What a pleasure it is to be with you. I am already feeling at home in my office And hope soon to be at home in an apartment as well.

Transcription

1 University Park United Methodist Church Rev. Dale Beck Interim Pastor Installation Service July 12, 2015 Your Soul is Required! A sermon based on Luke 12: What a pleasure it is to be with you. I am already feeling at home in my office And hope soon to be at home in an apartment as well. Your Lay Leaders Larry, Jo and Curly (Jim) have been very welcoming and trusting to present me with the symbols of installation before And not after the sermon. As all the people I have met have been most welcoming. And the staff has been wonderful, patient and encouraging to me We had a whole day planning retreat on Wednesday And learned perhaps more about each other Than we might have expected Some of it quite surprising! No no, none of it disturbing! So what could be better. And of course I am appointed for just this year Which is in fact the actual commitment of a United Methodist pastor. One church I served in Illinois had a display of picture of all the pastors Who had served the church back into the 1850s And for the first 50 years only two had served longer than one year And during that period with such short pastoral tenures, The congregation built a magnificent limestone domed edifice Balconied and even equipped with a passive air conditioning system Through chambered columns In time we learned of course, that churches thrive with longer pastorates. It s generally thought that our most effective years Come after the fourth year at the church. We also have found that when pastoral tenures 1 P age

2 last a decade or more, The next appointment tends to be disagreeable For the pastor and the congregation. That is why Bishop Elaine Stanovsky has Asked me to come out of retirement To serve you for this season. Why I said Yes is another matter. If you watch late night television, You know that David Letterman retired in May from his 30 plus year talk show gig. His successor was named months before that But Steven Colbert will not start until the fall. Even CBS thought an interim would be a good idea. So who is the interim you ask? Reruns of the Mentalist! I ll try to do better for you than that! There s time to get better acquainted and we will. Let s talk scripture, Jesus, God and the things You really came to church to be in touch with today. Now I pray that the words of my mouth And the meditations of all of our hearts May be acceptable in your sight, God our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen It s always hard to give a good answer When the questioner is not asking the right question. That s the problem in this parable of Jesus. We have four characters in this brief encounter One is Jesus himself And God who has a cameo appearance in the parable And the subject of the parable, A wealthy man who talks to himself a lot And seems to lack imagination when it comes to dealing with his possessions. And there s the un named petitioner who calls out from the crowd. He calls Jesus teacher but he doesn t ask a questions Nor does he seek advice. He doesn t want counsel; he wants cash: Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. 2 P age

3 The petitioner believes that he is being treated unfairly. And since we have gotten the context for this parable from Luke And since we know that Luke has a particular heart for the poor, We understand this as a disagreement between wealthy brothers For whom an inheritance is something of substance. The petitioner is the younger whose Older brother is not obligated to share the inheritance. So aside from the fact that it isn t a question at all, But a solution that suits this brother best It is a solution to the wrong question. Jesus doesn t fall for it. He asks, Who made me the arbiter between your brothers? And then he tells a story because a parable Is the perfect devise when people need a thought makeover. It s the story of a wealthy man. His harvest is so grand He doesn t know what to do with it all. He doesn t consult with others Not with friends he s not interested in what the Bible says About what to do with a surplus He doesn t ask his wife or even his father in law. In fact his self talk is very distinctive. He even calls himself SELF I mean at least when I talk to myself I call myself Dale Last spring when I had to scale a vertical expanse of slick rock I called myself wimp but after I got over, I changed my name to old man rock clamberer. I sometimes call myself dummy though I m trying to get over that. Because what you call yourself can heal or harm. He says Self, this is what I ll do. I ll tear down my barns And build bigger barns and then I ll say to myself, just take your ease eat drink and be merry. There are little hints The reference to self, this is what I ll do And to the solution which is to build bigger barns And then eat drink and be merry. And when you die who will get your stuff, 3 P age

