Sermon October 8: Rule of Life
https://faithsbvt.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Rule-of-Life_E.mp3 Faith United Methodist Church October 8, 2017 Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost Rev. Kristabeth Atwood Scripture: Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 Prayer of Illumination: The weight of your words, your laws, your commandments and decrees can become an impossible burden, Lord, if we allow them to overwhelm and crush us. Yet they were meant to be life-giving, vital and alive – the foundation for our lives, the chief cornerstone of your church, the living temple of God. As we reflect upon your laws, guide our words and our thoughts. Amen. Sermon: Rule of Life Sometimes it feels good to break the rules, doesn’t it? Swimming next to the “No Swimming” sign. Speeding down the highway when no other cars are around. Eating that candy bar after the sell-by date. As Katharine Hepburn is thought to have said, “If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.” In our Confirmation class last summer, we talked a lot about rules. We set up Ground Rules at our first class. Things like be respectful; give everyone a chance to talk; don’t use your phone during class. We studied John Wesley’s General Rules. And we even tried to create a game where the only rule was that you could have no rules. In the end, we decided that a game with no rules was really no fun. The purpose of our no rule-rule game, though, was to demonstrate that rules ~ guidelines, laws ~ are important for living a meaningful life. Rules provide a framework in which to enact our faith and live out our days. Without rules, it’s just chaos. For example, John Wesley’s general rules are: Do no Harm, Do Good, and Stay in Love with God. Those are rules that I can get behind, rules that can shape a faithful life. The truth is, though, that we sometimes chafe at rules. We like to leave our phones on in the movie theater and chew gum in class. It was probably this kind of human rebelliousness that drove Moses crazy as he led the Israelites through the wilderness. God told them not to collect more manna than they needed for the day, but you’ve got to know there was that guy with the stash in his tent. God told them not to worship any other Gods, but we know what happened with the golden calf. In today’s Scripture God, through Moses, tried to lay down the law, set the boundaries, establish the ground rules for these people who God decided to save and make his very own. Some have described the Ten Commandments as God’s gift of law. We often think of rules as burdens but what if we, instead, think of rules as blessings? The Ten Commandments present the kind of life God wants for us, a life of honoring God and honoring each other. The Ten Commandments lay out the boundaries for healthy relationships. And the Ten Commandments are very ~ how do we say it ~ down to earth. They speak of jealousy, revenge and adultery, lying, swearing and obsession. Things that make a good plot for a soap opera and, if we are honest with ourselves, things with which we struggle throughout our lives. As preacher Dianne Bergant affirms, “Reverence for the law seems to promise the best that life has to offer.” The Ten Commandments aren’t archaic rules, irrelevant to us in our modern lives. They are a way of life that leads to peace, reconciliation and wholeness for those who follow them. Yet, to understand the relevance of the Ten Commandments, we must recognize...
Read MoreSermon October 1: Think Tank
https://faithsbvt.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Think-Tank_E.mp3 Faith United Methodist Church October 1, 2017 World Communion Sunday / Family Sunday Rev. Kristabeth Atwood Scripture: Philippians 2:1-5 Prayer of Illumination: We thank you, Gracious God, that you answer all who call on your name. Make us bold to ask for your help and eager to hear your word. May our faith in you transform our lives into testimonies to your love and power. Amen. Sermon: Think Tank Today is the animal blessing, so I’ll tell you something about my dogs. Niles is my service-dog-in-training who has been in training for four years. (He’s not the quickest study.) Bady, who is my 10-year-old service-dog, is a thoughtful – I might even say intellectual – dog. He does that adorable dog-thing where he tilts his head as he thinks things through. Niles, though, is all impulse. He’s the only German Shepherd we know who doesn’t tilt his head. He can’t be bothered with thinking. We joke that the only way we can tell that Niles is thinking is if that spot on the top of his head (between his ears) is warm…… We know who’s the brains in this think-tank. The Scripture lesson for this morning got me thinking about thinking. Paul tells us that we are to have the mind of Christ. Does that mean that we are to think like Christ? And, if so, how does that work? Would that make us Christians a “think-tank” of sorts? A group of people to provide information, ideas and advice on Christian things? Or maybe we’re thinking too much. Is there more to having the mind of Christ than thinking? Does having the mind of Christ call us to act in a certain way? As Paul wrote, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” It seems to me that having the mind of Christ means living so that others can see Christ in us. Having the mind of Christ means letting go of ourselves, our ego, and those things that get in the way of furthering Christ’s work in the world. As William Greenway suggests in Feasting on the Word, “One does not self-empty by focusing on oneself. One is emptied of self to the degree one is overcome by the needs, pains, hopes and desires of others.” If we adopt Christ’s attitude our work will reflect an unselfishness, a lack of competition, a humility, and an effort to strive and serve. When we live in Christ our own preferences, rights, power and desires drop out of the short list of most important things in life. Instead of doing things in our own power, we do things in the power of Christ. When we live in Christ we recognize that whatever humble authority we carry within us comes from God and God alone. So maybe the lesson here is not to think too much. Maybe we are to be more like Niles ~ all action. Action that grows out of humility, love, and generosity, knowing that Christ is with us. Sometimes ~ sometime ~ we have to stop thinking and just get to work. Thanks be to the One who empowers us to do more and greater things than we could, alone, imagine. Thanks be to the One who gifts us with the work of the Kingdom. Amen. ...
