are living in God’s created universe?  Will we see the many providences of God?

I pray that as God brings good things our way, that my faith tells me that this is from God.  I pray that as I ask God for wisdom, that I have faith that my good decisions come from God.  I pray that as we in this room have faith, we will always see the unseen, but ever present hand of God.  Amen.

Reflections on the story of the lepers, George Hollis, Oct. 11 October 11, 2010

 

As we read the Gospel lesson, Luke 17:11-19, we have faith that these are the words of Jesus Christ.  So, as always, we have to find the grace or love of others that Jesus constantly teaches.  These verses start with 10 people who have leprosy and see Jesus walking by.  In Jesus’ day, if a person became ill with an infectious skin disease, they would have to leave the village.

You would be taken to a priest.  And, if the priest saw that you had say leprosy, that priest would banish you.  It did not matter who you were, a mother, child, father, anyone in the family, if anyone caught an infectious skin disease, they would have to leave the community.  It says in the Gospel lesson that 10 men came up to Jesus, nine Jewish and one Samaritan or foreigner.  It is like Jesus to show us that anyone, even a foreigner, can see the providence of God.

As we all know, in Bible days, the men worked and supported the household.  Women and children were almost always very poor if there was not a working man in the house.  One socioeconomic trait we can read from this lesson is that people that are in very poor situations tend to band together.  People have a desire to live where those around them are like them, no better or no worse.  This is a universal breaker of all socioeconomic barriers.

These lepers, as was the custom, had to sream out “Unclean, Unclean” to warn anyone approaching about the danger of catching an infectious disease.  These men, 10 men who had been an outcast from everything they know, instead of screaming, “Unclean, Unclean”, to let Jesus know not to come near; screamed “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”  It seems like they were waiting, or better said, hoping that this Jesus would come by.  They must have heard the stories of this Jewish man miraculously healing people with all kinds of illnesses.  All people, men, women, children, foreigners, even sinners, were being healed. 

It seems that this Jesus loves everyone that comes to him.  It is better said that this Jesus loves everyone; and there are some that realize this love is there just for them.   And then, no it cannot be, there He is, coming here where we/they are, we the outcast, the people of no value.

Jesus Master, have mercy on us!  And then Jesus speaks such sweet words, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”  It was the priests that banished a person, and it was only the priests that could declare that a person banished was now clean.  As they were on their way to the priests, they saw that they were becoming clean.  The leprosy left them.  Most likely, they started running to the priests.  Just think, today, we are going home.  We can go back to our families. 

In the story, all 1o lepers were cured, but only one, one of ten, 10 percent, came back and gave thanks to Jesus; which Jesus says is the same as giving thanks to God.  They all called Jesus Master, only one thought to come back to his Master.

What about us today?  As we each have our own pains and anxieties, what do we do?  We have heard about this Jesus, this person who people say is the son of God.  We have heard that He can miraculously cure our hurts, our guilt, our anger, and our selfishness. We too may scream out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on me.”  Out of a hundred that are helped, maybe 10 percent return and give themselves back to their Master.

When Jesus asks, “Where are the other nine?” He knows of course that they all were healed of their illness, but somehow nine did not remember that it was Jesus they were praying to.  It was Jesus that they all called Master.  They all were enjoying their good fortune.  They no doubt were celebrating with friends.  Some may have even told of how they somehow cured themselves.

Maybe that is the lesson, “Are we part of the 90% that are enjoying our good fortune, or are we part of the 10% that realizes all good things come from God.  Or, are we the 10% that do both?  We enjoy our good fortune and we give our whole selves back to God? Amen.

Luke 17, sermon by George Hollis, Oct. 3 October 4, 2010

Jesus is talking to the disciples and His first comment is, “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but. 2 It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. 3 So watch yourselves. “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. 4 If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” 5 The apostles said to the LORD, “Increase our faith!.”

 

The key to what Jesus is teaching centers around verse 3, “So watch yourselves.”  Jesus tells the disciples that they are bound to sin; more specifically, everyone is bound to sin.  This is a message the disciples would have understood.  The world is such where there are so many pressures on people to “go their way” or to do something that is in opposition to what God would have them do that it is impossible to live in this world within sinning.  Praise God that through Jesus Christ we can ask for forgiveness, and if we ask with a sincere heart, God will forgive us every time. We are constantly in this state of leaving God and returning to God.

