January 23, 2022 11AM Worship at Myers Park

[Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so so well good morning friends and welcome to our 11 o'clock service of worship on this the third sunday after the epiphany it's good to be together in god's house uh those of you who have braved the elements not that bad out there and those of you who are worshiping from home online it is good to worship god together in this way uh my name is james howell it's my privilege to be one of the pastors here and i'm up front this morning with my friend and colleague reverend jessica dayson good morning it's a great day to be with you all in worship just want to draw your attention to a couple announcements that we have we are about to start up a lot of different small groups so there is something for everyone we have disciple bible study we have a book study on henry nouwen's book we have discussion groups we have all kinds of groups that are starting up so we hope that you will take the time to check out our website and find a group that works for your your time of day all of them have a virtual option i think so you can make it work and that's nice because you can stay home in your warm pajamas and join a group at 7pm not that i'm familiar with that practice but i hope you will take the time to join one of our small groups it's a great way to dive deeper in your faith we also have a new sunday school class that's starting next sunday so if that's something that's been on your heart to get a part of a sunday school class this is all ages all stages of life are welcome to be in this group so we hope that you'll check that out as well and that's during the sunday school hour at 9 45. last thing we are so glad that you're here if you would just take a quick moment if you're in person scan our qr code and let us know that you are here if you're worshiping with us online we hope that you'll click the link to our hospitality pad this is just an easy way to help us stay connected with you so that we can know what's going on in your life and we can be in ministry together so friends let us continue on in worship today [Music] [Music] is [Music] is your dwelling place [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] you [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] friends let us join our voices together as we profess our faith through the apostles creed believe in god the father almighty maker of heaven and earth and in jesus christ his only son our lord who was 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 from 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 amen [Music] so [Music] please remain standing for the reading of the gospel the gospel reading is luke chapter 4 beginning with the 14th verse and jesus returned in the power of the spirit into galilee and a report concerning him went out through all the surrounding country and he taught in their synagogues being glorified by all and he came to nazareth where he had been brought up and he went into this to the synagogue as his custom was on the sabbath day and he stood up to read and there was given to him the book of the prophet isaiah he opened the book and found the place where it was written the spirit of the lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor he has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind to set at liberty those who are oppressed to proclaim the acceptable year of the lord and he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him and he began to say to them today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing and all spoke well of him and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth and they said is not this joseph's son and he said to them doubtless you will quote to me this proverb physician heal yourself truly i say to you no prophet is acceptable in his own country but in truth i tell you there were many widows in israel in the days of elijah and elijah's was sent to none of them but only to a widow in the land of satan and there were many lepers in israel in the time of elisha of the prophet elisha and none of them was cleansed but only naaman the syrian when they heard this all in the synagogue were filled with wrath and they rose up and put him out of the city and led him to the precipice of the hill on which their city was built that they might throw him down headlong but passing through the midst of them he went away this is the word of god for the people of god thank you for this uh reading i was speaking to a pastor friend this week about preaching on this passage he said to me uh james if you preach faithfully and well on this passage your church members are likely to take you up on the roof of the church and throw you off it's made me very nervous as you can imagine sort of what happened to martin luther king you know he had his holiday last monday they don't collect garbage on the king holiday why he lost his life when he had gone to memphis to be part of a strike for the garbage workers there on the night before they killed him he preached one i'm a critic of sermons he preached one of the most beautiful incandescent eloquent hopeful brilliant sermons in the entire history of christianity and how did they respond to that the next day they didn't throw them off the cliff they shot him dead on the balcony of his hotel this passage like most passages of scripture like all passages of scripture is full of so much hope it shows this loving god and it simultaneously shows us how much we've gotten wrong and how much work we have to do see the hope and love but then we realize how much we've gotten wrong and how much work we have to do i finished a book the other day by chris hedges on atheism i love the book he said religious people should not worry much about atheists he said religious people should worry about other religious people specifically the ones who are cocked sure that they have got god and everything all figured out he said you got to worry about those people right just hey they know they have no humility about them they don't here's what he