Much more than a promise
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
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For February 25, 2018:
Much more than a promise
by Chris Keating
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Romans 4:13-25
It’s all so predictable. As soon as news of another mass shooting breaks, the sounds of gunfire are matched by volleys of promises. The litany is familiar: cries for unity, followed by promises for change, followed by demands that something be done. It’s a predictable cycle of thoughts-and-prayers, plenty of promises…and then, well, nothing.
Too often its a story of promises made but not kept.
For Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, now is not time to make policy. “We need to think less about taking sides and fighting each other politically, and just pulling together,” Ryan said. On the other hand, as Senator Dianne Feinstein of California pointed out, “This isn’t going to stop, members, it’s going to continue.” Back on the GOP side, Senator Marco Rubio cautioned against making promises before all the facts are gathered.
On the other hand, back on the ground in Broward County, local Sheriff Scott Israel made his own promise. Israel is leading the investigation and spoke at a vigil attended by students and parents. “If you are an elected official, and you want to keep things the way they are and do not do things differently, if you wanna keep the gun laws as they are now -- you will not get re-elected in Broward County.”
Israel’s remarks were met with a standing ovation. Students, victims, and parents believe this could be more than another promise made/promise broken moment. As children raised in what could be called the mass shooting generation, these teenagers have never known a time when active shooter drills were not a regular part of the school day. Born after the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, they are weary of constant threats and a lack of political will. This time, they’re making their own promises, and telling their own stories, including starting a social media campaign called Never Again.
For them, this moment is a time for promises to be received and believed. In a way, they’re a bit like Sarah and Abraham. These young voices dare to trust that change can happen despite the odds. The old couple’s situation is similar -- who would think you’d be buying Pampers and Poligrip at the same time? They have no reason to believe anything will change, yet still they believe.
Soon they learn this is more than a promise. It’s a time to step forward.
In the news
Abraham and Sarah believed what could not be imagined, and just as the students, parents, and victims of last week’s shooting, they got organized and started moving.
Attacked and grieving, the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school are still standing. Many are too young to vote, but they are ready to move forward anyway. Like Abraham and Sarah, they are convinced that what seems impossible can become reality.
Students and parents have used social media, fund raising platforms, vigils, rallies and appearances on national news media to challenge politicians to make promises that won’t be undone. Those raised in the shadows of countless mass attacks believe this is the time to make a new promise, and to pursue a new course to prevent more deaths. The promise they’re making is to embark on a new journey -- one that will include a march on Washington, D.C., next month.
They’re change agents who are utilizing the technologies which have shaped their lives to begin shaping a new future. These technology natives grabbed cell phone video of the attack, and have harnessed the powers of Twitter and Instagram. They may not share the same opinions and differ in their politics. Listen to them, however, and it is clear they are making a promise.
“We are going to change the law,” said senior Emma Gonzalez, “and it is all going to be due to the tireless effort of the school board, the faculty members and most importantly, the students.” Speaking at a rally over the weekend, Gonzalez had strong words for legislators and politicians she feels are too easily manipulated by the powers of the National Rifle Association.
“Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have been done to prevent this, we call BS. They say tougher guns laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS. They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS. They say guns are just tools like knives and are as dangerous as cars. We call BS. They say no laws could have prevented the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred. We call BS. That us kids don't know what we're talking about, that we're too young to understand how the government works. We call BS.”
It’s a message repeated by students across the country. On Monday, dozens of high school students from Teens For Gun Reform, gathered outside the White House to demand changes to gun laws. Their actions reflect the hopes of students in Florida and elsewhere who hope that the nation will keep its word. In their words, “this kind of stuff can’t happen.”
“We’re marching because it’s not just schools,” said Alex Wind, a survivor of the Florida shooting. “It’s movie theaters, it’s concerts, it’s nightclubs. This kind of stuff can’t just happen. You know, we are marching for our lives, we’re marching for the 17 lives we lost. And we’re marching for our children’s lives and our children’s children and their children.”
They have seen behind the political machinations of promises made, promises broken. They look past message shifting, blame changing, and victim shaming. They are, of course, typical teenagers, who are wrestling with complex ideas and changing beliefs all at the same time. As one said, her views on guns had changed immediately following the shooting.
She said that despite having rallied for second amendment rights before and having organized a party at a shooting range for her 18th birthday, she now has no use for guns. “I don’t even want to be behind a gun, she told a reporter for the Washington Post. “It’s definitely eye-opening to the fact that we need more gun control in our country.”
They might be a generation full of promise.
In the Scriptures
In a sermon recently, New Testament scholar and Eden Theological Seminary academic Dean Deborah Krause remarked that scripture is filled with all sorts of stories that often read, “But….yet” and “so…that.” So it is with Abraham and Sarah. Their story, as shared in Genesis 17, is the beginning of several weeks of explorations into covenant for the Lenten readings. Adapting Dr. Krause’s framework, the text might possibly be read: “Abraham and Sarah had no children but still God promised. They had no reason to trust, and yet still they believed, trusting that God would somehow make them exceedingly numerous.” It’s a pattern repeated throughout scripture.
But Abraham and Sarah are barren. Still God declares that they are to be blessed. The pattern echoes the reverberations of God’s reconciling grace. Despite Israel’s often stubborn and stiff-necked resistance to God’s dream, YHWH does not give up. God stands by the offer, so that Abraham’s offspring will be numerous. The passage is steeped in images of God’s faithful, steadfast love and desire for reconciliation.
Wil Gafney’s commentary on WorkingPreacher.org offers an insightful glimpse into the radical nature of God’s election of Abraham. Abraham’s resume hardly bore the characteristics of a person typically chosen to be “the father of nations.” As Gafney observes, Abraham was a man married to his sister, and a man who would eventually offer Sarah for sale. He’s an unlikely hero, thrust into leadership suddenly, perhaps not unlike the Florida high school students.
It is with this unlikely, clay-footed childless couple that God’s covenant has been made. It’s a pretty clear reminder that while humans are unlikely bearers of God’s promises, and even sometimes can’t be trusted to keep promises, God is faithful. Humans resist, but still God persists.
As the story goes, Abraham not only believes this promise, but becomes a bearer of the covenant. The names are changed, not to protect the innocent, but to proclaim the dynamic grace of God manifest in the lives of God’s partners. The nature of the covenant draws us into the redemptive nature of God’s promises, calling us from places that are barren, empty and without any future. But there is no future, yet God’s promise is to be trusted. Abraham believes, as Paul says, “hoping against hope” believing in God’s promise.
This is more than a “promise made/promise kept.” It is a promise received, and promise believed that God will do what otherwise seems impossible.
In the sermon
In the children’s story A Promise is a Promise, by Robert Munsch and Michael Kusugak, (New York, NY: Annick Press, 1988) an Inuit girl named Allashua tells her first-nation mother that she is going to go fishing on the first day of spring. She wants to go fish near the cracked ice of the ocean, but her mother cautions her the ocean is where the mythical sea monsters live. “They grab children who aren’t with their parents,” her mother says. “Don’t go fishing in the ocean. Go fish in a lake.”
“Right,” says Allashua. “I promise to go fishing in the lake and not in the ocean, and a promise is a promise.” Do you sense where this story is headed? Of course, Allashua forgets about the promise she made, and heads straight to the ocean. And, of course, she encounters the mythical Qallupilluit, the very monsters her mother had warned her to avoid. Allashua is clever, however, and manages to elude death by making another promise -- this time to the monsters. She promises to bring her brothers and sisters to the monsters. This time, she lives up to her bargain, but has also enlisted the assistance of her family. The parents distract the sea monsters by inviting them to dance while Allashua takes her siblings back to the sea ice. A promise is a promise, after all, but since the Qallupilluit have been distracted, they miss their chance. In the end, Allashua tells them, “A promise is what you were given, and a promise is what you got. I brought my brothers and sisters to the sea ice, but you were not here. A promise is a promise.”
It’s an unlikely tale, surely, but a reminder of the power of promises received and believed. For Abraham and Sarah, the promise took them on an unlikely journey. For the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school, the failed promises of so many adults and politicians have called them to an equally unlikely journey -- but still they believe the impossible may become possible.
The shocking and all too real truth is that sooner or later, last week’s news will be replaced by another mass shooting, and perhaps another. But…yet, some young leaders proclaim a promise so that their children may not experience the same horror. A sermon could call us to seek the faith that trusts that with God, nothing shall be impossible.
It is always a story of but…yet, and so, that. Abraham, despite knowing the inherent pain and and risks involved, trusts that the strange sign of circumcision will somehow mark him as a bearer of the covenant. But…yet, and so, that. Could this also be said of the young people, whose hearts have been circumcised with the pain of violence and grief? Could they be the ones who lead us away from a violent preoccupation with weapons?
