February 20, 2022 8:30AM Worship at Myers Park

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] well good morning friends and welcome to our 8 30 service on this the seventh sunday after the epiphany it's good to be the together in god's house thank you to those of you who are joining us in the room those of you who are joining us online it's good to worship god together on this the lord's day my name is james howell i'm one of the pastors here and i'm up front this morning with my friend and colleague reverend taylor pride barefoot good morning it's so good to see you all in worship please let us know you are here by filling out our registration which is right here on your bulletin or if you're joining us online please include that on the virtual pu pad we want to invite you to an opportunity for some prayer and reflection we will have a a retreat that will be virtual um in early march that you can register for um it's a retreat for he around healing and it's around our labyrinth ministry so please look into that on our website and we also want to invite you there's still time to participate in our book club we will actually have a zoom conversation on how the word is passed with dr howell this upcoming thursday so we and the author of the book will join us for that so we're excited for that on thursday and just let us continue on in worship together [Music] [Music] is your dwelling place [Music] my god [Music] [Music] is your dwelling place [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] church join me now as we affirm our faith using the apostles creed which is found in your bulletin i believe in god the father almighty maker of heaven and earth and in jesus christ his only son our lord who is conceived by the holy spirit born of the virgin mary suffered under pontius pilate was crucified dead and buried the third day he rose from the dead he ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of god the father almighty and thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead i believe in the holy spirit the holy catholic church the communion of saints the forgiveness of sins the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting um [Music] [Applause] [Music] you may be seated join me as we confess and with the prayer of confession lord we humbly crave your forgiveness for every weakening thought to which our minds have roamed for every word spoken in haste or passion for every failure of self-control for other sins that weigh on our hearts grant that as the days go by your spirit may more and more rule in our hearts through jesus christ our lord amen hear the good news christ died for us while we were yet sinners that proves god's love for us in the name of jesus christ you are forgiven name of jesus christ you are forgiven glory to god amen please stand for the reading of the gospel the gospel reading is luke chapter 6 beginning with the 27th verse but i say to you that here love your enemies do good to those who hate you bless those who curse you pray for those who abuse you to him who strikes you on the cheek offer the other also and from him who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt give to everyone who bakes from you and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again and as you wish that men would do to you do so to them if you love those who love you what credit is that to you for even sinners love those who love them and if you do good to those who do good to you what credit is that to you for even sinners do the same and if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive what credit is that to you even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much again but love your enemies and do good and lend expecting nothing in return and your reward will be great and you will be the sons of the most high for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish be merciful even as your father is merciful judge not and you will not be judged condemn not and you will not be condemned forgive and you will be forgiven give and it will be given to you good measure pressed down shaken together running over will be put into your lap for the measure you give will be the measure you get back this is the word of the god word of god for the people of god thanks be to god i have this uh childhood memory i think it's real i don't think it's a montage of other country women that i have known in the course of my lifetime i'm pretty sure it was real the vision of my grandmother mama howell sitting she had an apron draped across her lap with freshly picked green beans uh she would snap the beans and pull the string and drop that in a trash bag over here and then put the bean forward into a silver bowl and you could hear it clatter into the bowl and periodically as she was doing this she would say good measure press down shaken together running over i always thought what is that what does that mean where does that come from good measure press down shaken together running over oh words of jesus right jesus preaches this super challenging sermon and then he says good measure press down shaken together running over one thing about this today in light of the five love languages a guy named gary chapman he's actually a friend of uh my wife's mother's family they go to calvary baptist up in winston-salem you know not everybody in the family is a good methodist we've got some baptists and this guy gary chapman in 1992 wrote this book the five love languages and it sold 10 million copies good grief he says that there are five love languages and uh they are words of affirmation that's a way to love someone quality time giving gifts acts