The text for this sermon can be found in an earlier post.
MP3 File
Monday, August 28, 2006
Will Rice - Sermon #28 - Fever Pitch
Rev. Will Rice
Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com
Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com
Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 20-25
“Fever Pitch”
Last week in worship, we talked about our deep thirst for God and how the only thing that can truly quench it is to be in God’s presence. We talked about feeding our spiritual thirst with the waters of God’s grace by coming together in worship and in small groups.
Today, we are going to talk more about presence, but we are going to look at it from a different angle.
I want to tell you about my very first day at church. In case I don’t mention it enough, remember that I was not raised in the church. I didn’t start actually going to church until I was 27. I was searching for meaning, I was pretty sure the church didn’t have any, but I tried anyway.
I got up that particular Sunday, had some breakfast, put on nice pants and a clean shirt and a tie, because I thought that was what people wore to church. I put my Labrador Retriever in his kennel despite the sad eyes that conveyed that he would really rather me stay home. I hopped in my truck and drove the mile to the church that I had seen on my way to work each day. I got there early and sat in the parking lot, sweating. I was nervous. The church had great signage on the street, but none in the parking lot, so I went in the wrong door and ran into the choir. Here were a bunch of people, up early on a Sunday morning practicing and warming up to share music and they seemed happy to be there. After trying to get me to join the choir, they helped me find my way to the sanctuary, where I sat in the back and watched, somewhat like a spectator at a sporting event to which I knew none of the rules or even the object of the game. I heard stories being read from the Bible, songs song about God. I watched as people prayed and listened to a pastor explain how the old stories were meaningful in our lives now. Then, I listened as another pastor retold a story about a dinner in a room long ago when Jesus said goodbye to his friends and I watched as people filed forward to share in this same meal.
Now in reflection, this church didn’t do everything right. They didn’t follow every suggestion of how to be a welcoming church. I wasn’t welcomed properly and the bulletin was full of all sorts of language I didn’t understand, but that didn’t matter. I was just there as a spectator. But hearing the stories, watching the response, made a connection in me and I went back the next week.
I hear a certain question quite often. I have come to realize that it is not a question, it is a statement that people want me to affirm. This is the question, “I don’t need to go to church to be a Christian, do I?” I also hear from more committed Christians, “I don’t go to church that often, but I give to the church and I read the Bible. That’s ok, right?” Sometimes I also hear “I read the Bible and pray and I go to church sometimes. But I don’t go that much because I don’t get that much out of it. That’s ok, right?.”
Let me say, as I have said before, “God’s love for you is not based on whether or not you go to church.” Coming to church is not a legalistic requirement that earns you grace. Grace is the unconditional love of God. Period.
But, let me retell my story, setting in a world where Christians don’t go to church. Let’s suppose they still give to the church, supporting its ministries financially, but they don’t go. Let’s start with the morning I decided to go for the first time.
I got to the church early and sat in the parking lot, sweating. I was nervous. The church had great signage on the street, but none in the parking lot, so I went in the wrong door and stood in an empty fellowship hall. Not seeing anyone around, I figured I was in the wrong place. I wandered around anyway until I went back outside through another door and found the sanctuary. I entered the empty sanctuary. Fortunately it was a welcoming church so there was a table there with a pamphlet about the meaning of Christianity. It looked somewhat interesting, so I put it in my pocket, went back outside, got in my truck, and went back home to read the paper and see when the first movie was showing at the mall.
Shema
4Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.
So begins the Shema, as it is called in the Jewish tradition because of the very first word of it.
Shema
4Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 6Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 8Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, 9and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
For many Jews, these words are taken quite literally. When the scripture says, bind these words a sign on your hand and fix them as emblem on your forehead, they do something called “laying tefillin.” This means affixing a small leather box, sometimes also called phylacteries, using leather straps to ones arm and one’s forehead. This box contains very small scrolls of God’s law or the Torah.
Most Christians don’t follow those traditions, although many of us have our own. We carry Bibles, we wear cross around our neck or in our earlobes.
But what about this part?
6Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.
This is a word about instruction. This is about sharing the message with the next generation of believers.
20When your children ask you in time to come, “What is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances that the Lord our God has commanded you?” 21then you shall say to your children, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in
Last week I spoke about our need to quench our deep soul thirst for God by being in God’s presence. But there is another reason that we need to come into God’s presence, to learn, to share and to bear witness to what God has done and is doing in the world. We have been given a gift and we have a responsibility to pass it on – to those who haven’t yet heard it and to those of a new generation.
