Pentecost 12
John 6:60-69 (NLT)
Even his disciples said, "This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?"
61Jesus knew within himself that his disciples were complaining, so he said to them, "Does this offend you? 62Then what will you think if you see me, the Son of Man, return to heaven again? 63It is the Spirit who gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64But some of you don't believe me." (For Jesus knew from the beginning who didn't believe, and he knew who would betray him.) 65Then he said, "That is what I meant when I said that people can't come to me unless the Father brings them to me."
66At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. 67Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, "Are you going to leave, too?"
68Simon Peter replied, "Lord, to whom would we go? You alone have the words that give eternal life. 69We believe them, and we know you are the Holy One of God."
Sermon: Without Vision The People Perish
I want to begin by telling a story. It’s a true story. I wish it weren’t, because it’s a very sad story.
Several months ago I was talking to a priest of this diocese. We were discussing the troubles the church has been going through. He said, “This is not the Episcopal Church I grew up in. This is not the ministry I signed on for.” There was so much pain and despair in his voice. He had been a faithful preacher of God’s Word, but he saw little room left in the church for the kind of ministry he knew as faithful to God. At one point he said, “I never thought I would find myself in this position, but I’m just going to hang in there till retirement, take my pension and get out.” A month later he was dead of a sudden heart attack.
I must confess that in this agonizing three years between the troubling 2003 General Convention and the disastrous 2006 General Convention, there were times when the same thought popped into my head. But it was not from God. Indeed I have seen too many good and faithful clergy give in to despair and resignation in the face of the foolishness that is at work in the church today, and it saddens me to see it godly preachers who feel that their good days are all behind them.
But more recently God is doing a work in me. I have this strange and wonderful idea that the best years for us may still be ahead of us.
Let’s talk about
the VISION
Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)
Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
I like the New Living Translation of that verse:
When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is happy.
Let’s be clear about this much. Our first priority is NOT loyalty to a denomination,
but loyalty to Jesus Christ. We’re going
to get on with the vision. And whether
we can pursue that vision within the Episcopal Church, or whether we have to
seek another affiliation, the bottom line is the
Biblical Faithfulness: The first foundation of our mission is the
Word of God. If you’ve called the church
lately and got the answering machine, you may have noticed a change in the
announcement. It now says, “Thank you
for calling
It’s no
good to talk about loving Christ and serving Christ and being gathered at His
table if we are not following His word.
Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, lord….” will enter the
kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in
heaven.” That’s where the vision begins
for us at
There are many ideas and opinions and wild imaginings running around the church today, but there is only one constant, true and reliable source of teaching for those who are serious about following Jesus Christ, and that is the Bible. If you believe this is the Word of God, then stop wasting your time and God’s time debating it, and get on with obeying it.
Discipleship, is the next foundation of our vision. It isn’t enough just to study the Word, agree with the Word, even defend the Word. We are supposed to be LIVING THE WORD. We live in a world that is inundated with words. Thanks to satellite TV, printed media, the internet, cell phones, faxes; we are flooded with words to point where they no longer have nearly the significance they once had when every word that you wanted to preserve had to be painstakingly written by hand, with a quill pen on a lambskin parchment.
People today are totally unimpressed by words. What they want to see is RESULTS, ACTIONS. Don’t just tell people you’re a genuine, born-again, Spirit-filled, on-fire-for-Jesus Christian- SHOW THEM! And we stand up for the truth of God’s Word, even when there are those who oppose it.
We see that so clearly in the Gospel reading today. For three weeks we have been reading through this climactic section in the sixth chapter of John where Jesus declares Himself to be the “living bread that came down from heaven” and says “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.”
Today we come to those verses where the decision is made. “Many of His disciples no longer followed Him.” Note, it says “disciples.” We’re not talking about the Pharisees walking away in disgust, or the casual bystanders getting upset. These are people who had begun to follow Him, but now they pull out.
This verses stands over the church today as a call to judgment. How much of Jesus Christ are you looking for in your life? And at what point do you say, “Now wait a minute. This you cannot ask of me.”
The processional hymn we sang today says it so well:
Christ for the world we sing!
