Today we celebrate the beginning of a new year with the unique combination of the opportunity for communion and Covenant. Communion is a sacramental moment in which God offers himself to us in an ancient rite and a covenant is a sealed commitment between two or more parties---in our case today a commitment between ourselves and God through the Wesleyan Covenantal Prayer.
On the side of entrance of our home is a small metal Jewish Mezuzah. It was a gift from a Jewish Rabbi and recalls the Jewish affirmation of one’s commitment to God—“As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord.”
Leonard Sweet in his book “Soul Salsa” suggests that we should Mezuzah our entire universe—our calendar, our homes, our relationships, our celebrations.” At least for today, it is my good privilege and honor to invite you to “mezuzah” your relationship with God and thus enter into the new year of 2006 with this relationship secure.
Covenants are everywhere in our lives: Mortgages, Marriage, Jobs, Church membership, Treaties between nations. The only problem is that by their very nature, covenants are very fragile.
Take for example National alliances which change every day. In the middle of the 19th century, England’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Viscount Palmerston, said of England’s national friends: “We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies.”
Only a few short years ago, Iraq and Saddam Hussein was a friend of our nation but today we have lost over 2000 American soldiers on their sovereign soil and there is yet no one consensus group to covenant with for their future. Today’s friend is tomorrow’s enemy.
Because of the fragile nature of human
covenants, the Bible addresses this issue in our relationship with God:
To Father Abraham God said: “Behold,
my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations”
To Noah God said: “Behold I establish
my covenant with you and your descendants.”
To Moses God said: “Write these words
for I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”
To Jeremiah God said: “Behold the
days are coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. I will
put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts, and I will be
their God and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his
neighbor and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know
me.”
The concept of “Covenant” resonates through biblical literature like the glorious theme of a magnificent symphony. We divide the O.T. and N.T. between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. And Jesus said: “This is my body and my blood of a new covenant.”
In the Genesis account of the covenant God made with Noah after the flood, the poet sees the reappearance of the rainbow as a continuing sign of the promise that the storms of life would end and that God would ultimately bless, not destroy His people. The rainbow was not something Noah made, but God put it in the sky. The ground of our ultimate hope is not in our own ingenuity, our own abilities, but it is in God. We begin a new year with confidence because our hope is in God.”
In London’s Tate Gallery, hangs Frederick Watt’s masterpiece called “Hope”. Hope is portrayed as a beautiful woman, blindfolded and seated on a globe. In this striking picture, Hope is holding a lute, an instrument that is something like a guitar with many strings. But as you look carefully at the painting, you notice that all of the strings of the lute are broken, except one. The blindfolded girl is listening intently to the beautiful melody and playing on the one unbroken string. Watt portrayed Hope as blindfolded with broken strings, but yet not undone by sorrow, pain, nor despair.
Hope is the belief that the storms will end and that the rainbow will appear because there is a future, a glorious future. There is something in the heart of the human spirit that longs for the assurance that the storms of life will cease and that peace will come. We long for this new year to be hurricane free, a year without storms but the odds are against us.
Blessed are those who play the melody of peace and love on the one unbroken string for they look beyond what they can see. In the Lord our God we will trust for a better tomorrow.
On one side of the covenant is God’s promise that he will fulfill in and through all that he declared in Jesus Christ.
On the other side we stand pledged to live no longer unto ourselves, but to him who loved us and gave himself for us.
I invite you to pray with me the Wesleyan Covenant Prayer:
I am no longer my own, but I am Yours. Put me to what You will, rank me with whom You will; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for You or laid aside for You; exalted for You or brought low for You; let me be full, let me be empty; let me have all things, let me have nothing; I freely and heartily yield all things to Your pleasure and disposal. And now, Oh glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, You are mine, and I am Yours. So Be It. And the covenant which I make on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
Kiliam McDonnel, is a monk at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. He describes the Spiritual life as one composed of three things: treasures, baggage, and garbage.
This seems to me to be a very clear description of most of our life which is composed of treasures, baggage, and garbage. Now deciding which is the challenge, for treasures are to be cherished, baggage off loaded and garbage disposed of.
Treasures are gifts and are to be cherished, while baggage and trash are burdens and need to be offloaded from one’s life.
First, treasures are to be cherished.
Deciding on what in our lives are treasures would be different for each of us, but surely there are some things we can agree on.
The family given to us, that is a treasure. Most of us didn’t choose our family, it just happened. Such things have to be cherished as a gift which has come to us not from us.
A second common treasure is “The knowledge that we are a child of God. Made in his image and gifted with the privilege of communicating with the creator of the Universe.” This living relationship with God is a treasure to be cultivated, enjoyed.