There are other ways a promise is a promise, of course. A sermon could also touch on the amazing story of Olympian Chloe Kim, whose parents left their native Korea to raise their daughter in Los Angeles. Their story sounds much like the journey of Abraham and Sarah. When Kim’s father arrived in the United States in 1982, he was 26 and had $800 to his name, along with a Korean-American dictionary. As one writer said, “He purchased a 1970 Nova, a carton of cigarettes, and a week’s stay at a local hotel which left him with just $100. ‘I had $100 left in my pocket,’ Jong told ESPN. ‘I went to the patio of the hotel, smoked a Kent and said to myself, ‘I start now.’ ”
Great movements begin in unlikely places. The leaders in our congregations can be invited to receive the promise, and believe in all its audacious possibilities, saying together “We start now.”
SECOND THOUGHTS
Broken Promises
by Mary Austin
Mark 8:31-38; Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
By now, no one would blame Abraham if he were growing weary of God’s promises. This is the third meeting between God and Abraham, the third time God has promised to make Abraham (the patriarch formerly known as Abram) the ancestor of a multitude.
This time God is asking for more. Abraham and all the men of his household are to be circumcised as a sign of their participation in this agreement with God. In the divine covenant with Noah, God provides the sign of the covenant, placing a bow in the sky. This time, the new covenant will be lived out in the very flesh of Abraham. Imagine Abraham trying to convince the men of his family to sign on for this. “The God who showed up twenty-five years ago and still hasn’t produced a son wants us to do what?!”
No wonder Sarah laughs. Here comes God again with another empty promise. We wonder if her laughter was tinged with bitterness, knowing that Abraham will believe God again, and then be disappointed again. The old fool is still willing to believe, twenty-five years after the first conversation with God. Little does she know that this new covenant will be lived out in her body, too.
On this side of history, we have the benefit of knowing that God will keep the divine promise, and that Sarah and Abraham will be the ancestors of a great nation. But they live in a peculiar limbo, between the making and the keeping of the promise. God’s track record at that point wouldn’t seem to point to success. Their faith in God allows them to believe in the unfolding of God’s promises.
In contrast, our human promises are always faulty, and it’s tempting to discard them. The New Yorker is reporting that Donald Trump is so dedicated to breaking his promises to his wife that he has a system for concealing his infidelities. A woman who says she had a consensual affair with Trump shares “a detailed look at how Trump and his allies used clandestine hotel-room meetings, payoffs, and complex legal agreements to keep affairs -- sometimes multiple affairs he carried out simultaneously -- out of the press.” Several women, including an adult film actress, have reported affairs with Trump, but the public doesn’t seem to care. The Atlantic notes that “There’s simply no plausible deniability that Trump is a serial philanderer -- each of these stories has contemporaneous evidence and hush-money agreements, to say nothing of Trump’s history of infidelities. There’s also no reason to believe that the latest story will change much. In the old era, voters didn’t know about infidelity and what they didn’t know didn’t hurt them. In the interim, they knew, and it drove lots of politicians from office. And in the new era, voters know and they just don’t care.”
Why do we not care if the President keeps his promises? Curiously, “values voters” or conservative Christians have changed their views the most. McKay Coppins writes for The Atlantic, “As recently as 2011, a poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that only 30 percent of white evangelicals believed “an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional life.” But by the time Donald Trump was running for president in 2016, that number had risen sharply to 72 percent. White evangelicals are now more tolerant of immoral behavior by elected officials than the average American.” Christians are newly, and now deeply, tolerant about broken promises. Quoted in the article above, David Brody says, “The way evangelicals see the world, the culture is not only slipping away -- it’s slipping away in all caps, with four exclamation points after that…Where does that leave evangelicals? It leaves them with a choice. Do they sacrifice a little bit of that ethical guideline they’ve used in the past in exchange for what they believe is saving the culture?” Saving the culture counts for more than keeping promises.
Curiously, as God makes covenants with humankind throughout the scriptures, God never sees a trade-off between keeping a promise and accomplishing something else. For God, the promise-keeping is an essential part of creating the future.
We are seeing our politicians routinely break their promises, and watching the President lie and cover up his own broken promises. Christians are trading away our passion for integrity in exchange for a mythical vision of a “Christian culture,” instead of standing firm for our important values. Nothing could be a sharper contrast with the words Jesus says here. He offers no compromise to make things easier, and he doesn’t care at all about reshaping the culture around him.
Following him, he says, will mean sacrifice and sorrow. His promised way of life is sobering. He invites the people listening into a journey of self-denial and sacrifice, without easy answers. There’s no quick exit from this kind of commitment. His rebuke of Peter might be a rebuke of us, too, when we’re tempted to think we don’t need to worry about integrity, or the importance of keeping a promise, when the easy way out looks alluring.
We follow a God who is a slow promise-keeper, but a sure one. Abraham is right to keep trusting in the promises God makes. He knows that God is faithful. If we follow a God who keeps the divine promises, then we need to be people who make and keep our own promises. The more we do, the more we draw close to the image of God within us. The more we live up to our promises, large and small, the more we become like God, and show the truth of God’s faithfulness.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Ron Love
The posted illustrations are based on the major themes in this week’s lectionary readings.
Covenant
Bill and Melinda Gates recently agreed to be interviewed by People magazine. Bill Gates worth is estimated at $90.1 billion. He and his wife have made the promise to give away all of their fortune. This is a promise -- a covenant -- that they have kept, reflected in the $41.3 billion the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has already donated to philanthropy causes. When asked what accomplishment Bill is most proud of he responded, “Global health is our biggest area, and it’s going well. With any luck we’ll see the last polio case this year.” When asked what’s the most pressing issue facing our planet, both Bill and Melinda responded “climate change.”
Application: We are to keep the promises we make to assist others.
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Discipleship
Bill and Melinda Gates recently agreed to be interviewed by People magazine. Bill Gates worth is estimated at $90.1 billion. He and his wife have made the promise to give away all of their fortune. This is a promise -- a covenant -- that they have kept, reflected in the $41.3 billion the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has already donated to philanthropy causes. The couple has travelled the world to determine the needs of developing countries and to monitor how the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is securing the betterment of others. Yet, despite their philanthropy work, like most couples, there are many quite days spent at home in Seattle. When asked how they “unwind” from being immersed in some of the world’s most challenging problems, Bill answered, “We do a lot of reading, and we do more jigsaw puzzles than most people. We watch a ton of video series.”
Application: We are called to sacrifice everything in service to Jesus. But, this does not mean we should feel guilty when we take time for relaxation.
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Covenant
Sarah Jessica Parker has recently agreed to be interviewed by People magazine. The magazine noted that Parker “often plays exactly opposite of who she really is.” She played the now-iconic single women on Sex and the City and presently she is playing a divorced single mom struggling to launch a career on HBO’s Divorce. Yet, in real life she has been happily married for 20 years to Matthew Broderick and has three children to whom she is devoted. When asked about the success of her 20-year marriage Parker said, “Your needs are shifting. You and your partner are going to change.” So, she said you must “really like the person. I still really like him.” Parker went on to say about Matthew, “I’m sure I annoy him and he annoys me, but I literally learn from him every day. I’m like, ‘You’re doing what? You’re reading what?’”
Application: To keep a covenant requires a single-minded devotion to the promises made.
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Covenant
Two years ago, television news reporter Alison Parker and her cameraman Adam Ward were shot and killed during a live interview. The assailant was Vester Flanagan, a former employee at the Roanoke, Virginia television station where they worked. Recently Parker’s boyfriend at the time and a former TV anchor, Chris Hurst, defeated an NRA backed incumbent for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates. Hurst never had political aspirations, but the murders changed his mind. Hurst said, “We want to prevent what happened to Alison and Adam, and do everything we can to keep more people from dying from gun violence every single day.” Part of Hurst’s campaign platform was on “common sense gun reform.”
Application: When we make a promise, it must be a realistic promise and one that we know that we can keep.
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Covenant / Discipleship
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is one of the most accomplished professional basketball players the sport has ever known. He played on six NBA championship teams and won a record six MVP awards. Abdul-Jabbar is the leading scorer in NBA history with 38,387 points. This is a mark that’s never been seriously challenged in the 29 years since he retired. Yet, growing up as an African-American child and the racial abuse he suffered has left him with emotional scares that he still bears today. He didn’t realize how ostracized he was until he looked at his elementary classroom photos only to see he was the only black student in class. This is why he wrote his 2017 memoir Becoming Kareem. He is now taking the book as a one-man play across the country. The book and the play recounts his life from childhood to the age of 24. The book was directed at elementary school children. The purpose of the enterprise Abdul-Jabbar said, “I did the book because I thought that the process that I went through could be very useful for young people right now.”
Application: As part of our convent, according to our lectionary readings, is to keep our promise of a better life to all generations. To write a book or to do follow whatever our spiritual gift might be is part of our call to discipleship.