The world to Christ we bring with one accord;
With us the work to share,
with us reproach to dare,
with us the cross to bear,
for Christ our Lord.
Discipleship means taking up your cross and following Jesus, no matter what the cost: personally, materially, emotionally, or relationally. Following Jesus will cost you personally. He will send you places you had not thought to go. It will cost you materially. He asks us to commit everything we have to the work of the kingdom. It will cost us emotionally. You will have to give up those parts of your life that are very dear to you, but are not pleasing to God. And it will cost you relationally. Friendships, partnerships, institutions, even family ties cannot be more important to us than our loyalty to Him. This is basic discipleship.
So, we begin with biblical authority, and we apply it for the transformation of our lives.
Healing is the next key component of our vision. The healing ministry has been an important commitment of this parish for several decades, but lately its significance has been highlighted all the more by the situation in the church. In this ongoing morality debate when all the talk is about condonement or condemnation, neither of which is a Christian response to immorality, the point that almost everyone seems to have missed is that Christ called us and commissioned us to a ministry of HEALING.
When Jesus
sent out the disciples on mission, He didn’t say to them, “Go into the towns
and villages and argue with them about morality.” Nor did He say, “Tell them their sinful,
immoral behavior is not a problem any more.
I’ve cut a deal with the Father.”
He said, “Go and proclaim the Gospel to all who will listen. Heal the sick. Cast out demons. Say to them, ‘The
I have been
so please at the response to the
Again, the processional hymn we sang says it so well:
Christ for the world we sing!
The world to Christ we bring with loving zeal;
The poor, and them that mourn,
the faint and overborne,
sinsick and sorrow-worn,
whom Christ doth heal.
Christ for the world we sing!
The world to Christ we bring with fervent prayer;
The wayward and the lost,
by restless
passions tossed,
redeemed at countless cost from dark despair.
God’s vision for us is to sharpen and focus the healing ministry so that we have this message to proclaim: No matter what has gone wrong in your life, in any part of your life, be it physical, emotional, spiritual or moral; Jesus Christ can heal you. Will you let Him? We will help you. That’s the third major element of the vision.
Outreach is the next component of the vision. A healing community is by its very nature and outreaching community. Again, outreach has long been a commitment of this church. Even when we face a deficit budget, you Vestry has stood firm and said, “We will not balance our budget by cutting outreach.” The answer is not to give less as a body, but for each of us to give MORE. Every one of us will have to give more if we are going to continue to answer God’s call to reach out to the lost, the sick, the lonely, the suffering, and to bring the love of God and the transforming power of Christ to those who need it most.
The last verse of that processional hymn:
Christ for the world we sing! The world to Christ we bring with joyful song;
The newborn souls whose days,
reclaimed from error's ways,
inspired with hope and praise,
to Christ belong.
I renew that call now. This church has the opportunity to move forward in some very important ways. We need to have the financial resources to take on the challenge of ministry. Please give all you can to support that mission.
MISSION is the final
element of vision I want to talk about.
Last week I asked you to pray about
I mentioned last week SOMA. We know Edwina Thomas and the wonderful work that she and her whole team have done to take the message of the Gospel around the world.
Another
opportunity is Rick Warren’s outreach to
Yet another opportunity is more personal. I recently received a letter from a Nigerian priest I knew in seminary. I hadn’t heard from him in years, and suddenly this letter arrived. An answer to prayer!!
These are the things we will continue to build on. What will happen to the Episcopal Church I cannot tell you. It is on a sharp downward track right now and we are not going to follow it. Most of the leadership have left the teaching of the Gospel entirely to follow their own way. The divinity of Christ is mocked. Salvation by the blood of Christ is cast aside as ancient superstition. The “Holy Spirit” is said to approve of blatant immorality. And those who stand firm on the Word of God are increasingly being threatened with canonical and legal punishment for not going along with the heresy that was enshrined by the General Convention. When it comes to sound, faithful teaching in the Episcopal Church, “Elvis has left the building.”
And what about you? Do you also want to leave?
I can only restate Peter’s answer. “Where else would we go, Lord? You alone have the words that bring eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
What I can
tell you for