Sermon Prep
Dan Metzger, pastor at St Marks United Methodist Church in Findlay, goes behind the scenes of weekly sermon prep, addressing cultural and spiritual issues, and what happens the other 6 days of the week.
Sermon Prep
Episode 15 - Tacos in Heaven
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Pastor Dan and Director of Discipleship Mandy Stevens talk about the importance of worldwide mission, the tower of Babel, and the possibility of tacos in eternity.
Hey everybody, welcome to another Sermon Prep Podcast. I'm Dan Metzgram, the pastor at St. Mark's United Methodist Church here in Finlay. And with me today is our director of discipleship, Mandy Stevens. How are you?
SPEAKER_02I'm good. Thanks for having me today. Thank you for being here. It's sunny outside.
SPEAKER_00It is sunny outside. I've been inside all day long.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I'm so sorry.
SPEAKER_00I can't wait to get outside. I'm gonna go out and I I might go to like a youth baseball game today, I think, with some friends. Sounds like fun. Um, yeah, get getting outside is somewhere. I got some driving I gotta do. We'll put the windows down. It'll be very nice. So uh it's one of those days where if I could, you know, take the top off of my truck or something like that, I would totally do that.
SPEAKER_02That'd be a weird-looking truck, but I would that would be a weird-looking truck, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I got to be outside quite a bit this weekend, got a nice little farmer tan going on. That's great. So how about you?
SPEAKER_02I got quite burnt yesterday. And if everybody was like, get out of the sun, you're gonna get burnt. I'm like, no, no, bring it, yeah, bring it on. What vitamin do you can get?
SPEAKER_00When you're in Ohio and you've been waiting forever for the sun to actually shine, you just take it. Yeah. You just go out and take it.
SPEAKER_02Agreed.
SPEAKER_00So um, all right, so we are wrapping up our series at church uh called Oh, the places you're sent. And we've been talking about what it means that uh Jesus sends us out to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. And so this is the ends of the earth week. Um we'll be talking a little bit about uh global missions and stuff like that. I think a lot of times we have this, it's very, very easy for us to kind of just stay in our own little area and in our own region, our own town, that kind of thing. Um, but we are called to the ends of the earth. That's a part of what Jesus says, and so it seems like something we're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_02I like to ignore that passage usually, but I don't think that's the right thing.
SPEAKER_00Like this ignore it sounds hard.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it does. That sounds hard.
SPEAKER_00I'd rather not. Um it and it's hard for us to, I think, sometimes know what that's supposed to look like, for us to go to the ends of the earth. Like all of us, or there's some people, what's that? Yeah, and and I think that you know, not everybody is called to go be a missionary in, you know, some third world country or whatever it might be, but there is some aspect to all of this that it it seems like Jesus is calling us to be a global church, uh, that the kingdom of God is not limited to one tiny space or region or culture, but that the kingdom of God is something much more eclectic than that. So I like to think about um heaven is gonna look a whole lot different probably than our daily than our daily lives. Not that not that you'll necessarily be able to tell, you know, race and culture and all that stuff. I don't know, maybe you will in in heaven, but um but that you know there's a lot of people that I I think when we think of a thing like heaven or we think of even Christianity, we think of our own culture.
SPEAKER_02Of course, yeah. I mean that's our natural tendency. But yeah, it's so much bigger than that. And and it's really cool when you read like the stats on how the Christian church is growing in other countries, like even more than here. I don't know, I just find that fascinating.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love it. Yeah, I mean, one of the places where the United Methodist Church particularly is growing more than anywhere else is sub-Saharan Africa and uh in East Asia, and um you know I think that's really interesting. Uh our bishop, uh Bishop Hisujung, uh, is from South Korea and uh was born there. And it's he actually has this great story, and I'm not gonna get it all correct, so I'll just give it a 10,000-foot view. But essentially there was a uh pastor who planted a church next to his grandpa's house in South Korea. He grew up Buddhist, and next to his grandpa's house, he was this very persistent pastor who wanted to plant a church, and this pastor was had come out of, I think, if I'm getting this correctly, out of this uh mission movement uh where Christianity was brought uh to this region of South Korea from um some missionaries from Ohio. And so, and now Bishop Zhung is here, really a missionary to us. Oh, yeah. And it's it's this whole uh, and I probably didn't get that story perfectly right. I'm not sure. Bishop, if you're listening to this podcast, uh you're welcome to be a guest. And uh also you can come correctly.
SPEAKER_02I'm sure you have lots of free time.
