Fender had a birthday last week. Fender got a gift. What do you think he got?

Transcription

1 Calvary United Methodist Church April 29, 2018 The Joy of Ministry Rev. Dr. S. Ronald Parks Children s Sermon: Luke 10:1-20 The glory that God has entrusted to us is known from our first breath to our last. We welcome the children to the front of this worship space to celebrate the great gifts God has shared with us. Good morning. How s everybody? Anybody have a birthday today? Anybody have a birthday today? (I just had a birthday.) You just had a birthday. How old were you? (Um, 5.) You re five! Excellent! Fender had a birthday last week. Fender got a gift. What do you think he got? (A bone.) Ah! You guys must have cheated and looked at the slides! He got a bone. He also had a cake. Now, look at the cake and tell me how old Fender became last week? (4.) Four years old.

2 How old is that in people years? (4.) (28.) (20.) Good math, and that used to be the way people thought of dog years/people years. It was 7 dog years for every person year. But they have done some studies about development and growth and it turns out that a dog who is large who is four years old is actually about age 32. So he s four on the outside and he s four on the cake. But he s actually 32 on the inside. Is that old? Is 32 old? (Yeah.) Yeah. Great. What about me? You see, on the outside I m (61.) Sixty-one. Is that old? (Yes-no-) No, of course it s not. Not at all. But how old am I, do you think, on the inside? (26.) Twenty-six! Oh, Dude! Now we re talking!

3 Here s the deal. You are as old as you feel. You guys have heard that before, right? That came actually from a philosopher in the 19 th century who had a lot of really cool insights into human development and wisdom and he said, You are as old as you feel. And here s the thing: with God s love inside, at the beginning of every day I feel brand new, because there is always new that s coming every day. Jesus shared this with his disciples. It s kind of a mission that he gave to them: He appointed seventy of them. You guys can count to seventy, right? Let s do it. No, let s not. He appointed seventy disciples. He sent them to every town and pace where he himself intended to go. Now, why did he send people? Why did he have disciples? Because he is only one guy and there was a lot to do. And this is what he told them: we have a big job to do, right? So, work fast. Travel light. Stay focused. God has given you the light of His love. But here s the thing: don t keep it hidden inside. Let is out and share it with everyone. Shine in the lives of those who are lost. Have you been lost before? Yeah, is it any fun? (No.) No. If you had someone there to help it would be like a light shining in darkness. Shine in the lives of the lonely. Been lonely before, I bet. I know I sure have. And sometimes you want to be alone; sometimes you don t. Shine in the lives of the sick. When you are not feeling well, it s really comforting to have someone there. And shine in the lives of the suffering. And there are all kinds of ways that we can hurt and suffer, right. Do something that shows them, all these different people that you meet, that God s Kingdom Is right here right now. And when the seventy disciples returned after doing this work and sharing this message with the people that they met, they had joyous stories. Lives were changed. And Jesus said to them: I ve given you all you need to do God s work. Celebrate what He ll do inside on the inside and Rejoice in what He ll do through you if you let it out on the outside. So with God s love inside of us, I feel and you can feel brand new every day,

4 As we let that light which is on the inside, shine out on the outside. Here s some ways to do that: by caring for those who are hurting. You guys know what it means to have someone care for you. When you care for others, especially when they are in a tough spot or something really bad is happening. That s a way to let the light out, to let the love out on the outside. By staying with those who are lonely. By staying with somebody who maybe doesn t have a friend in that moment or could really use some help. By providing for those in need. There are a lot of people all around us that need all sorts of things. In fact, every person sitting here this morning is a person who has a need. We may not be aware of them all the time, but we all have them. And we all have the gifts that we can share to address those needs. We can also share the light on the inside outside by forgiving other people and by being a friend to everyone. And then, finally, one of the really great things about the light that s on the inside is to ask God to help us or to do the things that we can t do. There are a lot things you can do and a lot of things that I can do, but there is some stuff we just can t do. There are some problems we can t fix. There are some needs that we can t provide for or address and that s when we get to the end of what we can do, we have to ask God to do what God can do, right? Joy on the inside happens as we

5 Share the light of God s love on the outside With who? One or two people? No, with everyone. As a matter of fact, talk about sharing the light, in this basket, go ahead and stand up and reach in there and grab one, there are four different colors. These are called finger beams. I gave them out about four or five months ago and I thought, well, that was kind of neat and cool. And then guess what those maniacs at Oriental Trading did. They put a cross on them, which, of course, made me have to buy all new ones for you guys. And the purpose here, obviously, is for you to shine the light that is on the inside on the outside. So go ahead and turn them on, put them on your finger. There is a little button on the top. Slide it one way or the other. Turn it on and point it at those people out there. Yeah. You guys are like superheroes because you are shining the light of joy, faith, hope and love to all the people that you meet.

