Speaker 1: Welcome to the First Love Church podcast.
Speaker 1: This is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the revised common lectionary and recorded weekly in Ocala, florida.
Speaker 1: We're grateful that you're here on this particular day.
Speaker 1: This is the first Sunday of epiphany, so I hear your epiphanies this morning.
Speaker 1: No, I actually don't.
Speaker 1: I don't want to panic you.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is that you're finding out and discovering, may that be private between you and God.
Speaker 1: There's hope for us this morning in these practices, and I'm grateful that you've made a practice or a presence out of bringing yourself to us this morning and again, in just, in gentleness and in all goodness.
Speaker 1: Blessings on your new year.
Speaker 1: May it be one where you find the presence of the Holy among you.
Speaker 1: I read to us this morning from a Scottish poet, malcolm Goit.
Speaker 1: It may just have been someone else's story Some chosen people who get a special king, and we leave them to their own peculiar glory.
Speaker 1: We don't belong and it doesn't mean a thing.
Speaker 1: But when these kings arrive, they bring us with them Gentiles like us.
Speaker 1: Their wisdom might be ours, a steady step that finds an inner rhythm, a pilgrim's eye that sees beyond the stars.
Speaker 1: They did not know his name, but still they sought him and they came from other where, but still they found In temples.
Speaker 1: They found those who sold and bought him, but in filthy stables, hallowed ground.
Speaker 1: Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice to seek, to find, to worship and to rejoice.
Speaker 1: I love this morning's account and story that we get to pay attention to.
Speaker 1: Last week we remembered and rehearsed the song of Simeon and of Anna, who meet Jesus in the temple, and I remind you of part of Simeon's song.
Speaker 1: He says now that I've seen this baby, I can depart in peace, I can die in peace, because I have seen the light of the Gentiles, I have seen the glory of God's people, israel.
Speaker 1: So from the very beginning there was an invitation that the light would be for everyone.
Speaker 1: I was looking at more James Webb pictures and I think that you should do that as part of your spiritual practice this year.
Speaker 1: I think you should look at the galaxies.
Speaker 1: I think that you should go out as long as you can it was not too cold at night while the stars are out, and I think that you should allow the stars to speak to you of God's incredible greatness and of his mercies.
Speaker 1: And if it's too cold for you, then get up really early when the sun is not yet up and the stars are still kind of Before the stars leave the sky.
Speaker 1: That's a really beautiful place to be, that in-between, that liminal place.
Speaker 1: But in these practices that we do together, it excites me to remember that what is being formed in us, hopefully, is awe, that we would be people, not cynical, not based on only what we see, but that we would ignite the holy mystery that we would give ourselves over to this inclination, that there is something so much greater.
Speaker 1: There is a bigger story to be told, and each one of us has a divine spark.
Speaker 1: Each one of us has a light, something that someone else doesn't have, and in our living and in our loving, may the world be illumined with the light of Christ.
Speaker 2: Amen.
Speaker 2: I just can't get over that thing you and I were talking about, I think, yesterday that the idea that we're on this planet, we're on this rock that's flying through the universe at such high rates of speeds, and just the fact that we're living on it and existing in such an amazing way.
Speaker 2: And then we're worried about paying the bills.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we just need to zoom out a little bit and remind ourselves this is beauty that we are allowed to participate in and really allow maybe the Holy Spirit this year to ignite your holy imagination but to really inspire awe.
Speaker 1: When was the last time that you looked at a tree?
Speaker 1: I mean really looked at a tree, looked at a tree?
Speaker 1: Cosmo said mm-hmm, because Cosmo does this all the time and he lives as a mystic, so we should pay attention to that.
Speaker 1: But I'm just telling you, there are people like Brother Andrew, who is one source of great light to the whole world and he followed after Christ after staring at a tree and the tree began to speak to him of a creator, and this creator, who was so incredible, drew him into divine love, and this is the hope for all of us.
Speaker 1: Not that every tree would testify to you of that, or maybe every tree will testify to you of that, but what will the stars say?
Speaker 1: What will the moss say?
Speaker 1: What will the insects say?
Speaker 1: This year the cicadas have a special song for us.
Speaker 1: Pay attention to that, you can do your.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna tell you, because the cicadas are loud.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know that, but the cicadas are loud and I sometimes feel like a cicada because when I sing, I'm gonna sing loud and here's why I'm gonna sing loud.
Speaker 1: Of all the things that I do, I want my praise or my thanksgiving or my worship to be the loudest.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I grumble a little bit.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't but I do, and I would like to keep that on a low roar and I would like for everyone to know that I am grateful, that I am blessed, that I am in awe of the love that we all get to share.
Speaker 1: The things that we do on a regular basis form us, whether you know it or not, and that's why coming on a regular basis to a church service is a way of forming yourself in the way of God, kind of love.
Speaker 1: And the story that we get to share this morning reminds us of this incredible truth that God's love is for the whole world.
Speaker 1: In fact, according to John in his gospel, it doesn't say for God, so love the world.
Speaker 1: It actually says in the Greek God loved the cosmos.
