Sermon - More to Follow

Preached on May 26, 2013, at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.

Dedicated to the high school graduates of the congregation, whom we celebrated on this Sunday, and always to the glory of God.

Scripture: John 16:12-15

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Sermon

Jesus knows that his life is almost at an end as he shares this last meal with his disciples just before his arrest. In this most caring, poignant moment, he says that he still has many things to say to them, but they cannot bear them now.  He promises that the Spirit of truth will come to them, and that the Spirit will guide them into all truth. It is an important promise, for the disciples, that there is more to follow. What they have heard and seen and experienced so far, as amazing as it has been, is not all that there is. And it has become an important promise to each generation since. As amazing as our history and our lives have been, there is more to follow as the Spirit of God guides us into all truth.

My nephew, Abe, who is five years old, wants to live with his parents and his younger sister for his entire life. A few months ago, it seems, one of his conversations of curiosity in which he asks his mom or dad a never-ending series of questions eventually led around to the fact that they don't live with their parents anymore, and that when Abe grows up he can have his own home, too. Abe thought about this, and then he said “I think I'll just live here with you and Mom and Phoebe, and I'll work with you at your job.” My brother, being a great dad, said that that would be just fine.

Right now, Abe needs the security of his parents and the home that they have together. That's the amount of truth that he can bear right now. But we all know there is more to follow. The kind of parenting and support that he needs now is not what he will need when he is eighteen, or twenty-five, or forty. Thank God that he has parents who will give him what he needs at the appropriate ages, because what he needs later is not what he can bear now.

I'm sure you have gathered that I think this is, in a way, how God cares for us. Just as my nephew will need a different understanding of his life and a different kind of support from his family when he is an adult, so does God's spirit guide us into new ways of knowing God and knowing ourselves as we move out of childhood and into adulthood, and as the church grows from generation to generation in maturity and understanding to meet new challenges and to grapple with our growing knowledge of the world we live in.

Sermon - Courageous Conversations

Preached on May 5, 2013, the sixth Sunday of Easter, at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.

Dedicated to the members of the Confirmation class, who renew their baptism today,

and always to the glory of God.

Introduction

We are in a sermon series on the Core Values of this congregation, as discerned in the past three years with input from all corners of the church. The full text of the five values is printed in the bulletin, but to bring us up to date, we began with the principle that

1. We represent Jesus in the world by following his teachings.

2. The second is that we love one another in the church family.

3. And the third is that we commit to serving God by reaching out to serve others.

Today we add the fourth: “We invite courageous conversations about life and faith in order to learn and grow.”

Scripture  John 9:1-12

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. ²His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ ³Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. ⁴Wemust work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. ⁵As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’ ⁶When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes,⁷saying to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. ⁸The neighbours and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’ ⁹Some were saying, ‘It is he.’ Others were saying, ‘No, but it is someone like him.’ He kept saying, ‘I am the man.’ ¹⁰But they kept asking him, ‘Then how were your eyes opened?’ ¹¹He answered, ‘The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, “Go to Siloam and wash.” Then I went and washed and received my sight.’ ¹²They said to him, ‘Where is he?’ He said, ‘I do not know.’

Sermon

As they follow Jesus, the disciples and the man who receives his sight are blessed because they engage in courageous conversations.

Jesus gives sight to a man born with blindness in a manner that strikes us as fairly bizarre: spitting on the ground, mud mask on the eyes, washing in another place. It’s a strange story, and our focus is naturally drawn to the blind man and the healing work of Jesus. But let’s take a moment first to look at the conversations beginning with the disciples, who ask Jesus a question. “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

It seems they have adopted the usual assumption of the time that blindness is a punishment for sin but they’ve been disagreeing about who it was that sinned. Before Jesus answers, stay here with me for a bit, because their conversation is a good model for us on several counts. The first is that they don’t agree. Some think that the man sinned, and some think that his parents sinned, but instead of letting their disagreement become hardened into two opposing camps, they remain open to learning more together. Their relationships, within a caring community that is committed to following Jesus and being of service to others, are more important than their disagreements. Here they are, asking a question as one group who disagrees.

We know that we have disagreements in this church. If our church was defined by being absolutely unified in all of our views and opinions, we would suddenly become a much smaller church. Instead, we practice loving relationships, respect for people who disagree with us, and the humility to understand that we may not know everything and maybe we can learn from each other now and then. That’s not always easy, but what a gift to practice such relationships here in church because we need those kind of relationships with our coworkers and neighbors, in our national discourse, and even in our own families. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to talk to people about religion, about politics, and about values, without yelling at each other?

It was Paul Tournier who said “I remember changing my mind during a heated argument only once in a long life.”  At this church, we engage in discussion about important things even when we disagree.  In this way, we invite courageous conversations about life and faith in order to learn and grow.