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: I brought my whole self and I hope that you did too.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful to see every single one of you.
Speaker 1: The peace and the love of Christ in us greets the Christ in you, and so I am in absolute value of your presence, your witness, your goodness and the love of Christ between us.
Speaker 1: I am really excited and I think that every week I say that, and so I don't want it to lose its value but I am excited to speak of this with you this morning, to encourage you, for all of us, to be encouraged by the words of Jesus.
Speaker 1: This morning, thomas reminded us it's the eighth Sunday of Pentecost, and we remind ourselves of that because we are in the season of learning how to live in the Spirit, how to live connected to God and the ways of God, and learn how that we as people, as human people, can live our lives and truly flourish.
Speaker 1: Jesus said this I have come that you would have life and that you would have it to the full, that we would savor the life that we have, that we would, with gratitude, be able to see every good thing that is around us, that the birds would teach us, that the trees would teach us that we would listen, for creation drawing us into the companionship with Jesus.
Speaker 1: When Jesus said this to the people following, he said the kingdom of God is so close to you, it's in your mouth, it's right here among us.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I think we struggle a little bit because someone told us, and is told all of us, that God is somewhere really high up in the sky, and when we put God really high up in the sky, we forget the promise that we are never alone.
Speaker 1: Emmanuel, god with us, god in our suffering, god in our distress, god in our joy, god in our bliss, god with us.
Speaker 1: And the invitation that Jesus gives us is into joy, is into real living, and Jesus shows us what it's like to be a human person and to be able to ascend, to be able to stay in connection with God, to be able to hear the voice of the Father say you are loved and I am pleased with you.
Speaker 1: I hope you hear the voice of Spirit affirm that to you this morning.
Speaker 1: You are deeply loved by God and you belong wherever you are, because wherever you are.
Speaker 1: God is there.
Speaker 1: And so this morning, as we approach the text, we remind ourselves, we allow ourselves to open to the Spirit, who will re-enchant the text to us, who will remind us of what we knew from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: Jesus said this to his people and he said you don't even need a teacher because you will have the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will direct you in all things.
Speaker 1: And so, if we don't have need of a teacher, why are we here?
Speaker 1: We are here to remember, we are here to be reminded that we can trust the small voice inside of us, that we can trust love, that we can trust again each other and the goodness that is in the world.
Speaker 1: And so we go this morning into Luke's gospel, luke's account of what is happening as Jesus gives instructions to the people who are following.
Speaker 1: And in Luke, chapter 12, verse 11, when they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers and the authorities.
Speaker 1: 11, when they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers and the authorities, don't worry about how or what you will answer or what you are to say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you are to say.
Speaker 1: Well, that's incredibly hopeful if you know what the voice of the Spirit sounds like, if you know the voice that you are to listen to.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this has ever happened to you and I hope that it has that you felt a little disoriented in a crowd of a lot of noise and all of a sudden, you heard a voice.
Speaker 1: You remembered Ah, there is the person I'm looking for.
Speaker 1: I heard the voice.
Speaker 1: Even there can be just a huge noise, but you can focus in on the voice that tells you you are not alone, you are loved and that God is good and has an incredible plan.
Speaker 1: And so this morning, I invite you to welcome the Holy Spirit, to teach you the voice of Spirit.
Speaker 1: This is a wisdom tradition.
Speaker 1: This is the thing that we are all looking for.
Speaker 1: This is the hope and the call for that we would know the voice of wisdom.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit is wisdom, and so that we would find true wisdom, so that we would know what to do in every circumstance and I really appreciate Jesus's encouragement in this text you don't have to know what you're going to say when you stand before anyone who asks something of you.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit will tell you.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit will say to you this is what you should say, this is what you should do.
Speaker 1: And so our attention this morning is to living, practicing life in the Spirit.
Speaker 1: Jesus is reminding the people about the Spirit and someone then says to him teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.
Speaker 1: Don't you love it when somebody changes the subject and it goes all wonky and you're like what, wait a second, wait a second.
Speaker 1: We're talking about life in the spirit.
Speaker 1: And somebody goes make my brother do something different, make it about him, change him.
