Welcome to the First Love Church podcast. This is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the revised common lectionary and recorded weekly in Ocala, florida. We're so grateful that you're here this morning. For those of you who are here in person, we say thank you. For those of you who are online also, thank you, thank you, thank you. We're grateful for your presence and for your time with us. I ask this morning, as you settle back in to your seats, I would just like to honor the presence of the Lord here with us.
Speaker 1:The scripture says that where two or three are gathered in God's name, in the name of love, that God is in the presence there. And so we're not waiting on a manifestation, we're not waiting on something to happen. Love is already here, christ is already here with us. And so as we gather I was thinking about this week as we gather on Sundays, sometimes we need to gather all the pieces of ourselves that we have excommunicated or we've said are not worthy or are less than, and gather our whole selves and, in this place of abundance, bring it to Christ. So this morning, I offer a prayer, a blessing. I praise you, o God, for hope's first return. It is like glimpsing again a smile of a beloved but long absence. Sister, o Christ, for the knowledge that your goodness encompasses and exceeds all loss, for the remembrance of your promises of further and still resurrections yet to come, for the hope that life, even lived with wounds, is yet full of meaning, fraught with wonder, bound with love, tenderly woven, filled with hope. And for all of these things we offer you this song of praise. Now, o God, let our eternal hope, in ever greater numbers, begin to wing their way home, to nest again in the soled halos of our souls, to fill our memories, our tears, our days with your bright songs. For we are learning, o Lord, how sorrow and hope are not enemies but co-laborers. For it is sometimes the work of our grief to hew out deep cisterns where the sustaining waters of eternal hope might afterwards pool. We relinquish now, o Lord, all lingering claims to bitterness and instead we submit our heart to the work of sorrow, so that in your hands, these hollowed spaces of love and pain and memory would become hollowed spaces, holy places over which your spirit hovers and broods, crafting in us greater compassion and singing new hopes to life. You have carried us through the darkness of desolate landscape, o Lord, and have today sent evidence of the slow rebuilding of our souls, our hearts, our hopes. We receive these tidings of your faithfulness in thanksgiving for such a grace, and today we echo back to you the Psalms of Thanksgiving the first fruits of praise Remain ever at work in us, o Spirit of God, o Maker, gently shaping our hearts at all times and through all things. Amen, amen.
Speaker 1:Sorrow and hope are co-laborers. What a beautiful invitation to really live, not to live only when times are good or there are glad tidings, but to be able to fully live and fully thrive even when sorrow is present, holding both in the tension of knowing that love holds us completely and there is grace for us as we practice these things. Thomas mentioned this morning in this season of ordinary time. We're getting to the end of ordinary time In the Christian calendar. There's Lent and Advent, where we learn to see and we change our perspective and we repent, and then there's times of feasting and joy, and then there's ordinary time, and ordinary time is really long. I mean Advent gets only four weeks. Beloved Eva is in two weeks. In case your calendars, you need to know where it's coming. It's coming in two weeks, just hold on to that.
Speaker 1:I happen to know it'll be here in two weeks Good news. But ordinary time stretches on and on and on, and the practice in ordinary time is to find the moving and the wooing of spirit in the ordinary things, because very often for us that's what happens. We have this incredible experience with spirit, with love, with God. And then Monday morning comes and it's the ordinary time and you're brushing your teeth and making your coffee and getting into your car for your commute and where is this incredible presence? It is in these times. This is why ordinary time has given so long that we would be able to attune our heart to the spirit who is with us always.
Speaker 2:You know, when earlier Heather was talking about how the presence of God meets us here, shows up when we come to church and though that is so true, kind of like the paradox of the way God works, is that also it is so important what you bring and that you bring the presence of God with you as well. You know and each one is individual and I was thinking, sometimes you can see it more clearly than others we were singing that acapella. Not all people online could tell, but I know people in here could hear Heather worshiping. I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable, but her voice booming without a microphone is so much more beautiful. You know, like I was singing Melody and she was singing Melody and I was just like, let me just join my voice with that. That is beautiful, you know, and in doing that you know you could really see that when she brings her gift to the church we benefit.