 

Then Jesus adds an additional statement just for the disciples, “woe to that person through whom they come.”  The disciples are or will be leaders in the faith.  It is very important that the leaders of the church be an example for those that are struggling.  Jesus calls those struggling, “little ones.”  This is the Lords first pressure put upon the disciples that they have a greater responsibility that the “little ones.”  Jesus said the same thing to Pontius Pilate when he said that those that brought him to Pilate had the greater sin.

 

As if this was not enough, Jesus’ next statement really places the disciples in an almost untenable position.  He tells the disciples that if a person asks them to be forgiven that they must forgive the person.  He says that even if they sin against you all day many, many times, where you come to understand that there request for forgiveness is insincere, you still are to forgive them.  Jesus is telling us that we are not to judge a person’s sincerity and that judgment is for God alone. At this point the disciples are understandably perplexed.

 

After hearing this message of always forgiving anyone that asks you to forgive them, as a group they ask Jesus to “increase our faith.”  From their point of view, Jesus is just asking too much from them. Then the Lord adds pressure that is almost crushing in its requirement.

 

Already they tell the Lord they cannot forgive as He has asked, then Jesus says, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could tell this mulberry tree to uproot itself and plant itself into the sea and it would obey you.”  To the disciples this would have been a final crushing blow. Jesus is telling them that even if they could forgive as he has asked, they still would not have faith even as large as a mustard seed.

 

What grace are we to take from this passage?  

1, As Christian leaders we need to know that people with less to no faith are watching us to see how we behave.  We are bound to sin, but we are to humbly ask for forgiveness every time.  We should be people with clean slates, no guilt, joyful and brave to follow God’s will. 

2. Even though God knows we will sin again, for He knows the end as well as the beginning, He will forgive us every time when we ask sincerely.  He knows our heart and knows if we are sincere or not.  This gives credence to the statement, even while we live in a world where we will always be sinners, God sent His only son as atonement for our sins. 

3.  Our faith in God’s world cannot even come close to the reality of that faith.  We all have faith in the promises of Christ.  This faith tells us how beautiful the world of heaven must be, but the faith we have now is not even as large as a mustard seed.  Just think what a world must be like when our tiny faith becomes a reality.  If you were to believe a star would be better over there versus here, it would obey you and move.  We just cannot imagine.

 

God has something in store for us that even when we do our best to imagine it, we have not even thought of it in detail enough to be the size of a mustard seed. Amen 

Expectations of Timothy, sermon by George Hollis, Sept. 28 September 29, 2010

 

This week’s Scripture dealt with the hope we all have in God through Christ.  There is nothing beyond God’s reach.  In any situation and any circumstance God can effect change through those who love God.  Jeremiah gave hope to the people in Jerusalem in Jeremiah 32 when he purchased a track of land from his cousin Hanamel.  In this purchase Jeremiah is telling the people that one day God will return land and we will once again enjoy this land that we own.

The Psalmist in Psalm 91 gives praise to God who lets us live in the shelter of the Most High, saying that no matter what destruction awaits us God is faithful and trustworthy and will be there to rescue and save us.

In 1 Timothy 6 Paul is telling Timothy that no matter what happens to remain focused and take hold of the gift of eternal life.  That we are to always have faith on Jesus’ gift that there is no end to life but only a newness in life with Christ.  Paul goes further to say that doing good work in Christ is like building a foundation for our eternal home. 

Then, as if those who chose the Lectionary readings needed to remind us, there is one way, and only one way, that hope is lost.  In Luke 16 Jesus tells a parable about two people on either side of eternity.  A rich man in torture and a poor man named Lazarus in the arms of Abraham.  Hope does end if we live a whole life and never use the gifts that Christ has given us to love and help another person.  Can a person live a whole life in selfishness without ever loving and helping another person?  Yes.  Jesus could not be more clear, that once these bodies give out, a line is cast.

The sermon focused on Paul’s expectations of Timothy in making him the Overseer or Bishop of the church in Ephesus.  Timothy felt inadequate.  He was scared of the responsibility, and he was not sure he could live up to Paul’s expectation.  If we are honest with ourselves we must say that every time we are asked to do something we have not done before for the Lord, that there is an initial feeling of inadequacy.  But like Jeremiah and the Psalmist, let us remember who is there to help us, God. 