Speaker 1: You take your words and you change my brother.
Speaker 1: I mean, mean, really.
Speaker 1: And then what if the brother was there?
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking about.
Speaker 1: And then everybody's assuming what's happening in that family.
Speaker 1: You know, like go further into the story and ask yourself what would it be like if my younger brother was right before Jesus?
Speaker 1: And you're like tell my brother to do better, tell my brother to do differently.
Speaker 1: My brother's doing it wrong.
Speaker 1: Beloved, we are often this brother who's asking Jesus, make him stop that, make him do this differently.
Speaker 1: And then Jesus shows us something beautiful, and there are two particular points in this story.
Speaker 1: I want us to hang on, and Jesus said this friend, I love how, even when someone is antagonizing, when somebody is coming in the wrong kind of vibration or frequency, and Jesus said friend, who sent me to be a judge or an arbitrator over you?
Speaker 1: That's a good question.
Speaker 1: Jesus often asks us questions when we ourselves have questions.
Speaker 1: And I do want to remind us of something when we go to the text and we listen to the witness of the scriptures, they often just give us more questions.
Speaker 1: They often don't give us a truth.
Speaker 1: But they ask another question who sent me to be the judge or the arbitrator?
Speaker 1: Does this mean that that man is actually a follower?
Speaker 1: Does it mean that this man recognizes the power and the authority that is in Jesus?
Speaker 1: Does his brother recognize that authority?
Speaker 1: And then this one wants to make him seem bad in front of the one who has the authority.
Speaker 1: I mean, these are the kind of questions that we can ask ourselves and we can draw into this story.
Speaker 1: And so this brother said, hey, make my brother do something better.
Speaker 1: This brother said, hey, make my brother do something better.
Speaker 1: And Jesus said friend, take care, be on your guard against all kinds of greed.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's not what you want to hear when you're asking your brother to divide the inheritance.
Speaker 1: You had a plan.
Speaker 1: And now Jesus said you know what the real issue is is greed.
Speaker 1: I do want to remind all of us that this is something that is a big deal to Jesus.
Speaker 1: He talks about it very many times, that the issues, the places where we fall into illusion, where we have the follies of this illusion, is in greed and in what greed does to us.
Speaker 1: In fact, there are other portions of the New Testament that says that greed actually pierced us with sorrow.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be pierced with anything and I certainly don't want to be pierced with sorrow, and greed is the inroad to that.
Speaker 1: So this is what Jesus is reminding us.
Speaker 1: There is a deeper thing at play here than your question of your brothers rightfully dividing anything.
Speaker 1: There is greed at the core, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions Beloved I'm going to let that sink for a moment for you.
Speaker 1: One's life does not consist of the abundance of possessions, this very anti-the-capthe capitalist society that we live in, where we're going to measure someone's worth by how many possessions they have.
Speaker 1: Jesus here confronts the way that the world has been for a long time, that we have considered people are wise because they have a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 1: And Jesus is saying pay attention to greed and don't have a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 1: And Jesus is saying pay attention to greed and don't have any part of that.
Speaker 1: Your life does not consist of the abundance of possessions.
Speaker 1: And then he told them a parable.
Speaker 1: So Jesus hears the people's groans because I think they all wanted things devoted and divided fairly.
Speaker 1: All of us have a question Make my brother do something different.
Speaker 1: And Jesus confronts this falsehood, this illusion in us that greed or more for me is going to prove anything for us.
Speaker 1: The land of a rich man produced abundantly.
Speaker 1: Right here Jesus is confronting the way that we view agriculture, the way that we decide what is wealth or what is good.
Speaker 1: The land produced abundantly.
Speaker 1: Just leave that in your head.
Speaker 1: The beautiful, good earth that God gave us abundantly gave forth its fruits.
Speaker 1: And the man thought to himself what should I do?
Speaker 1: For I have no place to store my crops.
Speaker 1: And then he said I will do this.
Speaker 1: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones and there I will store all my grain and all of my goods.
Speaker 1: And I will say to my soul soul, you have ample goods laid up for many, many years.
Speaker 1: Relax, eat, drink, be merry.
Speaker 1: And God said to him you fool.