Speaker 1: I think that's even bigger than the world and that's exciting to me, that infinite love.
Speaker 1: If you could think about anything this year, think about the fact that God reveals God's self as infinite mercy From the book of Lamentations.
Speaker 1: You know this and I remind you the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
Speaker 1: His mercies never come to an end.
Speaker 1: They are new every morning.
Speaker 1: Great is your faithfulness.
Speaker 1: Oh God, let our awe be expanded and inspired and let us find our way, like these wizards, like these sages, like these sorcerers, like these kings, to come and to worship and to find our hearts enriched with the beauty of the world around us.
Speaker 1: Amen, cicadas, I didn't wanna leave you hanging, but I got excited because Cosmo said yes, cicadas, there's 13 year cicadas and 17 year cicadas.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna give you a whole science lesson, but I am gonna tell you this prime numbers, that means they don't always come on the same time, except once every 221 years.
Speaker 1: 2,024 is a 221 year number.
Speaker 1: That means all the cicadas at one time are gonna come out and they're gonna throw a party.
Speaker 1: And so good news or bad news.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you don't like a bug, stay in for the month.
Speaker 1: If you like the bugs, then you get to come out and say I'm gonna join nature's chorus and say how beautiful this world is.
Speaker 1: They live underground for most of the time and I'll allow them that because I'm a benevolent person, but actually they come out in such numbers that there is no force that can reckon with them.
Speaker 1: There is no predator that can overtake them when they come in this kind of force.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking about that what if we are so full of love?
Speaker 1: What if we, as the followers of God, come so full of love that there is no enemy that can stand against love?
Speaker 1: Love wins beloved.
Speaker 1: And when we come out together and say this is what love looks like, this is what love does, this is what love has called us to, there's a promise of a whole new world.
Speaker 2: You know, and if you think about it, just amazes you about God's creation that come May, just boiling out of the ground is gonna come, just slews of these bugs and they're just gonna fill the trees and fill the noise outside is gonna be tremendous and it's just God doing what God does on a day in May, you know.
Speaker 2: And what about the surrendering to Him, just pouring out of you grace and love and kindness, mercy, and letting that just flow as he has designed it to do?
Speaker 2: Amen, and we can work against that which I have pretty much a lot of my life, or I can learn to find that rhythm and surrender to it and let it just be and come out.
Speaker 1: Together as we rehearse the text and we remind ourselves of the stories of Jesus.
Speaker 1: I wanted to remind you of something that is true, and it is this that the way of Jesus is not a belief.
Speaker 1: The way of Jesus is a practice.
Speaker 1: It's an entire way to live, it's a way to see the world around us, it's a way to participate, but Jesus is a path, and so maybe you don't agree with everything that is ever been taught about Jesus.
Speaker 1: I know that I don't, but I will tell you this that I know that Jesus is the image of an invisible God.
Speaker 1: I know that Jesus shows us the way to love and the way to absolutely flourish in our humanity, but I want you to pay attention this morning to the story as we were rehearsing it, and I also wanna ask you to disregard some things that you may have learned in children's church, and I respectfully ask you to do this.
Speaker 1: Maybe it wasn't just in children's church, maybe it was every kid's pageant you ever saw, maybe it was every nativity set you ever put up, but we're gonna recount the story of the kings who come, of the sorcerers who come, of these priests and of these people from another land who follow a star and come to worship, and the text in no way says that there are three of them.
Speaker 1: In fact, there probably wasn't.
Speaker 1: It was an entire caravan, it was a group of people and there would have been men and women in this group and they would have come.
Speaker 1: Because of this extraordinary event and as we go to the text this morning, I would just ask the Holy Spirit would have just expand your imagination.
Speaker 1: Imagine what it sounded like on the way, imagine what we were doing.
Speaker 1: I feel like this is what it would be doing.
Speaker 1: I would be doing if Dennis and I were going, and perhaps you can just have mercy on us but I'd be like do you still see the star?
Speaker 1: We're on the right path, right, because the star is ahead of us, right?
Speaker 1: Are you sure it's that star that we're looking at?
Speaker 1: We didn't get confused with what star we're going for, because we just want to make sure we get to where we're going and we don't know where we're going, but I would also You'd mentioned many times how I was following the caravan too close, the one from Exactly I'd be like we have to give them some space.
Speaker 2: I need to slow down.
Speaker 2: We don't need to be in a rush.
Speaker 2: Did I notice that all this happened?
Speaker 1: Divine wisdom has happened, but I just want to make sure we're following the right star.
Speaker 1: I just want to tell you that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: There was a particular star.
Speaker 1: These people were learned they actually saw the heavens, and what they saw astounded them because there was a star there that they had not seen before.
Speaker 1: Jesus was born in Bethlehem, near Jerusalem, during the reign of King Herod, and after Jesus' birth, a group of spiritual priests from the east came to Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: These people are Zoroastrians.
Speaker 1: They still practice their faith and their stars and what the stars tell them even today.
Speaker 1: And these people inquired of the people who are living around where Jesus has actually already been born, and we can tell by later in the text Jesus is about two years old, so he's a toddler.