6 You might remember some of these events or shots over the years. This is one of my favorites, of course. This was the staff car I lobbied the administrative council to purchase in They refused. Words aren t necessary there. In 2012 we had about a six foot wading pool that was about a foot deep, had inflatable sides and we had all the kids up and around it. We were dropping things in it and things were going very well until in the second service one of the kids decided to reach in and pick up whatever I don t even remember what we were dropping into it that day, but he decided to reach down and grab one and he put his knees on the side of the pool and pushed the side of the pool all the way to the floor and the water just poured down these steps. Good times. We released butterflies on Easter of We had a great time with a space themed VBS in 2014.

7 And all of them, all of those lights, shine in each one of us. Thanks for sharing I our time this morning. Message: Philippians 4:4-9 (VIDEO of Pastor Ron being pulled up in the air by from a rope suspended in the front of the church) Ah, a good flash back now and then is fun. That was the celebration of the Ascension eight years ago on May 16, 2010 and I know you are still asking what everyone in attendance was asking or saying that day: The Dude s not right! He s not right and he hasn t been right for a long time. This is a picture in Dylan who is sitting right back there, was baptized on that day and I didn t want to be the one to baptize my own son, so Pastor Jeff baptized Dylan at New Bethel United Methodist Church in Lewisberry on that day, and after we took a few pictures I found a couple of masks because we like to have fun so we did. And it didn t just stop there. There have been times and places in other spots, other churches, where we ve served that we ve done things equally odd.

8 In 2015 you may remember the Hosanna sticks. Parents with kids who brought them home I m sure remember them. And interestingly enough I ve seen over the years a number of my children s sermon items ending up in the dumpster by Monday morning. I have no idea what s going on there. Anyway, you waved them around for the visual and then you whacked them together for the auditory. In 2016 I preached a sermon on joy and I was happy to use the big letter over at Lowes as a sermon illustration. And of course at the beginning of last year we all had 2017 glasses. And that kind of insanity and silliness continues all the way through today. And I know what you are thinking he looked alright when he got here. What went wrong? Well, I can share the story, but I kind of have to go back in time. Last week I read a book called When I Grow Up by who we know as Weird Al Yankovic. And it talked about all the different things that Billy was going to be, that he decided at the age of 8 he was going to try all these different things.

9 So, let me take you back a little bit in time to when I was eight. This is The space program was brand new and had just gotten started and every kid that I knew wanted to be an astronaut. And so did I. Then a couple of years passed and I got into junior high school this is a photograph of me in 7 th grade with my saxophone. You ll notice I never pulled it out and played it here on a Sunday morning. You know why? Because I am awful at it. I never practiced a second outside of band class which is why I was no good at it. I didn t want to be a sax player though. I wanted to be an oceanographer because Jacques Cousteau, his series was on TV at that time and, boy, everything that he did looked like fun. Remember Jacques? Had that little beanie on and smoked a pipe? Sweet! In 1969, the next year, my father took me to work one day at York Hospital. He was the director of physical therapy there and I was really touched and moved by the people that he was helping. And they seemed to, you could tell by the joy on their faces, they very much appreciated someone who was in effect giving them back their mobility. So in 69 I decided I wanted to be a physical therapist. Then the next year, I happened to be able to visit Florida over the Christmas break and I got to go to this place called Sea World where they had dolphins and killer whales and all that cool stuff.

10 And I knew at that time I wanted to be a marine biologist because I wanted to work with those animals. Then I got into high school and I got to meet all sorts of new people and other people. And I caught this thing called rock music. And I wanted to be a rockstar. And I didn t play the piano any more than I practiced the saxophone, which is why you ll never see me play the piano in this place. But, something happened that year. At that time I was a youth in the congregation of Aldersgate United Methodist Church in York. It was a large congregation that had a lot of kids. And because of that, the pastor called over to Lancaster Seminary and said, Hey, do you have anybody over there who might like to be a youth pastor? And he got an answer from this guy, Rev. Chuck McHose. Now, that s not an actual picture of Chuck McHose, but it s as close an approximation to the vibe as I could find, you know? He didn t look like that, necessarily, but you get the idea, right? This is He was like a breath of fresh air. He had come from seminary where he was a freshmen and he was looking to make a couple of bucks, so he was anxious to work in a church. And these were the hoodlums that he got to work with. And boy, did we have a good time.

