SPEAKER_00: All right, I'm going to jump straight in, probably because it's communion Sunday and we always go long.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gives a pretty high bar, doesn't he, in this passage?
SPEAKER_00: When you were hearing it, you're like, oh.
SPEAKER_00: Seemed a little rough there, there, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You know, she's like, well, you should stop thinking you're anything more than a servant, you people who want deeper faith.
SPEAKER_00: It comes off a little bit rough.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, it becomes clear as you're reading through that he's he's really just trying to tell them they aren't quite ready yet.
SPEAKER_00: But the comparison to slaves, that starts feeling a little bit harsh to us.
SPEAKER_00: I'm guessing it felt less harsh to them in those ancient times.
SPEAKER_00: A slave wasn't the same thing that we understand slave to be, uh, having our history of slavery uh mostly in the American South.
SPEAKER_00: The slavery of Scripture is more like an indentured servitude.
SPEAKER_00: Uh sometimes the economic systems would mean that somebody was there unfairly or for uh uh an extended period of time that wasn't fair, but it wasn't like the uh uh the kidnapping and enslaving that we had done in in this country.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not quite as harsh as it might feel to us, knowing that history.
SPEAKER_00: And I think the lesson seems to be about putting the time in.
SPEAKER_00: Putting the time in.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says to these disciples, you want deeper faith.
SPEAKER_00: Well, put the time in.
SPEAKER_00: Develop that deeper faith.
SPEAKER_00: He also seems to uh have it connected to the actions of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Live a little bit, live a little bit of faith for a while, he seems to be saying, at least to me.
SPEAKER_00: Feel what it's like to serve another.
SPEAKER_00: Feel what it's like to get that blessing, that blessing that comes from that kind of service.
SPEAKER_00: It might help, if we're trying to understand more fully this passage, to look at the passage that comes before.
SPEAKER_00: In the lectionary, they eliminated this part.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it came off a little too harsh or what, but it helps give some context for why Jesus is coming at them as he's coming at them.
SPEAKER_00: Because previous to our passage, he's talking about stumbling in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Stumbling in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: My guess is we kind of like that phrase, right?
SPEAKER_00: Stumbling in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm not always perfect.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, sometimes I trip over my own two feet as a person of faith, but and I stumble.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus was talking about that stumbling, but he ends up with this uh verse right before the verse we have today.
SPEAKER_00: And if the same person sins against you seven times a day and turns back to you seven times and says, I repent, you must forgive.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody ready for that sort of high bar?
SPEAKER_00: They sin against you seven times, but they say they repent seven times.
SPEAKER_00: You must forgive.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's fair to acknowledge that we are just beginners in faith, even those of us who have traveled a long way.
SPEAKER_00: So, where is the word of grace in this?
SPEAKER_00: Where is the hope?
SPEAKER_00: Where's the good news, you may be asking?
SPEAKER_00: I don't, you know, I think it's buried in there.
SPEAKER_00: It's buried in this idea of what might be possible for us were we to be able to live all of this out.
SPEAKER_00: What's possible maybe one day in our lives, one day in the life of our community, maybe even this church community.
SPEAKER_00: Aren't we in some ways just like that community in the passage?
SPEAKER_00: The disciples in there saying, increase our faith, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Give us deeper faith.
SPEAKER_00: You know, in our church, most of you know the leadership knows we aren't fully right-sized just yet as a church, as a church with a budget and the realities around money.
SPEAKER_00: We're used to, those of you, uh those of us who've been here a while, we're used to this church being a certain size, with a certain amount of resources, a certain amount of staffing.
SPEAKER_00: Believe me, I'm used to having the pastoral jacuzzi in my office.
SPEAKER_00: We all sacrifice to get ourselves to that new place.
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, UMC of Westlake Village, there was a time where things are flowing.
SPEAKER_00: Not that they aren't flowing now, but these pews were more full.
SPEAKER_00: They were full maybe twice.
SPEAKER_00: So that was that moment, and so there's this mindset of okay, that's the size we are, and we know we're not quite there yet.
SPEAKER_00: We haven't matched up the amount of people to the amount of budget, and so we are here asking God, you know, increase our faith in this church, God.
SPEAKER_00: Faith that we can be that vibrant church that's living in the black, as they say.
SPEAKER_00: Tell us, God, that we are a church that can move forward.
