Baby Talk
Preaching
THE WESLEYAN PREACHING RESOURCE
VOLUME II
Luther said it: When God speaks to humanity, God always speaks in baby talk. God does this, says Luther, because God is love. Therefore, God never forgets that no matter how old or how big we become, we are still helpless, dependent, unknowing babes so far as our faith is concerned.
So God bends to our infirmities. When God speaks, he tells us only as much as we need to know, only what we can take. God knows we cannot stand the whole weight of the full truth. The Creator knows the limits of us creatures. So God talks baby talk to us.
God does not bother Adam and Eve with lessons in animal husbandry or botany. God simply says, "You're in charge. But stay off that tree over there." Like any busy parent, God never gets around to telling them why; God simply tells them the way it is. But you know Adam and Eve. From the beginning, we want to know too much for our own good.
God speaks to Moses out of a burning bush, knowing that children are fascinated by fire and things like that. But when God speaks, it is with ludicrous simplicity: "Go tell people that I AM sent you."
And the law: basic kindergarten morality (as literally translated): You no kill. You no lie. You no steal.
And the prophets: Broken jars and eaten scrolls and other object lessons for children, talk of lions and lambs, and little stories which only little ones understand. Baby talk.
Have you ever watched people talk to babies? Goo, goo. Ga, ga. I sat one day in a sunlit park with my own baby and watched perfectly intelligent, sensible adults stop before the stroller and, one after another, be reduced to nonsensical babblers. Goo, goo. Ga, ga. You should have seen the old man, in the park for a lunchtime stroll, bending over, dangling his gold chain over the head of the little one, puffing up his fat rosy cheeks and pursing his lips as he bussed and wheezed, clicked and sputtered. Watching the man, I thought, If only your clients could see you now!
And yet, child development specialists say that such baby talk is essential for language development, coordination, and perception. Our hospital even has a woman to walk around the neonatal care unit and talk to the smallest babies. And there is research indicating that infants who are not talked to frequently during the first months of life suffer stunted development, and sometimes even die.
All subsequent chatter of learned theologians, says Luther, is but a series of footnotes on the primal baby talk. This later, abstracted, generalized reflection must not deafen us to the first simple childlike ways in which God speaks to us. When it does, we begin complicating the faith, talking big, and claiming to know more than we have experienced, forgetting our essential condition, smothering the elemental power of it all. Babies do not have to be told what Mommy means by "Cootchie, cootchie, coo." Love needs no explanation.
And so, stooping once more to our level, bending over into this violent playpen we call home, God again speaks - this time not simply speaking to babies, but coming as a baby, as one of us.
To the outside observer, just passing through, all this excited talk over the bassinet - the toothless shepherds grinning and peering over the edge of the crib, the wise old men from back East reduced to babbling fools - seems strange. But here in the Nativity is Truth, not as complex theory or lofty ideal, but Truth wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son" (Hebrews 1:1--2a).
And when the child becomes a man, he still speaks in stories, parables, simple declarations of the way things are now that God has come in the flesh. With a crisp, "Follow me," he invites all to a kingdom where only the little ones are citizens - the very young, the very old, the very sick, the very poor - a kingdom where to receive a child is to receive Him. Here is a Disney World place where everything is turned upside down, the lowly ones are great, the great are brought low, and there are surprises for everyone. In this kingdom, grown--ups, who use words that are too large and pray prayers that are too long and get too big for their britches, have trouble getting through the door. Baby talk.
Later, when, in a sort of frivolous childish gesture, he enters the capital city clown--ishly bouncing on the back of a fuzzy donkey, his beard does not hide the child beneath the man.
On that day, a long way from the manger at Bethlehem, he is welcomed into Jerusalem not by the mayor with the key to the city, but by children with palm branches.
That day, this night, babies look at him and see one of their own.
William Willimon
Christmas Day Isaiah 9:2--7
Unto Us A Child
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. - Isaiah 9:6
They had a long, frustrating wait: tests, treatments, discouragement, unknowing. They wanted a child. But they were learning that a child is still one blessing that is a gift - unearned, unachieved, un--demanded.
"We know more about how to help couples not have children than how to help them have children," the doctor had said. Hard to wait for a gift, perhaps particularly in a culture where about a million of us per year choose not to receive a child as a gift.
A few years ago, at this time of year, I heard a sermon, which chided us for our seasonal, sentimental infatuation with the "baby Jesus." We were urged to think less about the sweet baby Jesus and more about the grown--up Christ. "Away with the manger!" he said. Today I know more than I did then. Today's Scripture is about an unexpected, unchosen, unsought gift of a baby.
I know the dangers of our annual attempt to reduce the majesty of the Incarnation at Bethlehem in Judea to cute, infantile proportions here in our living room cr che in North Carolina. I know the sentimental mush of our cooing over the "little Lord Jesus." But now I know also, from firsthand experience, not only how cute but how threatening babies can be.
Herod knew. Give the old politician credit. King Herod, old fox, sitting in Jerusalem with all the military clout of the empire to back him up, knew how dangerous babies could be. Herod knew that he had better take matters into his own hands while he still had time, before the child could mock the impotence of the old man. It was no time to wait for the unknown, potential, growing child to come to fulfillment. With babies, Herod knew, it is the unknown, the future that frightens. He had better stop this Jesus thing before it gets going.
We fear childish impudence and disrespect in the face of our adult pompousness. A decade ago the Central African Empire's Emperor Bokassa reenacted the Massacre of the Innocents after some impudent school children refused to wear his state--imposed uniforms. He murdered them. I have found it difficult to retain my delusions of adult authority and omnipotence when the wee one across the breakfast table sends the cereal flying in my direction and then laughs at how funny I look with oatmeal on my ministerial black suit. Every baby challenges Herod's and my claims of power and immortality. The future is that child's, not mine, not yours. With each passing day we decrease. They increase. Is that why our society wavers between extremes of romantic glorification of childhood on the one hand and toleration of child abuse and child neglect on the other?
I know that a baby is supposed to bring out the best in us. But never forget that a baby also mirrors the worst. Why do we want babies? To make secure our claims of immortality in this mortal world? To reap security for our old age in this insecure time? Ask any Little League coach. He'll tell you. One reason lots of us have kids is to achieve vicarious fulfillment through them. Like all human creations, even the creation of a child is tinged with our subtle, deceptive human pride.
And why did Judea want a baby - this child Messiah? To bring the gift of immortality through his entrance into our mortal flesh? To offer self--fulfillment by championing our causes and choosing us, and us alone, for the benefits of his love? To promise eternal security and peace which free us from earthly insecurity? The Advent of the Christ Child, like all of God's incarnations, was impossible without his advent into the realm of our subtle, deceptive, human pride - into the realm of all our ambivalent expectations. There, in the baby, "the hopes and fears of all the years" are met by a God who meets us where we live - with our pride masquerading as faith, with our false hopes and selfish fears - and claims us at the infantile point where we all began our meandering life journey. Starting at the beginning, at the source, he confronts our deepest and darkest fears, recreating our humanity from the womb onward.
But even this does not adequately describe the mystery we sense at seeing God in a manger. Maybe the most disturbing quality of the baby Jesus, the mystery of his advent that scandalizes even as it inexorably beckons, is the vulnerability of his incarnation.
Nothing is so helpless, so dependent, so fragile, so frail as a baby. I know of no other religion so bold as to admit to the possibility of its God appearing in so vulnerable form. How scandalously condescending is the love of this God who deems to meet us first as a baby. How threatening is this God to my human desire for an aloof, deistic deity who lives in the realms of the abstract, self--contained ideal, rather than in the stable out back, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger, crying to be cuddled close to a human family. For most of the year we preach about humanity's need for God. But on Christmas, can we be so bold as to speak of God's need for humanity - a God who comes, reaching out to us, as a baby, needing the love, warmth, and nurture of an utterly human Joseph and Mary.
I have noted that within some of the churches in impoverished nations, great prominence is given to the infant Christ. An old man in a poor Italian village first explained this to me as we stood one December in his little church before an altar cr che and "il Santo Bambino."
"The bambino," he said, whispering to me in toothless solemnity, "the bambino is poor, little, and outside - like us." Then he smiled.