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Discipleship
Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old, recently shot and killed 17 students at his former school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Upon entering the school Cruz set off smoke grenades to activate the fire alarms, drawing the students out of their classrooms and into the hallways. This made the students more available targets for his AR-15 rifle. According to the National Rifle Association, the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle is America’s most popular rifle. It is also the rifle that has been used in a number of mass shootings. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is the deadliest school shooting since a gunman attacked the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, more than five years ago. The AR-15 was also used in that mass shooting. After the rampage at the high school, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel told reporters, “It’s catastrophic. There really are no other words.”
Application: Because we live in a world that is plagued by evil, we must take seriously our call to discipleship.
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Covenant
Danica Patrick is making the transition from racecar driver to entrepreneur. She is now moving into being an exercising guru and she also has her own clothing line. During her racing career Patrick has been sponsored by GoDaddy. For the internet firm Patrick appeared in 13 Super Bowl commercials, which is more than any other celebrity. Altogether she has made 21 commercials for GoDaddy. Now, as a businesswoman, GoDaddy will continue to sponsor her. In the commercial for her second-to-last race, the Daytona 500, which was held on Sunday, February 18, there was an advertisement titled Make Your Idea Real. The theme of the ad is that as we transition through life, we can always make our new ideas real. At the start of the ad Patrick says, “I’m leaving the track behind, but I’m not standing still. And with GoDaddy, I’ve made my ideas real.” Later in the ad Patrick tells viewers, “I made my own way. Now it’s time to make yours.”
Application: A covenant means we continue the bond we have made with others.
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Discipleship
In the newspaper comic the Born Loser, we have Brutus Thornapple, who is known as the born loser because in his innocence he remains unappreciated. Brutus is standing in front of his boss Rancid Veeblefester, who has his hands folded behind his back and has a proud and boisterous look on his face. Veeblefester is known to be an unagreeable as well as an uncomplimentary individual. Brutus, with a smile on his face and arms gently hanging to his side, asks, “What did you think of my speech, Chief?” Veeblefester, with that scowling look he always has upon his face, responds, “It was like a longhorn steer -- a point here and a point there -- with a whole lot of bull in between!”
Application: Paul, because he was writing a letter, was very succinct when describing what a covenant based on faith and grace means. In sharing the meaning of a covenantal relationship with others we can be a bit more verbose, but we must be sure that we are clear on our points.
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Discipleship / Covenant
Aleksey Khomyakov was a nineteenth century Russian theologian, who was also known as a poet and amateur artist. As a theologian Khomyakov introduced the theological concept known as sobornost. In the Slavonic language the term means “togetherness” and “symphony.” It means individuals redeemed by Christ are united by faith and love. Khomyakov believed that a person could best achieve spiritual and intellectual maturity in a community that respected the liberty of its members, absent of competition. He thus claimed that the task of the church was to teach mankind how to live in unity and freedom. Khomyakov also believed that Russian peasants, rather than the wealthy and powerful, best demonstrated sobornost. Khomyakov was also a self-taught doctor, who dedicated himself to treating peasants in the vicinity surrounding Moscow, where he always resided. Khomyakov died on September 23, 1860, from treating peasants during a cholera epidemic.
Application: Discipleship means a total and a complete sacrifice in serving others. Perhaps we could use the theological term sobornost to describe the meaning of a covenantal relationship. A covenantal relationship of “togetherness” and “symphony.”
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Covenant
Huang Naishang was born in 1844 to a poor family in China. Huang came into contact with missionaries from the American Methodist Episcopal Church in 1861 and was baptized as a Christian convert in 1866. He then became a preacher for the Methodist Episcopal Church. Huang later gave up his position as a pastor to try to Christianize his country through politics. It was his hope to establish laws based on religious equality. As he lay dying on September 22, 1924, he asked his wife to hold up a picture of Christ for him to see. He then had his wife place the picture on his chest.
Application: The covenant that God made with Abraham and the covenant that Paul wrote about, allows us to know that God is always with us.
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
Promise Believed
Sermons about promises usually focus on promises made and kept, but seldom on promises believed. That, however, is what the story of Abraham and Sarah is all about. God makes a promise to Abraham that will not be fulfilled for generations but Abraham believes the promise and lives his life accordingly.
St. Elizabeth Healthcare Systems has a commercial currently running on television that begins with a scene of a child standing on the side of a swimming pool, hesitating, unsure. We see his mother standing in the water up to her chest, her arms spread wide to him. She says, “You can do it. I’m right here.” The boy takes a breath and leaps into his mother’s safe and dependable arms.
He hears the promise. He receives the promise. He leaps out in faith that the promise will be kept.
This may be the meaning of faith: receiving God’s promise and living as though it were so.
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Promise Kept
In his book Up from Slavery, Booker T. Washington describes meeting an ex-slave from Virginia: "I found that this man had made a contract with his master, two or three years previous to the Emancipation Proclamation, to the effect that the slave was to be permitted to buy himself, by paying so much per year for his body; and while he was paying for himself, he was to be permitted to labor where and for whom he pleased.
"Finding that he could secure better wages in Ohio, he went there. When freedom came, he was still in debt to his master some three hundred dollars. Notwithstanding that the Emancipation Proclamation freed him from any obligation to his master, this black man walked the greater portion of the distance back to where his old master lived in Virginia, and placed the last dollar, with interest, in his hands.
In talking to me about this, the man told me that he knew that he did not have to pay his debt, but that he had given his word to his master, and his word he had never broken. He felt that he could not enjoy his freedom till he had fulfilled his promise."
*****
Advertising Promise Broken
First came electronic media -- radio, television, etc. -- then came commercial announcements, what we call, simply commercials and the promises they make. Most of us like to believe that we are smart enough and skeptical enough to be wooed by those, often vacuous, promises yet, every year, it seems, a new one comes along, Here are some advertising promises that were famously unkept:
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Wife of Ulysses
In “The Odyssey” the wife of King Odysseus (aka Ulysses) never loses faith in her husband’s promise to return from the Trojan wars. For twenty years, Penelope waits, patiently even in the face of pressure from suitors who care not so much for her as they do for the power and prestige that will accrue to her new husband if she will only declare Ulysses dead and agree to marry one of them.
As the pressure builds she agrees to weave a burial shroud for Ulysses and tells the corrupt suitors that, when it is finished, she will accept that the king is dead and accept one of them as his successor and her husband. But each night she unravels as much of the shroud as she has woven that day.
For three years, this tactic keeps the suitors at bay until she is betrayed by an unfaithful servant and the suitors threaten her if she does not choose one of them and right now. Fortunately, it is at precisely that moment that Ulysses returns home, slays the rebellious suitors and claims his throne and his wife.
Homer tells us that as a reward for her faithfulness, she and Ulysses continue to rule justly and happily as husband and wife for many years.
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Life is a promise
From the web site of the Batesville Casket Company:
A Living Memorial -- Over 13 million trees planted!
“The significance of a unique life is symbolized in the planting of a tree.
“Since 1976, Batesville’s Living Memorial program has been responsible for reforesting thousands of acres of woodlands, one seedling at a time. Today, more than 13 million trees stand as living legacies to family members, friends and loved ones in forests throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
“The Living Memorial is a tangible symbol of Batesville’s commitment to helping families honor the lives of those they love, ® a mission that has sustained the company for more than a century. For the last 40 years, licensed funeral directors have taken great pride in offering this program -- free of charge -- to families who purchase a Batesville casket or cremation product. Upon request, Batesville will arrange for a tree seedling to be planted in a national forest or selected woodland as a living memorial. Families receive a letter acknowledging that a tree seedling has been planted in memoriam.
“While nothing can take the place of a departed loved one, in a time of grief there is comfort in knowing that as one life ends, a new one is just beginning.”
The promise of the gospel is that life always wins out in the end and this company has found a unique and concrete way of letting grieving families affirm that truth.
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Two Marines
In the midst of battle in a Vietnam bunker on New Year’s Eve in 1968, while rockets were dropping all around, two Marines made a promise to each other.
Should they survive the battle, they would reach out to each other every New Year’s Day. For fifty years, Master Sgt. William H. Cox and his friend, First Sgt. James “Hollie” Hollingsworth, kept that promise.
When Hollingsworth learned of his terminal illness, Cox paid him a visit and made a promise to deliver the eulogy.
“I said, ‘Boy, that’s a rough mission you’re assigning me to there,’” Cox recalled.
When Hollingsworth passed away early in 2017, Cox kept one last promise for a friendship forged in combat five decades earlier. Not only did he complete that mission, but Cox stood guard at his brother’s casket throughout the wake, eschewing a cane that the 83-year-old retired Marine normally uses.
“There’s a bond between Marines that’s different from any other branch of service,” he said. “We’re like brothers.”
https://menrec.com/retired-marine-keeps-promise-made-bunker-50-years-ago/
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MacArthur Returns
The day after Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941, Japan launched its invasion of the Philippines. After struggling against great odds to save his adopted home from Japanese conquest, chief military advisor to the Philippines, General Douglas MacArthur was forced to abandon the island fortress of Corregidor under orders from President Franklin Roosevelt in March 1942.