We are being called by God to bring the message of hope to a younger group of people.  We have never had a great deal of success at doing just what God is asking us to do.  God will never reveal the outcome of our hard work.  God requires, demands, expects, us to have faith that our hard work will be for good.  God expects us to call upon the power of God through the Holy Spirit to help.  God will never ask us to do anything that does not require the help of a divine power.  God is already bringing people and circumstances in our life to help. 

As the people of God, the question is, “Can we see providence when it is occurring?”  Will we let our fears of inadequacy cause our destruction?  With all the sincerity in us, let us be united and remain steadfast in our knowledge that God is with us and is moving mountains to help bring about change.  Amen.

Gratitude toward God, sermon by George Hollis, Sept. 19 September 18, 2010

As we read through the Lectionary Readings for Sept. 19, it seems best to focus mostly on the parable that Jesus gave us in Luke 16:1-13. Jesus is explaining to the 12 disciples how all property is owned by God and that we could choose to be grateful and content for what God has given us and to use God’s property wisely or with wisdom from the Holy Spirit.

The parable starts out with God being a rich person who has a manager looking over the use of a portion of God’s property.  At this point it is important for us to understand that we are the manager of God’s property.  God has given every person on the planet a certain amount of property, talent, intellect, motivation, physical prowess and so on.  Many times because of the fallen world we live in the amount of property allotted to us is incorrect.  Somehow what is ours has been taken by another person.

God “hears” that one of his managers, i.e. one of us, has been squandering God’s resources.  This brings up the critical questions for us to examine to understand what God is teaching us.  One, who cried out to God so he could “hear” about this injustice and two, what exactly does squandering mean?  First, how did God hear of this misuse of his property.  Someone is in pain or has been hurt and cannot find a way to safety and has prayed to God for help.  This person thought that I or someone else might could help them but we did not.  Instead we used God’s resources on ourselves and the person in need was not helped.

 God hears the prayers and says to His manager, “What is this I hear about you? You cannot be my manager any more.”  The manager immediately goes about forgiving others of the debts they may have with God.  In this way, these other individuals will accept this person into their homes after God takes away all this person’s resources.  God sees the irony in the way the manager behaves.  It seems the manager knows how to make friends for himself with individuals who are not yet Christians.  But, we who call ourselves Christians are not nearly as shrewd in dealing with ourselves. 

Now it is time for us to answer the question, “What does squandering God’s resources mean?”  God desires us through the Holy Spirit given to us by Jesus Christ to live a peaceful quiet life that is content with what God has given us.  When we believe that God has made a mistake and we should have more allocated to us, then we have started a process of squandering God’s property given to us.  Ungratefulness is the first sign of misuse of God resources.  In our effort to get more, we may start to use what we do have on ourselves, not on our needs but on unfruitful material pleasures.  It should be noted that God does provide us with things that are pleasurable and we should be grateful.  But, it is when we excessively try to obtain resources for ourselves that causes the hurt of other people. 

God cares about us and how we use the resources He has given us.  He cares about the resources He has given this church.  We are fortunate to be in a church that is blessed with generous, loving people. 

The best thing God could hear is a prayer where someone is saying, “Thank you Lord for sending Cahaba Valley Church to be in my path.  They have helped in ways that I never could have done by myself.”  On the other hand, what if God hears a prayer, “God I went to Cahaba Valley Church as you asked but the pastor was not there and I could not reach the pastor on the cell phone.”  Would that be cause for God to say. “What is this I hear about you? You can no longer be my manager.”  Forgive me Lord for the times I have squandered your property.  Amen

Talking to God in our most private moments, George Hollis, Sept. 12 September 13, 2010

The key phrase in the Lectionary readings for me this week was from Psalm 51:6, “You desire Truth in the inward being; therefore teach me Wisdom in my secret heart.”  King David is writing this right after Nathan the prophet confronted David about the horrible behavior King David displayed in his affair with Bathsheba.