11 I soon discovered that Chuck and I shared a love of another musical instrument: the guitar. And Chuck would bring the guitar every week when he would come from seminary and he and I would sit down and we would work out a few things and when the youth had a worship time at the end of our meeting, he and I would play together, which is sort of I guess how I caught into the idea that worship with a guitar is not in some way less reverent than without the guitar. That summer after school was out and Chuck went back to seminary we met again at Camp Penn Music Camp and he was a counselor while I was a ninth grade music student, right? He brought his guitar and I brought mine. Every night, after everybody else had lights out, I had permission from one of the counselors to sneak out to play guitar and we would meet in his counselor s room after he let me in the counselor s dorm and we would softly play together. It was cool. It was great! I was breaking the law! Two things lit us both up. Remember Jesus Christ Superstar? I can still to this day from beginning to end sing every song and sing every vocal part. It is that much in my head. That was one of the things that we shared in common. And the band Chicago was the other. In five years, when Chicago got started, from 1968 through 73, they released seven albums. Most of them were multiple disc albums, two or three or four record albums. And at that time, Chicago was not only an amazing bunch of musicians, they were very socially conscious. They didn t really sit calmly and watch the racial divide in our country go by. And all of the debate and all the things that were going on politically and in our culture, they were a protest band and Chuck and I for some reason connected in their lyrics and in what they said and in how they said it. At the end of that week during a commitment service on Friday night it was a glorious time of looking back and of performing music. It was a great opportunity for us to in effect get ready to say goodbye.

12 And after the service Chuck and I as we always did, would get our guitars and sit around a campfire. It was the last time we would do that and we both kind of knew that it was going to be the last time we would do that, so we were taking about all kinds of important stuff and out of the blue he said to me, Have you ever considered ministry? And my response then is exactly the same as it would be now: Would I have to wear a tie? You see, I, from the very beginning, had thought about doing something that helped people. That s why what my dad did as a physical therapist was kind of impactful to me. It sort of showed me that one person with some knowledge and some patience could help another people to in effect get their life back. So, while I often thought about what a minister and what being a minister would be like, I was pretty much concerned that I m not right for it. And I was convinced of that. And there were a number of reasons why I was convinced of that. If we go back to Wesley and the four things that Wesley says are formed in our faith, all four of them had a hand in telling me that I m not right for this job. The first thing was the scripture. Be perfect, Jesus says, as your heavenly Father is perfect. How do you guys score on that scale? No, I m not that. I was always halfoffended by Jesus suggestion that I should be that. And so since I never understood what it meant I was never interested in pursuing it. And a lot of other things in the scripture just didn t make sense to me. So, on that ground alone, I m not going to fit in. But then there is the tradition that I grew up in, the United Methodist Church. And early on I learned a bit about John Wesley and he s got some really cool ideas, but this wasn t one of them:

13 I am Homo unius libri, Latin, a man of one book, and that book is the Bible. Well, I m not a man of one book. The Bible, yeah, it s central, it s key, it s important. But I have learned so much from so many other people, so many other authors and philosophers and theologians and just folks like you and me over the years. And it was only later that I recognized that even though that s what Wesley said, this is an Oxford educated scholar who knew all of the ancient Greek philosophers, knew all of the church fathers, knew theology inside and out and knew a lot about life. He was lying when he said that. Well, at least he wasn t completely truthful. So, you have the scripture and then you have this Wesley guy and then you have reason. I love to think and I don t think coming to church should be like checking your brain at the door. I don t want to talk to a bunch of people who ain t thinking and I don t want you to walk out of here without having been challenged in some rational way. And so as a ninth grader, I asked my pastor this question: Would you please preach on evolution and creation? Not only did he not say no, he said nothing to me in response. He never said, Well, you know, I don t really think it s appropriate, or Gee, I m not sure what I make of evolution and creation. He just didn t respond. And all that said to me was he s not really thinking about it. If you re not thinking about it, you don t have much to say. So, I didn t think I fit in because of that either. And then there was this other thing, the thing that every one of us has in common sitting here in this place today: every Sunday morning when my father and mother yelled, Ok, let s go to church, my response was, let me see if you can anticipate what it was? (Oh ) Oh, man, do we have to go? My parents used to dress me up in wool pants. Do you know what wool pants, it s like somebody released fire ants on your leg. I got so upset by that one Sunday I threw up on them. And I was 18 at the time. No, I was younger than that. Man, I hated to go to church. It can t be this boring every week, can it? Yeah! Yes it can! Scripture, tradition, reason, experience. Would I have to wear a tie was another way of me saying:

14 No, I ain t right for that job And I can t fake it. I can t pretend to fit into a box where every breath, every cell, every fiber of my being says That s not you. So, when he said in response to would I have to wear a tie these words, I almost cried: I don t know. I don t own one. That s what he said. And my reaction was, What? Joy! Are you kidding me? I don t have to fit into that box? Are you telling me that I can serve Christ and be alright with who I am, as insane, as deranged, as child-like and childish as you ve watched me be over the years? And the answer is, Yeah, you can do that. So in 1974 when I walked off that stage I knew exactly what I was going to be.

