Calvary United Methodist Church

January 10, 2016

A LIVING PROCLAMATION

Rev. Dr. S. Ronald Parks

Children’s Sermon: John 20:29-31 & John 21:24-25

We give thanks for the Word of God which is revealed to us at every

age and station in life. We welcome the children to the front of this

worship space to celebrate the gift of God’s Good New.

Do you recognize that white stuff in the picture there? You do?

(Snow). Haven’t had any of that this year, have we? Are you okay

with that? You are ready for some snow and a day off from school

maybe? (I know it’s snow…) You know? Ok! Snow turns into rain if

it gets too warm, right? Exactly! Great! This meteorology report has

been brought to you by…

One of the things that we did around here over the past week was clean

up all the Christmas stuff, with a few exceptions. You’ll notice the star

is still above, because the stars are still up in the sky, and everything

else has been removed. The tree is gone, all the little trees, all the spe-

cial things we had in the sanctuary. So I have one last thing to do and

that is to take the things I used on Christmas Eve and sort of distribute

them. That little teddy bear that you see in the picture there, we put on

Facebook about two weeks ago that we were looking for the little girl

who at the 7:00 o’clock worship service helped me read the story and

we haven’t gotten any feedback. So if you know anything and you

were here at 7 o’clock on Christmas Eve and you know who that little

three or four year old girl was that I handed the bear to and she was

willing to give it back to me, please let me know. I’d like to make sure

that she gets it.

But the other thing that I have to take care of is I have to deliver this

particular book

down to our library.

Now, why would you put a book in a room called a library? It’s be-

cause that’s where you put books so other people can use them.

Library literally means book house; it’s a place where books are col-

lected.

Do you know where our library is? How many of you know where our

library is? You can get to it in thirty seconds or less. That’s what I

thought. So, Fender is willing to give you a little bit of a guided tour.

If you go through that door right over there next to the organ,

And then down the steps.

As you get to the bottom of the steps, if you walk straight ahead, you

will walk…

Right into our library.

The library that we have we’ve maintained here for years.

It has all kinds of things in it including children’s books like the one I

used on Christmas Eve.

Now, we have about 4000 items in our library. That’s a lot of stuff,

right? And it’s books and it’s recordings and it’s videos and it’s all

kind of media.

Do you know what the biggest library in the world is, however? Be-

lieve it or not it is not downstairs.

It is not that far away, however. It’s called the Library of Congress and

it is found in, guess what city is the nation’s capital? Washington, DC,

exactly right.

It has more than 160 million items on approximately 838 miles of

shelves.

It as 37 million books, well, you can read there. You can see all the

different sorts of things that the Library of Congress has.

Here are some interesting facts, though: there are almost 3200 people

on staff there and more than 1.6 million readers and visitors each year.

And it’s annual budget for last year was $414 million. That’s a lot of

money. It is, honest!

And the Library of Congress is a research library, which means that

everything there has to stay there, but anyone age 16 or older can go in

there and look at stuff and read it as long as you have the appropriate

ID. So all of us who are 16 and older, doesn’t matter how old you are,

you just have to be 16 and older, can go to the Library of Congress.

Why do we need books and libraries? Any idea? Why do we have

that stuff?

It’s a way to share what we know. All the people there who have writ-

ten stuff and recorded things, all sorts of things like manuscripts and

letters and music, it’s the stuff that they have produced. It’s the stuff

that they know about, so they are sharing it with others. They are shar-

ing with us what they know by generating that stuff that we can store.

It’s also a way to learn what other people know. For example, if I’m a

music composer and I want to go to the Library of Congress and look

up somebody’s work, I can do that. It is a way to learn, for me to take

in what somebody else knows and shares.

But it also inspires us to grow. The more we read, the more we see

about the world around us, the bigger our minds get and the more we

grow as people into the likeness of Christ.

Now, for Christians, the most important book ever…do you know

what it is called?

It’s called the Bible, and there is one of them right here on this altar.

The word holy means literally something that’s connected to or created

by God; something that’s kind of set aside by God to have a special

place.

And the word Bible comes from an ancient Greek word that literally

means paper or book.

So, when you put the two together, the Holy Bible is God’s book. It is

in some way connected to God and created by God and it’s also a place

that we can go to share what we know, to learn what others know and

also to inspire us to grow.