Most of us believe, at one level or another, that we should come to church, at least once in a while. And we are surrounded by people, both here in the pews surrounding you and in the houses and apartments that surround the church that are in some way making the decision about whether or not to come to church and whether and/or not to have a relationship with God. Even the children and youth among us are in the midst of making that decision. They may be here because we have brought them, but they are at some point going to make a decision for themselves as to whether or not to continue being active Christians.
Think back to the story I told at the beginning about what my first experience at church would have been like if no one had been there. Now to the alternative story I told where there was no one there. I said in that story that I grabbed a flyer and left, probably never to come back. Would that have been because I didn’t feel welcomed? No. Would it have been because there was no one there to “hook me in?” No. It would have been because of this: I would have figured, “If no one can bother to be here, it must not be that important.”
People who are making a decision about whether or not to engage in our faith tradition are both cynical and hypersensitive. You may want to hold that against them, but that won’t make it go away and if you truly want to spread the gospel you better get used to it.
I have to tell you, in my hypersensitive stage, when I had first started attending church, you want to know what I kept noticing? There were a lot of people who didn’t take what they were doing very seriously. I would meet people in church and then notice that I didn’t see them again for six weeks. I started to realize that many people didn’t really know the stories of the faith. I noticed a lot of people who didn’t think this was all very exciting or worth their time. Think about the mixed message, “You ought to come to church and have a relationship with Christ, it will change your life.” And “I can’t be bothered to spend a whole hour here every week.” That honestly made me seriously consider if church was all that people said it was. Do you think that I am the only person who has ever thought that way? Do you think our young people think about that? You bet they do.
Alisha and I watched a movie a couple of months back called Fever Pitch. Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore star in this movie about the relationship between a girl and a totally out of control Boston Red Socks Fan.
You know, after watching that movie, I actually found myself wanting to go to a baseball game. Jimmy Fallon’s enthusiasm was contagious. He knew everything about his team, he thought about them constantly, he never missed an opportunity to be at a game or to watch a game on television. He was so passionate about baseball that it nearly messed up the rest of his life.
When you see someone with that kind of passion, it makes you say, “Maybe there is something to this baseball thing.”
What is something that you are passionate about? It may be music, hunting, fishing, golf, pro-football, bird-watching, windsurfing, snorkeling. It may be your career – education, heath-care, business. I love people who are true enthusiasts. When I say enthusiast, I mean someone who has found something in their life that they just love. They do it, they read about it, they watch it, they talk about it to anyone who will listen. I love enthusiasts because enthusiasm is contagious. True enthusiasm is irresistible. When you are in contact with an enthusiast, you may not end up loving what they love, but you can’t help but wonder what the attraction is.
Shema
4Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 6Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 8Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, 9and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
We may think it kind of odd for people to bind God’s word to their forehead and arms, though painting one’s body team colors for a football game- that is perfectly normal.
We have been given the gift of the love and knowledge of God and we have been given the responsibility of passing it on. We need to come into God’s presence, to learn, to share and to bear witness to what God has done and is doing for us and in the world. We need to have the kind of passion for this message that many of us have for our things in our lives. Otherwise no one is going to listen.
We need to come into God's presence, to learn, to share and to bear witness to what God has done and is doing for us and in the world. And we need to do that, not as if it were drudgery, but with the kind of enthusiasm that lets people know that this is the most important thing in our lives. We need to do this with the kind of enthusiasm that will let people know that we really believe that this is real, this is life changing that is really the good news of the love of the one who created the very universe. Our enthusiasm has to reach a fever pitch or nobody is going to think for a moment that this is important.
At the
No pressure, it is only their lives.
As we wrap up our emphasis on stewardship of presence, I again challenge you to step up. If you come to worship sporadically, commit to coming regularly. If you come regularly once a month, commit to come twice a month. If you already come twice a month, come three times. If your job keeps you away sometimes, commit to come when you can. If you are already coming as often as you possible can, consider diving deeper, partaking of the living water in a small group Bible study or fellowship. Learn more and dive deeper so that you can better learn, share and bear witness to what God has done and is doing in the world. If you are already doing all of that, you get an even bigger challenge: find away to relight, rekindle or fan the flames of your passion for the Gospel so that your deep enthusiasm will draw others closer to the life spring of God's grace.
Amen.
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Monday, August 21, 2006
Will Rice - Sermon #27 - Obey Your Thirst
Rev. Will Rice
Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com
“Obey Your Thirst”
This is the first week of our emphasis on our stewardship of presence. When we join the church, we promise to support it with our prayers, presence, gifts and service. Although we may not be especially good at it, the church never forgets to talk about our stewardship of gifts. In fact, when I say stewardship, most people think about money. Stewardship campaigns are very often about asking people for money. There is certainly nothing wrong with that. Financial stewardship is an integral part of our growth as Christians. It is vitally important for us to be reminded that everything we have is gift from God and it is our responsibility to us it in ways that honor God.