Left behind at Corregidor and on the Bataan Peninsula were 90,000 American and Filipino troops, who, lacking food, supplies, and support, would soon succumb to the Japanese offensive.
After leaving Corregidor, MacArthur and his family traveled by boat 560 miles to the Philippine island of Mindanao, braving mines, rough seas, and the Japanese navy. At the end of the hair-raising 35-hour journey, MacArthur told the boat commander, John D. Bulkeley, “You’ve taken me out of the jaws of death, and I won’t forget it.” On March 17, the general and his family boarded a B-17 Flying Fortress for northern Australia. He then took another aircraft and a long train ride down to Melbourne. During this journey, he was informed that there were far fewer Allied troops in Australia than he had hoped. Relief of his forces trapped in the Philippines would not be forthcoming. Deeply disappointed, he issued a statement to the press in which he promised his men and the people of the Philippines, “I shall return.”
The promise would become his mantra during the next two and a half years, and he would repeat it often in public appearances.
After the U.S. victory at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 MacArthur launched a major offensive in New Guinea, winning a string of victories with his limited forces. By September 1944, he was poised to launch an invasion of the Philippines, but he needed the support of Admiral Nimitz’s Pacific Fleet. After a brief period of indecision, the Joint Chiefs put their support behind MacArthur’s plan.
On October 20, 1944, a few hours after his troops landed, MacArthur waded ashore onto the Philippine island of Leyte. That day, he made a radio broadcast in which he declared, “People of the Philippines, I have returned!” Three months later, his forces invaded the main Philippine island of Luzon. It took five months to win back the island but in June MacArthur announced his offensive operations on Luzon to be at an end. Only one-third of the men MacArthur left behind in March 1942 survived to see his return. “I’m a little late,” he told them, “but we finally came.”
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship:
Leader: Let all who fear God, praise the Almighty!
People: For God does not despise the affliction of the afflicted.
Leader: The poor shall eat and be satisfied.
People: May our hearts live forever!
Leader: Let all the ends of the earth remember and turn to God.
People: Let all the nations worship before God’s throne.
OR
Leader: Let us praise God whose promises are true.
People: We worship our God who is faithful in all things.
Leader: Let us live our lives trusting in God’s faithfulness.
People: We place our trust in our God of truth.
Leader: Let us live faithfully so that others learn how to trust.
People: We will be trustworthy so God’s faithfulness is known.
Hymns and Songs:
"Great Is thy Faithfulness"
UMH: 140
AAHH: 158
NNBH: 45
NCH: 423
CH: 86
ELA: 733
W&P 72
AMEC: 84
Renew: 249
"O God, Our Help in Ages Past"
UMH: 117
H82: 680
AAHH: 170
NNBH: 46
NCH: 25
CH: 67
LBW: 320
ELA: 632
W&P: 84
AMEC: 61
STLT: 281
"My Faith Looks Up to Thee"
UMH: 452
H82: 691
PH: 383
AAHH: 456
NNBH: 273:
CH: 576
LBW: 479
ELA: 759
W&P: 419
AMEC: 415
" 'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus"
UMH: 462
AAHH: 368
NNBH: 292
AMEC: 440
"Open My Eyes, That I May See"
UMH: 454
PH: 324
NNBH: 218
CH: 586
W&P: 480
AMEC: 285
"How Firm a Foundation"
UMH: 529
H82: 636/637
PH: 361
AAHH: 146
NNBH: 48
NCH: 407
CH: 618
LBW: 507
ELA: 796
W&P: 411
AMEC: 433
"Lord, Whose Love Through Humble Service"
UMH: 81
H82: 610
PH: 427
CH: 461
LBW: 423
ELA: 712
W&P: 575
Renew:286
"All My Hope Is Firmly Grounded"
UMH: 132
H82: 665
NCH: 408
CH: 88
ELA: 757
"All I Need Is You"
CCB: 100
"You Are Mine"
CCB: 58
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who keeps faith with all creation:
Grant us the grace to believe your promises
and to live into them fully;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, for your faithfulness. Your promises are sure and true. Create in us the courage to believe your word and to live into your life as we live out your promises to us. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to live based on God’s promises.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We know your promises are true but we find it hard to live in them. We say we trust you but we struggle to base our lives on our faith. We look to other people and to things to support us instead of leaning on you. Open our eyes and hearts so that we may see the foolishness of trusting in anyone or anything but you. Amen.
Leader: God is trustworthy and true. God promises to love us always and we can rest in that.
Prayers of the People
We praise and worship you, O God, because you are our sure foundation. Your promises are the solid base for our lives.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We know your promises are true but we find it hard to live in them. We say we trust you but we struggle to base our lives on our faith. We look to other people and to things to support us instead of leaning on you. Open our eyes and hearts so that we may see the foolishness of trusting in anyone or anything but you.
We give you thanks for all the joys and blessings of this life. We thank you for your steadfast love and grace that give stability to our lives. We thank you for those who have reflected your trustworthiness and helped us to believe in your promises.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for each other in our need. We pray for those who have found life to be capricious and cruel. We pray for those who have learned to not trust because of the unfaithfulness of others. We pray we may be faithful companions to those around us so that they may believe in your faithfulness.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Talk to the children about promises that we made to them that may or may not have been kept. Something they were promised for their birthday perhaps. Talk about how sometimes people make promises that they intend to keep but something happens and they can’t. They may promise to take us to a park for our birthday but then a thunderstorm comes up and they can’t. We understand these things. Unlike people, God’s promises are always true and we can trust them.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
Fun With Foonds
by Dean Feldmeyer
Genesis 9:8-17
You will need: 2 Huge Hershey Chocolate bars. Some cardboard. A cross necklace
(Other things can be substituted. Use your imagination!)
Before Sunday:
When the children have gathered, say:
(Show the fake chocolate bar.)
You all know what this is, right? Don’t you just love chocolate? Me, too. Should we have some? Yeah, come on. Let’s just tear this bad boy open and eat it right here, right now, whataya say?
(Open the fake bar to show the cardboard inner piece.) Wait, what? What’s going on, here? This isn’t a real candy bar, is it? It’s not even candy at all. It’s a foond!
Do you know what a foond is? Well, in our family, a foond is a thing that looks like it’s real but it isn’t (My sister made up the word when she was a about 5 years old and enjoyed tricking people with chewing gum foonds.)
A foond can be something little and silly like this foond candy bar.
But the Bible warns us that some people can be foonds, as well. They look like People of God or they tell you they are People of God but, when the time comes for some hard decision making or for doing something that may be unpopular, we discover that they aren’t really People of God after all. They don’t really care very much about others.
Maybe they wear a cross on a necklace around their neck. Or, perhaps they carry a Bible under their arm. Or maybe they wear a minister’s collar around their neck. See, when they do those things they are announcing to the world that they are Christian brothers and sisters. They are making a promise that they will try to behave like Christian brothers and sisters. They will be loving and kind and good to others. But only real People of God keep those promises. Foonds don’t.
God doesn’t want us to be a Christian Foond. God wants su to be the real thing. Authentic Christians!
So, whataya say we try out this other thing, here. What do you think about this Hershey bar? Is it real or is it just another foond? Let’s dig in and see, okay?
(Proceed to open, break up, and share the Hershey bar that you have saved back.)
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, February 25, 2018, issue.
Copyright 2018 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- Much more than a promise by Chris Keating -- God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah is a promise received and a promise believed. It’s much more than a typical and easily broken promise. Like the voices of some of the young people from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, they choose to believe now is the time to move forward in faith.
- Second Thoughts by Mary Austin -- Promises made but easily broken are especially pertinent as we relate to Lent and our pilgrimage of faith. There are many examples of how we set our minds to a course but fail to hold our end of the bargain.
- Sermon illustrations by Ron Love and Dean Feldmeyer.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Fun With Foonds Children's sermon by Dean Feldmeyer -- FOOND: Noun. A fake. A pretender. Something or someone that has the appearance of one thing but is actually another. “Jesus don’t want no Christian foonds.”
Much more than a promise
by Chris Keating
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Romans 4:13-25
It’s all so predictable. As soon as news of another mass shooting breaks, the sounds of gunfire are matched by volleys of promises. The litany is familiar: cries for unity, followed by promises for change, followed by demands that something be done. It’s a predictable cycle of thoughts-and-prayers, plenty of promises…and then, well, nothing.
Too often its a story of promises made but not kept.
For Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, now is not time to make policy. “We need to think less about taking sides and fighting each other politically, and just pulling together,” Ryan said. On the other hand, as Senator Dianne Feinstein of California pointed out, “This isn’t going to stop, members, it’s going to continue.” Back on the GOP side, Senator Marco Rubio cautioned against making promises before all the facts are gathered.