 David was completely working under the assumption that a person is guilty and needs to repent if they have been caught rebelling against God.  David was trying all sorts of ways to cover up the affair and therefore not having to repent.  But when Nathan confronted him, it was like he was jarred by an explosive revelation.  He had not told Nathan about the affair, and he was sure that Bathsheba had not told Nathan about the affair, and it was not Uriah (he was already dead), who could it have been?

Joab, the leader of the army, might have made a connection especially since it was Uriah that carried the note from David to Joab to have Uriah killed.  But, Joab would never gossip about his King.  How could Nathan have known?

There was only one answer. God was with David even in David’s in-most thoughts.  Wow! God is in that secret place that everyone knows about but never talks about.  When we are deep within ourselves completing a complicated strategy, God is there in the room with us.  It is a Holy place where there are only two people there, God and you. David realized this and that was when he wrote the verse,  ”You desire Truth in the inward being; therefore teach me Wisdom in my secret heart.”

The word Truth in Scripture means that there is “one” creating God, who has three natures, (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost).  It is the Truth that God has created us for a purpose.  It is the Truth that God needs us in heaven with a loving, clean, and righteous heart.  It is not the fact that we sin that makes us unfit for the Kingdom, it is the fact we sin and that we do not understand that sin is rebellion from God.  Also, we sin and do not know we can ask God for forgiveness.

 It must have been extremely emotional for David to realize that he and God can have a conversation in that secret place where before David thought he was alone.  Also, the word Wisdom is used in Scripture to mean the Learning how to go God’s way.  David wanted to be taught about God’s will for his life directly from God in that secret place.  No longer was there a direct need to hear God’s message from a Prophet or a Priest. 

David could see what our relationship with God would be like after Jesus Christ came and removed the barriers.  It is comforting to us to know that we each have that very Holy Place where we can talk to God. Amen.

Remolding and free will, sermon by George Hollis, Sept. 5 September 6, 2010

This week the four lectionary readings came together in greater clarity than in most weeks.  The three themes developed were :

1) Our lives are imagined by God while we are still elements within the earth.

2) Whenever we stray and go our own way God can remold us as a Nation or as an individual into God’s image, the image God has for us, any time we submit to be remolded, and

3) When we ask God to remold us, God allows us to leave out any part we choose, but, it is God’s deep desire that we hold nothing back.  As God is remolding us He wants us to give every part, natural and artificial, we have and hold nothing back.  An underlying theme in all of this is “Free Will.”  God is all about keeping free will sacred.  It is always our choice. 

 

The lessons taught us how the Hebrew people were remolded from slaves to faithful conquerors in the 40 years they lived in the wilderness.  How God remolded the Hebrew people as he let them scatter in the Diaspora where when they did came back to Jerusalem, they were different people, (re-molded), and 3) God is remolding Cahaba Valley Church and the individuals within the church right now as we go through this period in time.

 

It would not be appropriate to ask, ”Is God reshaping us right now?”  God is always reshaping and remolding all the time, it is what God does.  This leads to the question, “What is God reshaping us into?”  This too is unanswerable.  God reveals His plan for us in small pieces, usually one day at a time.  We are only able to discern this reshaping as we view in hindsight.

 

Cahaba Valley Church has accomplished many extraordinary activities for God – great things.  After worship this week, a person who led one of these great adventures expressed how hard it was.  There was a moment of reflection that if God had revealed the whole plan at one time, would it be too overwhelming or would it be even more exciting.  Most likely it would be so overwhelming that it would scar the actual plan God had in mind.  God thinks a lot bigger than we do.

 

Right now God is calling us to clean the area where the old playground is on Friday, September 10th and Saturday the 11th.  God has not revealed what the new playground will look like.  God has not revealed how successful the effort will be.  God is demanding quality as he always does, not a make-do effort.  Vicki is all ready to draw up the plan for the new playground but God just has not given us enough information yet. 

 

This is always the way of God. Can we have the faith to know that our current activity is good, and that we’ll have to work in the blind, albeit with faith, in these early stages.  God, we know you give us advice for our good.  Please help us Lord to have faith that you will reveal more and more of your plan as we go along.  Amen

Sermon, Jim Taylor, July 25, 2010 July 31, 2010

Conventional wisdom tells us that, as a rule, men as opposed to women are reluctant to ask for directions when they are lost.  Now why is that?  Maybe we don’t like to admit that we’re lost. Maybe we don’t like to admit that we can’t logically figure it out on our own.

