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SERMONS:
Pastor Peg posts her two most recent sermons on this page. If you are interested in reading more of her sermons you can go to pastorpeg.wordpress.com. Our first sermon series of the year is Walking with Jesus. Enjoy.
Because of weather we canceled church on February 9.
God is Calling
February 9, 2025 5th Sunday of Pentecost
Genesis 12:1-5 Luke 5:1-11
I put this cartoon about fishers-of-men on the front of the bulletin because it reminded me of a funny children's sermon at my home church. The minister brought in a fishing pole and spoke about how some of the disciples had been fishermen. Then he asked the kids: What did Jesus tell his disciples to fish for? There were about eight kids, mostly in elementary school, and they started enthusiastically shouting out things like trout, bass, tuna-fish, crab, shark. The minister let them go for a while and then he said, “Actually, Jesus wanted them to be fishers of men.” That stopped the kids; there was a moment of silence; and then one of the young boys gasped and said, “Oh! They're cannibals!”
It took a while for the congregation to stop laughing. The minister had a sense of humor, smiled, took a breath and said: No, they weren't cannibals. Jesus wanted them to go out and “catch” people to teach them about God's love. Nice recovery.
But before Jesus could send his disciples out, he had to “catch” them first and teach them about his theology and philosophy of how to connect to God before he could send them out to preach to others. This story is about how Jesus caught some of his disciples and who they were.
Jesus has left Nazareth, come to Capernaum and preached at the synagogue and healed a person who had a demon possessing him, and now he’s walking by the sea of Galilee and people are asking him to preach. Jesus asks Peter if he can use his boat. This wouldn't have been a strange request because if you're out on the water in a boat, the water acts as a natural speaker system, so people would have been able to hear him better. The time of day is also important. Fishermen usually fished after dusk and before dawn, because those are the times when the fish are closer to the surface. Once the sun rose, the fish would go back down into cooler water. Then the fishermen returned to shore, bringing their catch which they would sort, for the markets or to be pickled and preserved for export.
It's getting close to midday and the fishermen, and a crowd of men, women, and children, are on the shore listening to Jesus. He had probably been there a few hours, and his teaching was probably just like those in the synagogue; people would shout out questions to him from the shore and he would answer them.
But it starts to get hot, and people begin to go home to their midday meals, when Jesus turns to Simon and tells him to go out into deep water and let his net down. I am sure that this was the most ridiculous request that Simon Peter had ever heard. Any fisherman knew that you didn't go out midday into the middle of the lake and let down your net. You weren't going to catch anything because all the fish are in the deep where it's nice and cool, not on top where the water is very warm. But Simon Peter probably had had a good time listening to Jesus, maybe he even made a couple of comments or questions himself, and so he humors Jesus and takes the boat out drops the nets. And he ends up with a super abundant catch.
This is not supposed to happen, and the fisherman consider it to be a miracle. Then Simon Peter drops to his knees and says, “Get away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
We might think that’s a weird reaction, but in the Jewish culture, a holy man is not supposed to associate with sinners because it was thought that somebody else's sin could contaminate a holy man. So, you can understand Simon Peters exclamation! But you have to wonder: Why did Simon Peter consider himself to be a sinner, and what did he do that he thought himself to be a bad influence and a possible contamination for Jesus the holy man? We know that he was married, because Luke mentions his mother-in-law, and it's possible that he had children. Was he the kind of man who took his earnings and drank it away in pubs, neglecting his family? Was he the kind of person who was impulsive and reckless endangering his crew while they earned their living?
We tend to think of the disciples as holy people because that's what they became under Jesus's tutelage and influence. But before they came to Jesus, they were just ordinary people, wrestling with ordinary problems, and trying to get by as best they could. Most of them probably cut a few corners in life, to help them get by. Peter claims to be some sort of sinner, and we know that Matthew was a tax collector, and they were not considered to be very ethical people. We don't know what kind of baggage each of the disciples came to Jesus with, but I don’t think any of them was pure as the driven snow. They all had baggage and Jesus still accepted them.
God and Jesus don't call the perfect. God does call us and promises us that we can work towards perfection if we follow Christ. Each of us has our own strengths and our own weaknesses and sometimes it's our weaknesses that can lead us closer to glory. Like us the disciples were people who had problems of their own; who needed to work through their insecurities, their doubts, and their personality quirks on their journey to understanding God.
