SCRIPTURE: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
TEXT: 13No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it. THEME: Building something new on the foundation of the glories of the past. INTRODUCTION The sermons for the Sundays before Easter are linked with different Ideas of “Living Belief’. We started with, not believing, but taking what we discover about Jesus and beloving this in the relationships around us. Next, we looked at how we can be imitators of the Apostle Paul who is trying to live as Jesus and of others who embrace that sense of love, grace, and kindness in Jesus. This week, Paul’s epistle is helping the church in Corinth imagine something more than their past with Moses and to imagine their future in Jesus. SCRIPTURE Paul begins this portion of the letter reminding the Corinthians that we are a family in God, with a common inheritance, God is with us and will help us through whatever we are going through. Taking our cue from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, from last week, Paul is encouraging us to, Copy good things as our impersonation of Jesus. Adding on to this, Paul also wants us to be selfless. Everyone has the same opportunity to be formed into the People of God in the wilderness, following Moses. But some were unable to overcome their selfishness, and could not find it in themselves to trust God. Over and beyond God, they figured out what was best for themselves. If salvation is defined as being in a relationship with God, then their selfish pursuits caused them to perish. Paul concludes this portion of the letter by reminding us that God is with us and will help us through whatever we are going through. Idolatry is selfishness, trying to work an angle so we can get to do what we want, regardless of how it affects others. Our self-will denigrates others as less than the image of God, treating our neighbor poorly, enslaving them, beating them, holding our prejudice against them and not honoring them with a mutual respect. We betray our covenants with each other for our ambition. And when we can’t get what we want, we complain and grumble, eroding thankfulness, appreciation and praise in our lives. When we turn towards God and God’s way, we can see how Jesus has become our new Moses. The escaped slaves turned towards God as they cross through the waters of the Red Seas as we do at Baptism. We leave our self-centered lives behind as we breathe deeply from God. Baptism signals our new direction, turned towards God. Under the constant cloud of the Holy Spirit we are lead, protected, shaded, and helped. In God is life, spiritual life with living water, nourished on the broken body of Christ. So, when it comes to testing, or trials, or suffering in our world, this God who loves us, journeys with us, never abandons us, and is there to help, lead, provide, strengthen, guide, comfort and accomplish God good work in us. APPLICATION Paul wants us to imagine something more than the wilderness and the law. Jesus gives us an example of how to live beyond the payment of sin and debt reconciliation (So don’t only focus on the cross). Jesus lives what the law was unable to accomplish; a provocative relationship with God that enables us to live a compelling life that people want to copy. A life where we are not escaping suffering, but learning, with God’s help, to handle pain and sorrow in us, so we can help others with understanding and compassion to bring relief from their suffering. (Yesterday I was listened to Krista Tippit’s interview of the Author of Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo. In speaking to an assembly of Children she talked about how difficult her early childhood was. A girl from the audience commented that she survived and so she could too,) How does what we learn about suffering help us to imagine a different kind of church? Jeffery Acido’s article in the Friend had prophetic words for the church. It is more important for us to live our faith than to regulate it. What changes would we have to make in our worship services to be more engaging for Youth? Are we willing to sit next to the homeless person who has come in just to sit? What theological understanding do we need, to encompass all, as brothers and sisters in the family of God, no matter what their sexual orientation or gender identity may be. Then maybe what we will find in the scriptures is not laws to obey but an openness for us to live in community with each other. People are looking to be loved, accepted and part of a community where they can feel that they belong. This is where we are headed. CONCLUSION If you can imagine it, you can be it. In Star Trek, when Captain Kirk entered the bridge, the doors automatically opened up to him. When people asked how did they do this. They answered. There are two guys, one on each door that pull the doors open and shut, then we add the sound effects. But did you know that this led to someone inventing automatic doors that would open and close without two guys on each side. Same thing with the communicator Kirk used to communicate with the Enterprise. It was the inspiration for a flip phone. And isn’t that what Elizabeth Homes creating her fraud around, a simple blood test that would give a complete medical profile of a person’s health conditions like Bone’s tricorder reader? Moses wandering around the desert with the escaped slaves had the Ten Commandments on two stone tables but they had no concept of temple worship. Caiaphas the High Priest in Jesus’ day had the temple and a system of fund raising and sacrifices as atonements but had no concept of the church, The Catholic Church had doctrine, regulated and organized the church but had no concept of the Reformation Churches, and who back then could have imagined a Billy Graham Crusade, or Rick Warren’s Saddle Back church or a church in the middle of the pacific worshiping in a roman gothic building made out of stones from the cane field? Our small membership congregation has no business thinking that we could build 48 rental units on our 2.5-acre piece of property, without using any of our money. But because God caused us to imagine it, this is where we are today. I talked with Andy Bunn, the Executive Director of the Hawaii Conference Foundation, last week about his article in the Friend about our church’s project. He said we are the Only church that is doing something like this. Churches are only now beginning to have some of these kind of conversations about what it means to be the church with their properties in their community. They have been maintaining what they have, and been reaching for a past glory of their church and stopped imagining. We need to take those signs of God’s activity with us in the past and match them with what we see God doing today and begin to imagine what God is calling our church to be, so we can be it in the future.
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