Speaker 2:But I wonder sometimes if you don't recognize the beauty of what you bring to the congregation and that it sometimes doesn't present itself the way a voice does, or a musician or whatever that is doing something specifically, or a sermon that is preached, but in your acts of kindness and smiles and love and faithfulness. All of those things are beautiful gifts, and so I want to thank you for the gifts that you bring on a fateful and consistent basis, and I know that God meets us here and it is beautiful. I was thinking quickly of a story that just happened a couple of weeks ago. My daughter is worshiping and we taught our family something. Now, apparently some of your families didn't teach you this, but I taught my family.
Speaker 1:They're here, so maybe they didn't.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm gonna pick on them a little bit. I'm not gonna do that. When you show up for church and find your perfect seed in the way back, when you're a pastor or a pastor's kid, you're taught hey, fill up those front seats. And so my daughter is in Paris, france, at a church every Sunday morning, setting on the front row, and just a couple of weeks ago she had her eyes closed and she was worshiping and she noticed that the transitions weren't happening In the service. It was like the pastor wasn't moving, he wasn't going on to the next part, and that's a high service. So they don't do worship up front like we do. They do a song throughout the service. And so there was one point where now the service was supposed to move on, but it didn't move on and it didn't move on and finally the pastor apologized. He said I got out of sorts, I got distracted. There was a voice of an angel in the church today, and I need to find out whose voice that was. Well, it was Catherine's voice, that my daughter that had distracted the preacher and he couldn't finish the sermon because of the.
Speaker 2:And I just think to myself. That to me is such a reminder. Now, sometimes you might be brought out and glorified and given attention for your gift, but you know what the modest ones are more sacred and even more important, and so I just thank you for bringing that gift, whether you realize you did or not. I thank you for bringing that precious gift here and I value each one of you, not just here in attendance but online. We value each one of you so much and you are precious gifts and I just I hope, and it's my prayer for you, that you'll begin to see just how beautiful and how much of a miracle that you are.
Speaker 1:I love what you're inviting us to look at and I can't help but think about an orchestra where each person practices, performs and then brings something. One of the times when I was in school, I got to go to see a huge symphony and we got to go behind the scenes practicing and I met the guy who played the triangle. That seemed amazing. That was his job. We got to sit through the entire symphony and he had a triangle that, with just gusto, he raised and rang with such expression and I was like, wow, I wouldn't want to be the triangle player, I just wouldn't. I mean, that's my pride. I don't want to play the triangle, that's my gift. It's not my gift, it's my pride and it needs to be demolished.
Speaker 1:I had a chance to speak with everyone afterwards, as we did as a class, and they were talking about how, in an orchestra, what you hear is the sound, the music, but not every person plays the same part at the same time. And this particular, they were talking about this percussion and what it meant and how it was gifted. So we got to talk to the triangle player and he's there every single practice and I'm thinking to myself I don't know that I want to show up for practice. If I'm the triangle player, I mean, I know how to do this. I can do it by myself, but every time he shows up and he says this this is who I am, I am part of this orchestra, and the composer that we all adore has written my part. Come on, how could I not show up and, with gratitude, say this is the part that I have been given For all of us?
Speaker 1:We have a great composer and whether you're the triangle player or whether you are the first chair violinist, your part is part of the great chorus that God is playing, that nature is playing, that those who have gone before us are still singing, that those who will come after us are joining in this chorus. And so I honor you, whatever part the composer has for you, and I encourage you to show up faithfully because you love the music, because you love the music of what God is playing, because you love love song and because we're all invited to be a part of this new world. This morning we're going to talk about the scriptures, and there are so many in this particular time of the year. We're talking about gratitude and gratefulness, and we join our hearts with people who are brilliant and who have so much to say about it. So we will not be able to cover everything here, and I do want to tell you this morning this is not a sermon about gratitude. This is, in fact, a training in how to have your eyes healed. That's what I believe.
Speaker 1:I need healing in my eyes. That's what Advent does for us and I've been prepping for Advent, so I'm so excited, but I was thinking to myself. Our perceptions need healing, our eyes need healing. I wear contact lenses and so I have corrected lenses, corrected eyes, and I think for many of us we need another trip to the great ophthalmologist and he will give us new eyes to be able to see. And I think that's what we do as we gather together. I'm grateful for your part here. I'm going to read a few verses together and I will tell you these themes are not just in these specific verses, they're throughout the scriptures and in fact you can go home and you can look it up in the Psalms and you can up in the entire text, but in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5.