On the other hand, back on the ground in Broward County, local Sheriff Scott Israel made his own promise. Israel is leading the investigation and spoke at a vigil attended by students and parents. “If you are an elected official, and you want to keep things the way they are and do not do things differently, if you wanna keep the gun laws as they are now -- you will not get re-elected in Broward County.”
Israel’s remarks were met with a standing ovation. Students, victims, and parents believe this could be more than another promise made/promise broken moment. As children raised in what could be called the mass shooting generation, these teenagers have never known a time when active shooter drills were not a regular part of the school day. Born after the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, they are weary of constant threats and a lack of political will. This time, they’re making their own promises, and telling their own stories, including starting a social media campaign called Never Again.
For them, this moment is a time for promises to be received and believed. In a way, they’re a bit like Sarah and Abraham. These young voices dare to trust that change can happen despite the odds. The old couple’s situation is similar -- who would think you’d be buying Pampers and Poligrip at the same time? They have no reason to believe anything will change, yet still they believe.
Soon they learn this is more than a promise. It’s a time to step forward.
In the news
Abraham and Sarah believed what could not be imagined, and just as the students, parents, and victims of last week’s shooting, they got organized and started moving.
Attacked and grieving, the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school are still standing. Many are too young to vote, but they are ready to move forward anyway. Like Abraham and Sarah, they are convinced that what seems impossible can become reality.
Students and parents have used social media, fund raising platforms, vigils, rallies and appearances on national news media to challenge politicians to make promises that won’t be undone. Those raised in the shadows of countless mass attacks believe this is the time to make a new promise, and to pursue a new course to prevent more deaths. The promise they’re making is to embark on a new journey -- one that will include a march on Washington, D.C., next month.
They’re change agents who are utilizing the technologies which have shaped their lives to begin shaping a new future. These technology natives grabbed cell phone video of the attack, and have harnessed the powers of Twitter and Instagram. They may not share the same opinions and differ in their politics. Listen to them, however, and it is clear they are making a promise.
“We are going to change the law,” said senior Emma Gonzalez, “and it is all going to be due to the tireless effort of the school board, the faculty members and most importantly, the students.” Speaking at a rally over the weekend, Gonzalez had strong words for legislators and politicians she feels are too easily manipulated by the powers of the National Rifle Association.
“Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have been done to prevent this, we call BS. They say tougher guns laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS. They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS. They say guns are just tools like knives and are as dangerous as cars. We call BS. They say no laws could have prevented the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred. We call BS. That us kids don't know what we're talking about, that we're too young to understand how the government works. We call BS.”
It’s a message repeated by students across the country. On Monday, dozens of high school students from Teens For Gun Reform, gathered outside the White House to demand changes to gun laws. Their actions reflect the hopes of students in Florida and elsewhere who hope that the nation will keep its word. In their words, “this kind of stuff can’t happen.”
“We’re marching because it’s not just schools,” said Alex Wind, a survivor of the Florida shooting. “It’s movie theaters, it’s concerts, it’s nightclubs. This kind of stuff can’t just happen. You know, we are marching for our lives, we’re marching for the 17 lives we lost. And we’re marching for our children’s lives and our children’s children and their children.”
They have seen behind the political machinations of promises made, promises broken. They look past message shifting, blame changing, and victim shaming. They are, of course, typical teenagers, who are wrestling with complex ideas and changing beliefs all at the same time. As one said, her views on guns had changed immediately following the shooting.
She said that despite having rallied for second amendment rights before and having organized a party at a shooting range for her 18th birthday, she now has no use for guns. “I don’t even want to be behind a gun, she told a reporter for the Washington Post. “It’s definitely eye-opening to the fact that we need more gun control in our country.”
They might be a generation full of promise.
In the Scriptures
In a sermon recently, New Testament scholar and Eden Theological Seminary academic Dean Deborah Krause remarked that scripture is filled with all sorts of stories that often read, “But….yet” and “so…that.” So it is with Abraham and Sarah. Their story, as shared in Genesis 17, is the beginning of several weeks of explorations into covenant for the Lenten readings. Adapting Dr. Krause’s framework, the text might possibly be read: “Abraham and Sarah had no children but still God promised. They had no reason to trust, and yet still they believed, trusting that God would somehow make them exceedingly numerous.” It’s a pattern repeated throughout scripture.
But Abraham and Sarah are barren. Still God declares that they are to be blessed. The pattern echoes the reverberations of God’s reconciling grace. Despite Israel’s often stubborn and stiff-necked resistance to God’s dream, YHWH does not give up. God stands by the offer, so that Abraham’s offspring will be numerous. The passage is steeped in images of God’s faithful, steadfast love and desire for reconciliation.
Wil Gafney’s commentary on WorkingPreacher.org offers an insightful glimpse into the radical nature of God’s election of Abraham. Abraham’s resume hardly bore the characteristics of a person typically chosen to be “the father of nations.” As Gafney observes, Abraham was a man married to his sister, and a man who would eventually offer Sarah for sale. He’s an unlikely hero, thrust into leadership suddenly, perhaps not unlike the Florida high school students.
It is with this unlikely, clay-footed childless couple that God’s covenant has been made. It’s a pretty clear reminder that while humans are unlikely bearers of God’s promises, and even sometimes can’t be trusted to keep promises, God is faithful. Humans resist, but still God persists.
As the story goes, Abraham not only believes this promise, but becomes a bearer of the covenant. The names are changed, not to protect the innocent, but to proclaim the dynamic grace of God manifest in the lives of God’s partners. The nature of the covenant draws us into the redemptive nature of God’s promises, calling us from places that are barren, empty and without any future. But there is no future, yet God’s promise is to be trusted. Abraham believes, as Paul says, “hoping against hope” believing in God’s promise.
This is more than a “promise made/promise kept.” It is a promise received, and promise believed that God will do what otherwise seems impossible.
In the sermon
In the children’s story A Promise is a Promise, by Robert Munsch and Michael Kusugak, (New York, NY: Annick Press, 1988) an Inuit girl named Allashua tells her first-nation mother that she is going to go fishing on the first day of spring. She wants to go fish near the cracked ice of the ocean, but her mother cautions her the ocean is where the mythical sea monsters live. “They grab children who aren’t with their parents,” her mother says. “Don’t go fishing in the ocean. Go fish in a lake.”
“Right,” says Allashua. “I promise to go fishing in the lake and not in the ocean, and a promise is a promise.” Do you sense where this story is headed? Of course, Allashua forgets about the promise she made, and heads straight to the ocean. And, of course, she encounters the mythical Qallupilluit, the very monsters her mother had warned her to avoid. Allashua is clever, however, and manages to elude death by making another promise -- this time to the monsters. She promises to bring her brothers and sisters to the monsters. This time, she lives up to her bargain, but has also enlisted the assistance of her family. The parents distract the sea monsters by inviting them to dance while Allashua takes her siblings back to the sea ice. A promise is a promise, after all, but since the Qallupilluit have been distracted, they miss their chance. In the end, Allashua tells them, “A promise is what you were given, and a promise is what you got. I brought my brothers and sisters to the sea ice, but you were not here. A promise is a promise.”
It’s an unlikely tale, surely, but a reminder of the power of promises received and believed. For Abraham and Sarah, the promise took them on an unlikely journey. For the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school, the failed promises of so many adults and politicians have called them to an equally unlikely journey -- but still they believe the impossible may become possible.
The shocking and all too real truth is that sooner or later, last week’s news will be replaced by another mass shooting, and perhaps another. But…yet, some young leaders proclaim a promise so that their children may not experience the same horror. A sermon could call us to seek the faith that trusts that with God, nothing shall be impossible.
It is always a story of but…yet, and so, that. Abraham, despite knowing the inherent pain and and risks involved, trusts that the strange sign of circumcision will somehow mark him as a bearer of the covenant. But…yet, and so, that. Could this also be said of the young people, whose hearts have been circumcised with the pain of violence and grief? Could they be the ones who lead us away from a violent preoccupation with weapons?
There are other ways a promise is a promise, of course. A sermon could also touch on the amazing story of Olympian Chloe Kim, whose parents left their native Korea to raise their daughter in Los Angeles. Their story sounds much like the journey of Abraham and Sarah. When Kim’s father arrived in the United States in 1982, he was 26 and had $800 to his name, along with a Korean-American dictionary. As one writer said, “He purchased a 1970 Nova, a carton of cigarettes, and a week’s stay at a local hotel which left him with just $100. ‘I had $100 left in my pocket,’ Jong told ESPN. ‘I went to the patio of the hotel, smoked a Kent and said to myself, ‘I start now.’ ”
Great movements begin in unlikely places. The leaders in our congregations can be invited to receive the promise, and believe in all its audacious possibilities, saying together “We start now.”