Read MoreSermon September 24: It’s Not Fair
https://faithsbvt.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Its-Not-Fair_E.mp3 Faith United Methodist Church September 24, 2017 Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost Rev. Kristabeth Atwood Scripture: Exodus 16:2-8, Matthew 20:1-16 Prayer for Illumination: Lord of love, as we hear your word and reflect upon it, come to us with clarity. May the words that we speak and the thoughts that we form bring to us your message of wholeness and your light of truth. Strengthen us, enliven us, empower us, for the living of your Word. Amen. Sermon: “It’s Not Fair” There are grievances flying left and right in our Scripture lessons today. In the gospel, we see angry workers protesting their employer. In the Old Testament, we have grumbling Israelites shaking their fists at Moses. And, in both instances, there seem to be grounds for at least some of their complaints. In the Gospel Jesus told a parable of a landowner who needed his grapes harvested. At the beginning of the day he went out and hired laborers, agreeing to pay them the usual wage. For some reason, though, he was not satisfied with the number of workers he had. Maybe his grapes were overly ripe. Maybe he thought was going to rain. Maybe he just has a soft spot for the unemployed. Whatever the reason, he went out again and again, several times during the day, even as late as 5pm, to hire more workers. Now this would all be fine, but then it came time to settle up. All the workers lined up and those who worked the longest were feeling pretty good. They knew they would have enough money to feed their families that night. And everyone else? Well, they’d just have to get by. But something strange happened. Everyone received the same wage. As they walked away comparing their earnings, they saw that everyone got the whole paycheck. Some loafer who only worked half the day – maybe only one hour – got the same pay as those who worked all day long. The slighted workers sought out their employer to give him an ear-full, “These last worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” And then we have the Israelites. Having just escaped from Egypt ~ having just seen the power of God in the parting of the sea ~ they were for the first time in their lives a free people. No longer slaves, but God’s own people. But today’s story picks up as the awe and the wonder of what had just happened began the wear off. They complained, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” At least in Egypt, they reasoned, we had something to eat. Their grumbling and complaining filled the camp and Moses and Aaron’s approval ratings sunk. It seems that human nature has not changed very much in these intervening years. We know what it is like to be slighted. To feel like we are not getting what we deserve, that we are being taken advantage of, used, and made the fool. You know that feeling, right? A party that arrived after you is seated before you. A friend gets a great deal on something you bought for full price. A coworker gets a promotion when you’ve worked for the company much longer. We have ample opportunities to complain and we often take advantage. And...
