Here is my Manuscript for my Sermon on July 29, 2007.
The Spirit of the Lord is with US!
Luke 4: 14 – 21
7/29/2007
It has been a wonderful summer for youth ministry. Before I start preaching, I just want to take a moment to thank all of you for your prayers and support of youth ministry here at Grace. The value our church places on youth and children’s ministry is evident. Each mission trip is different and has wonderful stories that need to be shared and I hope you are able to take a few moments to listen to some of the stories from our youth about their experience in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee.
Because we are celebrating the youth mission trip to Sneedville, you get to hear my story. One of the many aspects I love about mission trips is the opportunity to get to know the family and talk with people of the community. Well, we had the chance to talk with a resident of Sneedville on our last working day. We finished up before noon and hung out with our family and some of their extended family memebers. Around 2:00, we took the van over to a car wash to vacuum it out and wash the exterior. David Sutter and I were standing outside the van when a man about my age walked up to us and asked if we were from one of those churches that are here to repair homes. We told him where we were from and what organization we were working for and he got a real frustrated look on his face and asked us to close the van doors so that the youth we had with us wouldn’t hear what he had to say.
He started to ask us questions like, how can you do that type of work for those lazy people? Don’t you think that they should be able to do it for themselves? Don’t you think that God will let the weak perish and provide for the strong? As soon as he asked those questions, I stood in shock just wondering how in the world I would respond to such harsh questions.
I was in shock not because I was outraged that he said those words, but I was shocked because I have at one time thought or even said those words myself. It is so easy to look at someone who is having a hard time making ends meet and say that they should be able to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, but is that what Christ is calling us to do.
I invite you to turn into your Bibles to Luke chapter 4 starting at the 14th verse. If you don’t have your Bible with you this morning, we have the scripture written on a bulletin insert that you can follow along.
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
This is the Word of the Lord, Thanks be to God. Would you pray with me? May the words of my mouth and the meditation of each heart here be pleasing and acceptable to you oh Lord my strength and my redeemer. Amen
Hearing the words of our new acquaintance brought to mind the family we just served by placing a cinder block foundation under their home. The dad, Perry was a lumberjack that worked for a company that went into locations and removed selected trees marked by the property owner. This was called spot cutting. The estimated salary of the Collins family was approximately $1000 a month. For a 40-hour week, that is $6.25 an hour. While we were there, we had the chance to spend a day with Perry because he could not go into work due to it being too wet for them to do their job, ultimately resulting in Perry loosing a days worth of wages.
During one of our breaks, we sat down with Perry and started to talk about his job, his home and his land that he loved. Even though the mobile home was over 20 years old, Perry bought it outright just three months earlier and the family had just been in the home for two months.
Perry was asking if we knew how to square corners of a building because he was in the process of building a garage to store items that were spread throughout the house in order to give the family more room in their home. He was proud of the $300.00 pile of lumber he purchased bit by bit and the $250.00 pile of tin for the roof of the new garage. He took pride in what he owned and he even got underneath the house with Luke Johnston to help finish digging one of the holes while we were there.
Perry was an example of someone who wanted the best for his family but had very little means to provide for his family and needed a little extra help to make his families home safer, and energy efficient. With the help we gave the Collins family, they will be able to use the $1000.00 a month to provide more for the family.
I believe that the root behind our car wash stranger’s question was more why are you here. Why did you drive 14 hours in the span of two days, spend the week living in an abandoned hospital, with two other churches having to be flexible in sharing freezing cold or scalding hot showers, restrooms, eating faculties and well everything.
My answer to his questions is rooted in our scripture lesson this morning. I believe that God wants the weak to perish so God can take care of the strong. I believe that God wants to make sure all of God’s children are provided for. Jesus had started his ministry with a bang. He has done his own little tour of Galilee and has returned home to worship. He comes home to share his purpose statement that was originally written by the prophet Isaiah.
In this passage, Christ reads that he had been anointed to “bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. This anointing on Christ’s life is what Christ was proclaiming to the synagogue in Nazareth. He was proclaiming not a new way, but a way to get reconnected with the tradition of Torah, to be connected to God’s original purpose of what the Israelites should be doing.
Jesus anointing was evident in the ministry that he provided during his reign on earth. One of the things that Jesus did in his ministry was to provide ways for people to learn from him and then go and do themselves. We see this when Jesus sends out his disciples with the authority to heal and cast out demons. We also see this before Jesus ascended into heaven, and he spoke to his disciples giving them the great commission to “Go and make disciples” and with that, the church was born.