Speaker 1: So been there a while.
Speaker 1: For all of us the rest of us who are just doing our daily lives and missing the Christ that is right next to us, where is the child who is born, the king of the Jewish people?
Speaker 1: We observed his star rising in the sky and we've come to bow before him in worship.
Speaker 1: We observed his star rising in the sky.
Speaker 1: So I have a question for you and for me how much am I paying attention to the bright, incredible stars that are with us every night testifying to us.
Speaker 1: Am I so busy with my daily life that I miss these incredible invitations into the life of the divine?
Speaker 2: I think sometimes we get kind of in a rut where we're only listening to the voices that we're maybe familiar with or that we're surrounded by, and isn't it interesting that the Bible would take the time to talk about these people of a different faith and how that they testified?
Speaker 2: And I was kind of taught maybe not directly, but those people that believe differently you gotta stay away from those weirdos.
Speaker 2: They might get something on you, those weirdos are our brothers and our sisters and they are our family and how we, how we would we influence or be effective and they're like, and then, in God forbid, they have something in their message that points us to the Christ.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that we have to remember who we serve and how mighty and we're not in danger of being snuffed, our little fires being snuffed out or our light being taken from us, but that it's actually a lot bigger and its intention is to include a lot more than we have just in our little denominations, our little groups of people, and so I think, even at Christ's coming, they're showing that it is affecting, and people all over the place are seeing and coming to this light.
Speaker 2: Amen.
Speaker 1: I remind you that the temple was a public event and Simeon begins prophesying over the baby and he said this is going to be the light of the Gentiles and the glory of Israel.
Speaker 1: And this proclamation went forth.
Speaker 1: People already knew about this.
Speaker 1: The prophet Isaiah and all of the other prophets testify of beautiful things.
Speaker 1: But Herod hears that this caravan is here, hears that there are people that are searching for the next king of the Jews, and he is terrified.
Speaker 1: Not only him, but all of Jerusalem was disturbed when they heard the news.
Speaker 1: Pay attention here.
Speaker 1: They recognized there was going to be political unrest.
Speaker 1: If Herod is disturbed, if he is terrified, bad things are coming for us.
Speaker 1: And so his behavior and his politics and his fear definitely affected the people around us and there was a sense of general anxiety.
Speaker 1: Not just anxiety, but terror and dread.
Speaker 1: And we know the story beloved.
Speaker 1: It wasn't out of their scope and of their right to have this.
Speaker 1: Herod was shaken to the core when he heard this, and not only him, but all of Jerusalem was disturbed when they heard the news.
Speaker 1: So he called a meeting of Jewish ruling priests and religious scholars, demanding that they tell him where the promised Messiah was prophesied to be born.
Speaker 1: I found this part very interesting because these people already had the scrolls, they had the prophecies, they were scholars, they were priests, they knew, but until someone troubled them.
Speaker 1: Until someone disturbed them, that's when they went back and said okay, we'll find out, we will get the information for you.
Speaker 1: I wonder what it would have looked like if, maybe, if they'd lived in that place, maybe if, with hope and with joy, they knew that this Messiah was going to come, and if they could have noticed this giant star that led people.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so he's gathering.
Speaker 1: Herod is all the people to tell him exactly where the baby is going to be born.
Speaker 1: He will be born in Bethlehem and the land of Judah, they tell him, because the prophecy states and you, little Bethlehem, are not insignificant among the clans of Judah, for out of you will emerge the shepherd king of my people, israel.
Speaker 1: Can you pay attention to that too, that in the prophecy we're already telling people, as a shepherd king, he's not the king that's gonna come down from Rome and smash everybody.
Speaker 1: He's gonna be a shepherd king, a shepherd king that is going to change the world.
Speaker 1: But this is the hope.
Speaker 1: And they relay this message to Herod, and Herod secretly summoned the spiritual priests from the east to ascertain the exact time the star first appeared.
Speaker 1: So if you listen to the story the way that I do, he's scheming already listening to the scholars, listening to these people, the Magi, the kings, the priests, the sorcerers who have come, and he's making a plan to deal with his own terror.
Speaker 1: And I wanna remind you why the king of Jerusalem would have been worried about the king of the Jews being born.
Speaker 1: It was a threat to his power, it was a threat to his reign, it was a threat to his rule.
Speaker 1: And when we have places of power and we are worried about them, very often it causes us to do terrible things.
Speaker 1: So this story reminds us that this is not the first time this has happened, where someone who is in power has been threatened and then made a move where everyone else suffers.
Speaker 1: And he told them now go to Bethlehem and carefully look there for the child, and when you found him, report to me so that I can go and bow down and worship too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, listen to that.
Speaker 2: Imagine that Now is this the first time and last time that a politician said something that wasn't true.
Speaker 2: I think this is real interesting, that you know how you can tell a politician is lying yeah, their mouth is moving, and I know there must be some good ones somewhere but I think that this really shows us that that's not the place that we're to put our trust.