SECOND THOUGHTS
Broken Promises
by Mary Austin
Mark 8:31-38; Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
By now, no one would blame Abraham if he were growing weary of God’s promises. This is the third meeting between God and Abraham, the third time God has promised to make Abraham (the patriarch formerly known as Abram) the ancestor of a multitude.
This time God is asking for more. Abraham and all the men of his household are to be circumcised as a sign of their participation in this agreement with God. In the divine covenant with Noah, God provides the sign of the covenant, placing a bow in the sky. This time, the new covenant will be lived out in the very flesh of Abraham. Imagine Abraham trying to convince the men of his family to sign on for this. “The God who showed up twenty-five years ago and still hasn’t produced a son wants us to do what?!”
No wonder Sarah laughs. Here comes God again with another empty promise. We wonder if her laughter was tinged with bitterness, knowing that Abraham will believe God again, and then be disappointed again. The old fool is still willing to believe, twenty-five years after the first conversation with God. Little does she know that this new covenant will be lived out in her body, too.
On this side of history, we have the benefit of knowing that God will keep the divine promise, and that Sarah and Abraham will be the ancestors of a great nation. But they live in a peculiar limbo, between the making and the keeping of the promise. God’s track record at that point wouldn’t seem to point to success. Their faith in God allows them to believe in the unfolding of God’s promises.
In contrast, our human promises are always faulty, and it’s tempting to discard them. The New Yorker is reporting that Donald Trump is so dedicated to breaking his promises to his wife that he has a system for concealing his infidelities. A woman who says she had a consensual affair with Trump shares “a detailed look at how Trump and his allies used clandestine hotel-room meetings, payoffs, and complex legal agreements to keep affairs -- sometimes multiple affairs he carried out simultaneously -- out of the press.” Several women, including an adult film actress, have reported affairs with Trump, but the public doesn’t seem to care. The Atlantic notes that “There’s simply no plausible deniability that Trump is a serial philanderer -- each of these stories has contemporaneous evidence and hush-money agreements, to say nothing of Trump’s history of infidelities. There’s also no reason to believe that the latest story will change much. In the old era, voters didn’t know about infidelity and what they didn’t know didn’t hurt them. In the interim, they knew, and it drove lots of politicians from office. And in the new era, voters know and they just don’t care.”
Why do we not care if the President keeps his promises? Curiously, “values voters” or conservative Christians have changed their views the most. McKay Coppins writes for The Atlantic, “As recently as 2011, a poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that only 30 percent of white evangelicals believed “an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional life.” But by the time Donald Trump was running for president in 2016, that number had risen sharply to 72 percent. White evangelicals are now more tolerant of immoral behavior by elected officials than the average American.” Christians are newly, and now deeply, tolerant about broken promises. Quoted in the article above, David Brody says, “The way evangelicals see the world, the culture is not only slipping away -- it’s slipping away in all caps, with four exclamation points after that…Where does that leave evangelicals? It leaves them with a choice. Do they sacrifice a little bit of that ethical guideline they’ve used in the past in exchange for what they believe is saving the culture?” Saving the culture counts for more than keeping promises.
Curiously, as God makes covenants with humankind throughout the scriptures, God never sees a trade-off between keeping a promise and accomplishing something else. For God, the promise-keeping is an essential part of creating the future.
We are seeing our politicians routinely break their promises, and watching the President lie and cover up his own broken promises. Christians are trading away our passion for integrity in exchange for a mythical vision of a “Christian culture,” instead of standing firm for our important values. Nothing could be a sharper contrast with the words Jesus says here. He offers no compromise to make things easier, and he doesn’t care at all about reshaping the culture around him.
Following him, he says, will mean sacrifice and sorrow. His promised way of life is sobering. He invites the people listening into a journey of self-denial and sacrifice, without easy answers. There’s no quick exit from this kind of commitment. His rebuke of Peter might be a rebuke of us, too, when we’re tempted to think we don’t need to worry about integrity, or the importance of keeping a promise, when the easy way out looks alluring.
We follow a God who is a slow promise-keeper, but a sure one. Abraham is right to keep trusting in the promises God makes. He knows that God is faithful. If we follow a God who keeps the divine promises, then we need to be people who make and keep our own promises. The more we do, the more we draw close to the image of God within us. The more we live up to our promises, large and small, the more we become like God, and show the truth of God’s faithfulness.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Ron Love
The posted illustrations are based on the major themes in this week’s lectionary readings.
Covenant
Bill and Melinda Gates recently agreed to be interviewed by People magazine. Bill Gates worth is estimated at $90.1 billion. He and his wife have made the promise to give away all of their fortune. This is a promise -- a covenant -- that they have kept, reflected in the $41.3 billion the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has already donated to philanthropy causes. When asked what accomplishment Bill is most proud of he responded, “Global health is our biggest area, and it’s going well. With any luck we’ll see the last polio case this year.” When asked what’s the most pressing issue facing our planet, both Bill and Melinda responded “climate change.”
Application: We are to keep the promises we make to assist others.
*****
Discipleship
Bill and Melinda Gates recently agreed to be interviewed by People magazine. Bill Gates worth is estimated at $90.1 billion. He and his wife have made the promise to give away all of their fortune. This is a promise -- a covenant -- that they have kept, reflected in the $41.3 billion the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has already donated to philanthropy causes. The couple has travelled the world to determine the needs of developing countries and to monitor how the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is securing the betterment of others. Yet, despite their philanthropy work, like most couples, there are many quite days spent at home in Seattle. When asked how they “unwind” from being immersed in some of the world’s most challenging problems, Bill answered, “We do a lot of reading, and we do more jigsaw puzzles than most people. We watch a ton of video series.”
Application: We are called to sacrifice everything in service to Jesus. But, this does not mean we should feel guilty when we take time for relaxation.
*****
Covenant
Sarah Jessica Parker has recently agreed to be interviewed by People magazine. The magazine noted that Parker “often plays exactly opposite of who she really is.” She played the now-iconic single women on Sex and the City and presently she is playing a divorced single mom struggling to launch a career on HBO’s Divorce. Yet, in real life she has been happily married for 20 years to Matthew Broderick and has three children to whom she is devoted. When asked about the success of her 20-year marriage Parker said, “Your needs are shifting. You and your partner are going to change.” So, she said you must “really like the person. I still really like him.” Parker went on to say about Matthew, “I’m sure I annoy him and he annoys me, but I literally learn from him every day. I’m like, ‘You’re doing what? You’re reading what?’”
Application: To keep a covenant requires a single-minded devotion to the promises made.
*****
Covenant
Two years ago, television news reporter Alison Parker and her cameraman Adam Ward were shot and killed during a live interview. The assailant was Vester Flanagan, a former employee at the Roanoke, Virginia television station where they worked. Recently Parker’s boyfriend at the time and a former TV anchor, Chris Hurst, defeated an NRA backed incumbent for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates. Hurst never had political aspirations, but the murders changed his mind. Hurst said, “We want to prevent what happened to Alison and Adam, and do everything we can to keep more people from dying from gun violence every single day.” Part of Hurst’s campaign platform was on “common sense gun reform.”
Application: When we make a promise, it must be a realistic promise and one that we know that we can keep.
*****
Covenant / Discipleship
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is one of the most accomplished professional basketball players the sport has ever known. He played on six NBA championship teams and won a record six MVP awards. Abdul-Jabbar is the leading scorer in NBA history with 38,387 points. This is a mark that’s never been seriously challenged in the 29 years since he retired. Yet, growing up as an African-American child and the racial abuse he suffered has left him with emotional scares that he still bears today. He didn’t realize how ostracized he was until he looked at his elementary classroom photos only to see he was the only black student in class. This is why he wrote his 2017 memoir Becoming Kareem. He is now taking the book as a one-man play across the country. The book and the play recounts his life from childhood to the age of 24. The book was directed at elementary school children. The purpose of the enterprise Abdul-Jabbar said, “I did the book because I thought that the process that I went through could be very useful for young people right now.”
Application: As part of our convent, according to our lectionary readings, is to keep our promise of a better life to all generations. To write a book or to do follow whatever our spiritual gift might be is part of our call to discipleship.
*****
Discipleship
Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old, recently shot and killed 17 students at his former school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Upon entering the school Cruz set off smoke grenades to activate the fire alarms, drawing the students out of their classrooms and into the hallways. This made the students more available targets for his AR-15 rifle. According to the National Rifle Association, the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle is America’s most popular rifle. It is also the rifle that has been used in a number of mass shootings. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is the deadliest school shooting since a gunman attacked the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, more than five years ago. The AR-15 was also used in that mass shooting. After the rampage at the high school, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel told reporters, “It’s catastrophic. There really are no other words.”
Application: Because we live in a world that is plagued by evil, we must take seriously our call to discipleship.