Speaker 2:I just want to interject that, in this idea that God could give you a perspective, change the way that you're looking at your situation, I believe he offers us a change, a transformation in that, and oftentimes we look at it worst case point scenario. We're looking at the negative and we're casting ourselves in the middle of this drama that is just failing and there is for us, I believe, a gift from God, through gratitude, of how we can change how we see things. However, sometimes we're very comfortable being the one who is negative, being the one who has the woes. That's what I, when people ask me how I'm doing, I say terrible, I'm very used to this. How you make it? Well, I'm barely making. We just kind of.
Speaker 2:So we make bedfellows with this in a way that God offers oftentimes this way of escape, but we're like nah, I'm good here in my 12 by 12 cell. Get out of that thing. There's a world to experience, amen. So I'd really ask that you would consider, as we're reading these words, that it is going to challenge you and it's difficult at first, but, like anything else with God, we can pick traction up and we can get our momentum and we can get to a way where it is actually a very natural thing for us to view things differently. So I would ask that you would open up your heart and consider that God would want to give you this new way of looking at things, a new vision, and I'm telling you it is for your benefit that you wouldn't stay in that.
Speaker 2:It's like we talk a lot of times in our house. It's almost like a frequency, a vibration, like a note that is droning. That is just horrible and we stay tuned with that. And that note is you ever hear some music and you're like someone's? I'll be flipping through the radio and Heather will cringe at certain songs.
Speaker 2:Because the notes and the tune, the tuning is just that's off-putting. But there's a place, I believe, with us, with God, where we can tune in, and there's a place for you to stand up and strike that triangle and tune in with gratitude. And that may seem very cumbersome to in the middle of the orchestra just to stand up and strike a triangle. That's it, that's what I got to do, that's your part. And in harmony the whole thing is beautiful. And so consider that God wants to give us a new way of looking at things, and it might be awkward at first, but you'll get into the rhythm and the groove and you'll find out that if I just focus on the conductor, he's given me the tempo and I can sink in, I can lock in.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking when you say that, about the people who were in physical proximity to Jesus while he was manifest here on the earth and they said to Jesus when is the kingdom of heaven coming? When is the kingdom of God going to come? We are so upset with how we are living. We understand that we're under this oppression. When is God's kingdom actually coming? And Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you.
Speaker 1:With said hand, Disappointing because I want everything outside to change and Jesus is offering us an inner transformation that will affect outer but inner first, and so into the letter to the church at Thessalonica, Paul offers this Always rejoice.
Speaker 1:I think that's terrible Because it takes practice beloved to always rejoice. It takes a perspective twist or shift to be able to always rejoice, Constantly pray. That's how you get to the always rejoicing part In everything. Give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Did you want to know what God's will was? I mean, people spend years, lifetimes, trying to figure out the will of God. This is it beloved, Always rejoice, Constantly pray.
Speaker 2:You know when I first saw these verses I thought, for sure, this was kind of an idea of you know, a generalization, to kind of you know what I mean, just do it a little more, not always. But then I got to thinking she's like well, at least when I'm awake, I'm always panicking and worrying and stressing. I'm kind of doing that all the time, even when I'm doing something else. In the back of my mind I'm worried about what I'm not worried about and I'm not. Oh man, I'm not thinking about worrying about this enough, and so I pay, you know.
Speaker 2:So there's a truth to the fact that our minds are going all the time. So this is a challenge for you to fix it upon good things and if not, you're going to drone off on this and that frequency, that energy, that tune of. I'm not going to make it. Things are terrible. I'm, you know, I can't believe how things or I can go. Nope, I'm going to put my mind on prayer and on being grateful and thanksgiving. So don't push this off so quickly to say, oh, that's not what they really mean To. Maybe there is something constantly. I mean, I've met some people that there's not something constantly going on in their head. I'm not looking at anybody in particular. No, let's be honest, we all are. There's something cooking and all the time. And what if? What if we had the right thing on the oven?
Speaker 1:In everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you, in Christ Jesus in the manifestation of love. This is the will in everything. Give thanks. And I'm going to talk about that this morning, because I do want to tell you that this is not something that you can drum up, and it's not necessarily something you can do by sheer willpower. This is a work of spirit, this is a work of a perception change. This is the work of God.