The Apostle Paul has written: “We have this treasure in an earthen vessel.”
Our physical health is a treasure, but it is in a fragile vessel. You only begin to realize how precious the body is when things begin to break down. When eyesight fails, when you have only one leg to walk on you realize how precious it is to have two. I have lived 22,921 days. Our heart beats 72 times per minute, 4320 times per hour, 51840 times per day which means that my heart has been beating 11,882,246 times and I haven’t had to raise a finger. A gift, the healthy body a treasure.
Treasures, there are many, thank God there are treasures in our lives.
But there is so much in our life and some of it is self imposed baggage.
We carry so many things around with us, sometimes I wonder if maybe to our detriment. Things like guilt for our failures, fears and worries of what could happen, regrets for what might have been, envy and anger at people and things which are beyond our control. So much baggage. We need some of it for fear keeps us in the speed limit, and healthy anger keeps us dissatisfied with mediocrity. But for the most part, we tend to carry a lot of baggage.
Not too long ago I was in a long airport check in line waiting patiently, well, seeing that I don’t like to do lines, I was not very patient, but waiting nevertheless. There was this rather stout lady just in front of me with enough bags to manage well if she needed to clothe a battalion of soldiers, provide snacks for any size preschool program, or parachute out of the airplane. She checked in two bags and had two carry-on’s and one extra one with a poodle’s head sticking out of one end. The poodle head was just there, either asleep or I wondered if it was just maybe a stuffed animal head sticking out of one of her bags. I discovered however that it was not a stuffed animal when I thumped him on the top of his head. He was real all right. She had packed her dog and a little of everything else.
Don’t you envy people who can pack for a trip in one carry-on and have room left over, I am resolved in this new year to eliminate some of the excess baggage that I have been hauling around for many years.
The human body and spirit is a fragile vessel and cannot bear up under all of the weight we place on it. So among your new year’s resolutions, may I suggest that you join with me to eliminate such excess baggage as envy, fear, guilt, hostility, and whatever else you are tired of carrying around with you.
The Apostle Paul writes: “Forgetting all that lies behind, I press forward toward the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Roger Shin tells of Jewish prisoners in the holocaust era of Germany’s unbelievable effort at genocide. Many of the Jewish people when they were rounded up and placed on trains were told they could carry with them anything they wanted and they loaded their suitcases with silver, jewelry, and old family pictures and off they went but many were off loaded from the trains and thus began a long death march to Dachau. As the weather was bad and the road long, gradually people would unload their excess baggage which began as family treasures but soon became a burden. Some struggled with their heavy valuables to the point that they died along the way with their treasures clutched in their weaken hands. Treasures become excess baggage in life and death situations.
But much that passes for treasures is not merely excess baggage, but is really garbage or trash.
For example, have you noticed the deterioration of the language of Americans? Teenagers need to watch their use of God as a curse word adjective. God says “Do not take my name in vain.” That is trash talk.
I went to a Professional Football game in Philadelphia when Dallas beat them pretty bad. The language of the fans was atrocious. I heard more curse words in one half than I have heard in all my life. As a matter of fact, I left at halftime because I was embarrassed. Trash talk, it is garbage and some things need to be discarded.
There are some of us who have this Superman complex and try to carry a lot of burdens for other people and over the years I have realized how foolish that can be. I have tried to carry problems for our children, for church members, and even thought in confusing times that I could even help God handle some of his overlooked problems. It’s a God-complex problem some ministers have.
One of the key things I have learned over the years is that each person has to carry their own burdens. We carry only what is ours, not everybody else’s.
It could be that the burdens we carry are a combination of treasures, baggage, and garbage and the burden of carrying it all is killing us. We have back problems, because the burdens of carrying all these treasures, plus the excess baggage, plus the trash is heavy.
In a rather interesting book by Joanna Weaver entitled Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, the author in commenting on Jesus’ statement to Martha “You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.”, she tells this interesting story…One day God greeted this man in a lovely valley and asked “Seeing that you have a wagon, would you be willing to carry these three stones for me to the top of the hill.” “Willing, said the man, sure I would be willing and off he went with God’s treasured stones in his wagon. It wasn’t long before he met a friend who asked him if he would carry his two stones to the top of the hill, since he was going anyway. “Sure that won’t be a problem,” he said. This happened a number of times until the springs on the old wagon were sagging and he was huffing and puffing up the hill with God’s three stones and all of the neighbor’s stones as well.