Speaker 2: And I find that throughout the time that I've been a Christian, I've seen different waves of time where people really are well, this is it, man, we're going to get this Christian person in office and they're going to just change everything and we put our just that little shift.
Speaker 2: They're a Christian person, but I'm putting my trust in them.
Speaker 2: And then politicians are, oh yeah, I'll worship him, saying whatever they can.
Speaker 2: I remember one politician was talking and he was impressing everybody with his Bible knowledge and he goes well, like in two Corinthians, and I'm like, okay, you read that from the prompter.
Speaker 2: You've not been in church.
Speaker 2: We don't call it two Corinthians.
Speaker 2: You know, there's those little things.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh, you might be just saying what you think that we need to hear.
Speaker 2: I want to worship him and we know what he was wanting to do, destroy any competition, and I think for us to remember that God is who we trust and not to allow ourselves to be seduced by people that make these promises outside of God's promises.
Speaker 1: You present a very interesting point here, because we have all rightfully experienced some reason to mistrust someone in politics.
Speaker 1: But I remind you that it's not the persons that we have to mistrust.
Speaker 1: It's an entire corrupt system that oppresses people, that marginalize people, that keep people in poverty.
Speaker 1: So you can send good people into bad systems, and the bad systems will still produce bad results.
Speaker 1: And so this is why we are invited to live in love's realm, outside of the system that just intends to chew people up and to spit them out.
Speaker 1: And this is the intention that God has when God said I'm coming to bring you a new way of living, a new way of thinking, a new way of loving that will surpass the systems and the principalities and the ways of governing in this world.
Speaker 1: There is something higher, but right now, in this story, herod is scheming and he said go and then come back and tell me so that I can go and worship him too.
Speaker 1: So they left, and on the way to Bethlehem, suddenly the same star that they had seen in the East reappeared.
Speaker 1: Amazed, they watched it as it went ahead of them and stopped directly over the place where the child was, and when they saw the star, they were so ecstatic that they shouted and celebrated with unrestrained joy.
Speaker 1: So imagine that in your mind an entire caravan of people, their animals, their gifts.
Speaker 1: They had traveled across continent to see this and they finally realize where they are supposed to have been and what they will see and, as a result, unrestrained joy, ecstatic joy.
Speaker 1: This is why we made all of this effort.
Speaker 1: And when they came into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and they were overcome.
Speaker 1: What a beautiful part of the story.
Speaker 1: They see Mary tending to her child and they were overcome, falling to the ground at his feet.
Speaker 1: They worshiped him and they opened their treasure boxes full of gifts and they presented him with gold and frankincense and myrrh Not necessarily gifts for a small baby or a toddler at that place, but they understood.
Speaker 1: What we understood is what's happening right now is not the end of the story.
Speaker 1: We are bringing gifts so that the end of the story actually has a chance to be explored and to be entered into and embodied.
Speaker 1: And we see in this act of worship, where they recognize this event is so worthy of all of our efforts, of all of our gifts, that we bring them with ecstatic joy.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that what we don't want to miss here is God's demonstration of how he's going to take care of His own and your, his own and he's going to take care of you.
Speaker 2: And I remember maybe it was imparted to be by my dad or whatever but when I married, you know, I took on a burden that I had to provide for my family, and it wasn't kind of an idea, it was a burden and it was a command that you're no man, you're no, you know, of any value if you don't provide.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, we went off to Bible school and I'm basically a part-time employee and I'm scraping by.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, as a result of my provision you know, I wasn't that good of a, I was a failure at that, you know and then I go to, then get a job, a career, and my career is my salary, is people's gifts.
Speaker 2: You ever think about that?
Speaker 2: As a pastor, your entire salary is just people's gifts.
Speaker 2: You don't even earn it, people just give it to you, you know.
Speaker 2: And so I'm no longer this.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm still not a provider.
Speaker 2: I'm dependent on people's generosity, their kindness for me to make it by, you know, and there's such a burden and such a lack in that, and I existed in that lack of constantly striving to try to make it and to be something and to provide for my family.
Speaker 2: And there came a point when I realized that God wants to provide for us.
Speaker 2: And that's a lot of pride, a lot of misunderstanding in that place and I can honestly tell you, I don't know how the ends meet, but they can.
Speaker 2: Whether there's a hurricane, whether there's a pandemic, whether people show up for church or not, somehow every month, at the end of that month, the bills are paid at the church and God is taking care of his own.
Speaker 2: And I've noticed that, going from that stress and that burden of trying to make it happen and it never happening, to resting in and watching him provide, there is something in that place of us trusting that he takes care of his own, and either you're going to continue to beat your head against the wall or we can allow him to lead us in where he would lead us into the provision that he has for us.
Speaker 1: Yes, I take that gem that you've handed us and I turn it a little bit and I look at it through this provision as well.
Speaker 1: It is very much like the mystical, it is very much like an experience with God.
Speaker 1: You have to show up Now.
Speaker 1: The experience is all God, the spirit is all God, but you have to get up every day and you have to work.
Speaker 1: I don't know where it is, you have to work, but you have to do something.
Speaker 1: When you're saying that God will provide, it is not that you would lay at your ease and do nothing and wait for birds to continue to feed you.