But at any rate that seems to be the rule, but there are always exceptions to the rule. One notable exception is when one of the disciples says to Jesus, Lord, teach us to pray. Because in a spiritual this disciple is saying that he is lost and that he can’t logically figure it out on his own. And I find it interesting that the Bible doesn’t tell us which disciple did the asking. Why the Bible doesn’t tell us this is anybody’s guess. But I have a theory. The disciples knew that somebody had to ask but, being typical men, none of them wanted to be the one who did the asking.  So they drew straws or cast lots or whatever and finally the disciple who lost out agreed to ask but only on condition of anonymity.  Again that’s just my theory.

Jesus responds with 3 major points. We all love slogans and Jesus’ response lends itself to just that. He basically tells us when we pray to: Keep it short, Keep it up, Keep the faith.

Point 1. Keep it short. The first part of Jesus response was to give us the Lord’s Prayer. This is the part that many of us know by heart. Like most of you, I can remember the Lord’s Prayer practically as far back as I can remember. The first impression that the Lord’s Prayer made on me was that it was short. Especially the version found in today’s reading from the gospel of Luke. In fact it was a lot shorter than the prayers that people in the church prayed.  Sometimes the Methodist preacher would be in the middle of his big long prayer and he would invite us all to join in with Lord’s Prayer and so we would do that only we wouldn’t say amen at the end. And then he would go on with his prayer and finally say amen. The Methodist preacher’s prayers were plenty long. But the local hometown record was held by one of the deacons at our neighboring Baptist church. As I remember it, it lasted at least 15 minutes: and we were standing up to boot.

Now we had all been taught in Sunday school that Jesus was the Son of God. And so I would have expected Jesus to say this huge awesome prayer even longer than that Baptist deacon’s.  And so I was surprised at the brevity of the Lord’s Prayer.  That was my first impression of the Lord’s Prayer and one of my earliest impressions of Jesus and they were good impression.

And so, in the Luke account, Jesus tells us to keep it short by way of example. And in the companion scriptural passage in Matthew, he actually tells us this in as many words. Jesus admonishes us against ‘babbling on like pagans’. What’s the point? Jesus asks. For God already knows your needs.

I remember 2 years ago when I first stood here and spoke to the church. I was talking to Tom Carlisle beforehand. I mentioned that my worst nightmare would be to inadvertently say something that goes against the scriptures. And I remember Tom reassured me saying something to the effect of ‘well if you’re going to blaspheme just be brief about it.’ You’ll be judged more on brevity than on content. Good advice indeed! And I like to think that Jesus would say the same thing. So 2 years after the fact, thanks Tom for the good advice.  Typically, we look to the teachings of Jesus for spiritual guidance, but sometimes his teachings are real down to earth.  Sometimes He just tells us what makes good common sense. I think that’s the case here.

Point 2. Keep it up. Now this is the part which I didn’t learn by heart growing up. I guess maybe it just didn’t get a lot of publicity in my church.  But when I got to verse 8 it was like running into a brick wall. And so I read it over and over in several different versions struggling to get a clearer understanding of what verse 8 is saying. In all versions that I read, Jesus tells us that we must pray with persistence. This is an important point. We do need to pray regularly not just when we have a specific need. You don’t want to be like me when I was a freshman in school. Whenever I would visit my parents on the weekend, they knew I had run out of money or clean underwear.

So that’s all fine and good. But it’s the way Jesus explains this that challenged my idea of prayer and how prayer works. He explains it with a parable of a man who needs bread and goes to his friend’s house to ask for help in the middle of the night knocking on the door.  The friend doesn’t like being disturbed in the middle of the night. But Jesus says that the friend will help you NOT because he’s your friend but because you persist in asking even to the point of being a nuisance. Here are excerpts from some of the different versions of verse 8 that I checked out on the internet.

… yet because of your impudence[a] he will rise and give you whatever you need..
.. he will get up and give you as much as you need, simply because you are not ashamed to keep on asking….yet because of your persistence he will rise and give you as much as he needs.
… if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.

And this is my favorite. It comes from the version known simply as The Message.
…if you stand your ground, knocking and waking all the neighbors, he’ll finally get up and get you whatever you need.

