Sunday, February 15, 2015

Sunday and Another Personal Sermon

Today I speak at church again.

I got up earlier...around 4:20 this morning. I fed Missy first, of course.  She wants to go out but it is very cold out there and she is old too. :)

I am baking a coffee cake to take to church. They seem to enjoy that with coffee during Sunday school class. Our snow and ice storm here will begin this afternoon and into evening. We should get an inch of snow...nothing like the east coast. Those poor people are getting another blizzard.

I don't know whether Bob will come over this evening for 60 Minutes or not. The ice and snow is supposed to be starting at 3:00 today. We had planned to go to Joplin tomorrow while I'm off work for the holiday but I imagine that is cancelled.  I will just stay home and read. 

More later.... Here's the sermon:



Sermon: “Listen to the Beloved”
February 15, 2015
Mark 9:2–9
Exploring the Scripture
Relationships and the idea of Jesus as teacher are a few overarching themes in the Gospel of Mark. These themes are strongly related to the theme for this Sunday, “Listen to the Beloved.”

Mark’s Gospel describes Jesus’ many relationships: with God; with the crowds; with those who oppose him; and with his closest followers, his “disciples.” Jesus is the disciples’ friend and teacher: called (rabbi). This week’s theme is a call to Jesus’ disciples, who were deepening their relationships with him, to listen to him as he continued to teach them what it will mean to be called a disciple and all about God’s Kingdom.

In an earlier section in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus invited his disciples to follow him. We can only assume the reason they responded so quickly was that Jesus presented a vision (which he called the kingdom) of life that was so compelling they could do nothing else but follow him. 

Remember several of Jesus’s disciples had first been disciples of John.  So they had heard the message of John before they heard the message of Jesus. John’s message was about repentance but Jesus’ was about the makeup of The Kingdom of God. …relationships. 

This is followed by teaching moments as Jesus shares by example and through parables. When Jesus tests Peter to see how much he has learned he asks Peter who he [Jesus] is. Peter responds to Jesus as “Messiah” or “the anointed one.” Peter’s declaration ends the first section of Mark’s Gospel.

Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a mountain, away from the crowds. The first lesson he taught them was about the value of withdrawal. Jesus practiced this spiritual discipline many times. 

When a cloud appeared signifying the presence of God, the disciples were afraid. But that fear was soon diminished. They heard the voice of God confirming Jesus’ “beloved-ness” and God’s presence with him. At times like these, the disciples needed to know they too were loved by God.

The scripture ends with the four descending the mountain. Jesus resumed his ministry of bringing hope to lives of everyone he encountered along the way. The disciples learned the importance of being with God in a “withdrawal” to receive God’s love and that it was equally important to later share that love in ministry to God’s people. Relationships.

God wants a relationship with God’s people. That’s one reason we are simply “Community” of Christ and no longer called “church”. And withdrawing is a spiritual discipline in which we learn we too are loved by God. With this assurance we need not be afraid of being alone as we are about God’s special mission.

How has prayer or participation in a spiritual discipline helped you understand and appreciate your relationship with God? Or has it? There was a time when I was young…in my twenties, when I really needed a closer relationship with God. I had been baptized when I was 13, primarily to please my grandmother, but I had not had what I considered a “conversion experience” of my own.

Later, when I was in my twenties, and pretty miserable, I took the advice of our pastor there in Bartlesville, and began a Bible study and meditation time at 6:00 in the morning. No one else was up at that hour so I had the kitchen to myself. The kids were in elementary school and Scott was too young to even be in school.  After a few months of that, I realized I really loved and needed the church and its wonderful caring people. I had some wonderful relationships with folks that knew I was troubled and loved me anyhow. And that realization made me realize what I considered that my conversion experience. I felt God’s love for me. I actually asked the pastor if I could be re-baptized but he suggested that my experience should be proof enough that God was with me and trying to heal me of my brokenness. So I accepted that. 

When Scott was a baby, I attended my first reunion weekend. I went to Wilburton, Oklahoma, for a weekend there with friends. I sensed a wonderful fellowship while there. It wasn’t the ministry of Arthur Oakman that caused that experience. It was the welcoming experience I had there…the closeness with those people…their caring about me. 

It was enough! In time, I began to feel I was healing. I had wonderful relationships there with the Bartlesville congregation.  They helped Bob and me through some very hard times with emotional support.  That was my “mountain-top experience”. The question before us now is this. “Have you had a “mountain-top” experience that was hard to leave?” If so, why do you think “leaving” is necessary?

I know leaving there was necessary for us. We needed to feel needed. We decided we would see how easy it would be to sell our new home. City Service and just moved to Tulsa…leaving Bartlesville…and there were hundreds of houses on the market. We decided we would give it two weeks and if the house didn’t sell in two weeks, we would simply stay in Bartlesville. 

We sold our home in three days and moved to Caney where Phyllis and Bob lived and where Bob could commute to Bartlesville to work. We wanted to be able to travel to Coffeyville each Sunday to be another presence there.  And there we found another group of wonderful people. 

I have never felt alone since those experiences. I know God is always right there with me…trying to influence me to good wholesome experiences, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing when I have chosen my own way. That’s how it goes. I believe there is no “arriving point” in our need for God’s presence….the presence we often find in the company of others who are also on their journey. 
And I find God when I am alone as well. When I was a troubled teenager I used  to take a sack lunch and climb up Big Hill to Shadow Lake and eat my lunch there on Roosevelt Drive while  sitting on the wall there. I would watch the lake and the birds and think about how tough life was. While I was wallowing in self pity, the still small voice would remind me how loved I was. 
 
My folks were not demonstrative but in a hundred different ways they let me know how they loved me.  My stepdad was a jewel. Yes, they had their problems too and yes, they inflicted them on us. Alcoholics have a way of doing that. But we always knew they loved us. My stepdad, Russ, always introduced me to his friends as “his daughter”.  We spent a lot of time together in that front porch swing while he told me his war stories.  In the telling, he eventually healed.  My motto became, “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”  I have tried to live by that motto over the years.

 So, let us ask ourselves, “How do we know when God is present?”

I believe God is always present but we know it when we begin to realize the guidance we receive….can’t possibly be just “us” because that kind of wisdom doesn’t come from “just us”.  Sometimes it comes from that still small voice and sometimes it comes through our wonderful relationships.  My friends have saved my life over the years.  I have had some wonderful friends…through them, and their wisdom, I have often heard God’s voice. 

So it is always good for us to “listen to the beloved”…that still small voice that doesn’t sound like us. 

Yes, Jesus taught his disciples to listen to his voice and just like that, if we listen, we will hear the voice of God trying to reach us always..to give us the strength and wisdom to finish our journey honorably.

4 comments:

Deb @ Frugal Little Bungalow said...

This was beautiful, Margie! :)

Margie's Musings said...

Thank you, Deb.

Galla Creek said...

I loved the sermon and hope you will continue to share them with us.

Margie's Musings said...

Thanks, Sister Three. I appreciate your input. I will try to remember to do that.