Ministries

Love One Another
1 John 4:7-21  
Belmont UMC—May 6, 2012
Ken Edwards, preaching

Audio - MP3

Some of the churches I have served have had children’s sermons as a part of the main worship service. I found writing a sermon for the children who would come forward to the chancel to be more challenging than writing this sermon. The children would often span the ages from 3 to 8 years and trying to find words that would communicate a theological concept with them was daunting. I often failed to communicate.

One Sunday, in one of those early smaller churches, I found myself sitting on the chancel kneeler, with five small children sitting on the floor in front of me. I was preaching on the passage we used a few weeks ago, where Thomas, the disciple, insisted on seeing the resurrected Jesus for him self. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who believe but have not seen.” I wanted to help the children think about things they believe but could not see.

I suggested that we cannot see feelings and that’s where my logic went askew. I said, “For instance, love, we can’t see love, can we?” A little girl named Amber, stood up immediately, and with her hands on her hips and facing me, said, “You can see love. It looks like this.” At that she put her arms around my neck and hugged me. When she released her arms, tears ran down my face, I looked out at the congregation and said something dopey like, “I don’t have a clue what I was talking about.” I offered a short prayer to dismiss the children and tried to compose myself for the rest of the service.

The writer of 1 John reminds us that “No one has ever seen God.” If little Amber were paraphrasing this, she would add, “But we know what love looks like and God is love.”

God is love.  The writer states this very simply and profoundly. God is love. This is how God chooses to define God’s self. Everything that God is and everything that God does, creating and recreating, redeeming, sustaining, renewing, resurrecting, all of God’s activity, is rooted in love. This love defines God and God’s love defines us. Or in the words of William Sloane Coffin, “God’s love doesn’t seek value, it creates it. It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved we have value.” (The Courage of Love, p.11)

The New Testament writers used a Greek word that wasn’t used much in Greek culture to define this love of God. The word is agape. The more familiar word for love in Greek is eros, which is usually associated with romantic love. Frederick Buechner, using thoughts from Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 13, compares the two and suggests that the mantra of eros is “I want, I want.” and then adds, “Not so with agape. Agape does not want. It gives. It is not empty. It is overflowing. Paul strains to get the distinction right. Agape is patient, eros champs at the bit. Agape puts up with anything, eros insists on having everything its own way. Agape is kind—never jealous, boastful, rude. It does not love because, but simply loves—the way the rain falls or the sun shines. It bears all things up to and including even its own crucifixion.” (Secrets in the Dark, “Paul Sends His Love” p. 203)

The writer of 1 John reminds us of what love is not. Love is not fear. God’s love has the power to dispel fear. When our older sons were in high school they came to me ask if they could go with some of their friends to another church to something called “Judgment House.” I was familiar with this event that happened around the time of Halloween. It was staged at a local church to depict what might happen to teenagers who make the wrong decision—the point being that they wind up in hell. I refused to let my sons go and described what they would encounter there and then said, “If you are going to be Christ followers I want you to be loved into that way of life, not scared into it.”

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” (1 John 4:18)

God is love. And if God is love, we will want to love one another. Hate, like fear, is the antithesis to the love of God. If God abides in us we will love others, as God loves. And though no one can see God, everyone will be able to see the love of God in and through us.

This love sees the best in others and holds nothing back. It affirms others! Throughout scripture God chooses the unlikely, affirms the possibilities in them, awakens hope in them, and causes them to do great things.

I played the clarinet in Junior High School. I did not choose the clarinet—it chose me. I wanted a more manly instrument like the tuba but my great aunt had a clarinet that I could use for free and that was that.

Everyday we gathered in the band room and labored through practice. We had scheduled a Christmas program. Our parents and grandparents had been invited. Christmas songs were the focus of our practice. I sat among the other clarinetists, the saxophones behind us, the percussionists behind them, and we played, focused on the sheet music on the stands in front of us. I thought it was coming along, coming together.

One day the band director sent me to his office to retrieve something for him. As I came back to the band room I heard the band playing, “Deck the Halls.” It was horrible. It was a cacophony of squeaking woodwinds, faltering trumpets and trombonists desperately seeking the right note. The band director was standing in front of everyone laboring in dramatic gestures as though he was trying to pull the right sounds out of the band.