Now in this parable the man in need of bread symbolizes ourselves and the friend with the bread asleep in his house symbolizes God. And asking the man for help symbolizes the act of prayer.  So translating this parable into real life terms Jesus seems to be saying that if we want our prayer to be answered, we should pray with persistence, pray shamelessly, pray boldly, pray with impudence, even stand our ground before God waking the neighbors with our prayer. Is Jesus saying that’s how prayer works?  That’s pretty strong stuff especially for someone who was brought up to believe that taking no for an answer is the ‘Christian thing to do’.

So, am I taking Jesus’ parable too literally?  Well, yes.  And it can be dangerous to take a parable too literally.  Just ask the poor soul who cut off his right hand and then used his remaining good hand to gouge out his right eye. I don’t really think that Jesus is telling us that God answers prayer because we’re disturbing the neighbors. Okay, so what is he saying? Well the purpose of a parable is to make a point and Jesus certainly does do that.

Let’s go back again to my days in school. I can remember instances when I wanted to ask this good looking girl for a date but I was insecure about it because I feared rejection. There was an element of that in the disciple’s question. Reading a passage of scripture we don’t know body language or tone of voice, we can only read the words. But I think Jesus sensed that there was a certain insecurity, a certain fear of rejection in the disciple’s question.  And we know of other instances in the Bible where Jesus responds to weak faith with powerful encouraging words.

I think Jesus is simply telling us in no uncertain terms to be unafraid to go to God in prayer.  This is akin to half time in the locker room.  Jesus is trying to coach us, shake us, and even shock us out of our insecurity about prayer. Stand your ground before God and wake the neighbors with your prayer if need be. Maybe you’ve heard the old proverb “Fortune favors the bold.”  Mother Teresa advises us to “Cultivate holy boldness for God helps the strong.” This is essentially the same thing that Jesus is telling us about prayer.  Here again, Jesus is telling us something that just makes good common sense.

Point 3. Keep the faith. Some Biblical scholars believe that this part of Jesus’ response addresses the real question of the disciple. This disciple is not asking Jesus how to pray. He already knows that. No doubt he has heard Jesus pray many times before.  It’s likely that they have all prayed together on occasion. He even makes reference to the fact that John the Baptist has already taught his followers how to pray.

What he’s really asking Jesus is to learn how to believe in prayer. How to have faith that prayer will be answered. And even though he has faith that prayer in general is answered, this disciple, like us, longs for reassurance that his prayers will be answered. It becomes a matter of not only having faith in prayer but also having faith in oneself.  Some students of the Bible say that this is the real heart of the disciple’s question.  After challenging us with the parable about persistence, Jesus reassures us by saying if your grumpy, sleepy friend will help you in the middle of the night, how much more will God help those who ask for it.

And I think this ties back in with why Jesus made such a big deal out of being persistent.  Prayer, and more importantly, faith in prayer is like training for a marathon. We don’t just go out there and run 26 miles. We have to train with persistence sometimes over a very long period of time. Then when the race day comes, we can have faith that we will be able to finish the race. And so it is with prayer.

We pray with persistence, maybe for a long period of time.  Then when the day comes that we have great need of prayer, we can have faith that our prayers will be answered. The answer may not be quick in coming more is the need for persistence, and the answer may not be yes. It’s been said that all prayers are answered, sometimes the answer is no. This is more than just a clever turn of phrase because it’s also been said that God’s blessings can come from a No just as well as from a Yes.

Now that’s so easy for me to say and hard for us to understand, and it’s really hard to accept.  But Jesus understood and accepted that.  In Gethsemane, the night before the crucifixion, Jesus prayed for his life and the answer was no. But where might we be if the answer had been yes, where would we be if God had spared Jesus the ordeal of crucifixion. Jesus physical nature wanted to live.  But in his spirit he knew that the answer had to be no. And He acknowledged this when he spoke those 4 famous little words. “Thy will be done. “And where have we heard that before? Thy will be done.

As short as the Lord’s Prayer is already, theologians say that it could be reduced to just those 4 words.  Jesus taught us to pray those words and when his day of reckoning came he PRACTICED WHAT HE PREACHED.  Now we can never hope to pray as Jesus did but with persistence and a little faith, we will know in our heart, these words that we know by heart.

