A Bigger Sabbath

Greetings All,

Let's start with scripture, a quick piece from Leviticus.  It is from the part we haven't gotten to yet, but it blessed me this morning and I hope it will bless you.

NRS

Leviticus 25:1 The LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: ² Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall observe a sabbath for the LORD. ³ Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in their yield; ⁴ but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the LORD: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. ⁵ You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your unpruned vine: it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. ⁶ You may eat what the land yields during its sabbath-- you, your male and female slaves, your hired and your bound laborers who live with you; ⁷ for your livestock also, and for the wild animals in your land all its yield shall be for food.

Once again the Lord speaks to Moses and gives him commandments for the people to follow, not the big ten, but ones that are for the good of their physical lives but even better for their spiritual ones.  The big ten include the commandment about keeping a Sabbath every seventh day.  This is a practice that theoretically they have been practicing for a while now in the wilderness so they are at least used to the concept; but here the Lord super sizes the concept of Sabbath rest, of Sabbath trust and dependence, as He tells the Israelites not only to have a Sabbath day, but to have a Sabbath year for the land.  The truth is this is good agricultural practice, but I would offer that it is more about them than the land. 

Can you imagine taking your trust in God for your daily bread and increasing it to trusting Him for your daily bread for 365 days in a row?  No longer can you prune, or sow, or harvest for an entire year.  The land will still produce, but the Israelites are not aloud to work the land, they must trust in God that the land will produce enough for not only them, but everyone in their household and their animals!  This is a level of faith that I am not sure I possess to be completely honest.  So often I want to trust in my ability to work and do and provide for myself and family; to trust God for all of my families provisions for a year without me working is frankly an overwhelming idea.  I don't think I am alone in feeling overwhelmed by the idea because I am not sure there is a shred of Biblical evidence that Israel ever followed this command and there is certainly no evidence that they ever celebrated a Year of Jubilee which is the culmination of seven sets of seventh year Sabbaths for the land.

The good news for the Israelites and for us today is that God knows how overwhelming this concept must be.  Notice that He didn't tell them to immediately start practicing this, He told them to start practicing this once they entered the Promised Land.  He was giving them not only all of their wilderness time to get used to trusting God on such an incredible level, but He was also giving them their first six years in the Promised Land.  They would get to experience years of God providing for their daily needs in the wilderness with manna, quail and water sources, to experience God being true to His word of bringing them into the Promised Land, and to have six full years of enjoying this promised land flowing with milk and honey before they are ever expected to trust God on such a monumental level. 

He knew they would need time and He knows we need the same.  Trusting anyone, much less God, is a process that happens over time.  The longer I am in relationship with someone the more or less trust I develop in them.  For every time they prove trustworthy, my trust increases.  God knows this and wants every opportunity to prove Himself trustworthy to us so we can grow to that place of complete trust and dependence upon Him.  We need to take baby steps of trust and faith everyday by picking things to trust God with and as He proves Himself trustworthy we can begin to move from baby steps to strides, to ultimately giant leaps of faith.  Wesley talked about sanctification being the process of becoming perfect in love, equally it is a process of becoming perfect in trusting God.  Celebrating a Sabbath year of completely trusting God for one's families provisions is the embodiment of entire sanctification.  God allowed the Israelites to grow into this depth of trust, I would offer that He gives us the same opportunity.  The question for each of us today is "Will we take baby steps of trust and faith in God to lead us down a path that ends in perfect trust and a bigger Sabbath in our lives?"

Your brother in Christ,
Faron

Greetings All,
I have been reading a book by Ray S. Anderson called An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches where he is trying to establish a theological foundation for the practice of ministry in the emerging church movement.  The emerging church movement is busy doing the work of ministry and Anderson wants to provide them with the theological basis for "why" they are doing it in a way that can inform "how" they are doing it.  This mornings chapter was titled "It's About the Community of the Spirit, Not Just the Gifts of the Spirit," and in it he is trying to establish a vibrant theology of the Spirit from which we can build ministering communities.  He closes each chapter with a non-theological postscript as a sort of accessible summarizing of the information provide and today's really struck me and I wanted to share it with you.  So here it is, you can find it on pages 175-177.

"I know that my own spirit is too tame when it should be adventurous.  My spirit can be too impulsive and sometimes brash when it should be measured and modest.  My spirit can waver in doubt and uncertainty when I should be brave and bold.  This is why I ask for the Holy Spirit to come beside my spirit, not to take my place but to make my place more resemble a home where Jesus lives than a college dormitory.   This is the Spirit I seek when I pray "Spirit of God, descend on my heart."