Speaker 1: This very night, your life is being demanded of you and the things that you have prepared is being demanded of you.
Speaker 1: And the things that you have prepared, whose will they be?
Speaker 1: And so it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.
Speaker 1: I would like us all this morning to contemplate what does it mean to be rich toward God?
Speaker 1: What does it mean to live our life in richness toward God?
Speaker 1: Many of us have the idea, or the mindset, that we have nothing and that God has everything, and so all God wants is all God should want is to give us more stuff.
Speaker 1: And God is inviting us into another way of living, another way of thinking.
Speaker 1: I would like for you to consider that this man who does this is our brother or ourself.
Speaker 1: I would like for you to listen to how many times this man says I will do it.
Speaker 1: I would just go back.
Speaker 1: It's just a few verses, but I remind you.
Speaker 1: And then he said oh well, I'll start with the first I.
Speaker 1: He thought to himself what should I do, for I have no place to store my crops.
Speaker 1: Listen, for all the I's.
Speaker 1: Then he said I will do this.
Speaker 1: I will pull down my barns and I will build larger ones and there I will store all of my grains and my goods and I will say to my soul soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years.
Speaker 1: Relax, eat, drink and be merry.
Speaker 1: This particular man is only seeing himself.
Speaker 1: He lives in this egocentric view of the world where he is the one who has done this.
Speaker 1: Now, anyone who has done farming knows that you don't do farming without help and you don't have so much that you do that you would need barns and barns and barns upon barns.
Speaker 1: What this man is not accounting is the earth gave that to him.
Speaker 1: That was a gift from God and I promise you with this man's story, he did not do this without help.
Speaker 1: There was somebody plowing that field.
Speaker 1: There was somebody working that field, tilling that ground, watering that and then bringing it into the barns.
Speaker 1: This is not a man who said I'm going to tear it down and I'm going to build it up.
Speaker 1: If you've already built a barn, you're going to find a way that that's going to be enough.
Speaker 1: That's hard work.
Speaker 1: But if you've just ordered someone to build a barn, of course you can just order another barn.
Speaker 1: So this illustration, this parable that Jesus is saying is again looking at these things.
Speaker 1: Where do we find this contentment?
Speaker 1: But you hear this whole story this man tells, and it's only about himself.
Speaker 1: In fact, he's even talking to himself.
Speaker 1: In no place is he even talking to God.
Speaker 1: He is simply living in a life where the whole thing is about him.
Speaker 1: And Jesus is offering us another way of seeing.
Speaker 1: This is the healing miracle that we would begin to see with our eyes others, that we would resist greed, like it is the poison that it means to be, that we would be people who would relish in the fact that we are given, so that we can be givers, that we can be people who heal and who help.
Speaker 1: We talked about this morning in our reading, when Jesus said whatever you have done to the least of these, my brethren, you have done it to me.
Speaker 1: So I ask you this morning to think who are the people in the margins that you know about?
Speaker 1: Who are the people who don't have community?
Speaker 1: Who are the people that are despised by the world?
Speaker 1: Who are the people that are despised by our culture?
Speaker 1: And then what would jesus ask us to do about it?
Speaker 1: He says to himself.
Speaker 1: Soul.
Speaker 1: You have ample goods laid up for many years.
Speaker 1: Relax, eat and drink and be merry.
Speaker 1: And God says to him you fool.
Speaker 1: This can be a harsh language, because this is a point I want us to pay attention to.
Speaker 1: This is a practice in missing the point.
Speaker 1: This man spent all these years and he has the bigger barns.
Speaker 1: And God says this is foolishness.
Speaker 1: I don't think any of us want to get to the end of our life and God looks at us and says this is foolishness, how you lived, always in the future, always thinking about the future.
Speaker 1: Now this man understands agriculture and there is a time to take food and to put it in a barn.
Speaker 1: That's called wisdom.
Speaker 1: Especially, think about the culture here.
Speaker 1: There would have been times where they understood a famine, a lack of rain.
Speaker 1: So you need to prepare, and that is not what God is calling foolishness.