wrote we have nothing to fear from those who do or do not believe in god we have much to fear from those who do not believe in sin it sends a thing it's out there we look at the world and think oh my goodness that place is so disordered it i want to be part of it and that's part of my own sin and there's so much sin in here i remember after 9 11 george bush said what a president should say he said we're going to rid the world of evil but i love robert bella the sociologist's response to that he said how are we going to rid the world of evil i can't rid my own heart of evil this is why we come to church the stuff we have not gotten figured out the stuff that we have gotten wrong we have a lot of work to do our hearts need surgery our hearts need some medicine to bring healing our hearts need to be filled with the love of god to be very close to the love of god uh the drama in this passage that glenda red is it's really amazing uh jesus grew up in nazareth but he's uh gone traveling around these other villages around galilee and there's just buzz everywhere like he's healing people he's teaching he's stirring up all kinds of interest you can imagine the people back home they're like oh we do him when he was just like a little toddler tooling around when he you know played ball when he was 12. you know we remember him he's made good good rabbi good teacher out there and he comes home to nazareth and he's the scripture reader for the day and the reading is from isaiah he couldn't print it out on a piece of paper he didn't have a bible that you could open like a book what they had in those days were scrolls they had a different scroll for each book of the bible and they were big the scroll of isaiah that jesus reads from that day they found one of these in the dead sea scrolls a scroll of isaiah from the time of jesus it is 24 feet long rolled up of stitched together animal skin that thing would have weighed a lot did jesus have someone help him i think if i had to unroll that scroll would have to say hugh come help me this thing's big maybe hugh angelman to help me unroll this jesus is probably pretty strong and they're unrolling the scrolls against the text of the day i imagine jesus beginning in the first turn or two he would come to what we think of as isaiah 6 where god called isaiah and i wonder if jesus lingered there for a moment and thought god is calling me here i am o lord send me and he rolls past all kinds of other passages it's four fifths of the way into the scroll before the prescribed reading for the day he finally gets there after that long pregnant pause and the heroic labor to get it open to the right place then jesus reads the passage and the key is when jesus says today this scripture is fulfilled today the scripture is fulfilled at first the people who knew him as a little tight growing up are very impressed and they're so delighted that he read so well but then a few minutes later they're filled with rage and they take them to the edge of the city and they want to throw them off a cliff what happened and the only answer to that can be it was their sin and the sin of the people of nazareth this is so interesting their sin isn't that they made boo-boos or did some icky things they need to apologize to god for doing icky things their sin is that they believe that god is ours and we're not so sure about the other guys their sin is that they believed god had nothing to say about the real world in which they lived their sin was they believed that god didn't really have much to say about how outsiders are treated their sin was that they believed that god supported their private biases and pet beliefs their sin was not believing that god might do a new thing their sin it's all fear of course sin is always fear it's why we cling to really have what has no substance but we're afraid of anything else henry naughan said that one time speaking of studying henry now in book he's a psychiatrist by training and he said there was there was a woman in an institution and she just had her fists like this and and they kept trying to pry it open and finally they pried it open she had one small coin and they're like desperately all she had she was gonna cling to that one coin we have whatever it is we're going to cling to it that's our sin that's what needs healing i wonder if we like the people of nazareth carry around some weird fear that scripture might actually come to life i think that's what they believed sometimes sometimes i worry about you i say tune into the bible study you ignore me i know you disobey me it's fine i get it we say read your bible and you don't and sometimes i think you know you're just not doing what you're supposed to do i was i do wonder is there a fear in that though like if i actually dig into this that it might come to life if i uh lisa's not here so i can say this about her she was here earlier and i couldn't tell but i'll tell you guys because she's not here for valentine's day i have the coolest card for her and it's not just a card i mean a card it's just you open it it's a card it says something cute be my valentine but this card that i've gotten is going to be great is you'll pull it out of the envelope have you seen these things and you open it and it's like a pop-up book but it's not just that it's a pop-up book this stuff actually comes like flying up in the air you know ribbons and and confetti and all comes out of the card in a song play she's gonna love this thing she's gonna be so glad she married me come valentine's day and i think about that card and like does the bible do that like if we really opened is it whoa come to life annie dillard i love this she said that when we come to church we're fools not to cover our heads she doesn't mean you should wear like a straw hat or something she said we should wear crash helmets if we think about the power of god that we invoke in this place if we really believe that you might want to wear a crash helmet because you don't know what's going to happen it could be big it could be catastrophic for life as we have arranged