And all of those things Jesus was well aware of as we read these verses

from the last couple of chapters of the Gospel of John: “The life and

teachings of Jesus are filled with God-revealing signs,” John says.

“Only a few of them, however, are written down in this book.” Now

John was talking particularly about his book, his contribution to the

scripture, but you could make the same statement about the whole col-

lection of all the things written down. Only a few of the life revealing

signs of God are found in that book. “This is an eyewitness account,”

John says. “It’s accurate and reliable.” The purpose of this collection

is really simple: To help you understand that Jesus is the Messiah, the

Son of God. When you believe that, you’ll experience real and eternal

life; The same life he revealed and proclaimed. There are so many

other things that Jesus did. If they were all written down, the world

wouldn’t be big enough to hold such a library of books.

That’s a pretty amazing thing to say. If you could write down all the

things that God did,

there would not be enough space in the world

to hold all those books.

The most important book for us, as we know is…

God’s book, but…

God and God’s story isn’t finished and we’re…

Working together to help write a new chapter every day! That’s why

this is really important, but so is this. This is God continuing to write

out the story of God’s salvation.

We work to share what we know about God’s love. That’s the purpose

of coming together, so that I can share with you the little bit that God

has shared with me and that you can do the same back.

We also want to learn from others how to show God’s love. Everyone

here has different gifts and are involved in different things, so every-

one here has unique opportunities to experience and to who God’s love

to others.

And more importantly, what we do together is to inspire each of us to

grow in God’s love, to get bigger and bigger and bigger in the embrace

that we offer to those around us.

And here’s where we write the story together as the church of Jesus.

You write your own story in your own life as God shares that love with

you, but here’s a place where we come together to write that story.

And on Christmas Even we talked about another chapter for our con-

gregation.

And we used the book An Invisible Thread to talk about a way that we

might continue to write God’s story.

At the end of reading the story, I said this: “The love of God is an in-

visible threat that…

Reaches from Bethlehem, where Jesus was born…

All the way to Harrisburg, right here in this time and place…

And it reaches from Harrisburg all the way south to a place called…

Jinotega, Nicaragua.

It’s a beautiful green and lush place where I don’t think it ever snows.

And we’ve had a number of people in our congregation who have trav-

elled there on a number of different mission trips.

On one of those trips they met a young couple named Josh and Diana

Britnell, who are kind of the managers and house parents over the…

Children of Destiny Orphanage.

It is a place where about 45 sixth to twelfth graders live.

So we want to share God’s love through that invisible thread…

By building an additional housing unit for the kids.

We talked about this on Christmas Eve. There are two ways that we

can do that, two ways that we can make that happen.

One of them, as you know if you were here Christmas Eve, is this little

house bank. It’s a bank and it has Calvary’s name on it and you take it

home and you put all kinds of coins and money in it and then you’ll

bring it back around Easter.

Now, the love collection that we started on Christmas Eve, we ran out

of the houses, so we have more on order. But you don’t need one of

these to begin your collection. You can take any container or vessel,

take an old sock and start jamming money in it. That’s the way to do

it. When we get those houses, we’ll put them out for everyone.

Our goal is in four months to generate about $5,000 to help build that

project.

But there is also another way that we can be a part of that of that: the

love collection is one, but there’s also an opportunity for us to physi-

cally go there and make a love connection.

We are going to do a Mission Build from August 15 to the 23. We

need about 16 volunteers ages six years and up at all skill levels of

construction. Even I could go. And the cost is just a little bit more

than $1000.

And, what’s really cool is one of the persons who founded that little

institution down there to care for all those kinds, Sandy and her hus-

band Jim, they are here this morning, where are they? There they are.

Stand up. They are here this morning, turn around, (applause). They

are going to be sharing with you the story of their ministry and their

mission together and what it is that they do and what that facility does

and how important it is in the lives of the children of that area. If you

look around after the service is finished you’ll see all kinds of displays

and posters up. Take a look at them and read all about it. They will be

doing their presentation here in the sanctuary after the first service.

And we remember that the reason that we do that, the reason we care

at all is because since Jesus was born…

God has an invisible thread of love that reaches all through us, every-

where, all the time because…

It lives in us, just like the love of God does.

