Helping one another to grow, Sermon October 28

October 28, 2007
Herb Palmer
Faith Lutheran Church, Bellaire
John 4:1-15; Genesis 50:15-21; Philippians 4:8-9
How we help each other grow

This morning we continue our study of community, what we want to talk about is: How do people grow? Let’s begin by taking a look at things that grow.

All kinds of things have potential for growth. Bank accounts grow. Plants grow. Populations grow. Businesses grow. When we talk about that kind of growth we are saying that we start at a particular point of something and it increases in size. That is one kind of growth.

There is a sense also that growth is progressive. We have heard the phrase, “the room grew silent.” Meaning there is a gradual, progressive movement from one state to another. In this case, growing from noise to silence.

We also talk about people growing in certain ways. Gerhard Frost published a book of poems for educators and parents that he called “Bless My Growing”. Through his poems he talks about the teaching moments; the “aha” moments; the encounters with people when he is very much aware that his life is different because of those experiences. As he remembers these encounters he claims that he grew from them and he asks God to bless his growing. He asked God to be with him in his growing.

The Bible speaks of growing in wisdom, growing into the full stature of Christ. As a child, Jesus went to the Temple in Jerusalem with his family. Luke concludes telling this story with the observation: “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.”

How do people grow? Can it be seen? What happens to a person when a person grows? Are there changes in the way they look? What happens if a person stops growing? There is a big point of discussion these days that we are growing too big. But that growth is out and around. A majority of us are overweight. That growth is a result of what we are putting in our mouth.

What we are talking about today when we talk about people growing, however, is about growing in character, personality, and perspective. It is about what we put into our minds, our hearts, our spirit, and our ears. It is about growing in intangible ways, but which have tangible results.

Sometimes this growth we speak about is flattering or life giving. We will say: She has really grown into a beautiful woman. He has grown to be quite mature. They have grown to accept reality. From this experience she has grown to be more loving or more patient. The opposite is also true when the growth we speak about is not so flattering and not at all life-giving. We will say a person has grown bitter; grown hard; grown distant.

One church leader said that he has seen some other people in church leadership that, as they grew older, there was a tendency for them to grow cynical. Because of what he saw happening to other people he made a decision about his own growth and aging. He said that as he grows older he wants to grow sweeter and kinder and more loving. He believed that if this is the kind of person he wants to grow to be, he would have to be intentional about the care he gave to his mind, heart, and spirit now.

In this line of growth, we also talk about people growing in our faith.

Growing in faith was core to the issues Martin Luther faced. He was trying to grow in his faith and he kept hitting against a wall until he discovered the soil and feed for growing in his faith. That soil and feed is the unconditional love of God through Jesus Christ. When Martin Luther came to trust that, he grew. As a result of that growth everything about life took on new meaning and curiosity.

While caring for his own growth in faith, Luther saw that the church had been stunted in its growth. The church had grown in lots of ways. It had grown in power. The church had grown in wealth and influence. The church buildings had grown, even St. Peter’s at the Vatican was under construction to grow in size to be the largest church in the world. But Luther found that faith in God was stunted, lacking growth, and lacking life. The Reformation began as a movement to form the church so that it would be a community where people grow.

Jesus models for us that the church is at its best when it is a community where people help one another grow in their faith. One such time is when Jesus met a woman at a well. It becomes apparent that she had stopped growing in life-giving ways. Because of the circumstances in her life she grew in all the wrong ways: she had grown cynical about life and she had grown distant from people. And she had grown to be frozen in her faith.

Jesus kept at it with her to see if something might begin to grow. He didn’t pluck her out as though she was a weed. He challenged her, taught her, and encouraged her. He told her the truth. He loved her and he demonstrated to her the love of God. As a result of that nurturing something happened to that woman that day. Like a plant that had not been watered for a long time... that is now drenched… she began to show signs of life and evidence of growth. Jesus comments to his disciples that there is a harvest here that is ripe. With just a little care, Jesus demonstrates that people need help to see that there is fruit that can come from their life when they feel valued and affirmed.

People want to grow in their faith in God; but they need help. Jesus built a relationship with her. He affirmed her and he challenged her. Look at the results. She tells her neighbors about her relationship with God… She tells them about the faith that is growing in her. She talks about how she has grown; and… they see it! Imagine what might happen to the people in your life if you were committed to say and do things that have a positive influence for their growth? Here is what Jesus teaches us who are his followers: we need one another to grow.