One of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met is Julio Medina. Julio spent some time incarcerated when he broke the law. While he was in prison, he found Christ and did his best to live as a Christian for his fellow inmates and bring them to a better understanding of God in Christ. When he was paroled, he started a program called The Exodus Transitional Community. This community is dedicated to helping people who wish to leave their criminal past behind them and rebuild their lives as productive citizens.
If you want to be a part of the program, you have to commit yourself to it for two-years: One year before you’re granted parole and one year after you leave prison. You take classes in resume building and job hunting, but also in emotional and mental management, and faith development is part of that. The community helps you to find housing and work that is located away from where you used to live, helping you to break bad influences that might cause you to slide back into your old lifestyle and habits. They teach you how to manage your new life through budget and support groups and put you in touch with job training programs. They have a 95% success rate, and help about 3,000 people a year.
Julio Medina did not start out a saint; he is the first to tell you that he was a sinner, but he is one the most faithful disciples of God that I have ever met. And his path is the same one that the disciples took. First, he was an ordinary person; then he got into trouble during his life and committed sin; then he found and accepted Jesus.
But the disciples didn’t just accept Jesus, they followed him for three years and learned from him. Then they took his message out into the world through their actions. The Gospels tell us Jesus’ story and his teachings. The books and letters after the Gospels tell the stories of how the disciples applied his teaching in the world. But each of them did it in their own way, with their own gifts and graces.
That’s what Julio Medina did. He took his experience of what he needed to become a productive citizen, and his skills at organizing, and created a system that helps those who need it. Each of us can do that as well. We all have special gifts and talent that we can apply to help others. It can be something as simple as having a car and the ability to drive others to their doctor appointments or to help them shop for groceries. My cousin has adopted an elderly couple who live close to him, and whenever there is a snowstorm he shovels their driveway.
Jesus calls all of us, but we can also call other people. We don’t have to preach to them. We can use our own gifts and graces to show them what it means for us to be a Christian. The calling to Christ gives us a chance to begin a life of connecting with God and ourselves, Learning and deepening that connection, and then applying that connection to others. Fishing is an action, and it is through our generous actions of compassion that we catch those who are in need of a way out of sin and show them how to get to God.
Ask yourself how you can use your own gifts and graces to express your love of God. And who can you reach out to, who is struggling with negativity in their lives, and help them to move towards the positive of Christ with your love. That kind of fishing will lead to an abundant catch for everyone.
Whose/Who is Authority?
February 2, 2025 4th Sunday of Epiphany Communion
1 John 4: 1-6 Luke 4:31-37
When I was in the middle of my ministry process, the minister at my church decided that it was time for him to retire. He was in his 60s and had been doing ministry for over 40 years. When he made the announcement from the pulpit that this was his retirement year, a parishioner who was sitting next to my mother turned to her and said, “Oh good! Now your daughter can be our minister.”
Well, no. In the Methodist system you’re not appointed to your home church. The parishioner asked me later why I couldn't be the next minister, and I said, “Have you ever heard the expression: A prophet is never accepted in their hometown?” She said yes, and I said, “Well, I love my hometown but a lot of people in this church remember me when I was much younger. Sometimes it's hard for people to accept you as an authority figure because a part of them still sees you as that scrappy little kid or teenager.”
Today’s story takes place after Jesus has been baptized, done his fasting in the desert, and then begins to preach throughout Galilee. But the first preaching event that Luke tells us about happens before this one, in Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth.
Jesus probably went back to visit his family, and the people in the town have heard about him becoming a holy man, so they invite him into the synagogue to lead worship. A traditional synagogue had a platform in front where the Torah would be kept and read from. The people sat in a U shape around it and the rabbi would read the scripture and then would comment on it. Then he would sit down in front, and there would be a question, answer, and discussion session. But Jesus doesn't give them some nice affirming statements. Instead, he challenges them, stating that God exists for everyone, not just the Jewish people. The crowd gets upset at this and dismiss him by saying that he’s just Joseph the carpenter’s son. And that’s when he comments that a prophet is never accepted in their hometown. They get so mad that they grab a hold of him and drag him out of town, intending to throw him off of a cliff, but Jesus walks away from them.
The next town he goes to is Capernaum, where we have a completely contrasting series of events. Peter and several other disciples are from Capernaum, so perhaps the elders knew one of the disciples and through him invited Jesus to speak at the synagogue on the Sabbath. The reception in Capernaum is completely opposite from what he experienced in Nazareth. It says in the scriptures that they were astounded at his teaching because he spoke with authority.