Speaker 1: Elijah got that the one time, I just want to say, and he was really, really grumpy and he didn't think so.
Speaker 1: God sent it for a nap and sent some birds to feed him, and so maybe the idea should be when you're feeling really bad, take a nap and eat some good food.
Speaker 1: But here's what the idea is, that I think it's the place that we start, the place that we have our thoughts anchored.
Speaker 1: Is it in scarcity or is it in abundance?
Speaker 1: Is it in this idea that, yes, god will provide?
Speaker 1: But God also said that he blesses the work of your hands, that he will provide opportunities for you to use your strength on behalf of someone else.
Speaker 1: But I appreciate what you brought to us in this saying of maybe the things that we have learned are burdens to us and maybe there is an unlearning that this time of epiphany will show us.
Speaker 1: Maybe there is a hope for this.
Speaker 1: Verse 12 really stood out to me in this study.
Speaker 1: Afterwards they returned to their own country by another route.
Speaker 1: Maybe you will return home by another route.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's another way that love will lead you.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's a different way.
Speaker 1: Maybe even the road that the caravan that brought you here traveled.
Speaker 1: They returned by another route because God had warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod.
Speaker 1: I was also thinking I'm so glad these people went to bed, because if these were up all nighters, they wouldn't have even had time to dream.
Speaker 1: So I just remind you that often we need to put ourselves to bed, to rest, to gentleness, and say maybe the Lord will speak to us.
Speaker 1: But I also want you to hear and I want you to see the courage it took to say we're going to have to go home a different way.
Speaker 1: We're not going back to the Herod, we're not going back to the politics.
Speaker 1: We're not going back to the place of power.
Speaker 1: We're not giving them what they wanted and we're going home a different way.
Speaker 1: We pause here for a moment to thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1: If you're finding this episode meaningful, would you take a moment to share it with a friend?
Speaker 1: This podcast is made possible thanks to the generosity of people just like you.
Speaker 1: 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 1: What is home, beloved?
Speaker 1: Sometimes home is returning to yourself.
Speaker 1: Sometimes home is a place that you have never been, but I want to tell you that home is always in the presence of divine love.
Speaker 1: We were made in love.
Speaker 1: God spoke the world into existence and God's word was light.
Speaker 1: And in this season of epiphany we look for the light as much as in the season of Advent.
Speaker 1: We are happy to sit in the dark, into the womb of darkness, and wait for something else, but epiphany allows us to turn the light on, to see Emmanuel God with us.
Speaker 1: Afterwards they return to their own country by another route, by another road, by another path.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it is frightening to leave the path that you already know and follow a new path.
Speaker 1: And Jesus is there saying I am the way, I am the truth, I am life.
Speaker 1: Following Jesus might look like giving up trust in the path.
Speaker 1: We recently went to Chicago and we were returning to homeland.
Speaker 1: The GPS told us one thing, and when I got there I said this is not it, and he's like, but the GPS says it.
Speaker 1: And I was like, but I lived here and this is not it, but the GPS says it.
Speaker 1: And so I want to remind you of something what is written, the written word, must always bow to the risen Lord, to the Jesus, the Christ, the Manifest One, no matter what path that you have been on.
Speaker 1: Beloved Jesus' love, mercy is there waiting to lead you back to home, to lead us back to Eden.
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk about that because that path is something that we are familiar with and God is telling them to go a different way and it is a way that you have to trust Him because you have not been that way before.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't make it wrong.
Speaker 2: And I think about are you guys familiar with the story of the early church leader, martin Luther?
Speaker 2: And just as a real quick note, maybe, if everybody isn't fully understanding, what happened was the church was believing and doing certain things and he looked at it and he said, well, there's what was it?
Speaker 2: 98 things that he the thesis, and he and he wasn't rebelling.
Speaker 2: He said these are talking points.
Speaker 2: These are things we need to discuss because because now we look back on history and go, wow, he's a key figure of history.
Speaker 2: But what about that moment when you're the guy that attends church and you're just going to go nail 98 things wrong with what all of you people are doing?
Speaker 2: Did anyone say who do you think you are?
Speaker 1: In fact, yes, that is how they actually addressed it.
Speaker 1: I would, I would persona non grata really quickly yeah.
Speaker 2: But, but at the same time, what he, what he brought to the church, was holy and good and right.
Speaker 2: But he had to be willing to face people saying to him you're wacky, You're off, you know, and and many of us will just choose the path of least resistance.
Speaker 1: He actually had to go into hiding, I think it was.
Speaker 2: Those were gentle and I don't want that for you, but I don't want you to be afraid of it so much so that you would go against your own heart when you know what's right to do Amen.
Speaker 2: And you know how Christ loves.
Speaker 2: And so when you see something and it's not right, it's because it's not right.
Speaker 2: And who are you?
Speaker 2: You're the one who's filled with the timeless one.
Speaker 2: That's who you are the, the God of all creation, lives inside of you.
Speaker 2: How dare you speak against the church?
Speaker 2: How dare you not speak when God is speaking through you and in you, amen.