i mean see we forget who jesus is don't we we picture jesus as this sweet man he's snuggling with a little lamb oh jesus or are we picture jesus is this kindly old gentleman he has children on his lap oh jesus he's so good he's so kind you know if you snuggle with a lamb and you hold children in your lap they don't try to throw you off a cliff if you snuggle with lamb and hold children your lap they don't kill you they kill jesus and we have to ask why we have to ask why he did this i love clarence jordan one of the great heroes of the last century great christian hero he uh this is amazing he was the uh founder of koinonia farms which spawned habitat for humanity eventually he was a farmer in rural georgia in the 40s and the 50s and he read his bible and he got the sort of crazy notion that he should do the stuff that's in the bible like this happens once in a while right somebody they read the bible and think we should do this so he does this and he read in the bible that the early christians they didn't have private property they held all their possessions and come it's just i'm going to start a farm and invite people to come live here we'll hold our possessions in common and he said it can't just be for white people if it's if it's bible it's got to be white and black people so he does this in rural georgia outside americas and the 40s and 50s the kkk they torched their crops they're threatening everyone and jordan was not intimidated he was summoned into the local church by the church leaders who said you must cease and desist from having a farm that has black and white people together you must stop this and jordan responded just by opening his bible and reading from the bible this infuriated one of the church leaders who responded by saying don't give me that bible stuff it's just one of the funny moments in history here's the church leader saying don't give me that bible stuff don't give me the bible jesus gives them the bible stuff and here it is jesus said i have come to proclaim good news to the poor we think about the poor we blame them for being poor we pity them for being poor jesus does not say i have come to bring good news to those who are comfortable and well in scots i will put another blanket around them and they will feel even better now jesus says i've come to proclaim good news to the poor he says i have come to open the eyes of the blind and what's so cool about that that's jesus favorite sermon and his implication is who are the blind people that be uh you guys you suffer this terrible astigmatism you think you see and you just don't see at all you see you like your own stuff that's really so narrow you don't see the beautiful vision of that's who's blind i have to report that i preached this in church on the round this morning i got an out loud amen i'm not faulting you for not giving me one but i was interested in who gave me the out loud amen it was will thames who is blind that was like that made my day i was saying the blind people will be again will tim's who's blind said amen that was a happy moment for me i know you're happy that i had a happy moment jesus said i have come to set up liberty those who are oppressed and i have come to set the captive free we have every church has to ask every christian has to ask who is oppressed who is oppressed by the way the world is arranged is who's oppressed by us who is imprisoned who is captive and to what and what are we going to do about setting them free and what are we going to do when they are set free i have a young friend right now who's heard a call went to go into ministry we had breakfast recently and uh his story is pretty interesting uh before deciding to become a pastor he made some really stupid decisions with what to do with the earlier part of his life which landed him in drug rehab and in prison for a pretty long time while he was in prison he heard this call from god to go into the ministries he went back home to his church where he grew up and he said i want to be an ordained pastor and i want you guys my home church to support me and they said i don't think so i don't think so you did drugs you were in jail you just got out of jail i don't think so he walked out of his home church and will never return as he should never return what's god calling us to what would it look like if scripture came alive we talk a lot about mental health that's a big thing we come to church we don't say i'm fine you're fine yeah i'm fine too we come to church and the real heroes to be able to say i'm broken how about you yeah i'm broken as well i uh when i was pastor and davidson uh we were there the church was growing a lot of people were inquiring about the church happens here it's great and uh one guy in particular he wanted to know all about the church he was trying to decide where he was going to join and he he was so curious about the church he and his wife invited me and my wife to dinner and we went to dinner and we made small talk it was really pleasant it was fine but finally i thought you know this is about church i said you know what did you want to ask me about the church he said i just have one question i said what is it he said is this the right church i'm a little slow on the uptake i said well he said is this the right church and what do you mean he said well you know do the right people go here you know i want to make connections with the right people is this the right church now in those days i was young and not as polite and sweet as i am now and i responded to this by saying oh this is the right church as it turns out and we do have the right people everybody in this church is broken and confused and a great center you'll fit right in and he did not return he became a presbyterian but different story different story who do we hang around the blessed or the poor only are we going to befriend the poor who are different this isn't basically how this interlocks different things that we try to do as a church it all fits together uh years ago millard fuller who sat at the feet of the clarence jordan who gave him