of service and touch the problem in relationships is sometimes one person is giving words of affirmation and the other one wants touch one is doing acts of service and the other one wants gifts and it's not a matter of saying give me what i want maybe it's a matter of translating what the other person might be giving you maybe it's a matter of learning some new skills there was an article in one of the papers last weekend i can't recall if it was the wall street journal or the new york times and the author was ruminating on this five love languages and says what she and her husband have had to reckon with is her fear her anxiety and what's the love language that responds to fear she said her husband finally said to her one day my entire life is an act of service to you i have reorganized my desires around your fear i love that i have reorganized my desires uh what what love language do we offer to god we offer up to go what do we give god we give god our niceness oh god i'm very nice we give god our right thinking i think right politically we give god some guilt sometimes maybe some good intentions i always think when it comes to god we tell god that we're right and god chuckles we tell god how good we are and we don't realize how paltry it all is god's love language to us is really interesting god gives us words of affirmation your beloved your body whatever you think of it is a temple of the holy spirit you belong god doesn't just give quality time god's with us all the time the gifts of god are all around us the breath that you just took gravity is working maybe you had food this morning uh god service to us jesus washed the feet of the disciples he gave his life on the cross i always wonder what it would be to reorganize our desires around such a god in the new york times last week there was an op-ed by esau mcauley he's one of the guys who's appeared on our bible study in the past year he talks about when he got married he had great dreams he was going to be a great theologian his wife was a naval officer and she had great dreams of being a great naval officer and for them to function together they've had to compromise and in his column he says compromise need not mean discontent says it's not a matter did i fulfill my dreams or does she fulfill her dreams it's did we dream a new dream together i like that jesus commandments are so not what's the tennyson poem theirs is not to reason why theirs is but to do or die we think that jesus barking out orders that's not what jesus is about when jesus commands jesus is inviting us to dream a new dream to dream a better dream to get our desires reorganized around all that jesus is about so i want to rummage through some of what jesus says on his way to the good measure pressed down shaken together and running over jesus says you can spend the rest of your life on this love your enemies like we hardly even try in our society we feel entitled to our anger to our judgment we forget that martin luther king said the way to deal with an enemy is to love the enemy and when you do that the person's not an enemy anymore the person is a friend frederick beekner i love this he says among the seven deadly sins anger must be the most fun you lick your wounds you smack your lips it is a feast fit for a king the drawback is what you're wolfing down is yourself the skeleton at the end of the feast is you anger it just consumes you jesus says you can spend the rest of your life on this judge not i don't know about you i try to be a judge not guy and the people i wind up judging and those other people that judge other people they're just so doggone it or as for me i tend to judge not other people so much but my self myself it's not your responsibility to judge that weight has been lifted off our shoulders and we're no good at it anyhow how do we find words of love and thoughts of mercy and kindness for ourselves the other person that gets on our nerves jesus is inviting us to dream new dreams i love this jesus says give to everyone who begs some years ago being in a parking lot my son had played in a little league baseball game and i was going to the car and a beggar came up my son was looking what are you going to do i reached my wallet handed the guy a little bit of money a policeman came up i thought he was going to arrest me he said don't you know why that's a bad idea i actually did know why that was a bad idea and i had just done it i don't know why jesus says give everyone who begs i mean do we do that through agencies is that how we do that i don't like that idea i do remember years ago our mission team had gone down to rio de janeiro we were walking one night with marion way the missionary down there a holy man his granddaughter sent me a card the other day reminded me of how wonderful marion had been remember walking with marion and he'd said don't give anything to the beggars so we came upon a couple of beggars we all steadfastly averted our gaze and moved right on by but i noticed marion didn't avert his gaze what marion did he didn't give them any money he bent down to one man kneeling next to the man he held his hand said what is your name what is your name how can i pray for you the person whose gaze i had avoided mary and held his hand and prayed for him give to everyone who begs and i wonder if that includes other people around you never see other people around you like you think they're okay but they aren't really okay they're actually begging you for a little love and a little tenderness and a little kindness maybe they're being cool but it's actually begging you for some love some kindness our book of the month uh selection by quentin