I was stunned and embarrassed. I wanted to quit. By the time the Christmas program arrived we were not much improved. My parents were there. This was not my father’s cup of tea--he much preferred coming to my Junior High basketball games. We were awful that night as I predicted and my parents sat in the crowd with hands clasped and smiles on their faces. They applauded dutifully after each piece of music. And after the concert my parents said, “That was wonderful. We’re so proud of you. You’ve really made a lot of progress.”

That night, in the 6th grade, I realized that my parents were liars. And my parents were lovers. They loved me and affirmed the best in me. I knew that night something about love. And in my high school years I played in a woodwind quintet and we were pretty good. I hung in there because my parents’ love summoned forth something in me that I could not do on my own.

Like the story of the Beauty and the Beast. The Beauty does not love the Beast for his looks, but her love makes him beautiful. God’s love is transformative. God’s love holds nothing back. We cannot see God, but we do know love when we see it and God is love. God’s love grows in us as we learn to love one another.     

This is the table of God’s love. This is the love one another table. The story the table tells us, the elements of bread and wine, and the great breadth of the table which makes room for everyone, reminds us that God is love, unconditional, unrelenting, unilateral, and sacrificial love. Here we are reminded that though we have never seen God, we have seen love, and God is love!

The Good Shepherd
John 10:11-18
Belmont UMC—April 29, 2012
Ken Edwards, preaching

A woman who had recently returned from a trip to Ireland and Scotland was showing her photos of the countryside to her friends, only to notice that almost all of the photos were of sheep. She had been so taken by the beauty of rolling hills lined stone walls and dotted by sheep. We tend to have an idyllic view of the themes of sheep and shepherds, as we read them in these well loved passages. And the concern about teaching or preaching on these passages is to avoid drifting toward the sentimental and maudlin.

Shepherding was not romantic or idyllic; it was work that was risky and sometimes boring. Shepherding could be very isolating work and one had to be on the lookout for danger 24 hours a day. In the days of the Hebrew Scriptures shepherds held a higher place of esteem. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and David had all be shepherds before taking on leadership status. But by the time of Jesus, shepherds were marginalized, and for Jesus to refer to himself as The Good Shepherd was scandalous and surprising.

When I was growing up there was a painting inside the doorway of the church we attended that depicted a smiling Jesus with a flock of sheep around him and he was gently holding a small, perfectly white lamb. But that is probably not the image Jesus had in mind when he referred to himself as The Good Shepherd. The word “good” can be translated “model” or “noble” or “faithful” in this reference. In Ezekiel 34 God is presented as the shepherd, who feeds, guides, protects and seeks the lost sheep. At one point in Jesus’ ministry he is moved with compassion for the people because they are like sheep without a shepherd. And in John 10 Jesus links himself with God and claims that his very work is in obedience to God, even to the point of great sacrifice.

The Good Shepherd offers security and provision for the sheep. But this does not mean that we are immune to tragedy or suffering. The Psalmist who gave us the beautiful words of the 23 Psalm was living a very, very human existence. The Psalmist has known hardship. The Psalmist has known loss and grief and has traveled that valley that is in the shadow of death. The Psalmist has enemies. Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, who is best known for his book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, wrote a book on this Psalm, and in it he notes, “To say ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ is to say that we live in an unpredictable, often terrifying world, ever mindful of all the bad things that might happen to us and to those around us. . . . But despite it all, we can get up every morning to face that world because we know that there is Someone in that world who cares about us. . . . what is most important about God is that (God) is the presence that makes the world seem less frightening.” (The Lord is My Shepherd, p. 15)





Like the Psalmist we are living a very, very human existence. We never know what will happen when we greet each new day. But we know that Jesus looks over the flocks with compassion and the Risen Shepherd comes alongside of us to guide and strengthen us at every point. And in this reassuring presence we understand that we have everything that we need.

The Good Shepherd leads us. Sheep are different from other animals. Growing up in a farm family, I knew how to drive and herd cows into the barn or onto another pasture. But one cannot drive sheep because sheep follow the shepherd. If you try to drive them, they will run around and get behind you.

The Good Shepherd has an intimate relationship with the flock. Jesus said, “I know my own and my own know me.” We are told that in more primitive times and places we might imagine several different flocks and several different shepherds showing up at watering hole at the same time. The sheep mingled together and received nourishment, while the shepherds made the most of the opportunity for visiting and fellowship. But when the time came to move on, the shepherd would merely need to speak and the sheep of his folk would separate from the others and follow. They recognized his voice.