Not too far up the road from this old man's town, Francis of Assisi meditated upon the Holy Child, seeing the Babe as a paradigm for God's suffering servanthood among the wretched of God's earth. Perhaps we more powerful ones can do no better than to sentimentalize and trivialize the fragile Babe. Perhaps it is left to the poor, to the outsiders, to the "little ones" of the world to see the powerful, revolutionary, messianic, divine--human solidarity, which the presence of the Babe declares.
And with the vulnerability of the Babe comes a claim. A baby, because of its vulnerability, dependence, and potential, evokes a response from us, demands, a commitment unknown in the majority of human encounters. If you want your life jerked around, your schedule rearranged, to be sleep--deprived, try having a baby. This claim arises not only because babies need us but also because somewhere within our deepest selves, we know that we need babies. Some deep, human instinct tells us that babies are a sign of our human creativity at its best, a reminder of our dark, biological, primordial origins in the waters of creation and a hopeful hint of our still open future. A visible reminder that it's all grace, a gift. One finds it difficult to be neutral in the face of such smiling mystery.
A parishioner of mine once explained it to me this way: He had interpreted and kept his marriage vows rather loosely, had thought little about his past, and had not the slightest interest in the future. He had spent the first years of his marriage mainly on the road making money.
"But one night," he said. "I got turned around - the night I walked into the hospital room and held my little baby in my arms for the first time and realized that she was part of me even if she was better than I deserved. I said to myself, 'You're going to have to stop your foolishness and start living like somebody, because she's somebody.' "
The birth of that baby summoned forth the best in the man's humanity, laid hold of his life in a manner that could only be called rebirth.
Did Joseph and Mary feel such a claim upon their lives as they stood by the manger, or did the shepherds and the magi? And what is that wonder which we feel reflected back upon us when we encounter the Babe? Is it a glimpse of ourselves at our best, in our primal innocence? Or is it a vision of One who is part of us, yet better than we deserve? Who are we who stand around the manger, blessed by so close a love? Who could expect the magi or anybody else to return home the same way after such a meeting?
This December, if a messenger in white - whether a gynecologist or the angel Gabriel - should tell you that you were blessed and that you were going to have a baby, I hope you would sing as Mary sang.
As for me, I know I'm supposed to keep my categories clean, and carefully define the limits between the divine and the human. But, God help me, I know that while we may be singing about the baby Jesus, I'll always be seeing that little one who intruded among us; who reminds me of the God who came first as a child. Who now asks, "Tell me a story." And so I begin: "Once there was a woman named Mary, and she was told that she was going to have a baby ..."
William Willimon
Mother's Day Proverbs 31:10--13, 16--18, 20--21, 25--31
A Mother Of Noble Character
Several years ago three women met together for lunch the day after Mother's Day. Each was prone to try to outdo the others, and this day was not exception. The first woman, whose son was an attorney, said, "My son is so rich, he just bought me a new fur coat." The second woman, not wishing to be outdone, and having a son who was a noted physician, said, "My son is so rich, he just gave me a trip to travel anywhere I want to overseas." The third woman, as proud as she could be, chimed in, "Well, my son is so rich that he pays a fancy psychiatrist $200 an hour just to sit around and talk about me!"
We laugh about that story, because if we did not, we would have to cry about it. For some of you, this is your story. Dr. Jim Buskirk, pastor at First UMC Tulsa, tells of a woman he counseled. She had grown up in a home where she had received very little love and affirmation as a child. In recent years she had made peace with her mom, but she was still angry with her father, who had died several years before. As he described the woman he used a metaphor that struck me as very helpful. He said that as long as she remained angry with her deceased father, she remained "chained" to him. And with this, she remained chained to the broken past, and chained to the pain.
Christ Jesus is able to heal the pain of our hearts. He is able to help us to forgive. He is the Master at cutting off the shackles that bind us to the past. This Mother's Day there may be some of you who need to invite Christ to break the chains, heal the memories, and help you forgive.
Clearly Mother's Day can bring with it a very mixed bag of feelings and emotions. Some here had the perfect mother, and some have spent thousands with psychiatrists sitting around talking about your mothers. Some of you have your mothers with you today, and some come to worship today with a certain sadness as your mother has passed on to God's Kingdom in Heaven. Some of you here today are mothers. And for you too, Mother's Day offers a host of feelings. Some feel the joy of parenthood, while others know its pain. Many a mother feels a certain degree of guilt or failure over shortcomings in how they mother their children.
Despite this mixed bag of experiences we bring to this day, I would like to spend the next few minutes reflecting with you on a few key biblical passages that seem most pertinent to celebration of Mother's Day, and God's call on our lives as children, mothers and husbands. For this study we begin by examining the closing words of the Old Testament book of Proverbs.
This passage, written a half a millennium before the time of Christ, is the concluding words of that book of the Bible known for capturing truths about being human, about relationships, and about life. The fact that it is the climax and conclusion of Proverbs points to the exalted place that the wife and mother were meant to have within the ancient Hebrew society. The woman described here is the Betty Crocker of the Bible. You may be aware that a new Betty Crocker was recently unveiled. Thanks to computer technology, Betty is no longer simply an artist's rendering of a fictitious woman, but a composite computer rendering of a hundred different woman, each capturing a part of what Betty should be. The photos were scanned into the computer and the rendering software merged them all together. No one woman, of course, is Betty Crocker. She is now, quite literally, 100 different women.
In the same way, the picture of the noble woman we find in Proverbs, is not one woman, but a composite of many women. She stands, in the Old Testament, as the ideal woman. This picture will serve as the basis for our message regarding mothers today.
First, we may be surprised to see that in this, the picture of the ideal mother and wife, we find both working mothers, and stay--at--home moms affirmed. On the one hand, the wife and mother of Proverbs 31 is a seamstress, a real estate developer, a farmer, and a skillful merchant. This is one very busy woman. If you are a working mother, there is a precedent in the Bible for what you do.
This said, the passage also clearly pictures our biblical Betty Crocker as one whom carefully looks after the affairs of her children and household. This is her highest calling for in it she invests herself in the life of her child. When others ask her what she does for a living, she could look them in the eye and with pride say, "I am a mother!"
But let us examine a few other characteristics of the ideal wife and mother. In our Scripture we find that she is the heart of compassion in her family, reaching out to the poor and needy. She is clothed with strength and dignity, laughing in the face of trial. When I read this I thought of my own mother, who attends my church. As a teenager we were faced with very difficult financial straights after my step--dad left us. It was the height of the recession of 1979--1980. Interest rates were eighteen percent for home mortgages. And my mother was selling real estate while trying to feed three children. We were, at one point, completely broke. She made a way where most women would have given up. She is a survivor, and we learned to survive. And I am still amazed at how she did it.
Not only is the ideal woman clothed with strength and dignity, but she is also the source of wisdom and teaching to her children. In the average home in America, Mother will spend three or four times as many hours with the children as Father will. Wisdom and teaching come from her.
Finally, the biblical woman "fears the Lord." To fear the Lord means to serve the Lord, to reverence the Lord, to follow the Lord. Thank God for mothers who fear the Lord. For without them many of you would not be here today. Mothers, you play a critical role in the faith development of your children. Millions of Christians today are Christians despite their father's lack of faith, because they had godly mothers who lived the faith for them.
Allow me to retell a story I've told before, for it captures an essential truth about the Christian mother. Three preachers were arguing one day about which translation of the Bible was best. One of the preachers said, "I prefer the King James translation for its beauty and poetic use of the English language." The next chimed in, "I prefer the New International translation, because it is imminently more readable than the King James." But the last man, who had been quiet through most of the debate, said, "My favorite translation of the Bible was my mother's." "Really?" the other two asked. "We didn't know she translated the Bible!" "Yes, she translated it into daily life, and it was the most powerful translation I have ever seen."
Finally, as we come to the text, we need not become undone by its opening statement, "A capable wife who can find." If a capable wife is difficult to find, how much more is a capable husband hard to find! But what our author is suggesting here isn't that capable women do not abound, but that they are one of the most precious of all of life's treasures. "She is more precious than jewels." Not only so, but also later in the passage we read, "Her children rise up and call her happy (blessed); her husband too, and he praises her: 'Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.' "
These words are aimed at children and husbands - treasure your wives, treasure your mothers. The greatest gift God gives, after life and himself, is a wife and mother. These gifts we too often take for granted. We too often treat them with contempt. But the biblical response of a child to its mother is to "honor" and treasure her. Not only so, but husbands are uniquely called to do this - to praise their wives and to treasure them.