Thanks for sharing in our time this morning.

Message: Luke 24:44-49

Do you have thoughts about those questions? Does one kind of haunt

you more than the other? How can the Bible be trusted when humans

put it together? Yeah, we all have a lot of questions and if those are

questions that you haven’t asked, I guarantee you there are friends of

yours who have either asked that question of you or are wondering ex-

actly those same things.

So I thought it might be helpful for us as we begin our sermon series,

“What Do Methodists Think About”, to begin with the Bible. Now let

me just say this about a sermon series called “What Do Methodists

Think”, first of all, Methodists do think, let’s be clear. We do think.

We spend a lot of time cogitating and wondering and imagining about

all sorts of things and because the Bible is so central to us and because

we have so many questions about it, I thought it would be a good thing

to start with a little bit of a description of what Methodists over time

have had to say about the Bible.

So to do that, of course, you have to go way back to the very first

Methodist, who was John Wesley. Wesley never wanted to be any

more than an Anglican priest and scholar, which is what he was, but

his views, his desire to be faithful to God, led him in such a direction

with such a passion that he actually created something he never intend-

ed which is a sort of a new way of approaching the faith that we now

call United Methodism.

And this is what Wesley had to say about himself in relationship to the

Word of God, which is God’s eternal truth. He said, which is some-

thing we all know, that “I am a creature of a day. I’m passing through

life as an arrow passes through the air.

“I’m a spirit come from God and I’m a spirit returning to God. I want

to know one thing: the way to heaven, how to get back home.

“God himself has come to teach me this way and for this very end,

God came from heaven, on Christmas Day.

“He has written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price,

give me the book of God!

“Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri (a

man of one book.). That’s a pretty bold statement for a guy trained

and who taught at Oxford, where they had at that time one of the most

glorious libraries on the planet.

But Wesley was clear: the holy book and the Holy Bible, it is God’s

book, but it is not some of the things that we try to make it.

It is not objective history. It’s not the sort of thing where you can go

and take several sources and corroborate the stories there. The stories

in the scripture, many of them, are uniquely found in the scripture, so

you can’t go there to research the story of battles or the things like “In

the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” It’s not that

kind of history. As John reminds us, the purpose of that book, the pur-

pose of those things written down, the purpose of this document is to

help us to understand that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living

God and to have faith in his purpose and presence here with us. It’s

not objective.

And it’s not verifiable science. We all have questions about some of

the things that the Bible describes in terms of what we would now re-

fer to as cause and effect, scientific method. This is not scientific

method. It’s not verifiable science. It is not the sort of thing that you

could recreate in a laboratory. It’s not supposed to be that.

It’s also not modern medicine. It’s often curious for me to have con-

versations with physicians who read the scriptures and all the stories of

healings and of illnesses and plagues and all that sort of thing and it

kind of is an obstacle to their faith, the whole idea that people are ill

because of the presence of demons in their hearts or in their lives. And

they see a contradiction between what they have been taught in medi-

cal school and what the Bible says, but it’s not supposed to be modern

medicine. It’s not supposed to answer the same questions that people

are answering, doing research in laboratories and in hospitals.

And it’s not a legal code. It’s not supposed to be lifted up and plunked

down right here, right now. There are all sorts of regulations and rules

in the scripture that in that day were thought of as being faithful reflec-

tions of God’s will for us, but we’re not all that concerned about what

sort of things we eat together at the same table. We’re not all that con-

cerned about how exactly we wash the plates and which way our hands

are pointed when we dry them off. See, these are things that were part

of a legal code, the code of righteousness, but we don’t see them that

way. We see them, in effect, like Wesley sees them.

So, how is the Bible? What is it and how does it guide us in our jour-

ney as disciples?

He said this: “The distinguishing marks of a Methodist are not his

opinions or a willingness to embrace a certain approach to religion.”

In other words, the mark of a Methodist is not conformity. We didn’t

get together this morning in order for me to tell you what you are sup-

posed to think or how you’re supposed to believe or in what way the

Word of God is being proclaimed to you. I can share with you what I

know or what I believe, but our gathering is so that we can share with

one another. That’s the purpose of the church.