Speaker 1: What God is confronting here is this idea of ignoring the present, ignoring what is right here in front of you, ignoring the goodness that is right here, the people that are right in front of you, and finding a life where it is all about you and you are the only person that is in it and you are the only person being prepared for.
Speaker 1: What are you preparing for your neighbors?
Speaker 1: What are you preparing for those who do not have?
Speaker 1: Jesus told us this.
Speaker 1: We read it today and we heard it in the text that Caroline read to us this morning.
Speaker 1: The people said the disciples, the followers of Jesus, said these people are hungry.
Speaker 1: Send them away.
Speaker 1: We can't do anything about it.
Speaker 1: If I was a hungry one, I would not want to leave Jesus.
Speaker 1: Like our best chance is some kind of miracle, like don't send me away, send me to where it says that there were no towns nearby, there was nothing for these people to do.
Speaker 1: And so I remind you, this is not just a parable for 2,000 years ago, beloved in our midst, there are people starving and it can feel overwhelming.
Speaker 1: It can feel like what can I do?
Speaker 1: I have nothing.
Speaker 1: We pause here for a moment to thank you for joining us today.
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Speaker 1: And Jesus says to Philip what's in your hand?
Speaker 1: I think Philip checked his pockets Nothing, I have nothing.
Speaker 1: And then Philip started campaigning for fundraising.
Speaker 1: So he started going around to the people that were there what do you have Nothing, we have nothing.
Speaker 1: What do you have, we have nothing.
Speaker 1: And there's a boy who has a lunch.
Speaker 1: Now this story is often referred to the boy and his lunch.
Speaker 1: I would like to rename it right here and now.
Speaker 1: I would like to call it the woman who prepared a dinner or a lunch for her son.
Speaker 1: I would just like us to say this this little boy did not prepare this himself, he did not go and get that fish, he did not bake that bread.
Speaker 1: And so let's talk about the boy, let's talk about how this story is framed.
Speaker 1: Seriously, it's the boy who's going to give her thing.
Speaker 1: What about the mom who grilled and who made that fish and who thought I'm sending him out to a fireplace to listen?
Speaker 1: He's going to need lunch.
Speaker 1: Kudos to the woman who prepares.
Speaker 1: That's wisdom, beloved.
Speaker 1: Here God is contrasting your foolishness is you think you're going to take care of yourself?
Speaker 1: Here's the wisdom, here's the wisdom.
Speaker 1: So, anyway, philip asks who has the food, and then he gets this lunch and he goes oh, this is not enough, no, there's just no way this is going to make a difference.
Speaker 1: Beloved, we are bringing things to Jesus.
Speaker 1: Remember that Anything you give, any gift of hope, any gift of mercy, any gift of justice, any companionship, you offer to anyone, any hope, any resource, any fish or bread, whatever it is that is in your hands or whatever you can scrounge out of your neighbor.
Speaker 1: I don't know if the boy actually offered it.
Speaker 1: Perhaps some other woman said what's in that basket bud?
Speaker 1: What did your mom put in there?
Speaker 1: Give that to the guy.
Speaker 1: We don't know how the story went.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it was all a bunch of women who said listen, this is all we got, but he has something, and Martha Martha sent it this morning from home and so give that to the Lord.
Speaker 1: You know, like what do we need to be able to do?
Speaker 1: To say there is an empowerment in whatever you have.
Speaker 1: Offer it to Jesus, and Jesus takes this and he blesses it and he gives thanks for it, and then he sends it out.
Speaker 1: And you know what God does?
Speaker 1: Make it enough, not just enough, make it so much that there are leftovers.
Speaker 1: Do you know how good leftovers are when you're already tired and you don't want to think about what to eat or how to make it.
Speaker 1: You just know you have to.
Speaker 1: I mean there's a blessing on leftovers and Jesus makes enough and makes it for the next day because you were tired from your journey to hear Jesus.
Speaker 1: I mean there's so much goodness wrapped up in this what's in your hand.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean for us?
Speaker 1: When we look at the world beloved, we cannot be despondent, we cannot give up hope, we cannot say it's all a mess, it has nothing to do with me.
Speaker 1: Jesus is saying hey, there's things in your barns that's not just for you, because tonight you don't know how long your life is going to be.