Speaker 1:But this is what we're being invited into in this training for gratitude, because I want to remind you of something Food does not come from more acquisitions, but an awareness of God's presence and God's goodness. That's how gratitude come. Are we attuned aware to the working of spirit around us, to the invitation? And so in this place, I want to remind you of this Paul's letter to the Church of Ephesians Don't be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves and making music to the Lord in your hearts, and give thanks for everything to God, the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:You know, just a moment ago you were talking about that kind of like it's not about the acquisitions of the things, but I heard something this week and it really changed me. It was about learning how to be grateful and enjoy the things that you do have, because I think that's something that's very missed, that there could be a gratitude and really a quest. Do you really enjoy the things you have, or are we constantly on the focus of what we don't have? That you you hear what I'm saying? Because there's, there's, there's a gift from God offered to us that you could enjoy what you have, and for many people that's that alludes them. And so in I pray that in gratitude, that you could find joy in what you have, because I promise you this sad truth that if you don't enjoy what you have, you won't enjoy that other thing when you get it, because then you'll have it and you won't enjoy it, just like you're not enjoying the it's that you already have.
Speaker 1:When you see that. It reminds me of the writer Robert Roberts, great name. Right For remembering somebody's name. I can't always pull the authors up, but he did and, and and for this truth. He said that understanding what gratitude is is someone who can, has a perception for the good. Can you see the good? Sometimes we can't. Sometimes we need someone else to witness the good for us. We need community, we need someone else to say I see still good in that, I see still use in that. Sometimes we just need the spirit to change our eyes so that we can see something that is good.
Speaker 1:But sometimes we need training, and that is really what we're invited here to today to train our hearts toward gratitude because beloved. The byproduct of that is joy, and all of us need more joy. Joy to the world is something that we'll sing in a few weeks, not during Edmund and for Edmund, but this idea of that, that we want joy, we need joy, joy is necessary. In fact, see us, lewis says that joy is the very serious business of heaven and joy is something that we are invited into and it comes not by trying to drum up joy, it comes through the process of gratitude. In the gratitude, joy is a byproduct of that. And when we're looking at these scriptures, we're hearing over and over again and I'm sure that, as we're talking about gratitude, that scriptures would come to your mind that you already know. But there is for us a hope in this training Gratitude is a byproduct of seeing something a certain way, a certain world view, and that's what Jesus came to give us a different world view, that we would not see things just as they are, but we would allow ourselves to see things the way that God sees them.
Speaker 1:Someone said and it is so beautiful, but prayer is borrowing God's eyes. Oh, I love that. Prayer is not a long list of things that I want. Prayer is borrowing God's eyes. How does God see the people that I work with? How does God see our Congress? How does God see my neighbors? How does God see my enemies? And there is this invitation, through the practice of gratitude, through the good news that Jesus is coming, that there is a shift for us and I think that part of it comes from really understanding this gratitude.
Speaker 1:It involves three factors all the time, and in the Latin it's from the word benny b-n-e and it means good. Gratitude always comes in these three goods, gratitude and the word of it. And if you haven't already veiled yourself to Diana Butler Bass's book on gratitude and grateful, I would encourage you to do that, and she has much more to say about it. It has a whole book to explain it, so I'm going to just summarize it for us here in these three goods. But first gratitude to have gratitude, I have to receive a gift, I have to perceive that something is good. And that's where we have to start, that we have to see things as good and we have to be trained to see them as good.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:This world is good, beloved. God loves this world. The earth around us is good. Now we've polluted and we've done damage to it, but there is a way for us to bless it and for us to experience it. I was reading a rabbi this week and he said you're not allowed to enjoy any goodness that comes from the earth unless you offer thanks for it. We were driving this week and we got to be in the mountains on the highway but in the mountains and then we got out and we were there and just the overwhelming presence of nature and God's design through nature. And then it kind of it snowballs for you. I was thanking God for just being in that presence. It was cool there, wasn't it hot? I'm thanking God.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you start at the surface and then you get deeper and I was acknowledging a great creator all the trees, all the things. And then there was a beetle. I don't love bugs. I know they have their place and I'm learning. Yes, so anyway, you'll just, you'll go on this process with me. And then I was thinking about the fact that, because I have small children and a lot of my children are boys, I do know that there are over 30,000 kinds of beetles. That's a lot. I think that's too much. That's my. I'm not the creator, I'm just apparently the criticizer. So don't go there. But I'm just saying to you, I thought about that, that thought came to mind.