15 I was going to be a minister. But not like the ministers that I knew, because even though I knew I wasn t going to be quite right for that and I knew I wasn t going to fit into that box, I knew somehow, by some miraculous power, God would put me right where I belong. And it s because of that that I have experienced the joy of ministry. The joy of ministry is knowing that I can serve Christ and still be me. Paul knew it too. Paul was very clear about how not to fit in. For most of Paul s adult life he killed Christians. He was responsible for their arrest, for their persecution and for their death. So when Jesus comes knocking, Paul says, Oh, wait a minute! I don t think I m quite right for that job. And Jesus says, Oh, yeah, you are. You are so going to be different that we are going to have to change your name from Saul to Paul. That s how big a change this is. And so Paul, not Saul, writes to his friends in Philippi: Celebrate God all day, every day. Show and share the joy you feel; The joy of walking with Jesus The joy of working with Christ. Don t worry; pray! Don t hide; step up and help. Don t be ashamed; forgive and be forgiven. And don t be shy. Ask God for the help you need and rejoice before the gift even gets there. Because he ll supply the perfect gift with perfect timing. Because you re right where God needs you to be. Put Christ at the center and everything falls in place. Fill your mind with His best blessing. Leave everything else behind. We ve learned these lessons from each other. Now let s go teach joy to the world.

16 See, that s what we have to share and teach. It s not a bunch of theology. It s not a bunch of ideas. It s not some lifestyle or a uniform or anything else that makes us Christian. What we have to share is the Joy of the ministry that God has entrusted to each one of us and that I can still serve Christ and still be me. And so can you. The acrostic J O Y is often thought of as meaning Jesus Others and You. But I think if you open it up a little deeper, it goes much deeper: Jesus Owns You and Jesus owns me. If you claim Him, He claims you. Now, I want to be careful about this. We are not property and this is not slavery. That kind of ownership is not part of our lives of faith. We are free and we decide exactly whom we will serve, but if we claim Christ, he becomes the significant other in our lives. I love my wife, but Christ is even higher. If you claim him, he claims you. Remember the story of Thomas: Unless I see and put my finger in the mark of the mails and put my hand in his side, I won t believe. And Jesus shows up seven days later and says: Look. See for yourself. Put your finger in the holes in my hands; put your hand in my side. Stop doubting and believe. And what s Thomas response? My Lord and my God.

17 And Jesus, when he leaves his disciples, says: You are my witnesses in the world. You see, that s ownership. Jesus owns us and joy is knowing that you belong to Christ in a way that you will never belong to anyone else and that no one else will ever belong to you in that way. Jesus Owns You. And because Jesus knows you, Jesus Opens You, opens you up to see stuff like God sees stuff. Opens the eyes of faith to see as God sees. And that changes everything. We don t judge others by their outward appearance. Nor do we see each other from a human point of view. Jesus fixed that. So if anyone is in Christ, we see everything in a new world. It s a new creation. These eyes of faith are a gift from God. Joy is seeing how Jesus opens you up to see other people and this glorious creation in a way which is divine.

18 He owns you and he opens you and he occupies you because as he opens you up and creates space in your heart, he comes and lives there. If you allow him space, he will take up residence in you. And when that happens you become a new creation. A branch can t produce grapes unless it s joined to the vine. You can t bear fruit unless you re joined with me. Make your home in me as I live in you. Joy is Jesus occupying every word and thought and deed, every dollar, every second, every decision that you make. Somehow it is rooted in your belief that God lives here and it s not just about what s on the inside. It s what comes out that proclaims Jesus and the Good News of Christ. And when that happens you are overwhelmed. You are swept away. The maniac that I am becomes a humble servant in front of Christ.