Speaker 1: I don't know how long my life is going to be, but when we have the life, the presence now, how will we love, how will we practice generosity?
Speaker 1: Who will we have mercy on?
Speaker 1: And Jesus asks us to really consider the question when you die, who's going to take your stuff?
Speaker 1: I promise you they're not going to value it the way you do.
Speaker 1: They're going to put a bunch of it in a box that doesn't go in the same box.
Speaker 1: They're just going to do it that way and they might not even care about it.
Speaker 1: Jesus invites us to care about the eternal.
Speaker 1: And he does that by saying to us when I was hungry, you fed me.
Speaker 1: And they said when did we feed you?
Speaker 1: And he said whenever you did it to the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me.
Speaker 1: Jesus is expressing to us this beautiful hope of oneness.
Speaker 1: What we do for one another, we are actually doing for ourself.
Speaker 1: Do for one another.
Speaker 1: We are actually doing for ourselves.
Speaker 1: In feeding our neighbors, in standing up for justice, in explaining or in bringing light to a situation.
Speaker 1: We are doing that for ourselves.
Speaker 1: And Jesus is saying if you're going to follow me this is what it looks like You're not only going to be preoccupied with yourself, you're going to care about your neighbor.
Speaker 1: And again, there's another parable that Jesus tells us of a man who's beaten by the side of the road and a Samaritan who is on his way to work.
Speaker 1: He has a job, sees him and stops.
Speaker 1: Thomas mentioned this this morning that following the Spirit is going to be a lot of interruptions in your plan and in your future and how you leave this present moment and have planned the future.
Speaker 1: There's going to be an interruption for that.
Speaker 1: That is the Spirit.
Speaker 1: You see that over and over again Jesus is walking and then he sees someone in need and he stops One of the things that you see over and over again in the Testaments who are witnesses to us of Christ?
Speaker 1: Jesus saw a woman weeping.
Speaker 1: She had lost her son and he didn't say everybody loses people, everybody loses people.
Speaker 1: It says he saw that and compassion welled up in him.
Speaker 1: Beloved life in the spirit means compassion will well up in you, where you will begin to see.
Speaker 1: We sang this song this morning.
Speaker 1: May our love cause our hearts to break when someone is suffering.
Speaker 1: And let us ask the Spirit what can I do to be a part of relieving that suffering?
Speaker 1: What can I do to be a part of healing?
Speaker 1: Jesus said hey, you've seen the works.
Speaker 1: I do Greater works than these.
Speaker 1: Will you actually do?
Speaker 1: What kind of works did Jesus do?
Speaker 1: Acts of mercy, beloved.
Speaker 1: Everything he did was an act of mercy.
Speaker 1: It was not a power grab.
Speaker 1: He was not trying to be the influencer of the year.
Speaker 1: Jesus was seeing this and he said I'm following my father.
Speaker 1: Everything that you see me do, my father is doing.
Speaker 1: So Jesus is showing us what it's like to stay connected to the spirit.
Speaker 1: It is to stay connected to the Spirit.
Speaker 1: It is to stay connected to the suffering of our brother and sister around us.
Speaker 1: It's to say that we would see people, and if you can't see anyone but yourself, we'll pray for you that Jesus will heal your sight and that he will give you back yourself, and that you will remember.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, we are to live to spread love to everyone, so that everyone knows that there is a table that has been set for them.
Speaker 1: Jesus also gives this beautiful parable and you know it, so I just remind you of it.
Speaker 1: He said there was a king who heaped up a feast, a huge feast.
Speaker 1: He tells the people this story while they're hungry.
Speaker 1: I think that's incredible storytelling.
Speaker 1: While you're hungry, god is going to tell you a story about a feast.
Speaker 1: Think about the best meal you've ever eaten.
Speaker 1: Maybe that was yesterday.
Speaker 1: I want to tell you.
Speaker 1: I think best meal we've ever eaten is the one we have today.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is, the king says I would like to have everyone come around the table.
Speaker 1: So the word gets out and says the king is heaped to a feast and a bunch of people said this we're busy.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: I want to tell you who those people are.