smith has a lot of interesting stuff about black history and i wonder if the whole point of that exercise isn't just that there are people who are begging us to listen to them people are begging us to listen to them what is your experience not i know what your experience is or should be but just to listen can you get inside somebody else's skin jesus says as you wish others would do to you do so to them like we like that and it doesn't sound very jesusy to me it sounds very american this is not about do business favors for one person so they'll help you in return when jesus says as you wish others would do to you you got to dig deep inside your own darkness and woundedness and ask what kind of tenderness would i really love to have if i could come by it and then can i give that to other people i want somebody to listen to me can i listen to others jesus says if you do hear john read it if you do good to those who are good to you what credit is that to you jesus is inviting us into an extraordinary life jesus says lend and expect nothing in return don't put him in charge of the bank right wind and expect nothing in return that should be like the new um you know mission statement for wells fargo wind and expect nothing jesus is serious at some level wind and expect what do we always expect in return i remember i had never thought about that until when i was in seminary i worked on summer down at myrtle beach with this helping ministry for people this one young woman had run away from home and her wife was just a disaster and i spent so much time with her and i worked out this reconciliation with the parents was sending her home on a bus i took her to the bus station had a food bag that was prepared i had done all this for her and and i get to the bus and and she just got on the bus and left like i was waiting for a hug i was waiting for thank you james for changing my life she just got on the bus i was miffed for days and it made me wonder why had i done what i had done did i do that for me to get the hug and the i'm a big dog had i really done it for her jesus says lynn didn't expect nothing in return and all of these you can't tell it from the translation that john read it's always plural jesus says y'all that's not a hebrew word y'all it's plural jesus expects us to do these things with other people jesus expects us to do these things in community jesus expects us to do these things through institutions we're blessed to be part of a really cool institution but not everybody is and institutions hurt people institutions disappoint people i'm well aware that this institution as cool as we are we've disappointed people and it kills me when we disappoint people because i am the kind of person that i am jesus says this makes me cringe jesus says you shall be perfect that just makes me cringe had a colleague who doesn't work here any longer she was one of our pastors we were in a meeting together one day and she looked to me and she said you are such a perfectionist and i said this would be the kettle called she was like such a perfectionist herself we're tangling over this thing perfection when we unite a methodist ordained the question is asked are you going on to perfection kim how did you answer that question were you going on to perfection he said yes are you perfect yet not yet not yet kate bowler has a new devotional book out it's called good enough in the introduction she says uh if you want to think about perfection all you have to do is check social media or watch tv commercials and the messages you can be perfect just buy the right gadget have the right experience since when you look at social media when you look at tvs it's clear that other people are living beautiful joyful lives they're not even trying hard it's perfect and we're so imperfect she calls this the perfectibility paradigm and my counter to the perfectibility paradigm comes from a great young woman theologian and kathleen norris who says perfect is the scariest of all words perfect is the scariest of all words it's a psychological affliction that makes us timid and afraid to take risk because we have some imaginary bar that we have to rise to and we'll never get there and so then we're discouraged all the time or we set our side several lower perfect perfect she points out the origins of the word perfect do not mean everything is absolutely right and we're doing it just the right way it's it's that's not what the word perfect originally would the word perfect originally meant mature that is the question are you mature are you mature ring are you going on to maturity what would it mean to be mature in god what would it mean to reorganize our desires around god what would it mean to dream god's dream which takes me back to my grandmother dirt poor never went anywhere and she's sitting on a chair with an apron with green beans that she has picked from the garden where she has grown them and she's snapping them saying good measure press down shaken together running over i do not know the answer to what she was thinking when she said that i'd give a year off the end of my life be able to go back and interview her what were you thinking what was that about what i do know about her is in my recollection and i've interviewed my cousins and everybody about her she never judged anybody she had almost nothing but she prepared a feast every night and everyone was welcome she'd find somebody who was working on a house down the street some stranger who was coming through town and they came in and they ate at our table even though she was having to work that hard on those beans she lived an extraordinary life her desires were