Speaker 1:I thought God is so beautiful and brilliant that you would have 30,000 different varieties of bugs. I mean more than that of bugs, but of these Beatles, of this classification, I mean, if we stopped, if I stopped, not we, I, what, if I stopped and looked at every single one of those things, I think what it would instill in all of us is awe how big and how beautiful God is, how big and how beautiful love is. And in this first Benny from the Latin word benefit, benefactor. We find this when you have to see something as good and we need to be trained what is good? And we need to get our training from love. God is love and Jesus tells us what is good. People are good, they are made in the image of God and so for many of us, the world has told us what is good. It's good to get on this little rat treadmill and just work yourself to death for money and for things that will not come with you. And Jesus said there's a whole other realm of living and of treasures that you can store up, that are not gonna decay, that are not gonna rust, that are not gonna fade away.
Speaker 1:And this practice of gratitude is seeing the good, and sometimes it's difficult. It is. I'm old enough to know that I am not asking an easy task, but there has been times in my life where I've looked at this mess. I'm gonna just jump ahead for a second, we'll come back here.
Speaker 1:But one of the things that we do when we find we have to give thanks in everything, when there is something that doesn't look like it has any good in it, we can still bless it. I have a friend and she's very Southern and I love her, but she always says fix it Jesus, woo, fix it Jesus. Whenever she sees anything to go, fix that Jesus. I do wanna tell you that I have a little issue with her not with her, with that saying. Often I am there witnessing it, because I am supposed to be part of the fixing and not correcting anyone, but blessing it.
Speaker 1:What do I do when I see an injustice? How do I bring blessing? Maybe to the person who has experienced it, but maybe to the system that is oppressing. And there is a beautiful invitation for us not to look away from messy, not to look away from pain, but to be able to look right at it and say I can, through the Spirit, find something to bless, something good, something that is coming Even in the winter, when everything has no growing, that we could bless the ground that holds the doth, and bless the ground that will promise to bring resurrection. There is, for us, a hope in learning to see the good. We pause here for a moment to thank you for joining us today. If you're finding this episode meaningful, would you take a moment to share it with a friend? This podcast is made possible thanks to the generosity of people just like you. If you would like to support the ongoing work of First Love Church and the continued work of our podcast, visit us online at firstlovechurchorg, reminding you to like, follow and subscribe.
Speaker 2:You know, these lessons are right, available for us if we'll open our hearts to them. Heather spoke of the road trip that we were on for the past 10 days and we drove, and so, as it turns out, truck drivers don't follow truck driver rules anymore. It's my what information I can bring back to you Now. It used to be, and there's even signs still on the side of the road that the right lane is not for trucks, but they're not okay with that rule anymore. And so what happens? And now is this happening to anybody else on a road trip that you found out that they don't follow that rule anymore? Yeah, well, when it happens, a definition of that person will rise up in you, whether you want it to or not.
Speaker 2:And for some reason, how could it rise up from the depths of me and be so not godly? My definition of this jerk. Look at this idiot. Look at this guy. He's selfish, all he wants is to. Oh no, I'm the selfish one who all I wanted is people to stay out of my lane. But we're convinced, you know. And so I ask God. I say God, help me with this, because this is something it's just coming out. I mean, I don't know where it got, who put it in there, but it's down there really good. It's wedged in there between some other racism and judgments, and so I don't know what's down there. I don't want it. Help me, lord. And so so I ask God, and I began to do this really quick kind of connect the dots. Do you know that God created him just like he created me? Him assuming that's a man driver I don't think any woman would drive that way. That was just too selfish, and so in my mind it was a man, and so I'm like he was created by God. I'm created by God. So really, that guy's not the jerk that I think he is, he's my brother.