I think part of Jesus sermon wasn’t just announcing his purpose but it was to announce that the Israelites were supposed to be involved in the same work that Christ came to earth to be involved with. I would further suggest that the writers of the New Testament are telling every one of us that we have the same anointing as Christ. Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians writes that God who establishes us with you in Christ has anointed us, by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first installment.”
This good news is that we are anointed to be the Body of Christ. This is to not only share the good news of Christ, but we are to be about the same business of Christ in bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
That is the reason why we go to Appalachia, or to Mexico, or to help in recovery for Katrina or Rita. That is why we as a church reach out with our legal clinic or help with great days of service or a habitat build. It is because we are anointed as a church and as individuals to make a difference in the lives of people around us.
If you have a chance to see the video from our trip, you will notice that one of the tasks we helped with was building a picnic table for the community. Every Thursday evening, ASP holds a community picnic. At this picnic, we invite our families to come and join us for an evening of fun, horribly cooked hamburgers and fellowship. This year we went to the beautiful Elrod Falls Park. As of the week we were there, it was kind of hard to get to and there wasn’t any place to sit down to enjoy the view. A brand new fence and remodeled covered area were placed to make this area a place of pride. Our ASP staff thought it would be a great idea to build picnic tables for this park area so people of the community could come and enjoy this outside area.
When we completed our table, we were given a marker to write our names on the table and also to dedicate our table. On one side, we wrote our names along with a dedication to Priscilla Bowers for all of her dedication to all of the mission trips that Grace UMC has launched. The other side in huge letters we wrote Grace United Methodist Church.
At the time that we wrote Priscilla’s name and the church’s name, I didn’t realize the symbolism behind our pen strokes. Those names aren’t just marking a picnic table to mark the table. Those names are showing an anointing that is on this congregation to be a part of God’s story to fulfill the words of Christ mission in Luke 4.
My hope and prayer is that as anointed people of Christ, we actively search out ways that we can make a difference in people’s lives helping them to see that the actions we do as Christians are not actions for action sake, but that all that we do is actions to show the world Christ love for them.
Luke 4: 14 – 21
7/29/2007
It has been a wonderful summer for youth ministry. Before I start preaching, I just want to take a moment to thank all of you for your prayers and support of youth ministry here at Grace. The value our church places on youth and children’s ministry is evident. Each mission trip is different and has wonderful stories that need to be shared and I hope you are able to take a few moments to listen to some of the stories from our youth about their experience in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee.
Because we are celebrating the youth mission trip to Sneedville, you get to hear my story. One of the many aspects I love about mission trips is the opportunity to get to know the family and talk with people of the community. Well, we had the chance to talk with a resident of Sneedville on our last working day. We finished up before noon and hung out with our family and some of their extended family memebers. Around 2:00, we took the van over to a car wash to vacuum it out and wash the exterior. David Sutter and I were standing outside the van when a man about my age walked up to us and asked if we were from one of those churches that are here to repair homes. We told him where we were from and what organization we were working for and he got a real frustrated look on his face and asked us to close the van doors so that the youth we had with us wouldn’t hear what he had to say.
He started to ask us questions like, how can you do that type of work for those lazy people? Don’t you think that they should be able to do it for themselves? Don’t you think that God will let the weak perish and provide for the strong? As soon as he asked those questions, I stood in shock just wondering how in the world I would respond to such harsh questions.
I was in shock not because I was outraged that he said those words, but I was shocked because I have at one time thought or even said those words myself. It is so easy to look at someone who is having a hard time making ends meet and say that they should be able to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, but is that what Christ is calling us to do.
I invite you to turn into your Bibles to Luke chapter 4 starting at the 14th verse. If you don’t have your Bible with you this morning, we have the scripture written on a bulletin insert that you can follow along.
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
This is the Word of the Lord, Thanks be to God. Would you pray with me? May the words of my mouth and the meditation of each heart here be pleasing and acceptable to you oh Lord my strength and my redeemer. Amen
Hearing the words of our new acquaintance brought to mind the family we just served by placing a cinder block foundation under their home. The dad, Perry was a lumberjack that worked for a company that went into locations and removed selected trees marked by the property owner. This was called spot cutting. The estimated salary of the Collins family was approximately $1000 a month. For a 40-hour week, that is $6.25 an hour. While we were there, we had the chance to spend a day with Perry because he could not go into work due to it being too wet for them to do their job, ultimately resulting in Perry loosing a days worth of wages.