The word stewardship comes from a couple of old English words: stig- which means hall and weard – which means guard. Hall guard or hall keeper. It has come to mean in English – one who manages another’s property, finances, or other affairs. The concept comes into Christian thought as this: all we have is truly a gift from God, and truly belongs to God, therefore, we are simply stewards of what is truly God’s and therefore need to think about how we use it.
God certainly gives us more than just money right? So, when we talk about stewardship, we are talking about all the things that God gives us as a gift and how we are, or are not good stewards, keepers of those things.
When we join the church, we promise to be good stewards of our lives and the church by supporting the church with our prayers, presence, gifts and service. These are all ways we are good stewards of what God has given us. As I mentioned, we talk about gifts, especially financial. Already this year, we have talked service, how we use our God given gifts and talents to support the church. Now, it is time to talk about presence.
I find it interesting that pastors are actually more willing to talk about money, something almost no pastor likes to talk about, than they are to talk about presence. It wasn’t that many years ago that when people missed church more than a couple Sundays, they could expect the pastor to show up at their house. But it has fallen out of vogue to tell people, you know, you really ought to come to church. So let’s talk about that. And as I do whenever I come across something difficult to preach on I start with something I saw on TV.
For the past couple of years, the marketing gurus at the Coca-Cola Company have been marketing their wonderful lemon-lime beverage, Sprite, with the tagline “Obey Your Thirst!” It is wonderfully successful campaign. It has a certain irony to it though. “Obey your thirst!” Is your thirst, the mechanism in your body that tells you that you are in need of hydration, telling you that you need carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, natural flavors, sodium citrate , and sodium benzoate? I bet what your thirst is telling you is, “Give me some water.”
Now, in case you are in the beverage industry, know that I am not knocking soft drinks. I have my own mild addiction to Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi. My purpose is not to even knock marketing people. This is just such a wonderful analogy. We are being told to obey our thirst by drinking exactly what we don’t need. Granted, Sprite will hydrate you, but it will also fill you with some things you don’t need, including 140 empty calories. What your body really wants is the real thing…
Which brings us to another slogan. I am just old enough to remember this song:
I'd like to teach the world to sing
in perfect harmony
I'd like to buy the world a Coke
And keep it company
That's the real thing.
Another great marketing maneuver by the folks at Coca-Cola, telling you that Coke is the real thing. But that it still not the real thing. What your body really wants is the real thing. Some hydrogen, a little oxygen, H20, water. But we are told that we need something else, and we usually believe it.
The prophet Isaiah says it so well in chapter 55.
2Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
As I said, I am not trying to knock soft drink makers. I am trying to show that our spiritual thirst is much like our body thirst. We often quench it with the wrong things and people are always telling us what will quench that deep down thirst in our soul.
We are all created with a giant God sized hole in our soul. It causes us to seek out God. But we are easily distracted and misled. It has been that way since the beginning. Think of the wonderful story of the first man and the first woman in the Garden of Eden.[1] God provided for their every need, even providing for their loneliness by creating man and woman.
But one day, when God had stepped out of the garden, a serpent comes along and says, “Have you tried the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden?” “No, God said not to touch that one.” The serpent replies, “God just said that because ‘God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
They had what they needed, but the serpent says, “Obey your thirst!” And in case you haven’t read the rest of the story, things didn’t go so well after that. You can read about it in Genesis, chapter 2.
“Obey your thirst!” Why have water when you can have something better? -something that carries with it an image. Sprite features basketball superstar Lebron James in one of its television ads. Did you know the Lebron James drinks Sprite? So, perhaps Sprite will not only quench your thirst, it may make you into a multi-millionaire, world-famous, superstar, drafted right out of high-school basketball legend. No longer are we trying to quench thirst, we are trying to fill that emptiness that is in our very soul. We are trying to fill the hole that only God can fill by trying to be like God.
But all those things that we try to fill our lives with are just empty, carbonated calories. What will really quench our spiritual thirst is the pure, unsweetened, fresh from the tap grace of God.
13Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
How do we partake of this water? It is very easy, yet sometimes a little hard. You know, I never drink as much water as I should. You know why? Because I am always drinking too much other stuff – sodas, coffee, etc. These things temporarily satisfy my craving but eventual it catches up with me and I am really thirsty.
My spiritual life is the same way. Going to the movies, watching TV, reading a good book, these things satisfy me in the short run. But in the end, it is only the living water of grace that will satisfy my soul. The way that I can drink of that water is simply to be in the presence of God.