4 A giant hint, that Jesus is pointing To the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew scriptures. The Ecclesiastes writer laments that when you re wise And you do well, and your barns are full, You just die and all your stuff goes to People who are foolish and useless and waste it. It s all in vain: Vanity, vanity and chasing after the wind And though Jesus doesn t name the brothers, they should have gotten the idea When he basically quoted Ecclesiastes. that they are precisely the fools that The Ecclesiastes writer was afraid Would inherit all that he had wisely built up. The rich man calls himself SELF but God addresses him as FOOL. Which the alert listener will know is a reference to Psalm 14 The fool says in his heart there is no God. Psalm 14 Psalm 53 They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is not one who does good So the story is cautionary about two things that get turned around One is not listening to God The man in the crowd was not asking for counsel He was telling Jesus what he ought to do And it reminds me that too often prayer Sounds more like telling God how to run the universe Than seeking God s call and God s way. We seek supernatural power to do what we will Instead of seeking what is God s will for us. And the Other is about wealth. Because especially when we don t pay attention To the things of spirit the things that make for True life We begin to love things and use people When the order is that we use things and love people. There is much time for us to talk about that And it is surely an important part But my sense for this morning is that we Look at the first the listening to God I know that in my own life with the Spirit When I hear God speak to me and say 4 P age

5 Your life is required of you. It did not mean I would die. It came when I need to live very, very well. It came when I needed to understand more thoroughly Listen more closely, Forgive at greater cost hold back rears and resentments lead with my keenest wisdom reach down to the deepest well of heart and spirit be present with my most open, even empty spirit I think of the Saturday night I settled into my chair And turned on the TV and my sermons was all written And the kids were in bed And phone rang and it was an emergency room nurse Two youth from my church in a car accident Parents on their way. You come too. And I could tell from what the nurse said that it was bad. And I loved those two kids. My own children s babysitter was one. The other the funniest boy in youth group And champion at Bible Bingo. And in the car I prayed all the way. And I didn t have to tell God I didn t know what to say or do Only say God be there with me Be there in me One of my teachers at Iliff still comes to this church Said when you go the hospital You are a representative of a caring church And a caring God. He wrote it on the chalkboard one day. I have not forgotten. It was tough. Two funerals. A stunned and aggrieved youth group Broken families. That s when God said my soul was required. Just a little more than a decade later, The best friend of the boy who died that night, A handsome, smart young man With a good degree from Purdue and a good job And married to a beautiful and talented woman. And his soul was required of him. 5 P age

6 Their first child was born with multiple birth defects. There were surgeries and the child so loved Would never have the future they had hoped for her, But of this I am so proud. Because he lived into the man and father Who had the soul that was required. University Park Your soul is required of you in this time of transition When a long and fruitful pastorate has ended And it is time to pick up all that you have gained From that ministry and carry it into your future. Staff your soul is required of you To trust and to be patient and Lay members, your soul is required of you To be patient To listen faithfully To use your power to build up When the voice you hear in the pulpit Has a different tone and cadence To remember that the church is of God and it is in the power of the spirit That we become what God intends We just passed Independence Day And we have passed through hard months for freedom and equality As we struggle with a freshly visible racism In the deaths of unarmed African Americans mostly young Too many. And on June 17, a man who wrapped himself in the Confederate flag shot and killed nine people who were at a prayer meeting. At the mother Emmanuel AME Church Charleston South Carolina Shot them in a racist rant. And the nation s soul is required of us. This is amazing! On Friday the Confederate flag on the courthouse was lowered Lowered with the vote of the South Carolina legislature The urging of the governor. People who have long opposed removing that flag Were there and said it had to happen. They said that when the killings took place they were appalled 6 P age

7 But when the families of those strong and good Christians who died Stood and said they forgive then the flag had to come down In the face of such tragedy did not say it was okay Did not say there was no wrong done but said We forgive you. What soul that required! And in the presence of such love. Hearts were changed, too. Our soul is still required of us America great United States, to be the host We want to be of liberty, equality and justice. We have 5% of the population of the world And 25% of the population of incarcerated people. And of that number, people of color are disproportionately Among those stopped, charged and incarcerated Even for the same crimes as white Americans. Our soul is required of us. It is the time for us to listen, to dig deep, into our consciences, To become our most compassionate and most just. It is in the soul of America to be better. God help us to be. 7 P age