“We believe that all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God.” That

means that the Living God speaking through people like you and me

are in some way inspired. That spirit is moving within them to share

the truth as they perceive it.

“We believe the written word of God to be the only and sufficient rule,

both of Christian faith and of practice.” Now, look at that. That par-

ticular sentence is huge. We believe the Bible to be the only and suffi-

cient rule of our Christian faith, what we believe and how we practice

it together, how we become the church in the nature, in the love and in

the image of Christ.

“When it comes to issues that are not at the heart of our faith, we think

and we let think.” That’s cool. When we come to things that are not

part of what’s essential to our faith, we step outside the scriptures and

we go to our opinions and our experience and all the things that make

us unique: the gifts that we have, the intellect, the imagination that is

ours. But when we come together at the heart of our faith is a convic-

tion that we all share and it comes straight out of the scriptures.

The Holy Bible is God’s Way to God’s Truth and the gift of Eternal

Life. And that’s what Wesley wanted. He wanted to know the way to

heaven. He wanted to know the way home.

So in the 2012 edition of our discipline, you will find these words in

paragraph 105: Scripture is primary, revealing the Word of God “as

far as it is necessary for our salvation.” In other words, far as we need

to see the way home and how to share the presence and power and

love of God, the Word of God is primary and it is necessary and it is

sufficient.

Wesley believed that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed

in Scripture…

But it was illuminated by tradition, by the heritage of people who have

come before us, who have read it and understood it and shared their

meaning, shared what they saw in it. It is illuminated by tradition, it is

vivified, fancy word, it is made to come alive in our personal experi-

ence of the presence of the Living God. It is brought to life when we

hear it, when we share it. When Jesus preaches in the temple for the

first time he says, “The prophecy is now made real in your hearing be-

cause now it is in you.” Illuminated by tradition, vivified in personal

experience and confirmed by reason.

What do Methodists think about? We think about everything because

that’s the gift God has granted to us. The Wesleyan heritage directs us

to a self-conscious use of these three sources in interpreting Scripture.

The tradition of what we are a part, Christianity in the Body of Christ,

the experience that we had uniquely as individuals which is unique to

us. No one else has the history that you have in your life. And the rea-

son that is part of our intelligence and our intellect.

So when you think about it, if you look at it this way, our faith is the

Scripture shot through the lenses of tradition and reason and experi-

ence. Scripture is primary, but you can’t understand it without the oth-

er three things.

And this morning, I am right in the cross section of all those things

working together. Now today I’m right here. Tomorrow I may be

right over here, because my experience will cause me to be a different

person tomorrow and my reasoning will lead me to ask new questions

and bring new conclusions and my experience here in the church is al-

ways changing, so we are always thinking, always morphing.

And the Bible is the primary but not the only resource for our disciple-

ship.

Luke 24 shares these words: It was Easter. Jesus met his disciples in

the upper room. Everything, he said, written about the Law, the

Prophets, and the Psalms has to be fulfilled. He went on to open their

minds to understand the Word of God. He taught them how to read the

scriptures. The total life-change through the forgiveness of sins is pro-

claimed in his name to all nations. It starts here and now. You’re the

first to see and hear it. I will send you the gift my Father has prom-

ised. The Spirit will equip you to be a living proclamation.

The Spirit will equip us, because as the Bible, as it is our primary re-

source, it’s our primary resource for the information we have, for what

we know about God’s

Purpose; about the reason why anything is. About what God’s vision

and hope was for all that God has made.

It’s the source of what we know about why we are here and about

God’s presence with us in our time here.

The story of the scriptures is a story about a god who doesn’t just cre-

ate and let go and step back. Oh, no. God is deeply involved. God is

intimately connected with us. God is present in our lives so that God’s

purpose may be worked out and God has granted to us power. It’s

what we know about the power of God to bring about new possibili-

ties, redemptive opportunities, to do things that are Christ-like and di-

vine in their orientation.

The Bible is the source for information, but it’s also the primary re-

source that we have for the interpretation, for understanding and then

communicating what Christ has said:

In his message: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

Love your neighbor as yourself. Seems relatively clear, doesn’t it?