Speaker 2:I started to make this connection and I started to think to myself well, if that was my brother, danny, I have one brother, you know, blood brother. If Danny was driving in the truck in front of me, I would slow down and wave Danny on, because that's Danny, it's my brother. Do you know what I mean? Danny's done stuff for me. Danny's my brother, I love him. So even if Danny messed up and was driving real fast and should have gotten over, but he did it and he got caught and now he's gonna have to downshift and that's gonna lose a lot of momentum and he can only drive for 10 hours a day and then he's gotta pull over and park.
Speaker 2:So I would want Danny, I would wanna help Danny Do you know what I mean? Because that's Danny, my brother, and so I really just started adopting that. I would go, danny, come on over and I started helping because Danny was driving everywhere for the past 10 days and Danny's my brother and he's in my way. But I wanted to help Danny. Are you tracking something that could actually change your life? This changed my life and then I'm driving in the car and Heather goes. I wish your brother'd get out of the way she goes.
Speaker 2:Tell Danny you're driving like this, so we took something that was there was no way it was gonna change.
Speaker 2:Everybody's buying stuff online, and so, because they're buying it all online, truckers are having to drive it all over, so there's more trucks on the road than ever, and they're gonna be like that, so this is something we're gonna have to get used to, so we can either be angry every time we drive look at this jerk who get in front of me or you could say Dennis's brother, Danny's in my way, and apparently Danny's an okay guy and you should help Danny.
Speaker 2:And so I wonder, though, if you could really track with me that there's a way that God will shift how you see something, and I could no longer first just assume that trucker was out to get me Do you know what I mean? And then, second of all, even if he made a mistake, I was driving in several different states that I'm not from, and I didn't know what was gonna happen, and so I relied oftentimes on people to excuse me. Can I get in? Oh, thank you, thank you, but no one's getting in front of me. So what if God is doing something right now in gratitude and a way to show you how to see differently? Amen.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful. Gratitude involves this benefit, involves us being able to see it as good, but then gratitude also calls us to recognize that we have been given something. Gratitude always postures us in a position of humility, that we are given something, awareness that we are not entitled to things, but that everything we receive is a gift. In fact, from the book of James, every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of Light. There is goodness that's around us, but it is gifted to us. It's one of the reasons that we are taught to pray, to give thanks over food that we have, not because we have to do this performance, but in receiving food as a gift from God, it trains us to trust. I have received this good food today. I can trust that God will provide food for tomorrow. I have received this.
Speaker 1:In fact, in the book of Deuteronomy it talks about. This is why we practice generosity, because it teaches us to trust God. This is why we practice the tithe of the offering. It teaches us to trust, and so, in the giving of thanks, it actually allows us to be people who trust, but it allows us only when we are humble enough to say I see it as good, I am not owed this. It is a gift from a loving parent, a loving God who has gifted us this truth, and there is so much hope in this. And it's not just a psychological problem. It's a place where we position our hearts. Paul the apostle talks about it. He says that it's actually positioning yourself to oppose God when you are not thankful. I just wanna tell you I don't wanna position myself to oppose love in anything.
Speaker 1:Paul says this, for, although they knew God, they didn't glorify him nor give thanks to him, and their thinking became futile. They didn't acknowledge, they didn't say there is good and they did not thank. And there is a life that is opposed to God, but we're invited into a life that is full of love and that is enriched, and there is so much hope for us. In this truth I was thinking so much about, there is a series of verses, and in the new, in the passion translation I don't love new translation sometimes cause they offend what I already know, and so I forced myself to read new translations all the time because it asks me to think differently. And in the passion translation it says in another translation, the verse says thank God for all things that you have been given. Okay, fair, I can do that, nobody knows. In the passion translation it says you must thank God for all people that are in your life.
Speaker 2:The things are gonna be easier.
Speaker 1:The things are gonna be easier than all people that are in your life. Yes, because people matter to God. They are the image of God. There is this hope for us and there's these practices that leads us into blessing blessing that doesn't have to come from outside, but blessing that saturates us in the knowledge that we have a good God who loves us and who has given us good things, and that if we could change the way that we see things or situations, we could see spirit at work. We could see hope. It's one of the reasons I love the James Webb telescope.