Speaker 2: Now I noticed that there's wasn't like him going.
Speaker 2: You guys are a bunch of losers.
Speaker 2: Why don't you be more cool, like me he presented.
Speaker 2: Hey, let's just discuss this.
Speaker 2: That's a very humble way, you know.
Speaker 2: Don't stand up in the middle of church and rebuke Heather and I about how wrong we are.
Speaker 2: Maybe pull us aside in a respectful way and say let's talk about some things, and then.
Speaker 2: And then let us hear you and then process that, and then come to the church and say you know what we were off on that thing.
Speaker 2: We'll admit that no one's saying that, that we're perfect and and.
Speaker 2: And I just love that humility.
Speaker 2: But then that boldness, and because I think to myself, I see some things that just aren't right with the church, some with with major doctrines in the church, and so I live a different truth sometimes.
Speaker 2: And then I think to myself, sometimes I'm a little scared to say something, because who am I to say something?
Speaker 2: Well, I have to remind myself I'm the one filled with the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2: And why am I saying that?
Speaker 2: To try to write a book, try to get more attention, try to think I'm better than you?
Speaker 2: Or?
Speaker 2: Or is it for the good of all of us that we look at some of these things that we've been doing and realize they're not serving the greater good, you know?
Speaker 2: And?
Speaker 2: And so maybe, maybe there's something rising up inside of you and and it's been rebuked in you by other people.
Speaker 2: I remember one Christian leader I had and he said, dennis, you are so rebellious, you're so insubordinate.
Speaker 2: And I was explaining to me how how it is that when we're having a discussion as pastors and I see something that we're doing wrong, and in this meeting, in this context only, I would bring questions to some of the decisions we're making why can't you just get along?
Speaker 2: Why can't you just do what you're told?
Speaker 2: When I leave that building, I did what my leader told me to do, but in that moment I had to speak up for what's in my at least.
Speaker 2: You were in some of those meetings and didn't go well for me, but you know what, at the end of the day, I'm responsible to try to learn that voice of the Spirit and and try to to be able to speak that truth that he puts on the inside of you and for you as well.
Speaker 2: I I fan the flames of that and you know what.
Speaker 2: You might be wrong a lot and you might miss it, but I tell you what God's going to honor your effort to try to hear and try to stand up for those that are less fortunate to you and maybe don't have the voice of their own to speak, and you speak on their behalf.
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you something we're doing something right there, and all the rough edges, they'll be whittled down and and, and and.
Speaker 2: God will get his point across and he'll do it through us, amen.
Speaker 1: We were in close quarters at Disney one time and I heard David the loudest.
Speaker 1: I can ever remember hearing him and he said, hey, with so much authority and so much force and he was so big, and it startled me and I turned around and he said to someone who was there you're stepping on my little brother.
Speaker 1: And I want for all of us to consider.
Speaker 1: There might be things that we need to say loudly, because other people are stepping on our little brothers, our people being harmed, our people being excluded, our people being left out.
Speaker 1: Beloved, this is the table of the Lord that we are offering, that we have tasted from.
Speaker 1: There is enough.
Speaker 1: This is a feast and I love the church of Jesus Christ, and the church of Jesus Christ is beautiful.
Speaker 1: It is the bride of Christ, but she has also gotten a lot of things wrong.
Speaker 1: Phyllis Tickles says this, and she's a theologian.
Speaker 1: She just recently died, but I loved her.
Speaker 1: She went through all of history and she said Every 500 years the church has to have a rummage sale and we just have to throw some things into the alley and say that doesn't work anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't know, and I just want to tell you what this is the 500 years Beloved.
Speaker 1: We're at a place where some things need to just be thrown out into there.
Speaker 1: This doesn't work anymore.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you what always will work Jesus.
Speaker 1: Jesus and his love for the world.
Speaker 1: Jesus as his invitation into walking in the Holy Spirit, into being people so filled with God's spirit that we are able to say this is the way of Christ, this is the hope for the world, this is the light that we have.
Speaker 1: It is Jesus and his love for us.
Speaker 2: You know, what started Heather and I think on this path, is that we looked at.
Speaker 2: You know there's a lot of stuff that doesn't need to be stripped away and let's go back and look at what the early church believed and what they did.
Speaker 2: You know, because remember being kids, some of you are old enough to remember the Xerox copies, and it was a copy of a copy of a copy, and by the time, you got your test.
Speaker 1: The only thing that was good for us to huff no, no, no, Because it turned.
Speaker 2: You know the page, the edges turned and you couldn't read it and stuff like that, you know, and I think that over several hundred years of the church it's become a copy of the copy of the copy.
Speaker 2: So let's kind of go back in and as we did that, we realized there's some stuff we believe now, doctrines that have been heaped on the church that you can see when they were a hundred years ago.
Speaker 2: You know, in fact, one we don't do altar calls here very often at this church, and somebody came up to me and said I'm leaving your church.
Speaker 2: I said why?
Speaker 2: Because you don't do altar calls.
Speaker 2: You're not a traditional church.