Okay – let’s take a pause here and ask: What would make us think that someone has authority and why would we accept them as an authority? To evaluate authority, I think that most of us look for three things: Tradition, education, and experience.
Tradition has to do with inheritance and culture. If a younger member takes over the family business, I am probably going to accept that they have the authority to do so because I assume that they were probably trained by the family to run the company. You do learn things by osmosis when you grow up in a family. I’m not a lawyer, but I have family members who are, and I’ve learned some stuff about the law by listening to them.
And that comes to our second element which is education. Besides being a minister, I am also an authority on teaching English because I was trained to teach English and ESL. Education teaches us what we’ll have to do in your profession. I think my training kept me from making a lot of mistakes when I first started in teaching and then ministry. But like anything, the more you practice something the better you get at it, and that’s your experience. I was a much better teacher ten years down the road than when I started. The same for my ministry.
Jesus had tradition because he was related to the house of David on his father’s side, his mother Mary was from a priestly family, and his cousin John was considered to be a prophet. We already saw that he was very well educated in scripture by the time he was twelve and talking to the teachers in the Temple. I think the surprise for the elders in Capernaum is that Jesus is just starting out as a rabbi and holy man. Remember I said that people didn’t become holy men until they were thirty, because before that age it was considered that they didn’t have enough life experience? Even though Jesus doesn’t have a lot of known experience, his teaching is compelling and relevant for someone so young in his profession.
The people are impressed, but then they become even more impressed when the man possessed by a demon makes an uproar and Jesus heals him. This is the first recorded healing that Luke tells us about and since it happens on holy ground it helps to legitimize Jesus’ ministry. After Jesus heals the man with a demon, he also heals Simon-Peter's mother-in-law who is suffering from a high fever, and then the word gets out and many people from the community come to him with their illnesses and he heals each of them.
It's such an interesting contrast between the failure of being taken seriously in his hometown and then the success and the acceptance of him as a legitimate holy man in Capernaum. I think that Luke deliberately puts these two incidences back-to-back because he’s showing us that not everyone accepted Jesus. There were people who just didn't think that he was legitimate. But in many ways, those were the people who wanted him to be something that he wasn't. They wanted him to speak a very traditional line that the Jewish people were the chosen ones of God and that the gentiles were the bad guys. But that wasn’t the message that Jesus conveyed. Jesus says: God loves all of us, every single one of us. Both Jews and gentiles are now accepted into God's great covenant. It is no longer a covenant for just a certain group of people who live on a certain point of real estate. It is now for everyone in the entire world.
Some people were going to accept that, and some people weren't. But it is from this point forward that Jesus' ministry really begins in Luke’s gospel. And for the next few chapters there is the continual establishment of Jesus as our spiritual authority figure.
In John’s letter, he tells us that we need to test the spirit. In other words, we need to confront authority and see if it's legitimately from God. We should examine and see if this is an idea we should subscribe to; or a lifestyle that we should follow; or a person that we should trust. John says that not every spirit is from God and it's up to us to test the authority or the validity what is presented to us.
We can start by measuring with tradition, education and experience. For tradition asks if this is something that is culturally acceptable. For education, do some research about the idea, lifestyle, or person. And finally, what is the experience and results of the idea, lifestyle or person.
But the last thing about authority is that it’s consensual. We agree to allow someone to have authority over us; we accept their guidance and leadership. Each of us must decide if we will allow an idea, lifestyle, or person to lead us.
For Christians our testing must look at authority through the values of Christ. Does this idea lead to more compassion and justice in the world? Is this way of living promoting equality and fairness? And is this person intent on giving grace to people by promoting generous actions of compassion, or are they inflicting negativity on others and on our society at large?
We accept Christ as our spiritual and moral authority because not only did he preach these values, he also lived them. And 2,000 years has shown us, even through all the crazy up and down history of Christianity, that when we do live the values of Christ the world does become a better place. We do make a stronger society that lives with equality and justice for all. And compassion and generosity make us stronger as a people. When you read the Gospels, you can see that Jesus stood up for those who did not have privileged and encouraged people to act with fairness and justice. And his generosity in healing, in forgiving, and in telling people that they were all loved by God gives us all hope and keeps us from despair.
So, choose Christ as your ultimate authority. When you do you will know that you are from God, and you will know and be living in the spirit of truth.