February 16, 2014
6th Sunday after Epiphany
Psalm 119:1-8; Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Recalculating…
A long time
ago, when my husband and I got our first GPS, we set the voice to “Sarah,” a
nice, polite Australian lady. Her accent
amused us as she would say things like “Turn right on Meriwether Drive,” and there were other
street names she would just completely butcher.
And we quickly found out what happened when you didn’t listen to her:
“Recalculating…” But Sarah’s ways were
not always our ways, such as when the new part of 540 opened around Raleigh and
Sarah thought we were driving through the wilderness and kept trying to
redirect us to actual roads. Now, our
ways are not always God’s ways, either, and that’s the choice put forth in our
Deuteronomy reading this morning. We can
follow God’s ways, or we can choose not to do what God tells us to do. The Jerusalem Bible puts it this way:
“…loving Yahweh your God, obeying his voice, and clinging to him; for in this
your life consists.” Your life consists
of loving God, obeying him, and clinging to him. That is God’s way, and our psalm this morning
says, “Happy are those who walk in God’s ways.”
So, since we
know we should follow them, and we have a pretty good idea of what God's ways are, the question becomes: how do we learn, or re-learn,
or be reminded of, God’s ways? Anyone
who’s been to Orange
more than a couple of times ought to be able to answer that with three words that
all start with ‘G’ – Gather, Grow, and Go.
That’s right, we learn and are reminded of God’s ways, how to live and
what life consists of, through gathering, growing, and going.
Every Sunday
we gather for worship. We intentionally
take time to focus on God and not on ourselves. Worship isn’t about us but about God. See, what happens when we gather is that
we learn and are reminded of who we are.[1] When we worship God, we remember that we are not
God, and neither is anything or anyone else.
God alone is God, and God’s way is to have no other gods before
him. He alone is holy, he alone saves
us, he alone is worthy of our worship and praise (even if we are in the middle
of ACC basketball season!). Here at
church we are reminded of how we fit into God’s larger story, that we are not
writing the story, we are part of God’s story.
We are not in charge, God is. We
are not responsible for the salvation of the world, God is. We join in his work, and we’ll talk more
about that later. But Jesus is the
Savior of the world, not you or me. When
we come to the table for communion, we remember that we’re all equal and of
equal worth and there is a place at the table for everyone. When we have a baptism or reaffirm
our baptismal covenant, we remember that we are all part of God’s family and
the role that we play in each other’s lives.
We are to increase one another’s faith, confirm one another’s hope, and
perfect one another in love. We commit
to participate in the life of the church, through our prayers, our presence,
our gifts, our service, and our witness.
This is what we are reminded of when we gather to worship.
So, how do we worship? On page 2 in the Hymnal is the Basic Pattern
of Worship. First, we gather together in
the Lord’s name. Then, it says, “The
Scriptures are opened to the people through the reading of lessons, preaching,
witnessing, music, or other arts and media.”
This is proclamation: “the Scriptures are opened.” What a beautiful phrase! And then we respond to the Word: we pray, we sing,
we might have a baptism or communion, but if the Scriptures are indeed opened,
then there is some sort of response. If
you not just hear, but receive the Word, then it moves you to respond in
some way. It moves you to sing, it moves
you to pray, it moves you to give, it moves you to become more involved in the
church, or come to the table when we have communion; something happens. When God’s Word goes out, it does not come
back empty.[2] There is a response. And there is thanksgiving given for the response,
even if it’s simply Pastor Ken or myself saying, “Thanks be to God for his Word
to us today.” We give thanks for the
Word. And then we are sent forth. We gather to learn and be reminded of who we
are, which is important, but we can’t stop there.
From worship we are invited to grow
in love of God and neighbor. This is
what discipleship is about. The
Christian walk is a journey as we become more Christ-like and go on to
perfection. This isn’t a faith where
you’re saved and then you’re done. St. Benedict
had a saying: “Always we begin again.”
Every day we again decide to live according to God’s ways. Every day we again decide to be Christian in
our thoughts, words, and actions. Every
Sunday we again decide to come to church instead of sleep in late or schedule a
game or go to an early brunch. Now,
eventually, this becomes a habit and it’s not a conscious decision each
day. However, when God’s ways are new or
when you get out of the habit, it does become something you have to think about
and make it a point to do.
Now, the good news is that you’re not
in this alone. We have a men’s covenant
group that meets every Thursday morning for breakfast at Bob Evans. We have a couple women’s groups. We have coed groups. We have small small groups and large
ones. There are ones that meet Sunday
morning, which we call Sunday School, and ones that meet during the week. There are ones that meet here at the church
and others that meet elsewhere. The
point is that while we gather in large community for worship, a lot of
discipleship happens in small groups and that’s also where you’re most likely
to find a couple friends who can hold you accountable if you ask them to. It feels like our society shies away from
accountability, especially from asking others to hold you accountable. However, this is a good Methodist practice,
going back to John Wesley. And when you have someone you’re accountable to, you’re more likely to
get it done, whether it’s your daily devotional time or making it to church
each week or attending Sunday school.
It’s ok to ask someone to look after you, it’s not a weakness on your
part, it’s part of building community.
Since I
finished seminary four years ago I’ve met every two weeks with two other
clergywomen and they’re the ones who ask not just how I’m doing, but how’s my
prayer life, am I reading my Bible every day, am I reading my Bible for me and not just for sermon preparation or other things, and perhaps if I tried doing it at
this time and in this place then I might be more successful. Because they want me to succeed. When someone holds you accountable, they
don’t want to see you fail and draw away from God. They want to see you grow and they will do
what they can to help and make suggestions as to how you might improve. Our small groups want to see you grow in your
faith and are here to facilitate that, both in the group and in your
personal devotional time.
So, next question, why does God want
us to grow in love of him and neighbor? So
that… we can join God in his world-transforming work. This is the mission of the church: to make
disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. We don’t transform the world, God does
that. But he also invites us to join in
his work of transformation, of redemption, of healing. This happens when we serve with the poor,
when we work for justice, when we care for those who are hurting, when we share
our food with the hungry, when we visit the sick and those in prison, when we treat strangers
as fellow children of God. Jesus tells
us that when we do such things, we do them to him. These are God’s ways. And they’ve always been God’s ways. My Disciple II class recently finished the
Old Testament half of our study and we read through a lot of the laws in
Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, and while they can get tedious because they
are so detailed, many of them are all about justice and compassion. Listen to some of these:
“You shall not watch your neighbor’s
ox or sheep straying away and ignore them; you shall take them back to their
owner.”[3] Sounds like something Jesus might say,
doesn’t it?
Or how about: “You shall not keep for
yourself the wages of a laborer until morning.”[4]
Or, this was one of my favorites: “If
there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community..., do not be
hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor.”[5]
That sounds exactly like something Jesus would say. God’s ways have not changed over time. He is still about the work of transforming
the world and about having his people join him in that work.
Our texts are clear that we are to
follow God’s ways and we learn what they are from the Bible. When we go off course, God will redirect us back. In this case, we don’t know better
than the GPS. So how we go about
following them and keeping them are by gathering in worship, growing in faith,
and going out into the world to join God in his work. Thanks be to God.
