SCRIPTURE: I Peter 4:1-14, 5:6-11
TEXT: 5:6Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. THEME: Casting ourselves on Jesus. INTRODUCTION When we go out to get fish, they call it ‘fishing’ and not ‘catching’, because it expresses a humble hope. In contrast, if we were not humble but arrogant and think that every time we go ‘fishing’ we get fish, then we could call this activity, “catching”. People would watch us to see if this is true or not. Do we want to base our reputation on the aptitude of fish? We live with some certainties that has us living our lives in relationship with God. It sounds presumptuous. Even arrogant for us to assume that we could discern the will of God. But we live with a humble arrogance as Jesus does. We live in a provocative relationship with God through love, with grace, compassion, forgiveness, wholeness and mindfulness. SCRIPTURE We are beloved by God and the things do reflects this, but not everyone understands this or values relationships over money as we do. Even when we live according to God’s ways, knowing who God is, having hope, being positive, addressing issues of injustice, bringing healing, practicing respect, and restoring relationships, our lives can put us under fire. Not everyone welcomes our good intentions and can be threatened when our actions attempt to transform the status quo. Casting our hope for Good does not always come back with the expected appreciation. First Peter says, Regardless of what other people think or how they treat us, rejoice in living according to God’s ways, in knowing that you are doing good for others. We don’t do things for the appreciation of others (although an occasional thank you is always nice), but to do good, in itself, for God. Reviled for the name of Christ. Humble in following God’s ways, Participating in God’s activities among us. As present as God is to us, sin lurks like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. We can be tempted away from doing what God wants us to do by fear, greed and doubt. So be careful, be disciplined and have faith. The Spirit of God is resting on us. Resist doing what is against God and cast your cares, upon God. Last week, our discussion in Peter took us to Psalms and a lamenting prayer that cries out to God and complains. Casting our anxiety to God is with an expectation for help, hope, and compassion. The God who calls us to eternal glory in Christ, promises to restore, support, strengthen and establish us. Casting our humble hope upon God, keeps us going in God’s direction. APPLICATION As Christians we can be obnoxious, irritating, arrogant and self-righteous, when we let sin, greed, selfishness and ego devour us. We don’t want to be people who others feel that they have to put us in our place. Instead we can complain and lament to God about what we are doing and how we are being treated. If we can learn to live wisely, we could be a faithful blessing to others without being obnoxious. How does our living bring transformation to oppressive systems? How should we live, trying to avoid sin by casting our cares upon Jesus? 1 Peter says to humble ourselves under God. Praying is a humble activity that casts our hopes upon our relationship with God. But like in fishing, we do so with a humble expectation of God helping us. Prayer is a process of engaging our situations with the Holy. God is always good, and has the best in mind for all involved, and so the answer to our prayer maybe different from what we expected. Last week the church realized a short fall with the closing of the County Fair in October. Our current budget was worked on to anticipate the loss of income. But no matter how we modified the budget, we were still short the Fair income amount. Then on Monday we were sent documents from the bank to cover 8 weeks of our employee’s salaries. It is just about the same as the lost income from the fair. It is humbling to put ourselves under God, but God is good and provides for us even when we don’t have a way to rub two coins together. Discipline yourself to keep alert. Be aware of the humanity of others and their wounds. When we see their wound then we can address their pain. We can also become aware of how our behavior can affect others for good or bad, as well as be an inconvenience or a blessing, or an irritant or a comfort in their lives. Allen Boesak encouraged the perpetrators of Apartheid not to see Africans, but human beings and the wounds they bore because of this system of prejudice. When we discipline ourselves to see each other as humans, then we can treat each other with respect, compassion, dignity, acceptance, love and grace. When we live, believing in God, discerning God’s will, living God’s truth in practical ways in our world, then part of our behavior is to be a resistant to what is wrong. We have ethics, values and boundaries that we will not cross. We put up a resistance to evil and its practices. We have a dream for our community to be different from how it has become. A County on the mainland reported at their council meetings on YouTube. How they were getting ready for the upcoming election. They have volunteer police officers manning the polling places on election day. In this conservative community, no one may not think about it, as it is their usual practice, but having police officers manning the polling stations may be a deterrent to a segment of their population from voting, especially if they ever felt that they were at risk of being arrested. This practice could even be seen as a way of controlling the votes in their county and racist. This is the sort of thing that Christians in the community could stand up against and create resistance to this insipid practice. CONCLUSION Most of the time I want fish, sadly it is by shopping. But my expectation is the same, I am hopeful, that there will be the kind of fish I like, and at the price I am willing to pay. I guess shopping comes with its own set of expectations. As the CORONA Virus flat lines on Maui, there is an expectation that the church will reopen. Funny, we were never closed. But without a vaccination, how safe are we? Don’t get me wrong, I miss you all, I miss gathering, I miss preaching to an audience, laughing together, singing together, being in prayer for each other. I miss sitting around the table and shooting the breeze about theology. But even when we open our doors again, we will have to distance ourselves by 6 feet. At first no more than 10 of us at a time. We won’t be singing out loud. You won’t feel the hymnal in your hand, and after service, we will have to wipe down the entire church with a disinfectant solution and all of the hand rails and door knobs. Not everyone is going to risk coming to church. And we will still have our service on Facebook live for those who choose to stay safe at home. We will humble our self to how God leads us to start up and gather again, even though we would love to have a group hug. We will be disciplined and keep our mask on, wash our hand, distance ourselves and gather in group no larger than 10, because of our love for you is greater than our grief of being apart. And we will resist the greed and selfishness, to do the right things, to advocate for life, and truth, and safety, and the worship of our God and participation in the mission during the COVID pandemic. Our Humble expectation is to do what God wants, when God wants it, with those whom God wants. After all we are God’s church, funded by God’s love through Jesus the Christ.
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April 2024
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