One of the most common feelings among women today is that of being unappreciated. My guess is that few women in this room would not admit to feeling this way at times. Men, our calling is to treasure our wives. We are called to make them feel special every day. We are called to build them up. Too often we say words that destroy. In doing this we are missing God's call on our lives. Treasure your wife. Few things go farther in improving a marriage, than when a man begins to treasure his wife.
Often we, as children, take our mothers for granted. We don't see all that they have done for us - but too easily we see what they did not do for us. We don't stop to be there for them, to encourage and love them.
Perhaps you have heard the story of the man who went to the floral shop to have a bouquet of flowers wired to his mother who lived four hours away. While he was choosing the flowers a little girl came to the counter of the floral shop and asked the price of a rose. She wanted to buy a flower for her mother. A moment later she walked out. After leaving the store the man found the little girl in tears outside of the shop. "What's wrong, little one?" he asked. "I wanted to buy a flower for my mommy, but I only have 75¢ and the flower is $2," she said between sobs. "Come on, I'll help you get that flower for your mom." And they went inside and he provided the extra $1.25. After purchasing the flower, the man offered to give her a ride home so she could give the flower to her mom. She gave him directions on how to get there. About the time he thought they should have been there, she told him to turn right, taking them into the Memorial Gardens Cemetery. Only then did the man begin to understand. He took the little girl to the aisle she requested, whereupon she jumped out of the car and ran to the fresh grave and placed the flower on the grave. The man just wept. Finally, the girl climbed back onto the car and he took her home. Leaving her, he drove back to the floral shop and cancelled the wire, and instead took them with him, and he drove that four hours to his mother's house, so they could celebrate Mother's Day.
I would like to end by challenging you to consider these things. First, for those whose mothers were less than perfect, who are still chained to them - may today be a day when you begin to allow God to break the chains and unlock the fetter that bind you. May he heal your memories and his love flood your heart. Second, I would invite the mothers present to take home this passage of Scripture and read it again throughout the week. Pray about it. Meditate on it. Underline those areas where you might ask God to work in you. Third, I would challenge you husbands to make a concerted effort to treasure your wives, both with your words and with your actions. And finally, I would remind us all not to take our mothers for granted, but to know that they are among the greatest gifts God gives to us.
Adam J. Hamilton
Children's Day Psalm 78:1--8
Telling The Next Generation
"... we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord ..."
- Psalm 78:4
Purpose: To encourage people to tell accounts of God's work.
Proposition: God's workings when recounted impact the emerging generation.
Introduction
A. John Westeroff wrote a book with an intriguing question as the title: Will Our Children Have Faith?
B. God is concerned about your children and their children.
C. God commands intergenerational teaching - one generation passing truths on to the next generation.
D. Why would a person not want to influence those who follow?
1. God told Hezekiah that his descendents would be castrated, exiled, and enslaved. Hezekiah's response was, "I am pleased, because I will experience peace and safety." He had no regard for his descendants.
a. His self--concern prevented him from caring for others.
b. Self--preoccupation ignores the next generation.
E. Why should we tell the next generation about God?
I. So they will know what God is like. (v. 4)
A. "How can they believe in the one whom they have not heard?" (Romans 10:14).
1. The idea that children can believe as they want to believe without influence is absurd.
2. We are to influence the next generation.
3. They will only know what God is like if we describe Him.
B. Our society sends mixed messages.
1. Ephraim "forgot" what God had done.
a. The history of God's faithfulness was forgotten.
b. They acted as though God does not care.
2. Michael W. Smith's song, "Cross Of Gold," explains how we have changed a symbol of capital punishment into benign jewelry. The song suggests we have missed the primary message of the cross.
3. They knew about God but kept on sinning by refusing to live by His law (10), by rebelling (17), by disloyalty and unfaithfulness (37).
C. God gives laws to be passed on and obeyed (5).
1. Knowing the law of God required doing the right.
2. In the Hebrew mind to hear meant to heed.
3. God's law constituted a behavioral norm.
D. God's faithfulness obligates us to be faithful (7--8).
1. God has done great things for us and we are to trust Him.
2. He is faithful so we are to be loyal to Him.
3. We are to quit mistrusting and begin believing.
E. When times become difficult, the Israelites turned to God. They would flatter Him. Their verbal assent was the first step toward rebellion (vv. 34--36). This began the cycle of repentance, lip service, sin, calamity (repeated).
II. Rehearsing our spiritual history honors God and helps us.
A. The value of hearing again.
1. Rehearse means to rake or to dig through again.
2. Israelites returned in their memory to the wonders of God's intervention in their history.
3. They recalled the daring Exodus and the march into the Promised Land.
4. Read Psalm 78:13--14.
5. Morris Weigelt remembers the stories his father told of the family's escape from a repressive country to freedom. A young man led them through a wheat field. The signal was given to run for their lives. The guard, paid to shoot high, did so.
B. Hearing our history helps us find our future.
1. As we see who God is, we rediscover who we may become.
2. As we honor God, we are reminded of how He helps us.
3. As we remember, we find God afresh and embrace hope, courage, and renewal.
Conclusion
A. The rigors of daily living can scatter our focus and diffuse our faith.
1. We can lose touch with our commitments.
2. We might abandon our relationships.
B. Recalling our history, who God is, and what His promises are, reunites us physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
During the Thanksgiving Holiday of 1997, the Rhodes family gathered to celebrate. One day during the visit, Jay and his fianc e, Katy, went to visit his 92--year--old grandmother. The grandmother was delighted to see her grandson and his fianc e. Grandmother visited with the young couple for a while - then she looked into Jay's eyes and said, "Are you a Christian?" She then turned to Katy and asked, "Honey, are you a Christian? Do you know Jesus?" Katy and Jay assured her they were Christians and they loved Jesus.
One month later, on Christmas Eve, Jay's 92--year--old grandmother died. Jay and Katy remembered their last conversation with Grandmother.
Only one month away from entering heaven's gate, Grandmother was still an evangelist - wanting to make sure all her family would join her in heaven.
C. Tell the next generation. They too must know and love God.
Lyle B. Pointer
The Sacraments 1 Corinthians 11:23--29
The Sacraments: Signs Of The Covenant
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way he took the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
- 1 Corinthians 11:23--29
Introduction: The struggle to understand the sacraments.
I want to discuss one the most often misunderstood and debated topics in the Christian faith: the Sacraments. Roman Catholics say there are seven, most Protestants say there are two, and some don't even use the word at all - preferring to call them "ordinances." When it comes to Holy Communion some believe that the bread and wine mysteriously become the body and blood of Jesus in this meal. Others believe the meal is only a symbolic way of remembering Christ's death on the cross. Some believe that communion, or the Eucharist as it is often called, is to be offered in every worship service. Others see communion as an occasional special meal, not to be repeated too often that it becomes repetitious and common place. Some pass the elements in trays down the aisle, some invite people to come forward. Regardless of how it is done, in any denomination or church, like baptism, few church members can give a satisfactory response as to what it all really means.
I. What is a sacrament?
What is a Sacrament? Merriam--Webster's Dictionary defines a sacrament as "a religious act, ceremony, or practice that is considered especially sacred as a sign or a symbol of a deeper reality." This is consistent with two common definitions of the word, namely that sacraments are "sign--acts" and that they are an "outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," or, as some simply call them, they are "means of grace." But while these definitions are accurate, there is another way of speaking about the sacraments that I find even more helpful in describing what they are and how they function, namely that the sacraments are signs of the covenant that God established with us, and we with God.
But what is a covenant? A covenant is a binding promise between two parties. Marriage is a covenant in which a woman and man make a binding promise to each other - each promising to have the other as their wedded mate, to have and to hold, for better or worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until parted by death. The wedding ring is an outward and visible sign of the covenant. The Christian Bible is divided into two testaments - the Old and New - and that word "testament" is another word for covenant - so that what we call the Old Testament is the record of God's covenant - his binding promise with Israel. The New Testament is the record of the new covenant that Jesus instituted and initiated by his death on the cross.