Now, worship is not the only way to be in the presence of God. One can be in God’s presence in the outdoors. Some of the times I have felt closest to God have been on the tops of mountains. God can be especially present in times of solitude. God can be present in moments of great human achievement. But none of those can replace the need for Christians to gather together in community to praise God together and open their hearts to the presence of God, to the living waters of Grace. That can be in a large community like worship or in a smaller group. Whenever and wherever we meet together to read scripture, pray, give thanks to God and share our faith, we enter into the thirst-quenching presence of God.
Now I realize that I am, as they say in church talk, “preaching to the choir.” You are already here, partaking of the living water that is the grace of God. But we all need to hear this message. There are a few people among us who gather in community to worship God every week. For some, even when they are out of town, they find a group to be with on Sunday. Some of these folks obey their thirst even more by meeting with a smaller group every week, perhaps a Sunday school class or a reunion group.
But most of us, are just sipping from the glass of grace, slurping down the sugary, carbonated beverages of life and dedicating just a bit of time to indulge in the cool living waters of God. Think about it numerically. Grace has about 1000 members, but of that 1000 only about 317 make to worship at least once a month. Only about 200 make it to worship twice a month. We know that the quenching waters of grace are here but the world is telling us constantly, “Obey your thirst!” Drink this, eat this, buy this, succeed at this, try this! It is hard to hear that still, small voice of God, the words of Jesus, whispering to us:
John, Chapter 6 35Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
During these two weeks, as we as we focus on our stewardship of presence, I invite you to consider how you are obeying your thirst. You may have already gotten in the mail a commitment card, which you are invited to bring to worship next week to commit to drinking more deeply from the well of God’s grace. You will notice that we won’t ask you to sign these. We won’t know who committed to what so we won’t be following up to let you know how you are doing. This is for you. This is your opportunity to truly obey your thirst.
I challenge you to step up. If you come to worship sporadically, commit to coming regularly. If you come regularly once a month, commit to come twice a month. If you already come twice a month, come three times. If your job keeps you away sometimes, commit to come when you can. If you are already coming as often as you possible can, consider diving deeper, partaking of the living water in a small group Bible study or fellowship. If you are already doing all of that, you get an even bigger challenge: Do something that will take you deeper, fill your cup even further, and bring someone with you to the well.
And don’t do any of this to make me happy or to make Pastor John happy or even to make God happy, do it because God is offering you something that no one else can offer, the living water!
Amen.
[1] See Genesis 2:4-24
[2] Saint Augustine, Confessions of Saint Augustine, Book 1, Chapter 1, (Oak Harbor, Washington: Logos Research Systems, 1999) online at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confess.ii.i.html, accessed 20 August 21, 2006; internet
Monday, August 14, 2006
Will Rice - Sermon #26 - Read the Instructions
Rev. Will Rice
Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com
I was 28 years old and working for Clear Channel Communications in
I signed up anyway. I vividly remember the very first night of the class because I had to be late. I had agreed to fill in on the afternoon show on KVET, the country radio station in
I was terrified. There I was 28 years old and I had never read the Bible. I didn’t know Leviticus from Philippians. I didn’t know there was a New Testament because I didn’t know there was an Old Testament. Heck, I didn’t know what a testament was. I had heard about the Good Samaritan bit had no idea it was biblical. My total sum of my biblical knowledge came from claymation show Davey and Goliath although I had now idea that David and Goliath were actually biblical characters. I was pretty sure the Bible was just a bunch of thees and thous and shalts all strung together.
People who are thinking of signing up for Disciple Bible Study with me are always saying something like, “I don’t know enough about the Bible.” Trust me, the only way to know less about the Bible than I did involves being from another planet.
I was terrified. I didn’t overcome my fear to take Disciple, I just went anyway and it was one of the most important things I ever did. More of that in a moment. Let’s look at today’s text.
For people have spent much of their lives in the church, this story is so familiar that it is hard to hear anymore. Many of you finished it in your head before I was done reading it. But let’s slow down and read a little more carefully.
24“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.
When I first moved to
So here in
Well maybe. Here is where it might not be as clear as we think it is. What is the firm foundation? Christ? God? The Church? Prayer? All of the above? Those are good answers, in theory.
There is a difference between what we think we know and what we actually know. I know that to properly build a house I need to lay a firm foundation. I have watched enough houses being built to know that there is some digging and leveling, there is some framing with wood and there is a whole lot of cement. But do actually know exactly what goes into laying a foundation? No.