Well, resentment build up as exhaustion set in. And when he could go no further, he just stopped and called out to God that he was quitting. He said to God, “I’ve had enough. You have given me a job that is too much for me. You said to me you would not put on me more than I could handle but look at this wagon and look at me, I’m a wreck.”
And God said: “Well I only asked you to carry three stones to the top of the hill but it looks like you have added a few of your own and your neighbors. If you would be content to let others take their own burdens, I will help you with your task.”
But the man pleaded, “But I said I would help, how can I leave these things lying here?” And God said: “Let others shoulder their own belongings. I know you were trying to help, but when you are weighted down with all these cares, you cannot do what I have asked of you.”
“You mean I only have to take the three stones after all?” And God said: “That is what I asked you to do. And remember “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Summary: At this early beginning of a new year, there are in our lives, Treasures, Excess Baggage and Trash. With all of the demands on us, it is sometimes hard to distinguish which is which. I can only say to you, “Good luck”.
No, I can do better than that. Through prayer and disciplined life, God will reveal to you the treasure and there will be strength enough to carry those gifts. Remember—“Carry only the Treasure”.
The Apostle Paul wrote: I press onward to the High Calling of God in Jesus Christ.” Discipleship to Jesus Christ is a high calling.
Some of you who are football fans will remember when Bo Schembechler was the coach of the Michigan Wolverines. It is said that Schembechler used to work his players unmercifully in spring training to see what his players were made of. He would often say to them, “Are you a winner or a quitter?” There was a sign which hung on his office door that read: “Those who stay will be champions.”
Of course, not everyone stayed. One morning Schembechler came to the office and when he saw his sign he noticed that someone had printed the words: “And those who quit will be doctors, lawyers, and leaders of industry.”
Not everyone has what it takes to answer the call to be a champion, regardless of the field or profession. It takes a willingness to serve, a joy in learning and a commitment to stay the course.
A little article circulated for a while on the Internet about life in the Navy…It was directed at people who think Navy life is glamorous, like the movie Top Gun or the television show Jag. Here are a few of the suggestions the writer makes for people who want to experience Navy life.
Buy a dumpster, paint it gray and live in it for six months.
Once a week disassemble your lawn mower and inspect it.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays turn your water temperature up to 200 degrees, then on Tuesday and Thursday turn it down to 10 degrees. On Saturdays and Sundays declare to your family that they have used too much water during the week, so all showering is prohibited.
Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling.
Have your neighbor come over each day at five a.m. and blow a whistle so loud that Helen Keller could hear it and shout, “Reveille, Reveille, all hands heave out and trice up.”
Post a menu on the refrigerator door informing your family that you are having steak for dinner. Then make them wait in line for at least an hour and when they finally get to the kitchen, tell them that you are out of steak, but you have dried ham or hot dogs. Repeat daily until they don’t pay attention to the menu any more and they just ask for hot dogs.
Well anyway, you get the idea. Not Everyone Will Be Happy As A Sailor And Not Everyone Is Cut Out To Play Football. And Not Everyone Will Make Is As A Disciple Of Jesus Christ. You May Not Have What It Takes, For It Takes First Of All, A Willingness To Serve And Secondly, A Desire To Learn And Thirdly, The Ability To Stick To It.
Being a disciple of Jesus Christ doesn’t have to do with being smart or capable or able, it has to do with being willing.
It is very difficult to discern anything special about the men that Jesus called except their willingness to serve. The Lord walked beside the Sea of Galilee and saw Simon and his brother Andrew. The sons of Zebedee were casting a net into the lake for they were fishermen. “Come follow me” Jesus said to them and I will make you fishers of men” And at once they left their nets and followed him. He met Phillip and he told Nathaniel, who said of Jesus: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” And I might add, seeing who Jesus chose to follow him, one wonders, can anything good come out of the small band of disciples?
In one of our Disciple classes, one of the students said: “If it were me, I would not have been down by the water looking for leaders of a new institution called the Church Among The fishermen.” If You Want Someone To Be A Leader, You Look For The Pilot Of The Ship, Not The Deckhands, But Jesus Was Looking At The Deckhands.
In the l970’s, we lived in Clanton Alabama, the home of my parents. There were a number of families in Chilton County who carried similar names. I had an uncle who would always say, “In Chilton County, if you see someone barefooted and with sandy hair, you speak to them and be nice, for they are probably your cousins.”
Well, they were the Smithermens and the Smothermans who lived in Chilton County. One group lived in town and the others lived down on the banks of the river. One group were the craftsmen and laborers and the others fished for a living and bootlegged whisky in the predominately Baptist and Methodist County. Same family, spelled pretty much the same by those who could spell. Jesus chose the ones who lived down on the river. I always thought that one of the reasons you would have chosen the one’s who lived down on the Coosa River in Clanton was because it would be easy to find them on Monday morning, for they were usually in jail, thus easy to find.