Speaker 2: And I said well, in fact the altar calls really a hundred year old practice in the church, so actually we're more of a traditional church.
Speaker 2: You're this new thing that you're accusing me of.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting to me.
Speaker 2: We've been in our effort to come back to what Christianity really should be about.
Speaker 2: We've been called all kinds of names that are implying that we have left Christianity and become something else, when in fact I wonder if mainstream Christianity has drifted off and become something different.
Speaker 2: Because if you're a group of people that don't welcome everyone, then you've missed the real reason why Christ made the church, you know, and why he empowered us for the church, you know, and I've met people and through the years, you know, they said you know, we were some bikers and we were going to this church for a while and they asked us to leave and they said but we felt welcome in your church.
Speaker 2: And I have had story after story of people that have said that.
Speaker 2: And so, for all the things that we could be accused of doing wrong, if you can come to this place and be accepted and loved, that is the body of Christ, that is, and so the other things that we gotta fix, we're work in progress.
Speaker 2: You know, if you followed me around for a couple of minutes, you'd find out that guy is a work in progress.
Speaker 2: Just be quiet, barak.
Speaker 2: You don't have to aim in so loud.
Speaker 2: He hangs around with me more.
Speaker 2: He has every right to, but just understand that it's when we have things that we can work on.
Speaker 2: But I'm telling you, there's things that they're the non-negotiables and we need to be about those things and it's love and it's acceptance.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that we can go back and we can look in the early church and when Jesus instituted the church and then gave the church the spirit Beloved.
Speaker 1: The church is full of God's spirit and we need to be aware of how we follow the Holy Spirit in us.
Speaker 1: But the church was given this beautiful gift of hospitality I mean, there wasn't church buildings when it first began.
Speaker 1: People started showing up in each other's houses and they had dinner together and they would talk about the stories of Jesus and they would ask each other questions what would it be like if you saw and what have you heard and how have you changed?
Speaker 1: And then they cared about other people.
Speaker 1: It was as easy as that.
Speaker 1: Then they began feeding the poor.
Speaker 1: Then they began welcoming even outsiders into their midst and then they began to allow the barbarians and beloved.
Speaker 1: We just don't spend enough time talking about the barbarians.
Speaker 1: I just wanna remind you.
Speaker 1: History tells us that these people were so wild I can't even look around our globe right now and find anyone that fits into that category.
Speaker 1: And yet they were welcomed into the church of God.
Speaker 1: It was often the barbarians would show up naked just to intimidate people.
Speaker 1: I mean, at what point did the church start saying, well, you gotta put a clothes on At some point, you gotta be.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So at some point we have to look at this and go.
Speaker 1: This is what the early church believed that everybody was welcomed and the table of the Lord.
Speaker 2: I'm cutting edge and all but keep your bridges on.
Speaker 1: My point is this thank you for being cutting edge.
Speaker 1: Not any of us would say that's the good plan.
Speaker 1: My point is, I think, that our idea of love and God and church have narrowed and what Jesus offered, what the star offered, was another whole beautiful world.
Speaker 1: What these people who had followed their star and the stars and the map of the star, heard and saw, something that inspired them to make this incredible journey.
Speaker 1: So they go and they get mixed up in the politics they know not to be involved in that.
Speaker 1: They go home another way.
Speaker 1: They offer their worship, this response after seeing something so amazing, they give extravagant gifts.
Speaker 1: And then, after they had gone, joseph had another dream.
Speaker 1: I remind you the last dream Joseph has An angel shows up and says okay, go ahead and marry her, there's gonna be a baby and it's gonna be a thing.
Speaker 1: So he has another dream and the angel of the Lord appears to him and said get up now and flee to Egypt.
Speaker 1: Here is our refugee, messiah, his family, running from their home.
Speaker 1: Take Mary and the child and stay there till I tell you to leave, for Herod intends to search for the child and kill him.
Speaker 1: And we know the story Herod does search for the child and murders every single child under the age of two.
Speaker 1: This is the plan of systems in power.
Speaker 1: But God has another plan and if we will listen to the spirit who says I have places for you to be, I have places for you to Now think about this.
Speaker 1: Joseph had to leave and go to Egypt and we don't know that he had any contacts there, we don't know that he had any kind of help there.
Speaker 1: But in this place of hearing the word and doing what God had told him to do, we see that Jesus grew in wisdom and favor and stature and had this family.
Speaker 1: And this is the hope for the world beloved that we would hear the things of spirit and that we would be so courageous in our love that we would do things that kind of stretch beyond what we could even imagine.
Speaker 1: And the hope for everything is that God's love would be seen through us, that the blessing that is ours because of epiphany, because our eyes have been opened, because we are people who've had eyes that are healed.
Speaker 1: One of the oldest prayers the church has is Jesus Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on me.
Speaker 1: And the man who is crying out with this particular prayer was someone who was blind, one of the prophets later in the gospel says many of you are blind and you don't even know it.
Speaker 1: Many of us have blindness and we are not even aware of it.