During one of our breaks, we sat down with Perry and started to talk about his job, his home and his land that he loved. Even though the mobile home was over 20 years old, Perry bought it outright just three months earlier and the family had just been in the home for two months.
Perry was asking if we knew how to square corners of a building because he was in the process of building a garage to store items that were spread throughout the house in order to give the family more room in their home. He was proud of the $300.00 pile of lumber he purchased bit by bit and the $250.00 pile of tin for the roof of the new garage. He took pride in what he owned and he even got underneath the house with Luke Johnston to help finish digging one of the holes while we were there.
Perry was an example of someone who wanted the best for his family but had very little means to provide for his family and needed a little extra help to make his families home safer, and energy efficient. With the help we gave the Collins family, they will be able to use the $1000.00 a month to provide more for the family.
I believe that the root behind our car wash stranger’s question was more why are you here. Why did you drive 14 hours in the span of two days, spend the week living in an abandoned hospital, with two other churches having to be flexible in sharing freezing cold or scalding hot showers, restrooms, eating faculties and well everything.
My answer to his questions is rooted in our scripture lesson this morning. I believe that God wants the weak to perish so God can take care of the strong. I believe that God wants to make sure all of God’s children are provided for. Jesus had started his ministry with a bang. He has done his own little tour of Galilee and has returned home to worship. He comes home to share his purpose statement that was originally written by the prophet Isaiah.
In this passage, Christ reads that he had been anointed to “bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. This anointing on Christ’s life is what Christ was proclaiming to the synagogue in Nazareth. He was proclaiming not a new way, but a way to get reconnected with the tradition of Torah, to be connected to God’s original purpose of what the Israelites should be doing.
Jesus anointing was evident in the ministry that he provided during his reign on earth. One of the things that Jesus did in his ministry was to provide ways for people to learn from him and then go and do themselves. We see this when Jesus sends out his disciples with the authority to heal and cast out demons. We also see this before Jesus ascended into heaven, and he spoke to his disciples giving them the great commission to “Go and make disciples” and with that, the church was born.
I think part of Jesus sermon wasn’t just announcing his purpose but it was to announce that the Israelites were supposed to be involved in the same work that Christ came to earth to be involved with. I would further suggest that the writers of the New Testament are telling every one of us that we have the same anointing as Christ. Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians writes that God who establishes us with you in Christ has anointed us, by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first installment.”
This good news is that we are anointed to be the Body of Christ. This is to not only share the good news of Christ, but we are to be about the same business of Christ in bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
That is the reason why we go to Appalachia, or to Mexico, or to help in recovery for Katrina or Rita. That is why we as a church reach out with our legal clinic or help with great days of service or a habitat build. It is because we are anointed as a church and as individuals to make a difference in the lives of people around us.
If you have a chance to see the video from our trip, you will notice that one of the tasks we helped with was building a picnic table for the community. Every Thursday evening, ASP holds a community picnic. At this picnic, we invite our families to come and join us for an evening of fun, horribly cooked hamburgers and fellowship. This year we went to the beautiful Elrod Falls Park. As of the week we were there, it was kind of hard to get to and there wasn’t any place to sit down to enjoy the view. A brand new fence and remodeled covered area were placed to make this area a place of pride. Our ASP staff thought it would be a great idea to build picnic tables for this park area so people of the community could come and enjoy this outside area.
When we completed our table, we were given a marker to write our names on the table and also to dedicate our table. On one side, we wrote our names along with a dedication to Priscilla Bowers for all of her dedication to all of the mission trips that Grace UMC has launched. The other side in huge letters we wrote Grace United Methodist Church.
At the time that we wrote Priscilla’s name and the church’s name, I didn’t realize the symbolism behind our pen strokes. Those names aren’t just marking a picnic table to mark the table. Those names are showing an anointing that is on this congregation to be a part of God’s story to fulfill the words of Christ mission in Luke 4.
My hope and prayer is that as anointed people of Christ, we actively search out ways that we can make a difference in people’s lives helping them to see that the actions we do as Christians are not actions for action sake, but that all that we do is actions to show the world Christ love for them.
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