We may know that to build a firm foundation in our lives we need God, we need Christ, we need prayer, but do we really know what goes into that foundation. Perhaps scripture is a little more specific.
24“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.
We are trained to read as quickly as possible and look for the main idea. With scripture, we have to slow down. One of my seminary professors insisted we always read scriptures in Greek or Hebrew. He didn’t insist for especially scholarly purposes. He made us do it because he knew most of us had to read very, very slow. When we read this quickly our brain picks up the main idea.
Listen closely:
24“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.
If we do this, it will be like we build our house on what? The rock.
We will be like what kind of man? The wise man.
How do we do that? That is the part many of us miss:
We may get the idea that we need to build on a strong foundation, but we are fuzzy on the details. According to a poll conducted by
And I would think that those numbers are a little skewed. If someone asks you, “are you a Christian” and you say yes and then they ask you if you read the Bible, you are inclined to say yes.
I don’t need the polls to tell me that people don’t read much scripture. I am not talking about anyone in particular and I do know a lot of people in the church who know the Bible better than I do. However, as a church, we do not know or read or study scripture as we ought. I have heard this same sort of message delivered by a pastor with a wagging finger, saying “shame on you for not reading scripture.” That is not what I am doing. There is no shame or guilt here. God still loves you even if you don’t know that Zephaniah is actually a book of the Bible or that 3rd Gillipians is something I made up.
It is not an issue of shame or sin, it is an issue of building the foundation for your life.
I don’t read instructions. When I get something with ‘some assembly required,’ I put the instructions aside, try putting them together and only refer to them when the thing I am assembling starts to look nothing like the picture on the box.
Well I didn’t read instruction until last week. Last week, Alisha and I went out and bought a crib for a baby who is going to be living with us. I got it home, ripped open the box, started trying to figure it out. Then I stopped and thought, Oh my gosh, a helpless infant is going to be sleeping in this thing. Then I read the directions word for word to make sure I put that thing together right so it would be safe and solid for the little one who would be sleeping there.
It is important that the crib be solid, just as it is important that out lives be built on the firm foundation of Christ through scripture.
We don’t read the Bible like we should and that hurts as a church. We cannot build a solid foundation in our lives or in the world unless we act upon the word of God and we cannot act upon the word of God unless we know it. And I don’t mean knowing it in the way that we know it when we let people feed us little snippets to support hurtful or hateful ideas that are contrary to the overall meaning of the Bible. I mean knowing it for ourselves. The Bible is an incredibly complex, rich text, a text that does not always yield easy answers, a text that challenges us to struggle with the deep and complicated call of God on our lives.
We need to study the Bible and we can’t really do that alone. It is a catch-22: a lot of us feel like we don’t know enough about the Bible to join a group Bible study, yet we have trouble learning much about the Bible on our own.
I encourage people to read and study the Bible on their own, but there is no substitute for gathering together with a group of people and listening for the call and claim of scripture through each other’s voices.
I started out talking about my experience of Disciple Bible Study. That class I went into with trembling knees was made up of old and young, married and single, parents and grandparents, a happily married couple and a single mom, lifelong church members and people new to the faith, people who knew the Bible and people who had never read it. And each and every one of those people came out transformed. Transformed by the word of God, transformed by the power of the Spirit, transformed by the experience of growing and learning together, transformed by the power of God that flows through us when take the opportunity to seek together.
It wasn’t too long between the time I took Disciple and started leading it. What is amazing is that it is always different. The group dynamics are never the same. What is amazing is that it is always the same. People are always transformed. What amazes me is that I am always transformed. Every time it is the same scripture, the same exercises, the same study guide. And every time, the words come alive for me in a different way through the lives and experiences of the new group I study with.
I could go on forever, but I want you to hear from someone else, someone from this year’s class of Disciple Bible Study.
Thank you to Roberto Rios and Gordon Merritt who shared their experience of Disciple Bible Study with us in worship. They both spoke from the heart without a text so you only get my part. However, feel free to ask them or any graduate of Disciple Bible study to tell you more about the experience.
I challenge you to read and study the Bible in a group. If you have never taken Disciple, sign up for Disciple I. If you have taken one, but stopped there, consider joining the group who will be exploring Disciple II together. If you aren’t ready for that, join a Sunday school class, join a small group. If there is nothing that fits your lifestyle or schedule, find some friends and start your own. You find a time to meet and I will help you with what to do.
Build your house on the rock, the rock that is the word of God. Amen
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[1] Alec Gallup and Wendy W. Simmons, “Six and Ten Americans Read the Bible at Least Occasionally”, Gallup Poll News Service, Washington, D.C., http://poll.gallup.com/; accessed 7 August 2006; internet
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