Baptism and Holy Communion are, like the wedding ring, outward and visible signs of the covenant that Christians have with God. They are signs of God's work and promise to us, and our work and promise to God.
In most Protestant churches there are two such acts, which we officially label "sacraments": Holy Communion, also called the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper, and Baptism. In the Roman Catholic Church five other acts are also given the official designation of sacrament: Confirmation, Marriage, Ordination, Penance, and Extreme Unction (that is, prayers for the sick and dying). The difference in the eyes of many is semantics. Both Protestants and Roman Catholics practice each of these latter five. We confirm, marry, ordain, and, though usually done in the setting of pastoral counseling we hear people's confessions and sometimes prescribe acts of penance, and we anoint the sick with oil, especially prior to death. The difference between whether these acts are technically sacraments or not goes back to the twelfth century definition of a sacrament - namely, that sacraments were specifically those things which Christ himself commanded. Protestants note that Jesus only specifically commanded us to baptize and take communion. The others are important aspects of ministry, but not technically considered sacraments in most Protestant churches.
Today we will focus our attention on the sacrament of Holy Communion.
II. The origins of Holy Communion
Let's consider first the origins of Holy Communion.
Both Baptism and Holy Communion have their origins as signs of the covenant in the Old Testament. In the case of Holy Communion, it was prefigured in the Hebrew Passover Seder. Let's consider this story for a moment.
Read the story of the Passover found in Exodus 12.
The covenant meal on Sinai in Exodus 24 - this is the blood of the covenant.
The night of the Last Supper was the evening of Passover - Jesus and His disciples were sharing in this meal, remembering the central saving act of God for the Israelites and the covenant God made with them through Moses in the Ten Commandments. On this day the Passover lamb had already been sacrificed. Jesus takes this meal, and transforms its meaning - He institutes a new covenant and a new meal of remembrance.
The ongoing significance of this meal can be found in the three names that it is often called by, so let's turn to them for a moment.
III. The three names for Holy Communion
There are several images and even words that are used to describe this special meal. The first is the Lord's Supper - this reminds us that the meal we celebrate is a reenactment of the events of the Last Supper, as a way of helping us remember and reflect on Jesus' passion and death for us.
Christ's life and death become present - the word in Greek for "remember" is anamnesis - a making present or bringing to recall a past event. So in sharing His meal we are visibly remembering and making present Jesus' death.
Roman Catholics take this a bit more literally than do many Protestants. Following an early tradition of the church, they believe that mysteriously, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ and that at this meal Christ's sacrifice and His life are offered, by the priest on behalf of the people - His death is thus not only remembered, but in a sense re--offered in the present.
Most Protestant churches have believed this was a bit too literal an understanding of the Scriptures - Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper before his death - and hence the bread and wine would not have been His body and blood in a mysterious sense, but would have stood for and represented these things. That is what we believe - that Christ is truly present by the Holy Spirit in this act of communion - but the elements only represent the body and blood of Christ.
In either case, when we celebrate this meal we are remembering the price Christ paid for us - that He died as a sacrifice for our sins and to establish a way for all of us to know and love God.
Second, we call it the Eucharist. This word in Greek means "thanksgiving." Every time Jesus broke bread, including at the Last Supper, the Bible says Jesus "gave thanks." While communion is certainly meant to be a time for reflection, it is also a time for gratitude and joy. We remember that our sins are forgiven. We remember the love of God. We give thanks for all that God has done for us!
Third, we call this meal Holy Communion. This means that in this meal we are communing and connecting, first with God, and then with other Christians. In a very tangible way, I can experience Christ - I can come forward and come to my knees and, in eating, can say, "I love You, Lord. I am so grateful for You. Please come, once again, and sweep out the cobwebs in my soul, and draw me near to You!" There is a special bond in Holy Communion amongst the church family. This is something we all do together. It is a sign of unity - that we are family. And it binds the church together.
In all three of these we remember that Holy Communion is an outward and visible sign of the covenant we have with God through Jesus Christ. Jesus makes this clear when, at the Last Supper, He turns to His disciples and says, "This cup is my blood of the New Covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins."
In the case of Holy Communion then, the act of eating and drinking in Holy Communion is, in part, a way of renewing the covenant made at your baptism. Jesus is saying, when you eat this meal, "This is for you - I give my life for you. I offer you grace and love. I will sustain you, heal you, and love you." We believe Christ is truly present in this meal -which is why we say, "Christ our Lord invites to His table all who do truly and earnestly repent of their sins...." He is offering to renew His promise to you. At the same time when you come forward to receive Holy Communion this is what you are saying, "Lord, I need You. I receive what You have done for me. I accept Your forgiveness. And I promise to follow You, to love You, and to serve You." You are reaffirming your covenant to God.
Conclusion
I would like to extend an invitation to you. Today is Holy Communion Sunday and I would invite you to come forward in a moment, to receive the bread and wine, and as you do, to recommit your life to Jesus Christ.
Adam J. Hamilton
Impacting The World John 5:1--14
Impacting The World: Starting Spiritual Conversations
Purpose: To stir hearts of people by speaking about Jesus.
Proposition: Jesus engaged many people in conversations about God in order to save Israel.
Introduction
A. Jesus openly declared His purpose to be: to seek and save the lost.
B. He also narrowed His earthly ministry to the lost sheep of Israel, the descendants of Jacob.
C. Jesus sent out the twelve to His own countrymen (Matthew 10:6).
D. Later Jesus was to open His ministry to the world, the Gentiles.
E. For the rest of us, our primary ministry will be our nation; how can we impact the people of our community?
F. How did Jesus influence Israel?
1. Through miracles
2. Through preaching
3. Through storytelling
I. Jesus also started spiritual conversations. (v. 6)
A. The invalid of 38 years who hoped to be healed (John 5:1--14), "Do you want to be healed?"
B. The woman caught in adultery (John 8) heard Jesus say, "I do not condemn you, go and sin no more."
C. To Nicodemus, Jesus stated, "You must be born again" (John 3:3, 16) and "God so loved the world...."
D. To antagonists Jesus declared, "I can do nothing by myself. I can only do what the Father does" (John 5:19).
E. Jesus came to Mary and Martha's home to comfort them in the loss of their brother. At that occasion He informed them, "I am the resurrection and the life" (John 11).
F. Appearing the Mary of Magdala, Jesus asked her questions, coached her on how to act toward Him, and instructed her to go tell others (John 20).
G. When Jesus interviewed Thomas, his faith took gigantic leaps to the point of stating, "My Lord and my God" (John 20).
H. With the backslidden Peter, overwhelmed by his denial of Jesus, the Savior engaged in dialogue, "Do you love me? Feed my sheep" (John 21).
II. Jesus asked questions. (v. 6)
A. He inquired as to the intensity of the man's desire to be healed.
B. He explored the man's responsiveness and receptivity.
C. "Spiritual Conversation Starters" have been written to help Christians to engage unsaved people in dialogue. Here are some questions we can ask people to learn of their spiritual receptivity.
1. "Do you give much thought to God and spiritual things?"
2. "Tell me about your most memorable spiritual experience."
3. "What do you think is a person's greatest spiritual need?"
4. "Tell me about your church background; did you go to church as a child?"
a. "How do you feel about your upbringing and your awareness of spiritual things?"
b. "How would you describe your life with God now?"
5. "How do you think a person begins a personal relationship with God?"
6. "When did you feel closest to God?"
a. "What were the factors or influences that brought you near God?"
b. "What would renew that sense of closeness?"
7. "On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being closest to God), where do you see yourself in relationship with God?"
a. "Where do you want to be?"
b. "How do you see yourself moving closer to God?"
c. "How can I encourage you to get to where you would like to be?"
III. Jesus found him. (v. 14)
A. Jesus did not just happen across this fellow at church.
B. Jesus went looking.
C. This speaks of intentionality and purpose.
Conclusion
During May 1998 in a class at Southern Nazarene University, I gave out an assignment to start spiritual conversations. Two young ladies came back to report they had led people to Jesus. One convert was a young African--American lady who lived near city center OKC. Another student led a young teenage boy to Christ.
A. If we are going to impact people we must start asking questions. We must engage people in conversation.
B. We cannot remain silent.
C. Let us ask ourselves this question: If I am as silent in the next thirty years as I have been the last three years, will our world ... our nation ... our local community be reached for Christ?