*****
Covenant
Danica Patrick is making the transition from racecar driver to entrepreneur. She is now moving into being an exercising guru and she also has her own clothing line. During her racing career Patrick has been sponsored by GoDaddy. For the internet firm Patrick appeared in 13 Super Bowl commercials, which is more than any other celebrity. Altogether she has made 21 commercials for GoDaddy. Now, as a businesswoman, GoDaddy will continue to sponsor her. In the commercial for her second-to-last race, the Daytona 500, which was held on Sunday, February 18, there was an advertisement titled Make Your Idea Real. The theme of the ad is that as we transition through life, we can always make our new ideas real. At the start of the ad Patrick says, “I’m leaving the track behind, but I’m not standing still. And with GoDaddy, I’ve made my ideas real.” Later in the ad Patrick tells viewers, “I made my own way. Now it’s time to make yours.”
Application: A covenant means we continue the bond we have made with others.
*****
Discipleship
In the newspaper comic the Born Loser, we have Brutus Thornapple, who is known as the born loser because in his innocence he remains unappreciated. Brutus is standing in front of his boss Rancid Veeblefester, who has his hands folded behind his back and has a proud and boisterous look on his face. Veeblefester is known to be an unagreeable as well as an uncomplimentary individual. Brutus, with a smile on his face and arms gently hanging to his side, asks, “What did you think of my speech, Chief?” Veeblefester, with that scowling look he always has upon his face, responds, “It was like a longhorn steer -- a point here and a point there -- with a whole lot of bull in between!”
Application: Paul, because he was writing a letter, was very succinct when describing what a covenant based on faith and grace means. In sharing the meaning of a covenantal relationship with others we can be a bit more verbose, but we must be sure that we are clear on our points.
*****
Discipleship / Covenant
Aleksey Khomyakov was a nineteenth century Russian theologian, who was also known as a poet and amateur artist. As a theologian Khomyakov introduced the theological concept known as sobornost. In the Slavonic language the term means “togetherness” and “symphony.” It means individuals redeemed by Christ are united by faith and love. Khomyakov believed that a person could best achieve spiritual and intellectual maturity in a community that respected the liberty of its members, absent of competition. He thus claimed that the task of the church was to teach mankind how to live in unity and freedom. Khomyakov also believed that Russian peasants, rather than the wealthy and powerful, best demonstrated sobornost. Khomyakov was also a self-taught doctor, who dedicated himself to treating peasants in the vicinity surrounding Moscow, where he always resided. Khomyakov died on September 23, 1860, from treating peasants during a cholera epidemic.
Application: Discipleship means a total and a complete sacrifice in serving others. Perhaps we could use the theological term sobornost to describe the meaning of a covenantal relationship. A covenantal relationship of “togetherness” and “symphony.”
*****
Covenant
Huang Naishang was born in 1844 to a poor family in China. Huang came into contact with missionaries from the American Methodist Episcopal Church in 1861 and was baptized as a Christian convert in 1866. He then became a preacher for the Methodist Episcopal Church. Huang later gave up his position as a pastor to try to Christianize his country through politics. It was his hope to establish laws based on religious equality. As he lay dying on September 22, 1924, he asked his wife to hold up a picture of Christ for him to see. He then had his wife place the picture on his chest.
Application: The covenant that God made with Abraham and the covenant that Paul wrote about, allows us to know that God is always with us.
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
Promise Believed
Sermons about promises usually focus on promises made and kept, but seldom on promises believed. That, however, is what the story of Abraham and Sarah is all about. God makes a promise to Abraham that will not be fulfilled for generations but Abraham believes the promise and lives his life accordingly.
St. Elizabeth Healthcare Systems has a commercial currently running on television that begins with a scene of a child standing on the side of a swimming pool, hesitating, unsure. We see his mother standing in the water up to her chest, her arms spread wide to him. She says, “You can do it. I’m right here.” The boy takes a breath and leaps into his mother’s safe and dependable arms.
He hears the promise. He receives the promise. He leaps out in faith that the promise will be kept.
This may be the meaning of faith: receiving God’s promise and living as though it were so.
*****
Promise Kept
In his book Up from Slavery, Booker T. Washington describes meeting an ex-slave from Virginia: "I found that this man had made a contract with his master, two or three years previous to the Emancipation Proclamation, to the effect that the slave was to be permitted to buy himself, by paying so much per year for his body; and while he was paying for himself, he was to be permitted to labor where and for whom he pleased.
"Finding that he could secure better wages in Ohio, he went there. When freedom came, he was still in debt to his master some three hundred dollars. Notwithstanding that the Emancipation Proclamation freed him from any obligation to his master, this black man walked the greater portion of the distance back to where his old master lived in Virginia, and placed the last dollar, with interest, in his hands.
In talking to me about this, the man told me that he knew that he did not have to pay his debt, but that he had given his word to his master, and his word he had never broken. He felt that he could not enjoy his freedom till he had fulfilled his promise."
*****
Advertising Promise Broken
First came electronic media -- radio, television, etc. -- then came commercial announcements, what we call, simply commercials and the promises they make. Most of us like to believe that we are smart enough and skeptical enough to be wooed by those, often vacuous, promises yet, every year, it seems, a new one comes along, Here are some advertising promises that were famously unkept:
- Activia Yogurt
Dannon's popular Activia brand yogurt lured consumers into paying more for its purported nutritional benefits -- when it was actually pretty much the same as every other kind of yogurt.
A class action settlement forced Dannon to pay up to $45 million in damages to the consumers that filed the lawsuit and others who said they'd been bamboozled. The company also had to limit its health claims on its products strictly to factual ones.
- Olay
In 2009, an Olay ad for its Definity eye cream showed former model Twiggy looking wrinkle-free -- and a whole lot younger than her 62 years. Turns out the ads were retouched. British lawmakers yanked digitally altered spots, citing not only a gross misrepresentation of products, but the ad's potentially negative impact on people's body images.
- Hyundai and KIA
Hundreds of car owners were extremely disappointed to find out that Hyundai and Kia overstated the horsepower in some of their vehicles. In 2001, the Korean Ministry of Construction and Transportation uncovered the misrepresentation, which for some models was as much as 9.6 percent more horsepower than the cars actually had.
After losing a class action law suit in California, the auto powerhouses had to pay customers -- the settlement was estimated to be between $75 million and $125 million.
- Rice Krispies & Frosted Mini-Wheats
Kellogg's popular Rice Krispies cereal had a crisis in 2010 when it was accused of misleading consumers about its immunity boosting properties. The Federal Trade Commission ordered Kellogg to halt all advertising that claimed that the cereal improved a child's immunity with "25 percent Daily Value of Antioxidants and Nutrients -- Vitamins A, B, C and E," stating the claims were "dubious."
Just a year prior, the company settled with the FTC over charges that its Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal didn't live up to its ads. The campaign claimed that the cereal improved kids' attentiveness by nearly 20%, and was shot down when the FTC found out that the clinical studies showed that only 1-in-9 kids had that kind of improvement -- and half the kids weren't affected at all.
*****
Wife of Ulysses
In “The Odyssey” the wife of King Odysseus (aka Ulysses) never loses faith in her husband’s promise to return from the Trojan wars. For twenty years, Penelope waits, patiently even in the face of pressure from suitors who care not so much for her as they do for the power and prestige that will accrue to her new husband if she will only declare Ulysses dead and agree to marry one of them.
As the pressure builds she agrees to weave a burial shroud for Ulysses and tells the corrupt suitors that, when it is finished, she will accept that the king is dead and accept one of them as his successor and her husband. But each night she unravels as much of the shroud as she has woven that day.
For three years, this tactic keeps the suitors at bay until she is betrayed by an unfaithful servant and the suitors threaten her if she does not choose one of them and right now. Fortunately, it is at precisely that moment that Ulysses returns home, slays the rebellious suitors and claims his throne and his wife.
Homer tells us that as a reward for her faithfulness, she and Ulysses continue to rule justly and happily as husband and wife for many years.
*****
Life is a promise
From the web site of the Batesville Casket Company:
A Living Memorial -- Over 13 million trees planted!
“The significance of a unique life is symbolized in the planting of a tree.
“Since 1976, Batesville’s Living Memorial program has been responsible for reforesting thousands of acres of woodlands, one seedling at a time. Today, more than 13 million trees stand as living legacies to family members, friends and loved ones in forests throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
“The Living Memorial is a tangible symbol of Batesville’s commitment to helping families honor the lives of those they love, ® a mission that has sustained the company for more than a century. For the last 40 years, licensed funeral directors have taken great pride in offering this program -- free of charge -- to families who purchase a Batesville casket or cremation product. Upon request, Batesville will arrange for a tree seedling to be planted in a national forest or selected woodland as a living memorial. Families receive a letter acknowledging that a tree seedling has been planted in memoriam.
“While nothing can take the place of a departed loved one, in a time of grief there is comfort in knowing that as one life ends, a new one is just beginning.”
The promise of the gospel is that life always wins out in the end and this company has found a unique and concrete way of letting grieving families affirm that truth.