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

A Basket of Ripe Fruit, John Taylor, July 18, 2010 July 19, 2010

We will begin with the letter to the Colossians, Paul has written to the church there to address some false teaching that had come in.  After a brief introduction he gets to the matter at hand by addressing what is most important, and that is who Jesus is.

Only after putting things in context with the Supremacy of Jesus does he address the false teaching.  He tells us that all that is needed is Jesus, He is:
The image of the invisible GodThe first born over all nations
By him all things were created, things in heaven and on the earth
He is before all thingsIn him all things hold together
He is the head of the church
He is the beginning and the first born from among the dead
God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in him
God planned to reconcile the world to him through Jesus

In other words, all we need is Jesus. We are called on to continue our faith, holding to the belief that he will make us holy and perfect before God. Any thing that tells us that we are not good enough is not from God

Then we have this story about Mary and Martha.  Jesus has come to town and they have opened up their home to him. I am sure a lot of people crowded into the house to hear Jesus. Martha went about doing the things that she needed to provide for her guests. She got mad because Mary would not help her.

Jesus told her Mary had made the right choice to be with him. I can understand Martha being upset, she was trying to be a good host. But the story again is the most important thing for us is Jesus.

And God asked Amos what he saw, and Amos said he saw a basket of ripe fruit. You know what ripe fruit is all about, it is the time when the fruit is perfect. There is a window of time after the fruit ripens and before it begins to turn bad that it is to be picked and used.

I had to think here of CVC. We have been at this walk with God for a long time. We have had some great teachers and examples along the way. We have had the opportunity to learn that it is all about Jesus, that we should accept women in equal roles in the church, that we should accept people from other churches and other races.

We certainly have not arrived but we have come a ways. I wonder if we are not a basket of ripe fruit. We are an older church, George says we are a spiritually mature church. We have been blessed in many ways.

If we are ripe, then it is time for us to be picked and used. We are not too old to be used by God in a new way. I believe God is calling us to a new work here, one that we are ripe for, to spread the news about Jesus. I do not know what that is but I pray He will make it known to us.

Our Colossians readings today stopped at verse 28. Verse 29 says that Paul is doing his work by the energy of Jesus that is working so powerfully in him. May we work with that same energy, to whatever he calls us to do.

Sermon, George Hollis, July 11 July 12, 2010

The lectionary readings for July 11 focused our attention what Jesus was telling us through the story of the Good Samaritan.

In Amos 7: 1-7, we see that God has ordered events in the world for good, where He built the wall perfect to the plumb line. Second, we see that there is another plumb line, this one measures our efforts at building a life. God measures where the two are not in sync.  God measures our good and bad decisions, because He cares and desires for us to live according to the good life He desires for us. But it is our choice.  If we choose poorly, God will let us live without Him.

In Psalm 82, we hear that God has established the system of Leadership. Leaders are to help the weak, the homeless, and the fatherless. Leaders can choose to live selfishly in the position God gave them. Like everybody else, when you choose poorly, God allows you to feel the full consequences of your behavior.

In Psalm 25:v. 8, we read “Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.”  God forgives us and, as King David says, God instructs the sinner.

Colossians 1:1-14 show us that, if we can follow God, through Christ, God will rescue us from this world and give us the promised Holy Spirit story to have meaning for us today.

Who would be the Good Samaritan in this story today?  Jesus wanted this person to be 1) a socially-accepted person to dislike, 2) located in the very place where he is disliked, 3)  from a country that is disliked, and 4) to be of a religion different than Judaism, one the Jews would see as heretical.

The number one disliked group in America may be atheists, so let’s use the example of a Chinese Buddhist who has become an atheist.

In our story, everyone is on their way to Leeds, 17 miles from Birmingham, to a Methodist National Convention.  Even the Methodist lawyer, a Methodist bishop, a Methodist deacon, in a hurry to get to the Convention.  The Chinese Buddhist atheist is going too, in order to protest.

Of course the atheist drops all his plans to help the robbed Jewish person, even prepays for two months at the Holiday Inn. The story ends with Jesus telling the Methodist Lawyer to go and do likewise.

May we understand from this parable that the person who loves and cares for other people is judged good by God, not a person that might have a high standing in the Christian church.