D. Who needs to hear about Jesus' love?
E. Let's covenant to go to those persons.
Lyle B. Pointer
So God bends to our infirmities. When God speaks, he tells us only as much as we need to know, only what we can take. God knows we cannot stand the whole weight of the full truth. The Creator knows the limits of us creatures. So God talks baby talk to us.
God does not bother Adam and Eve with lessons in animal husbandry or botany. God simply says, "You're in charge. But stay off that tree over there." Like any busy parent, God never gets around to telling them why; God simply tells them the way it is. But you know Adam and Eve. From the beginning, we want to know too much for our own good.
God speaks to Moses out of a burning bush, knowing that children are fascinated by fire and things like that. But when God speaks, it is with ludicrous simplicity: "Go tell people that I AM sent you."
And the law: basic kindergarten morality (as literally translated): You no kill. You no lie. You no steal.
And the prophets: Broken jars and eaten scrolls and other object lessons for children, talk of lions and lambs, and little stories which only little ones understand. Baby talk.
Have you ever watched people talk to babies? Goo, goo. Ga, ga. I sat one day in a sunlit park with my own baby and watched perfectly intelligent, sensible adults stop before the stroller and, one after another, be reduced to nonsensical babblers. Goo, goo. Ga, ga. You should have seen the old man, in the park for a lunchtime stroll, bending over, dangling his gold chain over the head of the little one, puffing up his fat rosy cheeks and pursing his lips as he bussed and wheezed, clicked and sputtered. Watching the man, I thought, If only your clients could see you now!
And yet, child development specialists say that such baby talk is essential for language development, coordination, and perception. Our hospital even has a woman to walk around the neonatal care unit and talk to the smallest babies. And there is research indicating that infants who are not talked to frequently during the first months of life suffer stunted development, and sometimes even die.
All subsequent chatter of learned theologians, says Luther, is but a series of footnotes on the primal baby talk. This later, abstracted, generalized reflection must not deafen us to the first simple childlike ways in which God speaks to us. When it does, we begin complicating the faith, talking big, and claiming to know more than we have experienced, forgetting our essential condition, smothering the elemental power of it all. Babies do not have to be told what Mommy means by "Cootchie, cootchie, coo." Love needs no explanation.
And so, stooping once more to our level, bending over into this violent playpen we call home, God again speaks - this time not simply speaking to babies, but coming as a baby, as one of us.
To the outside observer, just passing through, all this excited talk over the bassinet - the toothless shepherds grinning and peering over the edge of the crib, the wise old men from back East reduced to babbling fools - seems strange. But here in the Nativity is Truth, not as complex theory or lofty ideal, but Truth wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son" (Hebrews 1:1--2a).
And when the child becomes a man, he still speaks in stories, parables, simple declarations of the way things are now that God has come in the flesh. With a crisp, "Follow me," he invites all to a kingdom where only the little ones are citizens - the very young, the very old, the very sick, the very poor - a kingdom where to receive a child is to receive Him. Here is a Disney World place where everything is turned upside down, the lowly ones are great, the great are brought low, and there are surprises for everyone. In this kingdom, grown--ups, who use words that are too large and pray prayers that are too long and get too big for their britches, have trouble getting through the door. Baby talk.
Later, when, in a sort of frivolous childish gesture, he enters the capital city clown--ishly bouncing on the back of a fuzzy donkey, his beard does not hide the child beneath the man.
On that day, a long way from the manger at Bethlehem, he is welcomed into Jerusalem not by the mayor with the key to the city, but by children with palm branches.
That day, this night, babies look at him and see one of their own.
William Willimon
Christmas Day Isaiah 9:2--7
Unto Us A Child
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. - Isaiah 9:6
They had a long, frustrating wait: tests, treatments, discouragement, unknowing. They wanted a child. But they were learning that a child is still one blessing that is a gift - unearned, unachieved, un--demanded.
"We know more about how to help couples not have children than how to help them have children," the doctor had said. Hard to wait for a gift, perhaps particularly in a culture where about a million of us per year choose not to receive a child as a gift.
A few years ago, at this time of year, I heard a sermon, which chided us for our seasonal, sentimental infatuation with the "baby Jesus." We were urged to think less about the sweet baby Jesus and more about the grown--up Christ. "Away with the manger!" he said. Today I know more than I did then. Today's Scripture is about an unexpected, unchosen, unsought gift of a baby.
I know the dangers of our annual attempt to reduce the majesty of the Incarnation at Bethlehem in Judea to cute, infantile proportions here in our living room cr che in North Carolina. I know the sentimental mush of our cooing over the "little Lord Jesus." But now I know also, from firsthand experience, not only how cute but how threatening babies can be.
Herod knew. Give the old politician credit. King Herod, old fox, sitting in Jerusalem with all the military clout of the empire to back him up, knew how dangerous babies could be. Herod knew that he had better take matters into his own hands while he still had time, before the child could mock the impotence of the old man. It was no time to wait for the unknown, potential, growing child to come to fulfillment. With babies, Herod knew, it is the unknown, the future that frightens. He had better stop this Jesus thing before it gets going.
We fear childish impudence and disrespect in the face of our adult pompousness. A decade ago the Central African Empire's Emperor Bokassa reenacted the Massacre of the Innocents after some impudent school children refused to wear his state--imposed uniforms. He murdered them. I have found it difficult to retain my delusions of adult authority and omnipotence when the wee one across the breakfast table sends the cereal flying in my direction and then laughs at how funny I look with oatmeal on my ministerial black suit. Every baby challenges Herod's and my claims of power and immortality. The future is that child's, not mine, not yours. With each passing day we decrease. They increase. Is that why our society wavers between extremes of romantic glorification of childhood on the one hand and toleration of child abuse and child neglect on the other?
I know that a baby is supposed to bring out the best in us. But never forget that a baby also mirrors the worst. Why do we want babies? To make secure our claims of immortality in this mortal world? To reap security for our old age in this insecure time? Ask any Little League coach. He'll tell you. One reason lots of us have kids is to achieve vicarious fulfillment through them. Like all human creations, even the creation of a child is tinged with our subtle, deceptive human pride.
And why did Judea want a baby - this child Messiah? To bring the gift of immortality through his entrance into our mortal flesh? To offer self--fulfillment by championing our causes and choosing us, and us alone, for the benefits of his love? To promise eternal security and peace which free us from earthly insecurity? The Advent of the Christ Child, like all of God's incarnations, was impossible without his advent into the realm of our subtle, deceptive, human pride - into the realm of all our ambivalent expectations. There, in the baby, "the hopes and fears of all the years" are met by a God who meets us where we live - with our pride masquerading as faith, with our false hopes and selfish fears - and claims us at the infantile point where we all began our meandering life journey. Starting at the beginning, at the source, he confronts our deepest and darkest fears, recreating our humanity from the womb onward.
But even this does not adequately describe the mystery we sense at seeing God in a manger. Maybe the most disturbing quality of the baby Jesus, the mystery of his advent that scandalizes even as it inexorably beckons, is the vulnerability of his incarnation.
Nothing is so helpless, so dependent, so fragile, so frail as a baby. I know of no other religion so bold as to admit to the possibility of its God appearing in so vulnerable form. How scandalously condescending is the love of this God who deems to meet us first as a baby. How threatening is this God to my human desire for an aloof, deistic deity who lives in the realms of the abstract, self--contained ideal, rather than in the stable out back, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger, crying to be cuddled close to a human family. For most of the year we preach about humanity's need for God. But on Christmas, can we be so bold as to speak of God's need for humanity - a God who comes, reaching out to us, as a baby, needing the love, warmth, and nurture of an utterly human Joseph and Mary.
I have noted that within some of the churches in impoverished nations, great prominence is given to the infant Christ. An old man in a poor Italian village first explained this to me as we stood one December in his little church before an altar cr che and "il Santo Bambino."
"The bambino," he said, whispering to me in toothless solemnity, "the bambino is poor, little, and outside - like us." Then he smiled.
Not too far up the road from this old man's town, Francis of Assisi meditated upon the Holy Child, seeing the Babe as a paradigm for God's suffering servanthood among the wretched of God's earth. Perhaps we more powerful ones can do no better than to sentimentalize and trivialize the fragile Babe. Perhaps it is left to the poor, to the outsiders, to the "little ones" of the world to see the powerful, revolutionary, messianic, divine--human solidarity, which the presence of the Babe declares.