*****
Two Marines
In the midst of battle in a Vietnam bunker on New Year’s Eve in 1968, while rockets were dropping all around, two Marines made a promise to each other.
Should they survive the battle, they would reach out to each other every New Year’s Day. For fifty years, Master Sgt. William H. Cox and his friend, First Sgt. James “Hollie” Hollingsworth, kept that promise.
When Hollingsworth learned of his terminal illness, Cox paid him a visit and made a promise to deliver the eulogy.
“I said, ‘Boy, that’s a rough mission you’re assigning me to there,’” Cox recalled.
When Hollingsworth passed away early in 2017, Cox kept one last promise for a friendship forged in combat five decades earlier. Not only did he complete that mission, but Cox stood guard at his brother’s casket throughout the wake, eschewing a cane that the 83-year-old retired Marine normally uses.
“There’s a bond between Marines that’s different from any other branch of service,” he said. “We’re like brothers.”
https://menrec.com/retired-marine-keeps-promise-made-bunker-50-years-ago/
*****
MacArthur Returns
The day after Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941, Japan launched its invasion of the Philippines. After struggling against great odds to save his adopted home from Japanese conquest, chief military advisor to the Philippines, General Douglas MacArthur was forced to abandon the island fortress of Corregidor under orders from President Franklin Roosevelt in March 1942.
Left behind at Corregidor and on the Bataan Peninsula were 90,000 American and Filipino troops, who, lacking food, supplies, and support, would soon succumb to the Japanese offensive.
After leaving Corregidor, MacArthur and his family traveled by boat 560 miles to the Philippine island of Mindanao, braving mines, rough seas, and the Japanese navy. At the end of the hair-raising 35-hour journey, MacArthur told the boat commander, John D. Bulkeley, “You’ve taken me out of the jaws of death, and I won’t forget it.” On March 17, the general and his family boarded a B-17 Flying Fortress for northern Australia. He then took another aircraft and a long train ride down to Melbourne. During this journey, he was informed that there were far fewer Allied troops in Australia than he had hoped. Relief of his forces trapped in the Philippines would not be forthcoming. Deeply disappointed, he issued a statement to the press in which he promised his men and the people of the Philippines, “I shall return.”
The promise would become his mantra during the next two and a half years, and he would repeat it often in public appearances.
After the U.S. victory at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 MacArthur launched a major offensive in New Guinea, winning a string of victories with his limited forces. By September 1944, he was poised to launch an invasion of the Philippines, but he needed the support of Admiral Nimitz’s Pacific Fleet. After a brief period of indecision, the Joint Chiefs put their support behind MacArthur’s plan.
On October 20, 1944, a few hours after his troops landed, MacArthur waded ashore onto the Philippine island of Leyte. That day, he made a radio broadcast in which he declared, “People of the Philippines, I have returned!” Three months later, his forces invaded the main Philippine island of Luzon. It took five months to win back the island but in June MacArthur announced his offensive operations on Luzon to be at an end. Only one-third of the men MacArthur left behind in March 1942 survived to see his return. “I’m a little late,” he told them, “but we finally came.”
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship:
Leader: Let all who fear God, praise the Almighty!
People: For God does not despise the affliction of the afflicted.
Leader: The poor shall eat and be satisfied.
People: May our hearts live forever!
Leader: Let all the ends of the earth remember and turn to God.
People: Let all the nations worship before God’s throne.
OR
Leader: Let us praise God whose promises are true.
People: We worship our God who is faithful in all things.
Leader: Let us live our lives trusting in God’s faithfulness.
People: We place our trust in our God of truth.
Leader: Let us live faithfully so that others learn how to trust.
People: We will be trustworthy so God’s faithfulness is known.
Hymns and Songs:
"Great Is thy Faithfulness"
UMH: 140
AAHH: 158
NNBH: 45
NCH: 423
CH: 86
ELA: 733
W&P 72
AMEC: 84
Renew: 249
"O God, Our Help in Ages Past"
UMH: 117
H82: 680
AAHH: 170
NNBH: 46
NCH: 25
CH: 67
LBW: 320
ELA: 632
W&P: 84
AMEC: 61
STLT: 281
"My Faith Looks Up to Thee"
UMH: 452
H82: 691
PH: 383
AAHH: 456
NNBH: 273:
CH: 576
LBW: 479
ELA: 759
W&P: 419
AMEC: 415
" 'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus"
UMH: 462
AAHH: 368
NNBH: 292
AMEC: 440
"Open My Eyes, That I May See"
UMH: 454
PH: 324
NNBH: 218
CH: 586
W&P: 480
AMEC: 285
"How Firm a Foundation"
UMH: 529
H82: 636/637
PH: 361
AAHH: 146
NNBH: 48
NCH: 407
CH: 618
LBW: 507
ELA: 796
W&P: 411
AMEC: 433
"Lord, Whose Love Through Humble Service"
UMH: 81
H82: 610
PH: 427
CH: 461
LBW: 423
ELA: 712
W&P: 575
Renew:286
"All My Hope Is Firmly Grounded"
UMH: 132
H82: 665
NCH: 408
CH: 88
ELA: 757
"All I Need Is You"
CCB: 100
"You Are Mine"
CCB: 58
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who keeps faith with all creation:
Grant us the grace to believe your promises
and to live into them fully;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, for your faithfulness. Your promises are sure and true. Create in us the courage to believe your word and to live into your life as we live out your promises to us. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to live based on God’s promises.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We know your promises are true but we find it hard to live in them. We say we trust you but we struggle to base our lives on our faith. We look to other people and to things to support us instead of leaning on you. Open our eyes and hearts so that we may see the foolishness of trusting in anyone or anything but you. Amen.
Leader: God is trustworthy and true. God promises to love us always and we can rest in that.
Prayers of the People
We praise and worship you, O God, because you are our sure foundation. Your promises are the solid base for our lives.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We know your promises are true but we find it hard to live in them. We say we trust you but we struggle to base our lives on our faith. We look to other people and to things to support us instead of leaning on you. Open our eyes and hearts so that we may see the foolishness of trusting in anyone or anything but you.
We give you thanks for all the joys and blessings of this life. We thank you for your steadfast love and grace that give stability to our lives. We thank you for those who have reflected your trustworthiness and helped us to believe in your promises.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for each other in our need. We pray for those who have found life to be capricious and cruel. We pray for those who have learned to not trust because of the unfaithfulness of others. We pray we may be faithful companions to those around us so that they may believe in your faithfulness.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Talk to the children about promises that we made to them that may or may not have been kept. Something they were promised for their birthday perhaps. Talk about how sometimes people make promises that they intend to keep but something happens and they can’t. They may promise to take us to a park for our birthday but then a thunderstorm comes up and they can’t. We understand these things. Unlike people, God’s promises are always true and we can trust them.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
Fun With Foonds
by Dean Feldmeyer
Genesis 9:8-17
You will need: 2 Huge Hershey Chocolate bars. Some cardboard. A cross necklace
(Other things can be substituted. Use your imagination!)
Before Sunday:
- Remove one of the chocolate bars carefully from its wrapper so as not to tear the paper.
- Eat and enjoy!
- Now cut a piece or two of cardboard the same size as the chocolate bar and wrap them up in the old wrapper so they look like a real chocolate bar. Mark it discretely so you can tell it from the real chocolate bar. (This fake bar is called a “foond.” More on that later.)
When the children have gathered, say:
(Show the fake chocolate bar.)
You all know what this is, right? Don’t you just love chocolate? Me, too. Should we have some? Yeah, come on. Let’s just tear this bad boy open and eat it right here, right now, whataya say?
(Open the fake bar to show the cardboard inner piece.) Wait, what? What’s going on, here? This isn’t a real candy bar, is it? It’s not even candy at all. It’s a foond!
Do you know what a foond is? Well, in our family, a foond is a thing that looks like it’s real but it isn’t (My sister made up the word when she was a about 5 years old and enjoyed tricking people with chewing gum foonds.)
A foond can be something little and silly like this foond candy bar.
But the Bible warns us that some people can be foonds, as well. They look like People of God or they tell you they are People of God but, when the time comes for some hard decision making or for doing something that may be unpopular, we discover that they aren’t really People of God after all. They don’t really care very much about others.
Maybe they wear a cross on a necklace around their neck. Or, perhaps they carry a Bible under their arm. Or maybe they wear a minister’s collar around their neck. See, when they do those things they are announcing to the world that they are Christian brothers and sisters. They are making a promise that they will try to behave like Christian brothers and sisters. They will be loving and kind and good to others. But only real People of God keep those promises. Foonds don’t.
God doesn’t want us to be a Christian Foond. God wants su to be the real thing. Authentic Christians!
So, whataya say we try out this other thing, here. What do you think about this Hershey bar? Is it real or is it just another foond? Let’s dig in and see, okay?
(Proceed to open, break up, and share the Hershey bar that you have saved back.)
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, February 25, 2018, issue.
Copyright 2018 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