SPEAKER_00I know. Um uh but it what I have found is that the more I interact with other cultures, especially the more I get to interact in my faith in other cultures, the richer it makes my faith.
SPEAKER_02I agree 100%.
SPEAKER_00So, what have been some of your experiences with getting to experience your faith as it pertains to whether it's another culture or another place or something like that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, um, well, I have a couple actually, but um we have some Haitian friends who um it's a really just kind of interesting story how that all happened because I've always told God, like, I will never go to another country. Like I'm just I have too much anxiety. So God was like, okay, I'll just bring people to you. So um, and they uh were already believers, but you know, I was just able to come alongside them, or Ben and I were unable to at first we thought we were just like supporting them, but then it turned out that we became like great friends. Um but they just increased my faith so much when um because she was pregnant when we met her, and I got to be there when she had the baby. So she wanted me to be there while she was in labor. And I remember her putting on the song Goodness of God on her phone in English, even though she doesn't speak English. And I was just sobbing. She was like at the end of labor at this point, and it was just like the most miraculous thing, I think. I was like, you know, someone from another country who's going through so many hard things, and I was like, I don't know if she put that on for her or she put it on for me, you know. But that's so cool. Yeah, it was and now I can't hear that song without crying.
SPEAKER_00So I feel like it's like a standard thing for the staff. Like you've got to be a couple of things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, we're criers, yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, that's that's it. There's something about music also that I think is really beautiful. And I I don't remember if I've had Holly tell this story on here yet or not. Um, but I'll probably have to have her come on and and talk about this at some point in time. But when she did her study abroad uh in Honduras and really wanted to um it was like uh missing a home, uh praying and stuff like that, and uh she was out on a balcony and heard um it was a night when it was a Saturday night, I think, and there were some Seventh-day Adventist churches that were uh in worship at that point in time down in like a valley, and they were singing Agnes Day, the Hallelujah, holy for uh Are You Lord God Almighty, singing it in Spanish, and it was just like rising up through the valley, and like she just remembers I'm telling her story, but just how beautiful that was, and um yeah, there's something about being able to uh worship together in other languages, transcends culture, yeah. Absolutely, it's so cool. Yeah, there's like all those different voices together, I think, is a is a really beautiful thing. And the times I've gotten to go to um I've had the opportunity to go to several different places. I'll talk about them some on Sunday, but uh uh my first trip was I was 15 years old and I went to Bolivia um and uh got to experience worship in Spanish. Like and so uh it was a really cool thing, but not just in Spanish, but it was in a it was a totally different country and different culture and different people, and it was just this really, really awesome uh moment of getting to do that, and then uh had the opportunity um several years ago to go to Zambia um and uh just remember being in worship together and singing some some hymns that like, oh I know this hymn and and you know this hymn, but not in that language, and and uh but you know, being able to share that together is a really, really powerful thing. There's something about that, um, yeah, about music that can just transcend uh those languages and um and yeah, bring us together in in a beautiful way. Um so I really like that, and I think, yeah, every time I've had the opportunity to to have those kinds of experiences, it's really deepened my faith in a powerful way.
SPEAKER_02I agree.
SPEAKER_00So um, so one of the things we're gonna kind of talk about, and this is a a working theory that I have that I'll hopefully be able to flesh out a little bit better in the sermon on Sunday.
SPEAKER_02I'm intrigued.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, is uh so right after, I'm gonna go all the way back to Genesis, right after the flood. Um, in theory, God has started over with you know, new people who are gonna be loyal and faithful to him, and um, and it's gonna be we're gonna start over with humanity and all of that. Uh immediately you start to see cracks form in this. I mean, Noah and his son get in a drunken fight pretty much immediately. Doesn't take long. It's not not good. Um, like the first thing Noah does when he gets off the boat is like, I'm planting a vineyard, I'm making wine. Like it's the very first thing he does. And um, and so it's not going well. And and then in the next chapter, what happens is you see that as people uh are starting, as like more and more people are coming about, they say, um, out of their own hubris, out of their own arrogance, uh, let's build this tower that'll reach to the heavens and make a name. It says, let us make a name for ourselves. Like they are going to be something great, and it's really this affront to God. And so the what God ends up doing is uh He says um it says that they were all speaking the same language and he confuses their languages and they're scattered to the to the ends of the earth. So like humanity is fractured at this point in time. So then fast forward a long ways, and uh yeah, Jesus give up give us this uh command in in Acts 1.8 go to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and go to the ends of the earth where all these people have been scattered, way back in uh in the story of the Tower of Babel. And then in Acts 2 at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit comes, one of the ways you know that the rule and the reign and the kingdom of God has come is that once again their languages are brought back to one, and we're all able to understand one another, we're able to communicate with one another in a new way. It's like this, and I said, I think it says like a reversal of Babel. Yeah. Almost.