Jesus chose the leaders of the church not on the bases of their ability, their intelligence, or their track record, but on their willingness to serve. They were easy to find.
A Second reason they were chosen was their desire to learn. A “disciple” by definition is one who is a “learner” or a student. I consider myself a life long learner. There is so much that has come on line of recent years that if you don’t keep up you will get left behind. In the case of a Godly person in our tradition, it is a person who learns of Jesus. Have you read the Gospels? Have you read a book on self-improvement? Well this is the beginning of a new year. Check out the church library. Lenice Horne reads so many of our books. The third graders are given a Bible - don’t miss the importance of this gift. We don’t give them a Playstation 2® or a paint ball gun or an Xbox 360® …no, it is the Bible. The church offers “Disciple” Bible Study courses and unique learning opportunities like “The Percy Institute.”
In the dialogue between Phillip and Nathaniel, when Nathaniel slammed Jesus by his statement “Can Anything Good come out of Nazareth?” Phillip responds by saying “Come and See”. Come close to Jesus and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. It’s hard to know who he is if you don’t learn of him.
The reason I have a real hard time with racism, mean-spiritedness, war, and violence is that I just don’t see Jesus supporting or practicing any of these things. The closer I am to Jesus, the more repulsive these are to me.
Having been somewhat ugly about the qualifications of the disciples, we must acknowledge that being around Jesus turned them into very special people. That’s really not surprising as I have seen Jesus turn many a life around if you will stick with the program.
Disciples are willing to serve, are life long learners and stick with the program. I cannot tell you how many very prominent individuals have come to me over the years in my office in this church, searching and willing to promise to do anything to find meaning and purpose in their lives.
I have told them you have to turn your life over to God. You have to pray every day. Worship every week. Read the Bible and learn about who Jesus is and live every day like him. You will have to meet with me or some Christian and talk about what you are learning. Be invested, give to Christian causes and your life will turn around.
We agree. We cry together. We shake hands. We embrace. We pray and they leave and within a month I never see many of them again.
No Wonder People Don't Become Champions Because They Are Quitters. Bo Schembechler was right “You are either a winner or a quitter.”
On Friday, I heard this blind athlete talk about his blessed life. Someone joking asked who he saw winning the football playoffs. And he said “The one who thinks like I do, as winners.”
The disciples of Jesus will win. I have read the end of the story. And I believe that they are individuals like you and me who are willing to serve, are life long learners, and stick to the program.
There is in most of our lives an edge, a restlessness or feeling of a lack of something. Perhaps God created us with these needs so that we might seek Him out and realize our dependence on Him. The good news is that Our Needs Are Met With God's Action!
In the heart of every human being there are some basic needs which, if left unmet, blocks healthy development and thus these needs must be satisfied in progressive order. My Experience Has Been That These Needs Are Met By God Incartionally With A Human Touch. What I am saying here is that God is in other human beings accomplishing these nagging needs of ours which clamors for attention. I think along with other writers like Abraham Maslow and Piège and other humanists that the order of progression of these human needs are on five levels:
The needs are physiological and safety needs, the needs of love, affection and belonginess the needs for self esteem and self actualization, but esteem and actualization are way high on the scale of needs. The needs for safety and security, love and laughter must also be met.
Physiological Needs
These are biological needs. They consist of needs for oxygen, food, water, and a relatively constant body temperature. They are the strongest needs because if a person were deprived of all needs, the physiological ones would come first in the person's search for satisfaction. (Our Mother gives us milk to drink and changes our diaper and we are satisfied. You take care of these needs first before you lecture the child concerning philosophical extensionalism. These needs, physiological, are basic and crucial. (I think that this is one of the reasons that the miracle of The Feeding of the Five Thousand made the cut in which of Jesus’ miracles to include. And isn’t it fascinating that Jesus used the five loves and two fish of a young boy to perform this miracle.) God’s mysterious incarnational love has a human touch. Thus Christian citizens appreciate the importance of our nation’s “food for peace” programs for the third world countries a lot more than our newest military hardware.
Safety Needs
When all physiological needs are satisfied and are no longer controlling thoughts and behaviors, the needs for security can become active. Adults have little awareness of their security needs except in times of emergency or periods of disorganization in the social structure (such as a time of war and terrorism). Children often display the signs of insecurity and the need to be safe.
A child after a nap got up and came into the room of her mother saying “I just wanted to be sure you were here.” The gift of security was given because a mother was there.