Speaker 1:I get to see things that I normally couldn't see, and it causes me to awe it's so true, through the telescope you can look it up on the internet but we can see the birth of a star Beloved. I almost couldn't breathe when I first thought. I thought who am I to be able to see that? How is it possible that I could look into the cosmos and see that? And then, of course, the Psalms burst into my heart the God, the good Creator, who is there, but who is not only just in the cosmos, but who is present with me now, as close as this breath, that awe, that expanse. It is very much like prayer. That is the inhale and the exhale. We inhale the good and we exhale our thanks. It is this place of this internal hope for us. So I was thinking about these scriptures and I'm thinking about the goodness of God and I was thinking about us again trying to fit things together. But I think I came up with. I didn't come up with anything, forget that. I think that I noticed something.
Speaker 1:I saw something that I had not before, and so I'm asking the Holy Spirit to also, for all of us, change our eyes so we can see something. I'm gonna point it out. Has this ever happened to you? You've gone, maybe, to Disney a million times, or to something, some store somewhere, and then somebody points something out and you can't unsee it now, every time you walked past and never saw it, and now you see it every time because someone points it out. I'm gonna point something out to you today in the scripture, and I hope that you will never unsee it. This is from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 17.
Speaker 1:Jesus traveled onward toward Jerusalem and passed through the border region between Samaria and Galilee. This is not a geography lesson, but it's always mentioned because we don't like the Samaritans. I mean, the Samaritans were real enemies, we just do not like them. And Jesus is going right there to the borders of people we don't like. We don't like the way they worship, we don't like what they believe, we don't like their families. This is a problem. And Jesus is right there. And as he entered one village, 10 men approached him but kept their distance, for they were lepers. That's a whole story there. I mean, think about that. Allow the spirit to show you there, approaching God but keeping distance because someone told him they were lepers. Maybe someone told you you weren't welcomed in the house of God. Maybe someone told you that you had to clean yourself up before you could come to God.
Speaker 1:I just ask you to allow spirit to reframe that for you. They shouted to him mighty Lord, our wonderful master, won't you have mercy on us and heal us? And when Jesus stopped to look at them, look at God here. This is an invitation into Advent. Beloved, we're gonna stop and we're gonna learn to look like Jesus looks. But he spoke these words. He said go and be examined by the Jewish priests. And they set off and they were healed while they were walking along the way.
Speaker 1:There's much to be said about that. Sometimes your healing comes, your deliverance comes, your renewal comes, your transformation comes as you are walking. Sometimes it's not immediate, sometimes it's not where you can put your finger on it as you are walking. One of them, a foreigner from Samaria. See, we use this language now and it doesn't smack with us. I think if you were in this first century Jew and you'd hear it, you'd be like oh, I wish you didn't mention them, but this is who is coming.
Speaker 1:One of them, a foreigner from Samaria. When he discovered that he was completely healed, he turned back to find Jesus, shouting out joyous praises and glorifying God. And when he found Jesus, I won't tell you, it took him a minute to find him Beloved, have confidence, have hope. If you're looking for Jesus, you will find him. It may take a minute. When he found him, he fell down at his feet and he thanked him over and over, saying you are the Messiah, you are the Messiah, you are the Messiah.
Speaker 1:And this man was a Samaritan. It's mentioned a few times. Because we don't like them, we also don't have any expectation that they are gonna have any good or truth, that they are gonna have any wisdom, that they are gonna have anything we should follow. And it's giving us this incredible prejudice. So we will see ourselves, so that we will look at ourselves and say where do I have a prejudice? Where do I have a thing that I can't find wisdom? There, I can't find truth there, I can't find hope? There you are the Messiah, and this man was a Samaritan.
Speaker 1:So where are the other nine? Jesus asked weren't there 10 who were healed? They all refused to return to give thanks and glory to God, except for you, a foreigner from Samaria. Again, jesus is saying these are people who should have known, these are people who have called themselves. This is our family. They didn't come back, they didn't turn around, except you.
Speaker 1:And then Jesus said to the healed man lying at his feet arise and go. It was your faith that brought you salvation and healing. And here's what I saw In the returning and giving thanks he was in the presence of Jesus In the returning and giving thanks. He was in the presence of God In the returning and giving thanks. He was in the presence of the good In the returning and giving thanks. And this is what we're encouraged, we're saying.
Speaker 1:This is why everything deserves a blessing, even when it's a mess, and all we can say is fix it. Jesus, and maybe whatever you want me to do is bless it. And how do I bless this horror? How do I bless this hope? I mean, right now, all of us are in a place where there are wars everywhere. I guess this has happened throughout all mankind, throughout all humanity, but because of the internet, we all know it in real time. That's a lot on our adrenal glands. That's a lot when it feels like we can't do anything.