SPEAKER_01Um that's so cool.
SPEAKER_00It's like this, yeah, we're going like going back to what it was supposed to be.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Took a while, but we got there.
SPEAKER_00Took a while, but but we got there, but it we got there, but it's an it's an already, but not yet, is how we've been talking about it. Like it's this all, yes, the kingdom of God is here, but it's not yet what it's fully supposed to be yet. And so we're gonna talk about that a little bit and what it means for for us that I I really believe that the kingdom of God is not the fully the kingdom of God until it's all of us, until we're we're all back together in some way, the way that we're the way things were always meant to be. And that doesn't mean making us a monoculture uh where everything is the same, but it just means bringing boring. That wouldn't be so boring. I want the differences if there's if there's not Mexican food in heaven, I'm not interested. Oh wow. Not interested.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you need to know that now.
SPEAKER_00I want to change your whole career path, Dan. I want I want everything, you know, I want a little bit of all of it. Everything, all these different cultures, everything is it's it's beautiful, and it's not a you're less than, it's a we are different than, and and yeah, um, but you know, being united as one in some way, um uh that's a part of what the kingdom of God is, is I think meant to look like that we are all back in there together as one. Um, but ultimately what we're gonna get to is that each of us has some role to play in this, that we are all sent, whether whether you're being sent to be a you know missionary to Zambia or Bolivia or South Korea or wherever it might be, yeah, or you've just got something God wants you to do right here. Maybe he's bringing Haiti to you, you know, or whatever it might be. Yeah, I think that we all have something that we are called to.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I agree. And I'm hoping that since I said it on the podcast, that God's not like, hey, now you're actually going.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, that tends to happen. I know. You gotta be careful.
SPEAKER_02What was I thinking? Yeah, I'm always like the first one if there's like a missionary that comes to church and they're like, okay, I'm I'm fundraising. I'm like, here, here's all my money. You do the work. I will support you so I don't have to go.
SPEAKER_00So I don't have to. Yeah, yeah, you need to probably stop saying.
SPEAKER_02I know, I do.
SPEAKER_00You are you are about to get sent to the city. Everybody marks or like you're going, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But no, I think that there's something that there is also something, just to bring it back a little bit, there's also something in our uh Methodist DNA about our being sent to go into the world. John Wesley famously said, the world is my parish, um, that it's not just like uh right here, this place, this is my church. It's like, no, this is it's the world, it's it's everything. Um there's another great quote from so France. I went to Asbury Seminary. Francis Asbury was one of the missionaries that uh John Wesley sent to the United States. John Wesley came to the United States as a missionary, did a terrible job, failed miserably, and went home.
SPEAKER_02I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he went he went to Savannah, Georgia to uh witness to the Native Americans and they hated him, and so he left. And it didn't go well.
SPEAKER_02There's a lot to learn from mission work in that context, though. You know, it doesn't always come best from an outsider.
SPEAKER_00No, exactly. But so he went back, but then he said, Um, hey, all these pioneers that are in like the Ohio region, he sends Francis Asbury as the first bishop to the Americas, and uh Asbury comes over, ends up riding his horse as a circuit rider around all these different places, rode some like 250,000 miles in his life on his horse. And he is the originator of the quote ride or die.
SPEAKER_02Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00He said, He said, Live or die, I must ride. And so it became ride or die. Um, and uh he's like, I'm gonna go, and that's why there's a Methodist church on every corner and every crossroad, yeah, because of him and then the people that he commissioned to go out and do these kinds of things. Um, they end up being the ones, these circuit writers, and I have a circuit writer of some sort in my uh family history, I have to go back and look at it, but um, yeah, like it's a part of uh it's a part of our DNA that we go and we and we are witnesses to to the people. So you gotta be careful. I know it's in your method of school.
SPEAKER_02I'm just sending the money.
SPEAKER_00Sorry, you just send the money this way. But but I do think we are all sent to something. So um I'm gonna put you on the spot.