It’s takes time to build that kind of relationship. I have a pastor friend who was moved to a new church a few years ago. He had served his prior church for a long time and he was well loved. He could stand in front of those folks and say something like, “This is the direction we are now headed and the whole church would nod and agree to follow in that direction.” After a couple of weeks in his new church, he stood up and said, “This is where we are going.’ And the people did not respond. In fact it made them angry. Their refusal to follow was their way of saying, “We don’t know you yet. And we aren’t ready to follow you anywhere.” When he came to me for advice he seemed perplexed, but over the last two years he has worked to build that relationship and things are moving along smoothly.

We know and trust the Good Shepherd, and over time we have come to recognize the Shepherd’s voice. We are in the throes of another election cycle in our country. The rhetoric that we have been hearing will increase and become even more vitriolic. I don’t know about you but I’m taking on the same mental posture I take when I’ve tried to teach a teenage son how to drive. In my best King James language, let me say, “Braceth thine self!” We will hear lots of voices calling us in lots of conflicting directions. We will likely hear some voices that will try to tell us what a “real” Christian is. It’s important for us to be able to recognize the voice of The Good Shepherd so that will know if the voice we are hearing is consistent with the Shepherd’s.

The Good Shepherd’s flock is a bigger that we might think. Jesus speaks of one flock and one shepherd but offers this disclaimer, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.” The flock that Jesus gathers is a diverse and inclusive flock. It contains some sheep that get lost along the journey and some that have made getting lost a life habit. It contains Samaritans and tax collectors, and people of all political persuasions. The fact that the lowly, marginalized shepherds were the first visitors to see the Incarnated God, wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger, indicates that God is sending a message to our polarized world. The marginalized will be in God’s flock.

With this Good Shepherd we will find ourselves at every watering hole, shoulder to shoulder with all kinds of sheep. One flock does not imply sameness. And one of things I like about the United Methodist Church is that we are a diverse group and we are not of one mind on many different things, but we follow the voice of one Good Shepherd. We gather here for living water each week and we find ourselves loving the Shepherd and loving each other in spite of, and sometimes because of, our differences.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd who loves us sacrificially and leads us well. During this Easter Season we know that Jesus is the Risen Shepherd who is with us through trial and hardship and grief.

Embracing Easter
John 20:19-31
Belmont UMC—April 15, 2012
Ken Edwards, preaching

Audio - MP3

A seminary teacher once said to me that we cannot fully understand what the Bible is saying until we come to see the Bible stories as stories about ourselves. We might see ourselves in the stories of reluctant servants. Next week our children’s musical will focus on the reluctance of Moses. We might see ourselves in the story of Peter’s fear and failure of Holy Week. We can certainly find ourselves in today’s story of a post resurrection appearance of Jesus.

The only difficulty we have with these stories is that we have read them so often that we are tempted to lose sight of the tension and the uncertainty that the disciples must have been facing.

Jesus appears to the disciples who are huddled in fear behind locked doors. Have you ever felt the fear of the uncertain? You hear every sound, the creaking of an old house, the howl of the wind, the snapping of a tree limb. I once served a church about the age of this church building and at night, especially when I was there alone working on a sermon, it always sounded like someone was walking around. One night the police called me to say there was a report of a prowler. They arrived and checked the doors and found one unlocked. I drove over to the church to meet them at 2 AM and one of the police officers said, “I went in and though I kept hearing footsteps, I never found anyone.” He was spooked. I said, “It always sounds like that at night.” Together we went through the building and checked every room and closet and locked up the doors and went home.

The disciples are afraid. And Jesus appears to them and spoke words of peace to them. I can picture them gasping and reaching for one another in their fear. They are all there to see this manifestation, except for Thomas. Peter is the disciple who speaks without thinking. Thomas is the disciple who always says what everyone else is thinking. When Jesus said, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going and how can we know the way.” (John 14:3-5) Thomas wants more information. He refuses to rely on the account of the disciples’ Jesus sighting, in much the same way they had disbelieved Mary’s story of seeing Jesus in the garden.

In today’s story Jesus makes a second appearance a week later to the house where they were staying. They are still locked in. Jesus comes and stands before them and invites Thomas to see and believe.