Read MoreSermon August 20: Um….. Jesus
https://faithsbvt.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Um-Jesus..._E.mp3 Faith United Methodist Church August 20, 2017 Ninth Sunday after Pentecost – Holy Humor Rev. Kristabeth Atwood Scripture: Matthew 15:1-2, 10-11, 21-28, Psalm 133 Prayer for Illumination: Lord of love, come to us this day with clarity. May the words that I speak and the thoughts that we form bring to us a message of wholeness and the light of truth. Strengthen us, enliven us, empower us, for the living of your Word. Amen. Sermon: Um….. Jesus Once upon a time, a woman called the local pastor and asked him if he would officiate at a funeral for her dog. The pastor was a bit put off by the request. With a somewhat disgusted tone in his voice he suggested that there was no way he could do such a thing but that she might try one of the other churches in the area. She agreed to do that but not before she asked the pastor for some advice. “Pastor, do you think $500 is an appropriate honorarium for a funeral of this kind? And would I make the check out to the minister or to the church?” The pastor quickly cleared his throat and said, “Wait a minute, why didn’t you tell me your dog was United Methodist?” This is as far as I got in my Holy Humor sermon before Charlottesville happened. I thought the lectionary delivered up quite a juicy gospel lesson for our Humor Sunday. Jesus calling a woman a dog! This is a one of a kind scripture in that way! I was looking forward to celebrating the spunk of the woman who wouldn’t take no for an answer and poking a little fun at Jesus who seemed to be, as many of us are, quite stuck in his ways. I mean, it was a bit ironic that Jesus had just been telling the Pharisees that it isn’t what you put into your body that defiles you, but what comes out. And then Jesus came out with a doozy of a line, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But then Charlottesville happened and this scripture didn’t seem quite so funny. Discrimination is no laughing matter. When I saw the news footage of white nationalists, members of the KKK and white supremacists wielding torches, displaying Nazi symbols and chanting their hateful rhetoric I was horrified. I hope you were, too. No, I don’t deny the right to free speech or the right to assemble. What horrifies me is that people ~ people not that different than you and me ~ would have so much hate in their hearts that they would speak and act in such a repulsive and violent manner. Hate directed toward immigrants, Jews, African Americans, gays, lesbians and transgendered people, Muslims – basically anyone who doesn’t conform to a white, heterosexual standard. And, in my opinion, the violence was compounded by leaders in our nation who refused to immediately condemn such behavior. What those at the highest level of our government don’t seem to understand is that actions taken to stand up against hate do not equal the actions of those who perpetrate hate in the first place. So today’s Gospel lesson is tricky. First we hear Jesus telling the Pharisees that it isn’t what goes into the mouth that defiles, but what comes out of the mouth – our speech, how we treat other people. But then we hear Jesus speak words that cause us to cringe. Before Jesus stood a woman – a Canaanite – with a sick daughter. As...
Read MoreSermon August 13: Putting Yourself Out (of the boat)
https://faithsbvt.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Putting-Yourself-Out_E.mp3 Sermon By Tim Hess August 13, 2017 Sermon “Putting Yourself Out” {Notes to accompany Matthew 14:22-33} This week, we find Jesus in need of some alone time for spiritual renewal. He has not yet managed to take a break to deal with his own need to grieve the loss of his friend and cousin John the Baptist. Matthew tells us that Jesus dismissed the crowds, sent the disciples on ahead in a boat, and went up on a mountain to spend some time alone in prayer and reflection. The disciples themselves had had a long, hard day. They had worked with Jesus as he healed the sick, and taught. They had been a part of the feeding of over 5,000 people. They were tired, and probably longed to relax and get a good night’s sleep. I should point out at this point, that a boat or ship was one of the earliest symbols for the church, and the waters represent the chaos of the world, sometimes calm and sometimes turbulent. Continuing the story, Douglas Wingeier, writing in “Keeping Holy Time”, offers, The disciples were in the midst of a dark and scary chaos. It did not look good—such a great storm and such a fragile boat. Their whole world seemed to be collapsing around them and their lives appeared to be in danger. Have you ever had one of those days? Life seems to get crazy sometimes. We love the smooth times, don’t we, when all is well. But, O Lord, we have serious problems with wind and waves, like the disciples did in the passage from Matthew. We want God to “fill our sails with a lovely breeze that guides our sturdy boats across the glassy sea”; but you know that life isn’t just glassy seas and gentle breezes, and sturdy boats {leaks have to be repaired in roofs!}. Sometimes things get rough. We need help to keep our trust in the Lord during all these rough times. He calls to us to reach out, to take our focus off our own panic and place our trust in him. God asks us to reach out to others, who are not in our boat, with the same kind of love and compassion that he has given to us. Today many of us come to him with burdens and cares on our minds. Our “seas” are not calm, but he does offer us a lifeline. He is with us, guiding our lives. If we ask him, he will give us courage and hope, strengthening us to truly be his disciples. If we want to cement our relationship with God, have an impact on others, and perhaps leave a legacy to God’s glory, then we, like Peter, need to get out of the boat more frequently. To do this, we must face our doubts and fears. Jesus didn’t come to make us comfortable, he came to make us brave! A Case in point…. Many young people in our community have written the church off as irrelevant, because the church is not engaging the world in a way that they find useful. Pastor Dawn Chesser adds “many young adults simply cannot envision a future that in any way resembles the lifestyles that previous generations have enjoyed. They imagine a life defined by struggling to find work, and having difficulty making ends meet economically. They worry about the health of the planet and climate change. They imagine the near destruction of the planet as previous generations have known it, and they don’t understand why the church seems to be forever squabbling over...
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