Speaker 1: Not hungry people.
Speaker 1: Those are people who have too much and they are full of themselves.
Speaker 1: That is me, beloved, and that is you.
Speaker 1: When we do not stop and attend to the suffering of others, we are too full, and in that case we are full of ourselves, not full of God.
Speaker 1: God is love and God is compassion, and God is just and God is justly.
Speaker 1: And this act of doing justice, this is what we're called to when we're called to be people of God.
Speaker 1: We're gathered here today because all of us have decided that we believe that Jesus is the way.
Speaker 1: Jesus said this and we've heard it and we're like yes, jesus is the way to the follower.
Speaker 1: So what does it mean for us, as followers of Jesus, to live the path that Jesus lived?
Speaker 1: When Jesus saw suffering, he attended to it.
Speaker 1: The same is true of the story of the Samaritan he saw a man suffering and he stopped.
Speaker 1: The truth is, he couldn't heal the man.
Speaker 1: He knew his own skill, so he brought him to someone who could Beloved the whole world.
Speaker 1: You don't have to solve every problem.
Speaker 1: You don't have to solve everything, but take people to the ones who can heal them, take them to a doctor, sit with them, wait outside in the office of their therapist.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is that you have to do, you are not required to do it all, but you are required to do something.
Speaker 1: This is an ancient proverb.
Speaker 1: The rabbi said this you do not have to be worried that you cannot meet all the needs, but you must meet some.
Speaker 1: You can't give up on it.
Speaker 1: And this is an invitation into God's life.
Speaker 1: This is an invitation to life in the spirit that we would be people of radical generosity, that we would recognize that everything we have is a gift from God.
Speaker 1: And how we join in with the spirit is how we become people of generosity, because we recognize we are not alone.
Speaker 1: We are part of a family that God is telling, that God is the father of and saying everybody gets a seat at the table.
Speaker 1: So a bunch of these people said you know what?
Speaker 1: We're too busy for the goodness that God has.
Speaker 1: We have our own goodness and we are full.
Speaker 1: And they come back and they tell the king they're not interested.
Speaker 1: And the king says okay, fine, go out to the highways and the byways, to the people that are living in the bushes, go out to the homeless.
Speaker 1: Go out to those that the world says we don't even see you.
Speaker 1: You go and find them Beloved.
Speaker 1: A work of the Spirit is seeing people that are unseen and tending to their needs.
Speaker 1: This is how the kingdom comes.
Speaker 1: We prayed together this morning, and we do every single week, the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray.
Speaker 1: Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Speaker 1: Who is unseen in the kingdom of love?
Speaker 1: No one, because love sees everyone.
Speaker 1: Who is hungry in God's kingdom?
Speaker 1: No one, because God feeds everyone, and so we are invited into this co-creation of this beautiful world that God is saying is available to us, and he's saying I'm asking you to do this and I'm not giving it to you by yourself.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit's going to be your teacher and you're going to know what to do because you've heard the voice of the Spirit.
Speaker 1: I just want to encourage us this morning.
Speaker 1: The way to hear the Holy Spirit is to stop talking.
Speaker 1: I just want to encourage us this morning.
Speaker 1: The way to hear the Holy Spirit is to stop talking.
Speaker 1: We are a people who love the sound of our own voice.
Speaker 1: We're comforted by our nonsense and our babbling, and I say that with a lot of asking for forgiveness.
Speaker 1: I don't say that you are that person, I am that person.
Speaker 1: Jesus talked about this in our prayers.
Speaker 1: He said you pray and you're just happy that you said so many words.
Speaker 1: But he said instead, go into yourself, go into that quiet place and listen for the Spirit Beloved.
Speaker 1: We don't want to miss the point.
Speaker 1: God doesn't say to the man who is in this parable you're bad.
Speaker 1: He doesn't say you're a sinner.
Speaker 1: He doesn't say you're eternally apart from me.
Speaker 1: God said you fool.
Speaker 1: Ah, you missed the point.
Speaker 1: So the invitation for us is to receive wisdom for that and go.
Speaker 1: I do not want to participate in the missing the point club.
Speaker 1: I would like to be invited into the wisdom way.