There is so much grace in this story! Jesus repeatedly offers himself to the fearful disciples. Jesus meets them in the garden, behind locked doors, on the road to Emmaus, along the Sea of Galilee where they returned fishing and Jesus continues to offer himself until the disciples have what they need. Primarily, this story is not about Thomas or his doubt, but it is about Jesus, who comes to the disciples regardless of their fear, their dead bolted doors, their skepticism, and their reluctance.

Throughout scripture, from the earliest story of God looking for Adam and Eve in the garden, to God seeking Moses out in Midian, God seeking Jonah under his gourd, Jesus greeting John and Andrew who are preoccupied with mending their nets, Jesus calling Zaccheus down out of hiding in a tree, Jesus confronting Paul along the Damascus Road, to these stories centered around the story of the resurrection, we see the nature of God to seek us out, to call us by name, to offer the generosity of grace, and to call us to become a part of the important work of God in the world.

During the last few decades churches have been encouraged to create seeker friendly services. Seeker friendly usually means services that are stripped down, simplified and communicated and explained in a way that makes everyone feel at home and allows everyone to feel a sense of belonging. I agree with this concept of exceptional hospitality. But theologically, I would argue that we are not the ones doing the seeking—God is. And the most meaningful worship, no matter the style or form, is worship that allows the worshipper to realize that God has come seeking her or him to offer the gift of grace.

A Matter of Life and Death
John 20:1-18
Belmont UMC—April 8, 2012
Ken Edwards, preaching

Audio - MP3

I came home late one afternoon and turned the television on. The local news was airing and there was late breaking news. A local construction crew had been digging new sewer lines in one neighborhood. The ditches were long and deep and one of the workers was in the bottom of a ditch when the earth caved in, burying him alive.

Workers were frantically digging to rescue the man. They were using hand tools for fear of injuring him further, if he was in fact still alive. People had gathered around the site and some were standing in shock, their hands over their mouths or placed upon their hearts. Some were crying and others were praying. The news reporter was describing the desperation of the scene and interviewing co-workers trying to get the scoop on who the victim was, what he was like, if he had a family, and how the accident had happened. Already there were whispers of safety violations and a possible investigation.

I sat down on the sofa and watched as the scene unfolded on live TV. It seemed like a long time passed, too long for anyone to survive the situation. Finally, one of the diggers saw a patch of clothing and yelled, and the workers and others began to dig faster with their hands and small tools. The man’s hand appeared from beneath the dirt and then his head raised up out of the dirt of the pit. His head was covered in dirt but he was alive.
A quick effort was made to get him completely out of the dirt. Paramedics strapped oxygen to the man’s face as the digging continued.

Finally, the man was completely freed and lifted onto a stretcher. The reporter came to the man on the stretcher and began to ask him questions. He pulled the oxygen off and answered in quiet tones. She asked how he felt and he answered, “Relieved.”
And then she asked, “Did you ever lose hope?”  And I never forgot the man’s answer.
He looked up at her and paused and said in a slow Southern drawl, “Oh, no mam, I couldn’t afford to do that. Because, you see, hope was all I had.”    

It was early on Sunday when Mary went to the tomb and found it empty. The empty tomb was not a signal of hope for Mary; it was another sign of despair. Thinking that someone had taken Jesus’ body away, she went to tell Simon Peter and the beloved disciple and they came running. Through Peter’s eyes we see inside the empty tomb—we see the folded burial cloths, looking unused. What Peter saw did not signal hope for him either--for they did not understand what Jesus had meant when he spoke of rising from the dead.

It was later in the garden, when Mary, buried under the weight of grief and despair, heard the resurrected Jesus say her name, ‘Mary.’ And hope sprang up in her heart and she ran to tell the others, “I’ve seen the Lord.”

Easter hope has a way of surprising us. Edward Farley writes that many find little need for hope in our postmodern world. “What makes more sense to such a society is planning, organizing and predicting.” But we need hope when the unpredictable happens. We need a confidence and courage in the midst of life events that would normally evoke resignation.

Farley writes that “the most basic paradox of individual hoping is that it increases as the situation grows more desperate.” That is, ‘it gains strength as evidence piles up against it.” He cites the great spirituals of hope that arise out of slavery or symbols of hope in the drawings of children on the walls of concentration camps during the Holocaust.  (Deep Symbols, Their Postmodern Effacement and Reclamation, pp. 95-112) And we might add the hope that comes on Sunday morning after the darkness of Friday and the crucifixion.