If other people need you to help them grow, what do you need in order to be a growth agent?

Paul teaches that we can’t give what we don’t have. He points out what needs to be in our own hearts, minds, and spirits in order for us to be growth agents.

He says:
“Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right.
Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable.
Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”

When such things get into us, they become growth agents through us. We can only give what we have. If we are growing in what is true, honorable, and right; it only stands to reason that we will also have them to give away for others.

If we are not growing; we are dying. We need one another to help us grow and live. May God bless the growing that happens in us and through us. Amen.

Reaching Out Together, Sermon

Herb Palmer
Faith Lutheran Church, Bellaire
October 14, 2007
40 Days of Community, Reaching out Together
Isaiah 58:6-9; Colossians 4:2-6; Luke 5:27-32

Saturday, a week ago, a group of people from the church went to our Lutheran Camp, Lutherhill, near LaGrange. A part of the day was planned for the group to use the low ropes course. One of the challenges in this course is to move people from one platform to another. There were three platforms and two boards, neither of which was long enough to reach across from one platform to another. The key to being successful with this was that we had to work on this together.

During these 40 Days of Community we are talking about doing life together. Today we take a look at reaching out together. We often think about outreach as a challenge; often as a difficult challenge or a challenge we do on our own. What if we changed the way we thought about reaching out; and we understand it as a challenge that we can accomplish together? Just as we did on the low ropes course platforms, getting one another from one place to another… reaching out is not something we need to do alone. We can take the challenge… together.

Before we go any further, let’s clarify something that might seem to be stating the obvious. What are we talking about when we talk about reaching out? Reaching out is a New Testament notion. It is the brain child of Jesus, himself. Reaching out is about a relationship with God. It is not about getting someone to come to our church. It is not about building up church institutions that lead to building up assets. It is not about growing programs.

Reaching out is about a relationship with God. God desires a relationship with everyone. According to Jesus, reaching out is letting someone else know what you know about this relationship with God. Jesus believed that it would be heard as good news; and having heard it, people would arrange their life around this relationship. This relationship God desires with every person, God also wants it to be the desire of our hearts. God wants it to be the passion of every Christ follower to believe that every person’s life would be better lived if lived in a relationship with God.

An example of that is the story about a man named Matthew. Matthew was quite successful; and to have him tell it, his life was going well, even without God. He had a better than average income, a home, and friends. Matthew’s relationship with God had been marginal, at best. Matthew wasn’t even sure about God. Religious people had not helped him to come any closer to God. Religious people acted as thought they believed that Matthew was lost and they should not have anything to do with him. When there was contact, their standard operating procedure was to shame him or to shun him.

Matthew worked as a tax-collector. One day Jesus saw Matthew sitting at his tax-collection booth. Unlike other religious people Jesus had a curiosity about Matthew. Neither shaming nor shunning Matthew, Jesus takes a chance and says: “Why don’t you come with me for a while. Let’s learn together what it means to have a relationship with God.” This invitation from Jesus came at the right time for Matthew who seems to be ready to make some changes in his life. Matthew left what he was doing and he went with Jesus.

This is the same Matthew who is credited with writing the first of the New Testament gospels. By what he chose to write, we learn a lot about his faith. Among the things Matthew passed on to us, is that he told the story of the time when Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment. Jesus said: The Greatest Commandment is: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind. (Matt. 22:34-40)

What might that story have meant for Matthew who, at one time, had many things of greater value than his relationship with God? What might this teaching of Jesus meant for Matthew, who left everything behind in order to pursue a life in which he would love God with all his heart, soul, and mind?

And it was also, and only, Matthew who wrote about The Great Commission, when Jesus said: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” (Matt. 28:19-20a) What might have that meant for Matthew who, at one time served another Lord?

We owe Matthew a deep sense of gratitude for what he left for us to read about faith in God. Matthew, not only wrote about these things, but he took this to heart from the very beginning of his faith journey. Soon after he is invited by Jesus to learn about a relationship with God along with him, Matthew had an office party at his home, inviting his friends; among them are other tax collections. Here reaching out was a challenge done together.