Speaker 1: And so may the light of this star bring illumination to us, that there is healing for our eyesight, and not just the eyes that we see with out of the front of our head, but the eyes of our heart, the eyes within us that know Jesus and the way of truth.
Speaker 1: There is a blessing for us in opening ourselves up to the questions of the spirit, to the questions of God.
Speaker 1: I remind you, in Eden, adam and Eve are hiding.
Speaker 1: You know the story God shows up, asks where they are and they're hiding.
Speaker 1: And then they begin to have a big, huge, wild excuse on why they're hiding.
Speaker 1: And God says to them who told you that?
Speaker 1: May this epiphany season, may you wrestle with the question, who told you that?
Speaker 1: And may it settle in you your belovedness.
Speaker 1: You are ones deeply loved by God.
Speaker 1: For God so loved the cosmos that he gave his one and only son that whoever believed in him would not perish but would have eternal life.
Speaker 1: For God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, the cosmos, through Jesus would be saved.
Speaker 2: You know, when I came to Christ I had acquired a lot of atheist friends.
Speaker 2: You know, being in the music industry, you know, over there in Chicago, and the level I was in it and they would would often time evangelize for not believing in God, you know, and they had very convincing arguments, you know, at least seemed intelligent, you know.
Speaker 2: And I remember coming to Christ and just being desperate for the need of peace, you know, but I was tormented by those thoughts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but what about this?
Speaker 2: You know, can God make a rock so big that he can't pick it up?
Speaker 2: You know those kind of crazy mind, crazy thoughts that you know atheists tell you why there couldn't be no God, because who invented him?
Speaker 2: And all these things, you know.
Speaker 2: And so I was tormented by their.
Speaker 2: You know their ideas and their concepts and their sermons.
Speaker 2: And there came a point when I just decided I need peace and I'm choosing to trust, even when I don't fully understand this, and I'm gonna surrender to you and I'm gonna trust you.
Speaker 2: And I'm telling you, with that decision came an overwhelming amount of peace that I was, I was unable to walk in with all of my doubt and my questions and my arguments.
Speaker 2: They didn't provide the peace that surrendering to God and trusting in him does.
Speaker 2: You know, and so I wanna remind you of that that in that place of surrender it doesn't mean you're gonna have all your answers met and questions known at this moment or whatever, although I have, through following him, I have experienced so much of walking with him, where he has put to bed those arguments and those things over the years, but I gotta tell you the first inkling that it was the right thing to do was trading that torment and actually experiencing peace in my mind, the sweet sleep that he provides his beloved, and then that is something that you can partake in and there is a place of simple trust that does cause us to be able to, with some level of practice, but be able to rest and have peace in our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 1: I want to pray a blessing over us and then we will get to have communion.
Speaker 1: But in case what we have talked about today makes you consider, well then, what do Pastor Dennis and Heather believe, and what does this church believe?
Speaker 1: I just remind you of this we believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.
Speaker 1: We believe in one Lord, jesus Christ, the only begotten of God, born of the Father before all ages.
Speaker 1: God from God, light from light, true God from true God.
Speaker 1: Begotten, not made, co-substantial with the Father.
Speaker 1: Through him all things were made For us and for our salvation.
Speaker 1: He came down from heaven and, by the Holy Spirit, was incarnate of the Virgin Mary.
Speaker 1: He became a man For our sake.
Speaker 1: He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
Speaker 1: He suffered death and was buried and rose again on the third day in a coronance to scripture.
Speaker 1: He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
Speaker 1: He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
Speaker 1: We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son and who, with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.
Speaker 1: We believe in one holy church.
Speaker 1: We believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and look forward to the resurrection of the dead and life in the world to come.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 2: Amen.
Speaker 1: That is what we believe, and we believe the path is love.
Speaker 1: We believe that every question has an answer, and it is love.
Speaker 1: It may look differently, but it is love.
Speaker 1: And so this morning, I ask you to pay attention to the fact that you are in love's house and, if you would gently close your eyes with me, I'm going to ask you to pay attention to your breath and to take a moment and listen to love and speak to you this morning kirie elleson best cell, kriste eleson.
Speaker 1: You have looked at so many doors with longing, wondering if your life will begin on the other side.
Speaker 1: For today, choose the door that opens to the inside, feel the most ancient way of all, the path that leads you to the center of your life.
Speaker 1: No map but the one that you make yourself, no provision but what you already carry, and the grace that comes to those who walk the pilgrim's way.
Speaker 1: Speak this blessing as you set out and watch how your rhythm slows and the cadence of the road draws you to the pace that is your own Eat when you're hungry, rest when you're tired, listen to your heart's dreaming, welcome detours as doors.
Speaker 1: Deeper in Pray for protection, ask for guidance, offer gladness for all of the gifts that come and then, with open hands, let them go.
Speaker 1: Do not expect to return by the same road.
Speaker 1: Home is always by another way, and you will know it not by the light that waits for you, but the star that blazes inside of you.
Speaker 1: Telling you where you are is holy, who you are is holy, and you are welcome in love's holy.
Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this week's sermon.
Speaker 1: If you would like more information about us, visit us online at firstlovechurchorg.