Paul wrote that “endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us,” (Romans 5:4) because sometimes all we have is hope. Hope, like the grace of God, is a gift that comes when we most need it.

This Easter hope is for now and it is for the future. Easter hope is for the living and it is for the dying. Easter hope is for this life and it is for the life to come.

It is our tendency to think of the way the story of the resurrection speaks a word of hope for us when someone dies. And it does speak a powerful word of hope in those moments. At funerals, at the side of a grave, at bedside of a dying friend, we need to hear of a God who loves us and whose love for us does not end at death. We hear of a God who has provided a home for us, a home not made with hands but eternal in the heavens. We have funerals here all the time and we say those words, couched in the metaphors of scripture, and while we may not fully understand the mystery of eternal life, we believe that the empty tomb on Easter morning means that we will experience life beyond this life and that life will be in the hands of God.

I have lived long enough to have held the hands of many dying friends. I have prayed with them and loved them and watched them slip away from this place that is  deeply grounded in mortal things. I have wept at the loss of them, and I cannot help but believe that their lives, lived so beautifully and richly, continue to live on in some meaningful way in the home and the heart of God.

I thought about Reynolds Price this week and found myself rereading some gifts he left us. Price was one of my favorite authors and he died in January of last year. He was a novelist and poet (he even wrote the lyrics to two James Taylor songs) and he was person of faith, who wrote often of his faith in Christ. He was a United Methodist, a professor at Duke University, and a personal friend of Bishop Will Willimon. Price had faith in the God of the resurrection and he believed that the mystery and message of the empty tomb means that death does not have the last word.

But the resurrection is about living as well as dying. The New Testament writers wrote of the resurrection as the promise of God’s presence with us here and now. The resurrected Jesus is here, now, to remind us that God has not abandoned us in our need but comes to us with compassion and hope and we need not despair.

In 1984 author, Reynolds Price, was diagnosed with a malignant spinal tumor and the radiation treatments of that tumor left him paralyzed from the waist down. He would never walk again but he managed to live a full life. In his book, A Whole New Life (pp. 37-46), he chronicles the story of this difficult time in his life. Following his first surgery, a doctor told him that his hope for survival was in radiation therapy, and that there was a small risk that the radiation could damage his spinal column and he would not walk again.

In July of that year Price was propped up in bed, considering his options, when a strange thing happened to him. He suddenly found himself by the Sea of Galilee, a place he had visited in prior years. He was on the bank of the water and he saw men sleeping on the bank, men wearing tunics and one of them sat up and looked at him. It was Jesus and Jesus held out his hand and beckoned him to come to him. Price got up and walked toward Jesus and together the two men walked into the water. Jesus poured the water over his head and down his back, and over the tattoo that marked the spot of future radiation. Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven.” Price asked, “Am I cured?” Jesus responded, “That, too!”

Price believed that this vision was an “external gift” and he often spoke of this vision as the moment he knew that he could face whatever would come. I have never had a vision like that, but I can speak of times when I felt like giving up and the hope of Easter surprised me with peace and courage to continue on.

Easter hope is for now! We know people who are buried under the weight of despair, depression, and grief. We know that many live under the weight of oppression and exclusion. As Easter people we are called to come alongside of them, like Jesus himself would do and hold out hope for them. Easter hope is for now.

This Easter hope summons us to do great things. The early followers turned the world upside down because they believed that Jesus was alive. The church today must live as Easter people who live our faith as those who are inspired by the empty tomb.

We recently passed the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (April 4) I wonder what Dr. King would say to us on this Easter Sunday. He would likely tell us the truth about ourselves, because he was a prophetic preacher. Then he would tell us about a dream for a better world, a better world he had glimpsed from the top of a mountain, a world in which people of all races and nations would come together in peace and equality, a world in which justice would roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. And he would ask us if we truly believed in Easter. And we would say, “We do!” And he would tell us that Easter people are not people who rest on their laurels. Easter people live toward God’s dream!

Today we proclaim to the world that we have not given up on hope, because hope is what brings us here week after week, hope reminds us that in the face of death we live on in the heart of God, hope surprises us and enables us to experience the present and resurrected Christ in today, hope summons us to live God’s dream for a better world, because Christ is risen, Christ is risen, indeed. Alleluia! Alleluia!