I don't want the Spirit of God to startle me in the middle of the night when I need rest.  I don't want the Spirit of God to make me anxious in order to seek first the kingdom of God.  I don't want the Spirit of God to make me bark like a dog or laugh like a hyena in order to fulfill a craving for more of God.  On the other hand, there is something I desire in being filled with the Spirit, and that is captured in the poignant words of the psalmist:

"I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like a weaned child that is within me. (Psalm 121:2-3)"

I am not sure that I want to go through the weaning process - nor am I sure that God wants to go through it with me!  The parent suffers more than the child, I suspect.  To be weaned from the kind of relationship with God where my needs for gratification demand his immediate response is to walk alone, it seems.  But Jesus went through that process, first in being weaned from the breast of his mother, and then from the power of God as a form of temptation.  It was, after all, the Spirit that led Jesus into the wilderness (Matthew 4:1).

 The Spirit of Jesus is a weaned Spirit, no longer demanding to be fed but returning once more to the Father.  My spirit is still too restless.  I want every prayer to be answered.  I want to keep praying even when there is no answer.  In the end, I want to be able to trust God to hold my unanswered prayers like letters from a separated lover, close to his bosom.  This is the Spirit of my prayer.

I do not expect the church to meet my every need.  The church can and should provide the kind of body life where the Spirit can reveal to each of us our own particular needs.  If I am weak in faith, I need to be in a church where I am not required to profess more faith than I have.  Rather, I need the freedom and security to express my faith deficiency with the expectation that I can draw on the faith of others as a stimulus for my own growth in faith.  If I am starved for love, it may indicate that I have a love deficiency in myself rather than lack of others to love me.  The Holy Spirit knows what I need, and he will, through the loving care and concern of others, prompt me to grow more in love through a body life where love is expressed generously and openly.

Nutritionists remind us that there are essential ingredients in our daily diet that are necessary to maintain good health.  Consumer protection laws have been enacted that require labels on food products that help the purchaser make good decisions about his or her food purchases.  Here, rather than a prescription that offers a remedy for some distress or dysfunction (though that is still a good idea!), we should each develop our own nutritional guideline that contains the essential ingredients for our spiritual life and growth.  It is not the quantity but the quality of food intake that is necessary for our health.  A person can suffer serious malnutrition with a full stomach!  I have know people who have been so preoccupied with church activities that they are literally full of religion but starving themselves spiritually.

I have come to the conclusion that an individual is not given a gift of the Spirit because he or she needs it but because the community of the Spirit needs the individual.  I do not seek a spiritual gift because I need one to be more spiritual.  I need to belong to a community that needs me and needs the gifts that I can bring to the service of Christ within the community.  I need to belong to a community that needs me.

A spiritual gift is not an honorary title but a subpoena of the Holy Spirit issued by the body of Christ to fulfill a task or responsibility.   Just because it is a gift I should not assume that it will not cost me something to use it.  The exercise of a spiritual gift will require my time and energy that could otherwise be used for my own benefit or for the welfare of family and friends who look to me for support.  This is why the community of the Spirit needs to have the Spirit's wisdom in distribution of the gifts.  The gifts of the Spirit yoke us to Christ, whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light (Matthew 11:29-30).  When we become burdened in our exercising of a spiritual gift, it is no longer a gift that brings a blessing to ourselves but a duty that bruises our spirit.

When the body of Christ of which I am a part reaches out for someone to fill a need, I respond by saying "I can do that."  It's that simple.  And I am convinced it was that simple for Paul.  His analogy of the human body works very well here.  If I need to taste something to determine if it is ready to eat, my tongue says "I can do that."  If I need to look at a page in a book in order to read it, my eyes say "We can do that."  If I have some toxic waste in my blood that needs to be filtered out, my kidneys say "We can do that."  I won't press the analogy any further!

The point is, the community of the Spirit, not just the gifts of the Spirit, is what emerging churches are about.  If the community is alive in the Spirit and the members are allowing the Spirit that birthed them into Christ to flow into every nook and cranny of their lives, and to conform their human spirits to the Spirit of Christ within them, there will be as many gifts as the body needs, no more, no less."

Your brother in Christ,
Pastor Faron

Sermon: Sunday, September 1, 2013

Greetings All,

Here is the audio file from Sunday, September 1, 2013 our Heritage Sunday.  It is a reading of a modernized version of John Wesley's sermon The Almost Christian which he originally preached in 1741.

Your brother in Christ,
Faron

Sermon: Sunday, August 25, 2013

Greetings all,

Here is the audio file from Sunday, August 25, 2013.  It is titled A Calling That Exceeds Our Capability and the texts are Isaiah 58:9-14 and Jeremiah 1:4-10.

Your brother in Christ,
Faron

Sermon: August 18, 2013

Greetings All,

Here is the audio recording of Sunday's sermon.  It is titled The Work of Preparation and the texts are Isaiah 1:1, 10-20 and Luke 12:32-40.

Your brother in Christ,
Faron

Exploring Methodism and Membership: Session One Audio

Greetings All,

Here is the audio recording from the first session of class in 2013.

Your brother in Christ,
Faron