First of all, reaching out to his friends, Matthew doesn’t begin with a serious conversation about sin, death, heaven and hell. That may appeal to some people, I am not sure I know who they are; but for most people it will likely chase them off.

Neither does Matthew begin by inviting his friends to church. He invited them to his home. Matthew wasn’t thinking about what was easy for himself. He was thinking about what was comfortable for his friends. Reaching out is about connecting with other people, loving them for themselves, sharing life with them, praying for them, having a curiosity about them; and, then, waiting for God to give the opportunity for you to share something about your relationship with God.

Secondly, Matthew invites not only the people with whom he worked; he invited Jesus and others who had followed Jesus to also be his guests. Matthew’s new friends were at the same party with his long time friends.

Finally, Matthew would not have come to this point if something had not happened in his own heart. There was a conversion in the way Matthew understood life. At some point, Matthew came to terms with the fact that God needed to be number one in his life. He had learned that he is to love God with his all his heart, soul, mind and strength. But he had to also live it and to order his life around it.

When we start believing that God is number one, how we live and how we relate to other people will change, also. We will also think about planning our life to include other people with whom God is passionate about growing a deeper relationship.

Remember that low ropes challenge course? How Matthew reached out to his friends was very much like moving from one point to another; but he couldn’t do it alone. The low ropes course challenge course is a wonderful example of how to help others grow closer to God.

This is the challenge course where the stakes are high, however. Yet, imagine a world where we have helped one another to successfully reach that place in life to know our loving God as we know God through Jesus Christ. Working at this together it can happen. Will we take the challenge? Back at Lutherhill when everyone reached that final platform there was a lot of cheering; imagine how much more the cheering when what is reached is a relationship with God. Amen

Bridgebuilders

On Saturday, October 13, Bridgebuilder, Dr. Peter Steinke, will be with Faith Lutheran Church from 9 am to noon. Our congregation has been in a time of transition as we implement our Vision Plan to be responsive to the needs for spiritual growth and the needs of the larger community for their families to be responsive to God, as well. The changes in our congregation have been exciting. People's lives are changing, families are seeing the church in partnership with them, people are using their gifts to serve God, and new leadership has been emerging. All of this has not been without a cost, however. That is why we need Dr. Steinke to come and help the congregation to learn to function in healthier ways in the way we communicate with one another, honor decisions, and embrace our future. I know that it is a big sacrifice of your time to come on a Saturday morning but it really is that important. So important, that I would say that the future of the congregation is being addressed. I hope to see you.

Better Together, Sermon, Sept. 30, 2007

Better Together.07
Herb Palmer
Faith Lutheran Church, Bellaire
September 30, 2007
40 Days of Community, Kick off
Exodus 18:13-27; Philippians 2:1-5; Luke 9:12-17

Today is our kick off for 40 Days of Community. Many people have been praying to prepare for today and the days ahead. Many people have been working many hours to prepare. Some people will host a group of people in their home; others will lead discussions. Many of you have already signed up to participate in a Faith Group during 40 Days of Community. And so here we are ready to begin.

If we are to find value in what lies ahead for us, we must have it clear in our hearts and minds that we need one another. We cannot make it on our own. We cannot be all that we can be without one another. We must come to the conviction in our hearts and in our minds that we need one another.

People who are joined together are community. God has created us to be with one another; and we, as the Body of Christ, are created to be the example and the witness of authentic community. The Bible is full of examples to tell us that we need one another and we need community. The Bible readings we have this morning are no exception. I want us to take a closer look at these readings and then a closer look at ourselves.

Moses was called and gifted by God to free and lead God’s people. One would think that in his position he spent his day in high level visionary planning and training the most gifted leaders. But that was not true. Moses is found spending most of his day settling arguments among people. Is this best way for him to be using his gifts? His father-in-law, Jethro, didn’t think so. He asked Moses: “Why are you trying to do all of this by yourself?”

Moses explains that the people need him; to which Jethro says: “This is not good. You cannot handle all this by yourself. Your job is to serve God’s people. Teach them. Show them how to live. Appoint others who are wise and discerning to settle these arguments so that you can tackle the more difficult things.”

This reading ends with this: Moses listened to the advice and followed it. This is a great lesson to learn about the value of community. Moses needed someone else to point that out to him. “What you are doing is not good”, Jethro pointed out to him. Moses was important to the community and the community needed him to use his gifts.