organized around god because she not only said things like the shaken down and running over thing as she worked on her being she hummed and sang hymns the hymns were seeing in the church praising god everything she thought about that was not an accident that a bible verse came out of her mouth and she was snapping green beans she knew the bible she knew god's word it's how she made sense of her life she had enough she had enough she is still to this day the strong fiber in me although she's been gone for a very long time we dream god's dreams we can reorganize our desires it's all those odd things like don't judge love your enemies give and don't expect anything in return so beautiful it is good measure pressed down shaken together and running over thanks be to god [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] friends let us go to god in prayer together spirit of the living god we gather from near and far from all different parts of our country and around the world to worship and praise you each and every day we wake up to your new mercies for your grace sustains us help us to continue to connect to serve and to witness with all your children lord in your mercy hear our prayer we are mindful of our sins and the brokenness within our community so may your mercy abound even when we fail to be merciful with the others when we fail to exercise patience with our friends when we neglect to pay attention to the suffering around us but despite our failures you are still the god of joy the prince of peace and the deliverer of good news so may we be your hands and feet your messengers who proclaim the gospel to those desperate to know you and join your beloved community lord in your mercy hear our prayer so we come with grateful hearts for our cup overflows with gladness for no other reason but because we know ourselves as your children because you are the god of reconciliation redemption you are the one who brings forth light in the midst of any darkness and you are the savior who grants life in the midst of even death help us to know our neighbors as you know them help us to know the strangers and foreigners in our midst as you know them help us to know our enemies like you know them and you know all of us with mercy and grace lord in your mercy hear our prayer may we become faithful as you are faithful enable us to follow your ways over all other roads may our lives continue to reflect the holy callings to be disciples of jesus christ oh god your grace is sufficient so may your grace transform our ways may your grace transform our world may your grace transform our church lord in your mercy hear our prayers so trusting in that your desires and your plans for us all for the world will ultimately prevail we are able to pray with the confidence of your children to pray the prayer that you taught your disciples our father who are in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us to stay our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever amen we have an opportunity to to give witness to so many of our life-giving ministries in our church one of which is our ministry of uh stephen ministry right and my friend martha's here to give witness to that thank you jan you know in galatians 6 2 paul instructs the church to bear the burdens of one another so that in that you will fulfill the law of christ this is the pledge this is the mantra if you would for stephen ministers we provide a presence for people to sit and listen with them to be with them while they are going through possibly pain grief and suffering brought on by a lot of different and various reasons but the one thing that we do is that we provide that presence for them and even more importantly remind them that they are not alone that god is walking with them as well stephen ministers receive over 50 hours of intensive training that equips them to provide this type of care after they are commissioned they continue to receive education and on a monthly basis one of the things i would share with you is the biggest blessing that i've received in the many ways that the care receivers have been a wide and blessed part of my life so if you have questions or would like to seek help please reach out to either stephen minister or bill roth and lastly one very exciting thing is that we are in the midst of recruiting our class for this fall so if you are interested again see a stephen minister or reach out to bill roth thank you for your generosity that makes this ministry a vital part of this congregation amen thank you martha i wanted to share once again if you are in any way feel called to this ministry this is a transformative journey not only for those whom we minister to but for the stephen ministers themselves and we hope that you will join us as well friends let us receive our morning tithes and thanksgiving [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] uh [Music] children's [Music] um [Music] come on [Music] is [Music] [Music] please [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] loving and gracious god we give thanks for all good things come from you lord everything we have is yours bless these gifts so that they may bless your world amen [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] dress [Music] so [Music] god has called us towards a radical life of love a life towards perfection may god be our vision as we go forth on that journey together amen [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Myers Park United Methodist Church

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Id: t46l6QLYQT4

Length: 54min 52sec (3292 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 20 2022