Years ago one of our confirmation students recited The Twenty Third Psalm and brought tears to the eyes of the congregation. One of the older members later commented, “He knew the words, but more importantly he knows the shepherd). Sometimes we sing this song: (God will take care of you.)
Needs of Love, Affection and Belongingness
When the needs for safety and for physiological well-being are satisfied, the next class of needs is for love, affection and belongingness. Abraham Maslow states that people seek desperately to overcome feelings of loneliness and alienation. I think these crazy “teenage gangs” which frighten me at times, is but a desperate search for “A Place.”
There is this strong need to both giving and receiving love, affection and the sense of belonging. (The healing of Mary Magdalene one possessed of seven dæmons came with the gift of fellowship…Appearance in the Garden tomb…) The awareness of love and affection came to Mary with the human touch of Jesus the man. The rather interesting novel The Da Vinci Code tries to make something of the human relationship of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and even writes of a child that may have been born from their union. No one knows this for sure, but there was a powerful relationship between the two of them that led to the healing of Mary. Doesn’t love and healing always come with a human touch?
Years ago I knew this lady who had experienced some pretty horrific stories of rejection and betrayal. She had become sad and a bit bedraggled with the hammering down experiences that had come her way, but then I ran into her in the mall one day and she smiled. Beautiful person, projecting the confidence of one loved and respected. She introduced herself reminding me of her name.
Don’t you hate it when someone sees you after 20 years and says, “Do you remember who I am? Well, she introduced herself to me and I immediately remembered, but she was different. She told me briefly of a new love in her life and how things had changed. She told me of her faith and love for God. Love will change your life!!! That is why the Bible teaches that “God is love.”
Our need is God’s action. I may not understand this dynamic process of human development, but I can sure appreciate the fact that when your physiological and safety needs are met, and you know that you are loved, you will be healthy.
Needs for Esteem
When the first three classes of needs are satisfied, the needs for esteem can become dominant. These involve needs for both self-esteem and for the esteem a person gets from others. My father never passed out compliments very easy, because he never received many in his early formative years. He lost his mother at age eight and then his father at age nine, and what he never received much of, he was not prone to pass on to his two sons. However, at the end of his life, I visited him in the hospital and I was preaching in Minneapolis at the wonderful Hennepin Avenue Church, and I told my Dad I had to fly up to Minneapolis to preach and I would be back the next day. He looked strangely at me and asked, “Are they paying the airline ticket?” Yes Sir. “They are flying you all the way up there for one sermon?” Yes Sir, and they will put me up in a hotel at their expense. He asked: “Will they pay you something to preach this one sermon?” Yes Sir, I said, they will pay about $1,500 dollars. My Dad smiled and said, “That’s really something for a boy from Marengo County.” I laughed to myself, thinking that was about as close to a compliment he could give and frankly, he was right, that was something for a boy from Marengo County. But in what would be a “moment” that would live on in my memory, my Dad gave to me the affirmation of my self-esteem, which has sustained me over long years and enabled me to do a lot of things I could never have done. Makes you wonder if you could not help others through your compliments to them in miraculous ways.
Needs for Self-Actualization
When all of the foregoing needs are satisfied, then and only then are the needs for self-actualization activated. Abraham Maslow describes self-actualization as a person's need to be and do that which the person was "born to do." Rick Warren in his Purpose Driven Life Book points to this need which rests at the top of the scale of human needs. Maslow says: "A musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write." Are you accomplishing with your time, God’s purpose for your life?
There is in most of our lives an edge, a restlessness or feeling of a lack of something. Perhaps God created us with these needs so that we might seek Him out and realize our dependence on Him.
My point in all of this is to affirm for us the good news that God is involved with us in this dynamic process of each stage of our development. That our needs are God’s Action.
The scripture read today describes Jesus as a teacher who speaks with authority and as a healer who assists those who are unhealthy to progress on to the next stage of their development. The needs of human beings became the impetus of the actions of Jesus and our needs today are the actions of God tomorrow.
I have lived long enough to realize that when these needs For Safety And Significance And These Needs For Laughter And Love are satisfied, you will feels self-confident and valuable as a person. When these needs are frustrated, the person feels inferior, weak, helpless and worthless, defensive.
Augustine of Hippo was right in his little volume “The Confessions.” “O Lord, our hearts are restless, till they rest in thee.”
And The Apostle Peter Once Wrote: “Once You Were Nobody, But Now You Are Somebody, You Are God's Child.”
Our Needs Have Been Shaped And Fulfilled By God's Love. Our's Is An Awesome God. The Lord Be With You.