We are shown a remarkable trait of humility in Moses. Moses wasn’t filled with self-importance thinking that it was all up to him. Moses not only listened to the advice that Jethro gave him but he followed the advice. He did so because he trusted Jethro. That was a trust that had grown over the years.

It is in community, in relationships, where trust grows. Because Moses was open to listen, more people where involved in serving and more work was getting done. And it happened because the spotlight was on the value of community.

In the reading from Luke, the followers of Jesus came to Jesus with a request: before it gets too late dismiss the people. It is going to be chaos if they stay. “You feed them.” Jesus said.
“Impossible. We don’t have anything. And if we did… are you expecting us to spend our hard earned cash on them?” Rather than taking this conversation any further, Jesus shows them how to problem solve.

He instructs his followers to have the people sit down in small groups in an orderly fashion. And then Jesus took what they had (2 fish and 5 loaves of bread) and Jesus asked God to bless it. The food was then distributed and when dinner was over they picked up 12 baskets of leftovers; but more than that. They saw the power of God at work in community.

God expanded their understanding. God enlarged their perspective about life. Jesus led them to see that what they believe is impossible is not impossible for God. This community was learning about the value of worshiping together, serving together, growing together and reaching out together. They learned the value of community.

And to the letter to the Philippians, Paul is teaching the church in practical ways how to live the command of Christ. The command of Christ is that we love one another. Love is only active in relationship. Where there are relationships, there is community. Giving encourage-ment, living in fellowship, suffering with one another, loving one another, working together with one heart and purpose are practical ways to love one another.

These are lessons about community. There are some things we can do on our own, but there are many more things in life we will never be able to do with other people. From the beginning of Scripture when God says that is not good for us to be alone, to the very end in Revelation where there is a gathering together of all God’s people, and found all in between, the Bible is God’s great story about community.

Although God has created us to be together we don’t do community well. It doesn’t come easy to us. It is really something we must work at; and the truth is that we will work at what we think is important.

This past week I was at my doctor’s office for a routine check up with a stress test. The purpose of this test is to put stress on the heart to see how it is functioning under stress. There was a steady stream of people on that day coming in for the same reason. There were three rooms. In one we waited. In the second room was an imaging machine to scan the chest; and the third was a treadmill.

Only one technician was administering the test for all of us. She had someone in every room.
She got the patient in the imaging room and got that started. While that was going, she took someone to the treadmill; and then she injected a third person with radioactive isotopes. She was releasing a person and then going to the main waiting room for another person. She had a rhythm down, doing this all by herself.

It crossed my mind, what if she got distracted; what if she mixed up the charts; what if there was a crisis or two at one time? So, while she was hooking me up to all the wires while I was on the treadmill I thought I would investigate this. I said: “You are impressive. You have a lot going on at one time. You need an assistant in here.”

“I would rather work by myself,” she said. “When I was hired I asked if I could do this by myself. It takes too much effort to try to work it out with someone else. I am able to do more than the two men who worked together to do my job.”
All I could say was: “So, it is true. One woman is as good as two men.”

She expressed what a lot of people experience when she said it takes too much effort to try to work it out with someone else. It takes effort to work in authentic community. It doesn’t come easily for us. It may take a lot of effort, but it is worth the effort. And I believe that the effort is what God wants for us to make. We may become efficient in work by ourselves, but that is not a notable quality for life.

God promises that when we are in community that things happen that can only happen when we are together. The most important of those things is love.

Let’s assume that God is wrong about this and you don’t need to be with others; but others need you. What you have to offer others, no one else can do. You may be the Jethro for someone else, with the counsel that no one else can give.

40 Days of Community is intended to help us mature in our understanding of our need of community. In your Faith Group, you will find that when you allow other people into your life you will grow together; you will serve other people better… together. In community you will share love.

God is forming us for community so that God’s purposes are done. Moses learned that… and so did a few Christ - followers who were clueless about how to serve their world. And now today we are learning again that living the life God intends for us to live… is better together.

It is better together. In the weeks ahead you are going to learn that is true; and when all of us, together, are learning that …I believe that God will bless it and do things among us that we never imagined could happen. When you see what God will do in the weeks ahead, you will be overjoyed that you made the decision to be part of that. Amen.