SPEAKER_00: Tell us, God, that we are a church that should move forward.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us are feeling the spirit now, we're feeling the energy, we're feeling the vibe, who's here we like and we see the hope.
SPEAKER_00: So we look to God and we say, increase that size, God.
SPEAKER_00: It is a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to know that you want us here.
SPEAKER_00: Aren't we like those disciples?
SPEAKER_00: Increase our faith, God.
SPEAKER_00: Increase our faith in all that's going on here.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some hope in that challenge seems to be coming from a source that many of us had stopped relying on.
SPEAKER_00: The culture.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: As many people uh start kind of, they've been leaving the church?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe because they aren't really enjoying formalized faith, they don't like the institutionalized way of engaging God, or maybe they were concerned about the integrity of the whole movement.
SPEAKER_00: Were our actions matching our faith as a body?
SPEAKER_00: But we'd lost faith that the culture was ever going to start sending us people again.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't think we were gonna get any more, but what we're hearing is that people are coming back to church.
SPEAKER_00: The culture is helping us.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it shouldn't surprise us.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we shouldn't be surprised with the tension and violence and polarization we've chosen to live in.
SPEAKER_00: It would make sense that people would come back to places of worship.
SPEAKER_00: We try to offer a meaningful context for life.
SPEAKER_00: It's a context that offers a peace in the sense of a story, right?
SPEAKER_00: A way to understand what is happening around us.
SPEAKER_00: So as we live in that tension, the church can speak into it with an idea of what is going on, a broader idea of the meaning in that.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know why people are finding their way back.
SPEAKER_00: But there is a question that we need to ask in any case.
SPEAKER_00: Are we ready to welcome them?
SPEAKER_00: These people who are now choosing to slowly come back to church, are we ready to welcome them?
SPEAKER_00: Are we ready to uh package God, to offer God in ways that is meaningful to those people who are looking?
SPEAKER_00: Are we ready to make that kind of uh re uh redefining of what might be meaningful for people?
SPEAKER_00: We know what's worked for us.
SPEAKER_00: Are we ready to do what works for them?
SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it won't be all that different.
SPEAKER_00: Our theme for stewardship this year is People Get Ready.
SPEAKER_00: People get ready.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, maybe some of you have heard the song a song from the I think 50s even, maybe sixties, by Curtis Mayfield.
SPEAKER_00: I see him with this group called The Impressions, but but most of us we know the version from Rod Stewart, right?
SPEAKER_00: People get right?
SPEAKER_00: Anybody, you've heard the song?
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: There's a few of you.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Who and who wants to who wants to sing it right now, just so people can.
SPEAKER_00: It got quiet.
SPEAKER_00: No?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there we go.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'll just no more worship.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's karaoke.
SPEAKER_00: But this people get ready.
SPEAKER_00: It's a song of hope about being ready to take the journey with God.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of other layers to the song, but that's a core subtext to what's going on there.
SPEAKER_00: God's coming.
SPEAKER_00: People get ready.
SPEAKER_00: There's a train coming, picking up passengers.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: God is coming.
SPEAKER_00: And you know the ticket to get on this train?
SPEAKER_00: Faith.
SPEAKER_00: That's all it takes to get on board this train.
SPEAKER_00: We just gotta believe that uh that God is and that God is coming.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good question for this church.
SPEAKER_00: Are we ready to believe that God is coming, that God's ready to take us somewhere?
SPEAKER_00: In our passage today, Jesus says to us, we are still young in faith.
SPEAKER_00: We need to humble ourselves, that we need to be servants in order to walk that journey to deeper faith.
SPEAKER_00: Are we ready to believe deeply enough to be willing to do that?
SPEAKER_00: Would we humble ourselves enough to be the church that commits to those connections to the people outside of this body?
SPEAKER_00: If we needed to do things a little bit differently, to reach those who are amongst us, needing to know God's love, needing to know God's peace, are we ready to shape that message in a way that makes sense to them, that brings meaning to them, that brings love to their hearts?
SPEAKER_00: Church is always this partnership between us and God.
SPEAKER_00: I think the question is, can we be a little less us and a little more God?
SPEAKER_00: Because God's way is the one that's reaching everyone.
SPEAKER_00: And the blessing for us is to get to be the instrument, the place, the locus of all of that.
SPEAKER_00: So that is what we are talking about this month.
SPEAKER_00: So people get ready.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.