Speaker 1: One of the ancient teachers says to us in all of your getting, get wisdom.
Speaker 1: Wisdom is the spirit that creates these things.
Speaker 1: In fact, all the way in Genesis it says that there was chaos in the world and the spirit of God began to hover over the waters.
Speaker 1: We're here today because the Spirit started a movement and I'm telling you, the Spirit is still asking us to be a part of this movement, for us to say where is my place to serve?
Speaker 1: I want to tell you, beloved, if you need joy, find someone to serve, not out of duty, not because you're going to earn anything, but because this is what it's like to follow the way of Jesus, to serve, to lovingly serve people.
Speaker 1: This is what Jesus did.
Speaker 1: Jesus shows us how to be human, how to thrive in our humanity, how to be abundant in our relationship with God, and he says it's going to be through service.
Speaker 1: The man with all the burns missed that memo, and so let's hear the words of Jesus and go.
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, for me, I'm following.
Speaker 1: There's also an ancient proverb in the rabbis would bless each other and bless their followers and say may you always be covered in the dust of your rabbi.
Speaker 1: Do you know what that means that you're following so closely?
Speaker 1: They got their dust on you.
Speaker 1: They were walking and you were right behind them.
Speaker 1: What does it look like for Jesus to be in Ocala?
Speaker 1: One of our friends offered us this, thought it was slightly horrifying.
Speaker 1: I'm allowing it to be part of who I am.
Speaker 1: And they said if Jesus showed up at your house and said you go ahead and take a nap, just have a rest, and I'll serve your family and I'll serve your neighbors and I'll do the grocery shopping or I'll do the whatever.
Speaker 1: Would anyone notice that Jesus replaced you?
Speaker 1: I'm sad to say that people would totally notice.
Speaker 1: But here's our invitation to be the hands and feet of Jesus, and this is good news, beloved, this understanding, this enlightenment that we are to be in the present moment, that we are to be grateful and that we are to be able to say to the Spirit where can I serve?
Speaker 1: What can I do to relieve someone's suffering?
Speaker 1: What can I do to feed someone around us?
Speaker 1: And I encourage us?
Speaker 1: We are a church that feeds people, and that's beautiful, but that's not enough.
Speaker 1: That's you know.
Speaker 1: We are a church that gives together so that we can do beautiful things for our community, and that's wonderful.
Speaker 1: But this is where you're trained, that's not where it stops.
Speaker 1: This is where you come and you practice this radical generosity so that others can be blessed.
Speaker 1: And this is our invitation into the life of Christ, into a wisdom that says love is the way, love has always been the way, love will be the way and beloved.
Speaker 1: Love is not cruel, love is not impatient.
Speaker 1: Love does not only care about itself.
Speaker 1: Love does not put itself first.
Speaker 1: Love doesn't give up.
Speaker 1: That's one of my favorite parts about the love thing, because this is who God is.
Speaker 1: God doesn't give up on us.
Speaker 1: God says, okay, if you don't want to come, you're busy, that's fine, we're going to go get everyone who lives in a bush.
Speaker 1: Do you know how the people that live in the hedges and that live along the street actually find out about anything?
Speaker 1: And that live along the street actually find out about anything?
Speaker 1: Because someone went and told them.
Speaker 1: We are the people who get to tell everyone that God is love and that God has heaped up a feast.
Speaker 1: And God is saying come and eat, come and enjoy life, come and find fulfillment in belonging, come and experience eternal life.
Speaker 1: This is a beautiful invitation into remembering, and the good news is that Jesus said you don't even have to remember everything yourself.
Speaker 1: Just listen to the Spirit and the Spirit will remind you.
Speaker 1: Just know the voice of the Spirit.
Speaker 1: And so I invite us again we talked about it over the last few weeks a prayer that we can pray and it's a short one, because then in our other time of prayer we're sitting quietly and listening, but a prayer is this Spirit.
Speaker 1: I am willing to change my mind about this.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you that is an invitation into transformation, beloved.
Speaker 1: That is an invitation into miracles, and as children of God, we are entitled to miracles, miracles of transformation changing us, changing the way we see something and changing the world around us.
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.