the bible stuff millard fuller got the bible stuff he was a wealthy businessman from alabama he gave all his money away to start habitat for humanity we brought him to charlotte for an event years ago this is great and uh we needed someone to introduce fuller at the event i thought it should be me i am a professional talker i'm so good at introducing famous people and uh fuller said actually i don't want you to do it james i want a friend of mine to introduce me i thought dang his friend uh was named melissa melissa cornett she lived here in charlotte she lived in a habitat house here in charlotte i love that he called her his friend it's not that he was part of building a house and then never saw her again they stayed friends he said i want my friend melissa to introduce me so she stood up and i thought this isn't going to go well she's not a professional talker and indeed she stood up and began kind of you know mumbling and fumbling a bit and i thought they should have had me they should have and then my god did this amazing thing she stopped her introduction she just looked at fuller who said on the front row and she said millard fuller you're the answer to my prayer and i love by the way that we're working with habitat as part of our building project here's part of why she said millard fuller you're the answer to my prayer she said i uh i was raising my little boy and he was struggling he never smiled we lived in this tenement the surroundings were horrible we got evicted from there had to go somewhere else he was i just i prayed every night i said lord or to do something so that my son has a chance to be somebody he's he's never going to be anybody the way things are going please oh lord she said millard fuller well god told you to give your fortune away to start habitat you were the answer to my prayer she said i learned about habitat we qualified for a house she said jimmy carter the president came and worked with me on my house and she said and we moved in that house and she said you can't believe the change that's made in my son he used to never smile and now he smiles all the time he used to have bad grades and now he does his homework and he's making straight a's i'm so proud of him she said the other day he said to me mama do you know what i'm going to be when i grow up she said no son what are you going to be he said i'm i'm going to be a doctor i said millard fuller you're the answer to my prayer get so confused about people issues i talked to a woman recently this sermon is longer than usual bear with me i talked to a woman recently this is so cool she said to me i can be neither pro-life nor pro-choice i said tell me about that she said i would be pro-life except the people that i know who are pro-life are angry and judgmental and she said and the pro-choice people that i know are angry and judgmental he says i don't believe god asked me to be angry or judgmental she said i have a deep reverence for life in the womb we were all in there at some time so beautiful so vulnerable i revere life in the womb but i also revere life after birth people that like think you can't have abortion but then what about after the child is born do we revere life after birth so that each child has education nutrition housing all the things you need to have a crack at being somebody she said i have the deepest reverence for women and the hard choices that they have to make i thought that sounds very jesusy to me we get confused we talk about race and you have people saying i'm not racist and they're really annoyed with the other people and then you have people say you are ruthless and they're really annoyed they're annoyed with they're they're afraid they're angry they're judgmental try to think about jesus on this and i was in a conversation the other day about race and america and the church and it was so boring it was so exhausting i thought we had these conversations in the 40s and in the 50s and in the 60s and we just keep doing the same thing over and over and we just never quite get we can't get there can we you see what would happen if the scripture stuff came to life that would look totally different right it wouldn't be racist not go arguing with each other you know the the i heard this thing the other day i heard it on two different news outlets i had to check myself to be sure i was paying attention i heard it on cnn and on fox and they were talking about voting rights and i'm not an expert on voting rights so don't judge me on this but with voting rights you know i don't understand how the word nobody wants voter fraud of course on both those stations they said we're considering legislation to turn the clock back to 1965 to the voting rights that were passed in 1965. i just i can't get this out of my head because 1965 friends was a long time ago in 1965 i was about this tall in 1965 martin luther king was still walking around talking about the table of brotherhood and so on in 1916 we want to go back because we've those rights that were voted in 1965 have been eroded i don't know how voting rights work nobody wants fraud but it seems to me a jesus see thing might might be that we want don't you don't we want everybody to be in franchise don't we want everybody as many as possible to vote i mean it's america my father couldn't vote in the last election of his wife in person why was confined to nursing home he couldn't have passed some quiz to come and vote don't we want everybody to vote and last thing just like you know old conversations that we can never seem to get right i was with some people the other day they were debating lgbtq inclusion in the church like oh still i preached on this 31 years ago i was up in davidson and i announced i could preach a sermon on on the church in homosexuality it was packed it was like easter and my sermon was pretty innocuous looking back on i think i pretty much just said oh you know everybody ought to be able to be part of the church we ought to bless everybody in the church i mean it wasn't anything radical and uh when church was over i was driving home