And with the vulnerability of the Babe comes a claim. A baby, because of its vulnerability, dependence, and potential, evokes a response from us, demands, a commitment unknown in the majority of human encounters. If you want your life jerked around, your schedule rearranged, to be sleep--deprived, try having a baby. This claim arises not only because babies need us but also because somewhere within our deepest selves, we know that we need babies. Some deep, human instinct tells us that babies are a sign of our human creativity at its best, a reminder of our dark, biological, primordial origins in the waters of creation and a hopeful hint of our still open future. A visible reminder that it's all grace, a gift. One finds it difficult to be neutral in the face of such smiling mystery.
A parishioner of mine once explained it to me this way: He had interpreted and kept his marriage vows rather loosely, had thought little about his past, and had not the slightest interest in the future. He had spent the first years of his marriage mainly on the road making money.
"But one night," he said. "I got turned around - the night I walked into the hospital room and held my little baby in my arms for the first time and realized that she was part of me even if she was better than I deserved. I said to myself, 'You're going to have to stop your foolishness and start living like somebody, because she's somebody.' "
The birth of that baby summoned forth the best in the man's humanity, laid hold of his life in a manner that could only be called rebirth.
Did Joseph and Mary feel such a claim upon their lives as they stood by the manger, or did the shepherds and the magi? And what is that wonder which we feel reflected back upon us when we encounter the Babe? Is it a glimpse of ourselves at our best, in our primal innocence? Or is it a vision of One who is part of us, yet better than we deserve? Who are we who stand around the manger, blessed by so close a love? Who could expect the magi or anybody else to return home the same way after such a meeting?
This December, if a messenger in white - whether a gynecologist or the angel Gabriel - should tell you that you were blessed and that you were going to have a baby, I hope you would sing as Mary sang.
As for me, I know I'm supposed to keep my categories clean, and carefully define the limits between the divine and the human. But, God help me, I know that while we may be singing about the baby Jesus, I'll always be seeing that little one who intruded among us; who reminds me of the God who came first as a child. Who now asks, "Tell me a story." And so I begin: "Once there was a woman named Mary, and she was told that she was going to have a baby ..."
William Willimon
Mother's Day Proverbs 31:10--13, 16--18, 20--21, 25--31
A Mother Of Noble Character
Several years ago three women met together for lunch the day after Mother's Day. Each was prone to try to outdo the others, and this day was not exception. The first woman, whose son was an attorney, said, "My son is so rich, he just bought me a new fur coat." The second woman, not wishing to be outdone, and having a son who was a noted physician, said, "My son is so rich, he just gave me a trip to travel anywhere I want to overseas." The third woman, as proud as she could be, chimed in, "Well, my son is so rich that he pays a fancy psychiatrist $200 an hour just to sit around and talk about me!"
We laugh about that story, because if we did not, we would have to cry about it. For some of you, this is your story. Dr. Jim Buskirk, pastor at First UMC Tulsa, tells of a woman he counseled. She had grown up in a home where she had received very little love and affirmation as a child. In recent years she had made peace with her mom, but she was still angry with her father, who had died several years before. As he described the woman he used a metaphor that struck me as very helpful. He said that as long as she remained angry with her deceased father, she remained "chained" to him. And with this, she remained chained to the broken past, and chained to the pain.
Christ Jesus is able to heal the pain of our hearts. He is able to help us to forgive. He is the Master at cutting off the shackles that bind us to the past. This Mother's Day there may be some of you who need to invite Christ to break the chains, heal the memories, and help you forgive.
Clearly Mother's Day can bring with it a very mixed bag of feelings and emotions. Some here had the perfect mother, and some have spent thousands with psychiatrists sitting around talking about your mothers. Some of you have your mothers with you today, and some come to worship today with a certain sadness as your mother has passed on to God's Kingdom in Heaven. Some of you here today are mothers. And for you too, Mother's Day offers a host of feelings. Some feel the joy of parenthood, while others know its pain. Many a mother feels a certain degree of guilt or failure over shortcomings in how they mother their children.
Despite this mixed bag of experiences we bring to this day, I would like to spend the next few minutes reflecting with you on a few key biblical passages that seem most pertinent to celebration of Mother's Day, and God's call on our lives as children, mothers and husbands. For this study we begin by examining the closing words of the Old Testament book of Proverbs.
This passage, written a half a millennium before the time of Christ, is the concluding words of that book of the Bible known for capturing truths about being human, about relationships, and about life. The fact that it is the climax and conclusion of Proverbs points to the exalted place that the wife and mother were meant to have within the ancient Hebrew society. The woman described here is the Betty Crocker of the Bible. You may be aware that a new Betty Crocker was recently unveiled. Thanks to computer technology, Betty is no longer simply an artist's rendering of a fictitious woman, but a composite computer rendering of a hundred different woman, each capturing a part of what Betty should be. The photos were scanned into the computer and the rendering software merged them all together. No one woman, of course, is Betty Crocker. She is now, quite literally, 100 different women.
In the same way, the picture of the noble woman we find in Proverbs, is not one woman, but a composite of many women. She stands, in the Old Testament, as the ideal woman. This picture will serve as the basis for our message regarding mothers today.
First, we may be surprised to see that in this, the picture of the ideal mother and wife, we find both working mothers, and stay--at--home moms affirmed. On the one hand, the wife and mother of Proverbs 31 is a seamstress, a real estate developer, a farmer, and a skillful merchant. This is one very busy woman. If you are a working mother, there is a precedent in the Bible for what you do.
This said, the passage also clearly pictures our biblical Betty Crocker as one whom carefully looks after the affairs of her children and household. This is her highest calling for in it she invests herself in the life of her child. When others ask her what she does for a living, she could look them in the eye and with pride say, "I am a mother!"
But let us examine a few other characteristics of the ideal wife and mother. In our Scripture we find that she is the heart of compassion in her family, reaching out to the poor and needy. She is clothed with strength and dignity, laughing in the face of trial. When I read this I thought of my own mother, who attends my church. As a teenager we were faced with very difficult financial straights after my step--dad left us. It was the height of the recession of 1979--1980. Interest rates were eighteen percent for home mortgages. And my mother was selling real estate while trying to feed three children. We were, at one point, completely broke. She made a way where most women would have given up. She is a survivor, and we learned to survive. And I am still amazed at how she did it.
Not only is the ideal woman clothed with strength and dignity, but she is also the source of wisdom and teaching to her children. In the average home in America, Mother will spend three or four times as many hours with the children as Father will. Wisdom and teaching come from her.
Finally, the biblical woman "fears the Lord." To fear the Lord means to serve the Lord, to reverence the Lord, to follow the Lord. Thank God for mothers who fear the Lord. For without them many of you would not be here today. Mothers, you play a critical role in the faith development of your children. Millions of Christians today are Christians despite their father's lack of faith, because they had godly mothers who lived the faith for them.
Allow me to retell a story I've told before, for it captures an essential truth about the Christian mother. Three preachers were arguing one day about which translation of the Bible was best. One of the preachers said, "I prefer the King James translation for its beauty and poetic use of the English language." The next chimed in, "I prefer the New International translation, because it is imminently more readable than the King James." But the last man, who had been quiet through most of the debate, said, "My favorite translation of the Bible was my mother's." "Really?" the other two asked. "We didn't know she translated the Bible!" "Yes, she translated it into daily life, and it was the most powerful translation I have ever seen."
Finally, as we come to the text, we need not become undone by its opening statement, "A capable wife who can find." If a capable wife is difficult to find, how much more is a capable husband hard to find! But what our author is suggesting here isn't that capable women do not abound, but that they are one of the most precious of all of life's treasures. "She is more precious than jewels." Not only so, but also later in the passage we read, "Her children rise up and call her happy (blessed); her husband too, and he praises her: 'Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.' "
These words are aimed at children and husbands - treasure your wives, treasure your mothers. The greatest gift God gives, after life and himself, is a wife and mother. These gifts we too often take for granted. We too often treat them with contempt. But the biblical response of a child to its mother is to "honor" and treasure her. Not only so, but husbands are uniquely called to do this - to praise their wives and to treasure them.