SPEAKER_01Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00What is it how have you how have you understood your sentness? Ooh, and like how God, uh how Christ has sent you into the world to be a witness, and and how has that maybe evolved for you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, what's that look like?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, good question. Um, I think like you said, I mean, I feel like we're all sent to different places. And so when I read the scriptures about going to the ends of the earth, like I don't take it necessarily literally that I have to go to the ends of the earth. Some people are called, and maybe I will be one day, God please no, but um but maybe, but yeah, I feel like I feel like it has evolved throughout the years. Um sometimes I feel like I'm a missionary to my kids, um, or sometimes it's in a workplace, you know. I own a business, and so I've often felt like just representing Christ in that business, even though I can't really I try not to cross a line, I guess, in being like a business owner too. Um, but just praying for my team and letting them know that I'm there, praying for them, um, coming alongside them and just being kind and like having all those attributes that Jesus wants us to have, you know, like trying to be a good human. And I fail a lot, but you know, sometimes I get it right through the grace of God. Um so yeah, so I feel like a lot of it in being sent is just God being like, hey, here's where you're at every day, right? Like here's here's your people. We talked about that, or you go to your city, like if you're at the grocery store, you know, trying to make somebody's day better. Like I know you've mentioned that too, and that's always my goal, you know. Um I don't think you necessarily have to go to the the ends of the earth if that's not where you're called, right? You know, you have a you have an opportunity to make a difference every day. You're sent somewhere.
SPEAKER_00But even through your and you and I were talking about this before, even it like not the down, I don't want to downplay at all the like giving your resources to to something that's an ends of the earth kind of ministry. You talk about like compassion, yeah. And and you know, we've talked about world vision and we've talked about all of these different ways that like we reach out in ministry to the least of these in other places. Sometimes they don't really need you there, and maybe it'd be best if you stayed home. Exactly. But but if we can help to to resource these things, I think that's a beautiful thing. I think you know, in today's day and age, we have a very unique ability to reach to the ends of the earth that the apostles didn't, and even John Wesley didn't. John had to get in a boat, like that was his way of gonna he was gonna be able to do that. Um now, actually, eventually they printed off a bunch of his sermons and they were able to take them out. It was like this first form of social media because they took out his sermons to all these different places, and they're like, you don't have a preacher here, but here's a bunch of sermons, read these. Um, maybe I should do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_00But uh, you know, we have technology where I mean we can honor you have on your phone the ability to go to the ends of the earth every day. Yeah, we have we have these uh this ability to do global missions in a way that we didn't before, and not just to like push Jesus on, you know, people who live in a different country or something like that, but to really live into what the kingdom of God is supposed to look like in a in a much larger way and in a in a global way, in a multicultural way, whatever it may be. I think that's really um a really interesting opportunity we have as 21st century Christians to do more.
SPEAKER_02And you mentioned that we were talking about Compassion International. Um we've sponsored, our family sponsored kids, I think since 2004 through Compassion International, and they work in um lots of countries, lots of African countries and other places. We've had like kids from Tanzania. I can't even remember where all of our children have been from. I think we have one right now from El Salvador. But what we really like about like ministries like that and organizations like that is they work with the local churches in the area. So we give a certain amount a month, and then that goes to like help with the kids' education because sometimes there's not a lot of educational opportunities, they can't afford to go to school or afford the uniform or afford food at school, you know. But I love that it's I love when they're working with like local people and doing it that way because it's so much more sustainable.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there could probably be we could do several episodes on like the ethics of global uh evangelism and all of that. And there's there's places where we've gotten it wrong over the years for sure. Yeah. Um we're all we're all trying to figure out and learn. There's some great uh you know, great resources, the whole gospel and when helping hurts and some other good ones that that talk about you know how to do it in a responsible way. Um so we'll we'll try to always make sure that when we are doing some global ministry stuff that we're lifting up something that we're like, hey, we feel pretty good about this. Um if it's something that we're encouraging you towards. But um, but yeah, I I do think we're called to get outside of just just our little Finley, Ohio um viewpoint sometimes because it our our faith will become richer. Um, and the kingdom of God is a multicultural kingdom. It is it is something that's beyond just us. And uh the more we get used to that now, start working into that now, the better off we're gonna be in heaven. Yeah. Because that's what you're gonna get. There's tacos in heaven. You heard it here. So I think that's a good place to end it, probably.
SPEAKER_01Tacos in heaven.
SPEAKER_00Tacos in heaven. All right. Hey, I hope you all have a great week and hope to see you on Sunday. And thank you, Mandy, for being here.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00Yep, and we will see you next time on another Sermon Prep podcast.