i noticed there was a car on my bumper and it following me down my street on my bumper i turned to my driveway he was still on my bumper i get out of the car and i look back it's one of my church members and he gets out and he's running toward me his fist is balled up he takes his swing it's like jesus is getting thrown off the cliff right he takes a swing at my head i ducked i tackled him i felt like i was on a tv show or something and i wrestled him in the ground and i'm hanging on to him he's yelling at me finally got him to calm down we talked a long time and it ended in him just sobbing on my shoulder somebody eating up with fear and with anger and so lost jesus comes to quell our fear to dampen our anger jesus comes with wide arms to open his love to every every every one he concludes that sermon by a reading from isaiah speaks of the acceptable year of the lord that year that he read that it's a pretty good year 30 ideas pretty good year for jesus he healed he taught oh it did kill him at the end but then it was a pretty good year because god raised him from the dead the question that i have for us is 2022 like what kind of year is this going to be could this be an acceptable year of the lord could it be that this is the year that we give them the bible stuff could this be the year that we hear god's call and say there is good news for the poor there is sight for the blind there is release for the captive there is freedom for those who are oppressed that would be me that would be you that would be everybody everybody i love it at the end they're about to throw jesus off i don't know why they don't but they don't they wanted to throw them all but then they held back why did the the did was there something in there did some of them think there's some [Music] some hint of truth in this guy he doesn't seem dangerous he seems like he loves us he seems like there's a lot of hope there's something that resonates there's something beautiful about him let's don't kill him at least not yet and it says that jesus turned they were about to kill him they didn't and then he passed through them it's like the waters parted and jesus walked right through so beautiful and i wonder if anybody in that crowd who'd wanted to kill him a few minutes before thought i got to figure out what i'm gonna do with the rest of my life i think i think i'm gonna traipse off after this one he just seems to me like he might be the one he is the one 2022 it could be the acceptable year of the lord thanks be to god [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] oh [Music] friends would you join me in a time of prayer almighty god on this morning we confess that our deepest joy is found in you for through your law and your prophets you formed a people in mercy and freedom justice and righteousness and so we come before you on this day to give voice to our awe to sing praises to your name to witness to your glory and to be reminded that before everything we are yours you know of all the hurts and illnesses the disappointments and despair the anger and the resentment that cloud our spirits and steal our joy you know the deepest desires of our hearts you know the people who are dear to us whom we hold in our hearts remind us again of your great love a love that claims and comforts heals and forgives restores and reconciles remind us even as we lift the names of those dear to us and lift our deepest desires into the light of your presence lord in your mercy gentle shepherd we live in a world full of competing voices voices that would crush our spirits and deny our calling voices that make us doubt ourselves that make us doubt you we ask that you quell our fears that you dampen our anger don't comfort us as much as challenge us challenge us with your word that comes to life challenge us to be your life challenge us to hear your scriptures challenge us to let the scriptures be fulfilled in us today in all the challenges in our lives cause us to see that you are there and lead us to respond with faith and courage and in all the opportunities and challenges in our lives let us see your generous hand behind it all and lead us to respond with thanksgiving lord in your mercy pour out your spirit on us today that we who are christ's body may bear the good news of your ancient promises to all who seek you give us courage to be your faithful witnesses by the kinds of loving service and care that we give to all others we pray this in the name and for the sake of your own son jesus who taught us to pray saying our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day 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 for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever amen friends as we prepare to bring to god his tithes and our offerings i want to thank you for your continued generosity it may sound mundane but your continued generosity allowed us to turn on the heat in here this morning it allows us to have light it allows us to keep this marvelous building open not for us but for the kingdom of god thank you uh [Music] say [Music] it [Music] oh [Music] me oh [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] he lost me [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] loving god we bring to you our gifts asking that you bless them and that you use them to bring good news to the poor to proclaim release to the captives to restore sight to all of us who are blind and to set at liberty all who are oppressed we ask this in christ's name amen [Music] me [Music] know [Music] [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] friends has been good to be together in the house of the lord this morning and now may the grace of our risen lord and savior jesus christ the love of god the father and the fellowship of the holy spirit be with each one of us both now and forevermore [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Myers Park United Methodist Church

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Id: uyi_X0wZ0f8

Length: 65min 7sec (3907 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 23 2022