Speaker 1:But let me tell you there is a way to bless it.
Speaker 1:You can look at that stuff, you can read that stuff and say one day oh Lord, you promised that there would be a time where we will no longer use weapons against each other.
Speaker 1:We will in fact beat them as plowshears and we will farm together for the thriving of all humanity. Use us, use our love, our consciousness, our hope to be able to say the world changes. But I hope that you will read this story of the leper who comes back, who is so excited about his healing and it says the word complete healing. Let me tell you, his skin wasn't just changed, he was completely healed. And he comes back and in the returning he is in the presence of God Beloved. That is where our healing is, that is where our home is, that is where our origin is. If you find yourself longing for something else beloved, it is longing to be returned to love and we honor those longings by giving thanks. We honor those longings by bringing them and saying this is what gratitude will do for us. It changes us, it transforms us, because we are a people who are in the presence of the good of love.
Speaker 2:You know, this idea of being in the presence of God, there could be nothing more great for you and I to experience. And this very moment that we are in right now is called the present, because that is where God is. We are in the presence of God now. Do you know where you are not in the presence of God? No time you are not in His presence. But if my mind is fixed on the past, he is not there. He is here, amen. He was there when you were there, when it was the present. I think many of you and I struggle with focusing on the past, or we meditate on these hypothetical futures that we need, that are certain, that we should worry about. Well, guess where God is not? In those hypothetical ideas of all the tragedies that are going to happen to you and your family in the next, you know he is not there. He is here, in the presence, in the present. And so understand, because of that truth, there is something constantly fighting for your present moment Distractions of the past, fears of the future. I've heard it called fearful future and painful past. Those things are constantly fighting for your attention. Why? Because they rob you of the present, of being present with God. This is a practice. You being present is the most important practice that you could have, and what ties me there is gratitude.
Speaker 2:We had the most wonderful in case you're asking road trip that I can imagine having, and it was funny. It was like God broke it down to four or five different trips. The first couple of days we have to go up north. So we said let's go through the mountains, let's have a mountain experience. So we went there and Silas likes to stop when you're driving on the winding mountain roads. He likes to stop everywhere where there's a little creek and the water's rushing over the rocks. And guess what, every winding road is made because it's beside a creek. That's where water's splashing over rocks. So literally every two minutes he's like well, we got to pull over. And look at this. So I'm like, well, we're never going to get to all right, we'll pull over and lay. So we pulled over and I definitely had within me let's get going Dead mode.
Speaker 2:We're driving somewhere and so I'm walking and I'm walking and I'm wondering how long is he going to need at this stop before we can get going to where I need to go? And at that moment I heard the Spirit of the Lord say how long am I going to need for you to stop worrying about the future and get with me here in the present? Because I was being dead. And then I let him be dead and it was a much better experience.
Speaker 2:And so what happened was I stopped and I looked and the tree that we were under was the most yellow of fading fall trees. You know, they'll turn orange, they'll turn color. Well, this one was one of those ones that turned the most bright yellow I've ever seen, and it was how connected I got with my family in that moment, because I watched a leaf fall and it was a huge leaf on this beautiful yellow tree and it fluttered so slowly. And I'm just watching and I didn't know anyone else was watching it either or that we could have all aligned with the same leaf in a forest of trees with leaves falling, and Heather at that one second said isn't it wonderful that we're here at the very moment that that leaf fell?
Speaker 2:Pratitude was at the cross section of hurry, of worry, of plans and the presence of God, and stopping and making a connection in the presence of God in the present moment caused us to see a mundane, because there's leaves that are piled up to your knees, but we saw the beauty in one that fell, and it was a moment in time that is now in the past. I'll never recreate that moment, as bad as old as I get, and I long for that moment. It'll never be again, or I can worry, will I ever be able to produce a moment in time that I'm there on that day and this time? And I'll never have that? Or I can experience those type of moments over and over for the rest of my life, as many moments as God gives you and I.
Speaker 1:We hope you've enjoyed this week's sermon. If you would like more information about us, visit us online at firstlovechurchorg.