But if you ask anybody what that stuff really means, they will share

with you their interpretation of what love looks like; about how love

should be shared; about the grace that’s connected to it and everybody

will see that differently. But we keep having to go back to the scrip-

ture, to compart our interpretation of the message of Christ, to make

sure that we’re on target.

Because we have to interpret for ourselves the message and the minis-

try of Jesus: “Go and feed my sheep,” Jesus tells Peter and the disci-

ples. “Go get them, care for them.” But what does that mean?

I mean, do we really have any responsibility to a bunch of orphans in

Nicaragua? It’s not my problem! Oh, yeah? If we look closely at the

scripture, if we look at what it means to love your neighbor as you

love yourself and once you become aware of the neighbor’s need,

whether the neighbor is the person sitting right next to you or a bunch

of kids in a place far away where it never snows, you have decide what

that means. Because that’s the mission that we have been given, to go

forth and make disciples of all people, baptizing them in the name of

the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. That’s what it is to be a

disciple and we have to continue to interpret that. We have to under-

stand what that means. And the people who have gone to Jinotega,

they know what it means. They have a place in their heart for those

children and they are asking us to in effect buy in, to give a little mon-

ey and perhaps if we’re so inclined and inspired, to take ten days of

your time and go there and do something that will change your life.

Guaranteed, it will change your life.

The Bible is also the primary resource, not only for information and

interpretation, for the inspiration of our…

Worship: why are we here? Why do we sing these songs? Why do

we read these scriptures? Because in them, in the common, in the

communal experience of worship, we find that we are connected. As

you listen to the hymns being sung by the voices next to you, I hope

you’re not listening to the quality the sound. Wesley was very clear

about that. “Don’t sing so loud as to be an annoyance to others and

don’t be critical of the people singing around you.” Listen to the

words, not the voice. That’s worship and we do it together. And we

do it together because it inspires us to do it together.

Those people who were here on Christmas Eve and for the cantata and

for the Living Nativity over the weeks of December, they talked about

how meaningful and powerful and important…they were inspired, be-

cause they took the time to be here, they took the time to participate.

And because of that, when they walked out of here, they had a witness

to share. They were inspired enough to take in the gifts of the Spirit

and then to shoot them in through their lives into the lives of others, to

actually hand them off. Hey, I was touched! I was moved. What a

great story. What a beautiful cantata. See, that’s witness. It’s a time

for us to share what has been entrusted to us.

But we are together to work. This is a working place. This is a labora-

tory. This is where the Word of God comes to grant us information

and to enable us to check our interpretations and to be inspired yet

again.

The Holy Bible is God’s book, but…

It’s just another book on the shelf unless we share our…

Information: what does God mean to me? What has God said to me?

Where have I experienced God? That’s straight up information.

That’s what you know, what you’ve been told, what you’ve seen, what

you’ve been taught. Share the information; don’t be afraid to talk

about it.

And as you share it, interpret what it means. Well, here’s what this ex-

perience has meant to me in terms of understanding God’s love. Now

sometimes the interpretation doesn’t really settle in until days or weeks

or months or years after an event. Sometimes it takes time for us to

understand, but as we understand, we are constantly checking what we

know with what the Bible has to say and with each other because we

are all so inspired to want to grow in our faith.

We give and we receive what the Lord has entrusted to us and when

we do that, when we are inspired

and when we share what it means and when we give others the chance

to see how it has affected our lives, we are offering to them God’s invi-

tation. That’s what the Word of God is. It’s an invitation. It’s what

Wesley wanted most. He wanted a way to go home, he wanted to walk

through his life with his Creator and his Redeemer and his Sustainer

and here’s Christ’s promise to us:

The Spirit will equip every single one of us to be a living proclama-

tion. You and I, by the Grace of God, will be the Word made Flesh.

Amen

What God has entrusted to us is entrusted to us. We are stewards. Let

us return to the Lord the gifts and offerings of our heart.

Benediction:

We come together as the people of one book, to affirm that the Holy

Bible is God’s book,

but it is just another book on the shelf unless we share

the information that we have been taught about God, the interpretation

of what it means to be a follower of God, the inspiration that God will

provide for us in this day because our presence here is to be God’s in-

vitation to the world.

The Spirit will equip us to be a living proclamation. Thanks be to

God. Amen.