One of the most common feelings among women today is that of being unappreciated. My guess is that few women in this room would not admit to feeling this way at times. Men, our calling is to treasure our wives. We are called to make them feel special every day. We are called to build them up. Too often we say words that destroy. In doing this we are missing God's call on our lives. Treasure your wife. Few things go farther in improving a marriage, than when a man begins to treasure his wife.
Often we, as children, take our mothers for granted. We don't see all that they have done for us - but too easily we see what they did not do for us. We don't stop to be there for them, to encourage and love them.
Perhaps you have heard the story of the man who went to the floral shop to have a bouquet of flowers wired to his mother who lived four hours away. While he was choosing the flowers a little girl came to the counter of the floral shop and asked the price of a rose. She wanted to buy a flower for her mother. A moment later she walked out. After leaving the store the man found the little girl in tears outside of the shop. "What's wrong, little one?" he asked. "I wanted to buy a flower for my mommy, but I only have 75¢ and the flower is $2," she said between sobs. "Come on, I'll help you get that flower for your mom." And they went inside and he provided the extra $1.25. After purchasing the flower, the man offered to give her a ride home so she could give the flower to her mom. She gave him directions on how to get there. About the time he thought they should have been there, she told him to turn right, taking them into the Memorial Gardens Cemetery. Only then did the man begin to understand. He took the little girl to the aisle she requested, whereupon she jumped out of the car and ran to the fresh grave and placed the flower on the grave. The man just wept. Finally, the girl climbed back onto the car and he took her home. Leaving her, he drove back to the floral shop and cancelled the wire, and instead took them with him, and he drove that four hours to his mother's house, so they could celebrate Mother's Day.
I would like to end by challenging you to consider these things. First, for those whose mothers were less than perfect, who are still chained to them - may today be a day when you begin to allow God to break the chains and unlock the fetter that bind you. May he heal your memories and his love flood your heart. Second, I would invite the mothers present to take home this passage of Scripture and read it again throughout the week. Pray about it. Meditate on it. Underline those areas where you might ask God to work in you. Third, I would challenge you husbands to make a concerted effort to treasure your wives, both with your words and with your actions. And finally, I would remind us all not to take our mothers for granted, but to know that they are among the greatest gifts God gives to us.
Adam J. Hamilton
Children's Day Psalm 78:1--8
Telling The Next Generation
"... we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord ..."
- Psalm 78:4
Purpose: To encourage people to tell accounts of God's work.
Proposition: God's workings when recounted impact the emerging generation.
Introduction
A. John Westeroff wrote a book with an intriguing question as the title: Will Our Children Have Faith?
B. God is concerned about your children and their children.
C. God commands intergenerational teaching - one generation passing truths on to the next generation.
D. Why would a person not want to influence those who follow?
1. God told Hezekiah that his descendents would be castrated, exiled, and enslaved. Hezekiah's response was, "I am pleased, because I will experience peace and safety." He had no regard for his descendants.
a. His self--concern prevented him from caring for others.
b. Self--preoccupation ignores the next generation.
E. Why should we tell the next generation about God?
I. So they will know what God is like. (v. 4)
A. "How can they believe in the one whom they have not heard?" (Romans 10:14).
1. The idea that children can believe as they want to believe without influence is absurd.
2. We are to influence the next generation.
3. They will only know what God is like if we describe Him.
B. Our society sends mixed messages.
1. Ephraim "forgot" what God had done.
a. The history of God's faithfulness was forgotten.
b. They acted as though God does not care.
2. Michael W. Smith's song, "Cross Of Gold," explains how we have changed a symbol of capital punishment into benign jewelry. The song suggests we have missed the primary message of the cross.
3. They knew about God but kept on sinning by refusing to live by His law (10), by rebelling (17), by disloyalty and unfaithfulness (37).
C. God gives laws to be passed on and obeyed (5).
1. Knowing the law of God required doing the right.
2. In the Hebrew mind to hear meant to heed.
3. God's law constituted a behavioral norm.
D. God's faithfulness obligates us to be faithful (7--8).
1. God has done great things for us and we are to trust Him.
2. He is faithful so we are to be loyal to Him.
3. We are to quit mistrusting and begin believing.
E. When times become difficult, the Israelites turned to God. They would flatter Him. Their verbal assent was the first step toward rebellion (vv. 34--36). This began the cycle of repentance, lip service, sin, calamity (repeated).
II. Rehearsing our spiritual history honors God and helps us.
A. The value of hearing again.
1. Rehearse means to rake or to dig through again.
2. Israelites returned in their memory to the wonders of God's intervention in their history.
3. They recalled the daring Exodus and the march into the Promised Land.
4. Read Psalm 78:13--14.
5. Morris Weigelt remembers the stories his father told of the family's escape from a repressive country to freedom. A young man led them through a wheat field. The signal was given to run for their lives. The guard, paid to shoot high, did so.
B. Hearing our history helps us find our future.
1. As we see who God is, we rediscover who we may become.
2. As we honor God, we are reminded of how He helps us.
3. As we remember, we find God afresh and embrace hope, courage, and renewal.
Conclusion
A. The rigors of daily living can scatter our focus and diffuse our faith.
1. We can lose touch with our commitments.
2. We might abandon our relationships.
B. Recalling our history, who God is, and what His promises are, reunites us physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
During the Thanksgiving Holiday of 1997, the Rhodes family gathered to celebrate. One day during the visit, Jay and his fianc e, Katy, went to visit his 92--year--old grandmother. The grandmother was delighted to see her grandson and his fianc e. Grandmother visited with the young couple for a while - then she looked into Jay's eyes and said, "Are you a Christian?" She then turned to Katy and asked, "Honey, are you a Christian? Do you know Jesus?" Katy and Jay assured her they were Christians and they loved Jesus.
One month later, on Christmas Eve, Jay's 92--year--old grandmother died. Jay and Katy remembered their last conversation with Grandmother.
Only one month away from entering heaven's gate, Grandmother was still an evangelist - wanting to make sure all her family would join her in heaven.
C. Tell the next generation. They too must know and love God.
Lyle B. Pointer
The Sacraments 1 Corinthians 11:23--29
The Sacraments: Signs Of The Covenant
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way he took the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
- 1 Corinthians 11:23--29
Introduction: The struggle to understand the sacraments.
I want to discuss one the most often misunderstood and debated topics in the Christian faith: the Sacraments. Roman Catholics say there are seven, most Protestants say there are two, and some don't even use the word at all - preferring to call them "ordinances." When it comes to Holy Communion some believe that the bread and wine mysteriously become the body and blood of Jesus in this meal. Others believe the meal is only a symbolic way of remembering Christ's death on the cross. Some believe that communion, or the Eucharist as it is often called, is to be offered in every worship service. Others see communion as an occasional special meal, not to be repeated too often that it becomes repetitious and common place. Some pass the elements in trays down the aisle, some invite people to come forward. Regardless of how it is done, in any denomination or church, like baptism, few church members can give a satisfactory response as to what it all really means.
I. What is a sacrament?
What is a Sacrament? Merriam--Webster's Dictionary defines a sacrament as "a religious act, ceremony, or practice that is considered especially sacred as a sign or a symbol of a deeper reality." This is consistent with two common definitions of the word, namely that sacraments are "sign--acts" and that they are an "outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," or, as some simply call them, they are "means of grace." But while these definitions are accurate, there is another way of speaking about the sacraments that I find even more helpful in describing what they are and how they function, namely that the sacraments are signs of the covenant that God established with us, and we with God.
But what is a covenant? A covenant is a binding promise between two parties. Marriage is a covenant in which a woman and man make a binding promise to each other - each promising to have the other as their wedded mate, to have and to hold, for better or worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until parted by death. The wedding ring is an outward and visible sign of the covenant. The Christian Bible is divided into two testaments - the Old and New - and that word "testament" is another word for covenant - so that what we call the Old Testament is the record of God's covenant - his binding promise with Israel. The New Testament is the record of the new covenant that Jesus instituted and initiated by his death on the cross.
Baptism and Holy Communion are, like the wedding ring, outward and visible signs of the covenant that Christians have with God. They are signs of God's work and promise to us, and our work and promise to God.