19 I am overwhelmed by a grace that is greater than all my sin. There are people that would tell you that, you know, this issue of other religious traditions, you know, what about the people that don t believe in Jesus? Can they be saved? Are they going to hell? Does God care about them? Look at that sentence: Grace greater than all my sin. Sin is an act of will. It s volition. It s a choice that goes against God. So, if I choose not to believe in the love of God, is God s grace bigger than that choice I just made? That s not a rhetorical question; I expect an answer. (Yes.) Yeah. Grace greater than all, not some, not most, not everyone but this one. All my sin. Because the decisions I make are steeped in ignorance. They are steeped in my finitude and the fact that I don t know much, that I never have known much and I m not going to know much more. And still God is willing to claim me and own me and open me and occupy me. God s great love and mercy is overwhelming. We ignore it, we reject it, we try to walk away from it. But His grace is relentless. Through Christ God reaches out to us and calls for a new creation. We were dead in fear and selfishness, but now we re alive with joy and generosity. And we didn t do it. That s not our call; it s not our choice. We can t take the credit. It s a gift from God. But isn t not ours to keep; it s entrusted to us as stewards. And we know what to do with it. And by that same amazing grace, we ll have the courage to do exactly what it is that God expects of us no matter what.

20 Joy is grace washing me away and putting Christ where I used to stand that s overwhelming. And when that happens, Jesus offers you to the world, right? We are the light of His love in the world. You go forth not as you but as God s offering to the world. The world can reject it; the world can try to extinguish it; the world can mock you and persecute you and call you a religious nut, but you re an offering to that same hurting world. This is how we know and experience love: Christ loved us and gave his life for us. That s why we give our lives in service to others. Because it s never about us. If someone is in need and you can help, you ve got to do something. Think of your gifts to others as an offering to God. If you do nothing but care for yourself, your gifts are useless and God s love is wasted and why are you here? I don t mean here in this place, I mean occupying space and taking a breath. Why are you here? Joy is making life an offering, it s not a gift, it s not yours to give, it s just an offering. What a joyous thing.

21 The joy of ministry is that I can serve Christ and I can still be me. And so can you. Remember Chuck? I sure do. And so at the beginning of last week, I contacted Infoserv. Infoserv is this United Methodist network of information and all sorts of good stuff. And I wrote to them and said, Hey, do you have any contact information for a Rev. Charles McHose? And the next day I got a reply. It had a name; it had an address; it had a phone number and it had an . So I ed to the address a simple request: Dear Rev. McHose. My name is Ron Parks. I was a youth at Aldersgate United Methodist Church in York PA between 1970 and 74. If you are the person who was the youth leader there at that time, I d love to hear from you. A couple of days went by; nothing. Then I got on Facebook and I searched Rev. Charles McHose. By the way, I get on Facebook once a year; that was it for Rev. Charles McHose and it showed me a picture of a guy who looked older than dirt and I knew it couldn t be him because he is older than me, but he s not older than dirt. So I decided I wasn t getting anywhere with these other methods, so I picked up the phone and I dialed the number. And the voice on the other end told me that I got the right guy. I spoke to Rev. Chuck McHose. This is a picture of Chuck on a cruise that he took when he retired from the ministry the third time. Apparently you get a monkey when you retire from the ministry three times. I just want to say, I m not looking for a monkey. I barely got out, Hey, Chuck. This is Ron Parks. Do you and he said, Aldersgate, right? Aldersgate! And we talked for an hour. And I said to him, Dude, I can t tell you how good it is to hear your voice.

22 Chuck and his wife, Pam, live in Williamsburg. They have three boys and he just welcomed his fifth grandchild into the world. And he said, So, what made you call? And I told him that I was about to retire and I said to him, that s all well and good, but I just wanted to call and say this: Thanks for the joy, because without the one faithful guy who never really fit in telling me: Dude, you don t have to fit in, without that, my life would be different. But this is the life that has brought me joy. He s the guy who said, Tie? I don t even own one. Wow! He never understood the gift. He never knew. He knew that I had decided to go into ministry, but we d never spoken. No contact, no s, no correspondence. It was just somebody in the past that I wanted to make sure understood the impact that they had on a ninth grader who was thinking he didn t fit in. The joy of ministry is that I can serve Christ and not fit in, not to your box, not to my box. I can be me, whoever God gifts me to be in any moment and the great thing is: So can you. It s not about a profession; it s not about a road; it s not about a degree or a diploma or ordination. It s simply about a willing heart to be owned by Christ, to be opened by Christ, to be occupied by Christ and to be offered by Christ to the world. Yep, Dude s not right. But he s okay. Let us present our tithes and offerings.

23 BENEDICTION: Got any joy? The joy of ministry is that I can serve Christ and I can still me and you can still be you. Thank you for the joy you have given me in allowing me to serve you. There is a song that became known to us in the Christmas Cantata, it s called Joy on the Mountain. And it has an actual banjo part BOOYA! So, I will be up hear playing and not back there shaking hands. You can stay and listen as long as you like and we re gonna have fun. Thanks be to God for the joy he has given me. Editor s Note: Everyone stayed until the end of the Postlude Joy on the Mountain and applauded. Pastor Ron said go home when he was done.