In most Protestant churches there are two such acts, which we officially label "sacraments": Holy Communion, also called the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper, and Baptism. In the Roman Catholic Church five other acts are also given the official designation of sacrament: Confirmation, Marriage, Ordination, Penance, and Extreme Unction (that is, prayers for the sick and dying). The difference in the eyes of many is semantics. Both Protestants and Roman Catholics practice each of these latter five. We confirm, marry, ordain, and, though usually done in the setting of pastoral counseling we hear people's confessions and sometimes prescribe acts of penance, and we anoint the sick with oil, especially prior to death. The difference between whether these acts are technically sacraments or not goes back to the twelfth century definition of a sacrament - namely, that sacraments were specifically those things which Christ himself commanded. Protestants note that Jesus only specifically commanded us to baptize and take communion. The others are important aspects of ministry, but not technically considered sacraments in most Protestant churches.
Today we will focus our attention on the sacrament of Holy Communion.
II. The origins of Holy Communion
Let's consider first the origins of Holy Communion.
Both Baptism and Holy Communion have their origins as signs of the covenant in the Old Testament. In the case of Holy Communion, it was prefigured in the Hebrew Passover Seder. Let's consider this story for a moment.
Read the story of the Passover found in Exodus 12.
The covenant meal on Sinai in Exodus 24 - this is the blood of the covenant.
The night of the Last Supper was the evening of Passover - Jesus and His disciples were sharing in this meal, remembering the central saving act of God for the Israelites and the covenant God made with them through Moses in the Ten Commandments. On this day the Passover lamb had already been sacrificed. Jesus takes this meal, and transforms its meaning - He institutes a new covenant and a new meal of remembrance.
The ongoing significance of this meal can be found in the three names that it is often called by, so let's turn to them for a moment.
III. The three names for Holy Communion
There are several images and even words that are used to describe this special meal. The first is the Lord's Supper - this reminds us that the meal we celebrate is a reenactment of the events of the Last Supper, as a way of helping us remember and reflect on Jesus' passion and death for us.
Christ's life and death become present - the word in Greek for "remember" is anamnesis - a making present or bringing to recall a past event. So in sharing His meal we are visibly remembering and making present Jesus' death.
Roman Catholics take this a bit more literally than do many Protestants. Following an early tradition of the church, they believe that mysteriously, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ and that at this meal Christ's sacrifice and His life are offered, by the priest on behalf of the people - His death is thus not only remembered, but in a sense re--offered in the present.
Most Protestant churches have believed this was a bit too literal an understanding of the Scriptures - Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper before his death - and hence the bread and wine would not have been His body and blood in a mysterious sense, but would have stood for and represented these things. That is what we believe - that Christ is truly present by the Holy Spirit in this act of communion - but the elements only represent the body and blood of Christ.
In either case, when we celebrate this meal we are remembering the price Christ paid for us - that He died as a sacrifice for our sins and to establish a way for all of us to know and love God.
Second, we call it the Eucharist. This word in Greek means "thanksgiving." Every time Jesus broke bread, including at the Last Supper, the Bible says Jesus "gave thanks." While communion is certainly meant to be a time for reflection, it is also a time for gratitude and joy. We remember that our sins are forgiven. We remember the love of God. We give thanks for all that God has done for us!
Third, we call this meal Holy Communion. This means that in this meal we are communing and connecting, first with God, and then with other Christians. In a very tangible way, I can experience Christ - I can come forward and come to my knees and, in eating, can say, "I love You, Lord. I am so grateful for You. Please come, once again, and sweep out the cobwebs in my soul, and draw me near to You!" There is a special bond in Holy Communion amongst the church family. This is something we all do together. It is a sign of unity - that we are family. And it binds the church together.
In all three of these we remember that Holy Communion is an outward and visible sign of the covenant we have with God through Jesus Christ. Jesus makes this clear when, at the Last Supper, He turns to His disciples and says, "This cup is my blood of the New Covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins."
In the case of Holy Communion then, the act of eating and drinking in Holy Communion is, in part, a way of renewing the covenant made at your baptism. Jesus is saying, when you eat this meal, "This is for you - I give my life for you. I offer you grace and love. I will sustain you, heal you, and love you." We believe Christ is truly present in this meal -which is why we say, "Christ our Lord invites to His table all who do truly and earnestly repent of their sins...." He is offering to renew His promise to you. At the same time when you come forward to receive Holy Communion this is what you are saying, "Lord, I need You. I receive what You have done for me. I accept Your forgiveness. And I promise to follow You, to love You, and to serve You." You are reaffirming your covenant to God.
Conclusion
I would like to extend an invitation to you. Today is Holy Communion Sunday and I would invite you to come forward in a moment, to receive the bread and wine, and as you do, to recommit your life to Jesus Christ.
Adam J. Hamilton
Impacting The World John 5:1--14
Impacting The World: Starting Spiritual Conversations
Purpose: To stir hearts of people by speaking about Jesus.
Proposition: Jesus engaged many people in conversations about God in order to save Israel.
Introduction
A. Jesus openly declared His purpose to be: to seek and save the lost.
B. He also narrowed His earthly ministry to the lost sheep of Israel, the descendants of Jacob.
C. Jesus sent out the twelve to His own countrymen (Matthew 10:6).
D. Later Jesus was to open His ministry to the world, the Gentiles.
E. For the rest of us, our primary ministry will be our nation; how can we impact the people of our community?
F. How did Jesus influence Israel?
1. Through miracles
2. Through preaching
3. Through storytelling
I. Jesus also started spiritual conversations. (v. 6)
A. The invalid of 38 years who hoped to be healed (John 5:1--14), "Do you want to be healed?"
B. The woman caught in adultery (John 8) heard Jesus say, "I do not condemn you, go and sin no more."
C. To Nicodemus, Jesus stated, "You must be born again" (John 3:3, 16) and "God so loved the world...."
D. To antagonists Jesus declared, "I can do nothing by myself. I can only do what the Father does" (John 5:19).
E. Jesus came to Mary and Martha's home to comfort them in the loss of their brother. At that occasion He informed them, "I am the resurrection and the life" (John 11).
F. Appearing the Mary of Magdala, Jesus asked her questions, coached her on how to act toward Him, and instructed her to go tell others (John 20).
G. When Jesus interviewed Thomas, his faith took gigantic leaps to the point of stating, "My Lord and my God" (John 20).
H. With the backslidden Peter, overwhelmed by his denial of Jesus, the Savior engaged in dialogue, "Do you love me? Feed my sheep" (John 21).
II. Jesus asked questions. (v. 6)
A. He inquired as to the intensity of the man's desire to be healed.
B. He explored the man's responsiveness and receptivity.
C. "Spiritual Conversation Starters" have been written to help Christians to engage unsaved people in dialogue. Here are some questions we can ask people to learn of their spiritual receptivity.
1. "Do you give much thought to God and spiritual things?"
2. "Tell me about your most memorable spiritual experience."
3. "What do you think is a person's greatest spiritual need?"
4. "Tell me about your church background; did you go to church as a child?"
a. "How do you feel about your upbringing and your awareness of spiritual things?"
b. "How would you describe your life with God now?"
5. "How do you think a person begins a personal relationship with God?"
6. "When did you feel closest to God?"
a. "What were the factors or influences that brought you near God?"
b. "What would renew that sense of closeness?"
7. "On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being closest to God), where do you see yourself in relationship with God?"
a. "Where do you want to be?"
b. "How do you see yourself moving closer to God?"
c. "How can I encourage you to get to where you would like to be?"
III. Jesus found him. (v. 14)
A. Jesus did not just happen across this fellow at church.
B. Jesus went looking.
C. This speaks of intentionality and purpose.
Conclusion
During May 1998 in a class at Southern Nazarene University, I gave out an assignment to start spiritual conversations. Two young ladies came back to report they had led people to Jesus. One convert was a young African--American lady who lived near city center OKC. Another student led a young teenage boy to Christ.
A. If we are going to impact people we must start asking questions. We must engage people in conversation.
B. We cannot remain silent.
C. Let us ask ourselves this question: If I am as silent in the next thirty years as I have been the last three years, will our world ... our nation ... our local community be reached for Christ?
D. Who needs to hear about Jesus' love?
E. Let's covenant to go to those persons.
Lyle B. Pointer
