SCRIPTURE: 1 Corinthians 5: 1-11
TEXT: 3For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. THEME: We all have stories with God to tell. INTRODUCTION During the season of Epiphany, the sermon series has been on Variety: The Variety of Members: Jews and Gentiles, the Varieties of Services: with the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the parts of the Body of Christ, we need love to treat each other with respect and appreciation. The Variety of Love: desiring the very best in Christ Jesus for each other. And today the Variety of Stories, of ways we have come to faith. We all have stories of pastries that we like to share. Someone told Jann and I about this shop that opened in Kahului that makes malasadas better than Zippy’s and Homemade Bakery. What? She decided to share her new find with us. She said that the malasadas have a hint of lemon flavor just like how her grandmother used to make them. I was sold. I have a few things that are greater than my restrictive no carb diet and malasada’s on Fat Tuesday is one of them. Sooo. Off we went. Sugar Beach Bakery is alongside of Ulu Lani Shaved Ice close to Safeway. They are only open in the mornings from 6 to noon. After our five-dollar shopping at Safeway we turned towards Sugar Beach Bakery. As we got out of the car, a stranger standing outside of her car asked if we were going to the bakery. She was eating a bacon cheddar and chive scone as she said “This is so good! They warmed it for me.” I said it would be good with coffee. She said that is how she ate her first, blue berry scone. This was her second. When we discover good pastry, we don’t keep that information to ourselves, we even share it with strangers. This is ‘pastry-evangelism’. This is what Paul does with the Good News of Jesus, he shares it. SCRIPTURE In this passage there are several stories of how people have come to faith in Jesus and relationship with God. The first story is that Paul proclaiming a convincing truth that the Corinth congregation. Paul is sharing from his experience. His experience changed the way that he understood the scriptures. His new understanding of Jesus as the Christ is consistent with the scriptures that he once understood in another way, as well as discovering other scriptures that seem to have been invisible before. He now believes the stories of first-generation witnesses of a resurrected Jesus. He believes the critical mass stories of believers who had the same experience of the resurrected Jesus, all at the same place and at the same time. He also believes the resurrected Jesus also appeared to other believers and apostles. So, when the resurrected Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, it pulled all of those previously deniable testimonies as credible. All of these stories became undeniable accounts of the risen Lord. For believers there have been many different stories that have led them to faith. APPLICATION The Bible is a collection of people’s stories with God. Our church is filled with the stories of people’s lives with God. What stories has God given us to share, to touch the hearts of others so they can believe? We come to Christ in many different ways: Sunday school, adversity, answered prayer, loving family, irrefutable argument, good preaching, faith experiences, a community of faith, the conviction of people of faith…all of these are legitimate stories of faith. When I went to College, I became a religious studies major. There were courses on Zen Buddhism, Chinese religion, a survey of world religions, and the professors were very astute to an array of beliefs, yet every one of these professors were Christians, with a couple them serving as UCC pastors. This helped me shore up my faith when I had doubts. Scripture gives us insights into the heart of God. Again, it was at college when my collegians would ask me where I found my theological beliefs in the Bible. Often time I just picked stuff up people told me without cross referencing it with passages of scripture. Such as ‘God helps those who help themselves’. That’s not found in the Bible. We had the same experience when we were going through the New Creation Initiative. We would read the Bible and discover what it said and then be challenged to change our lives by what the scriptures said. I listened to an On Being Pod cast this week, where Krista Tippett interviewed Trabian Shorters, He talked about building community with stories of “Asset Framing” instead of “problem framing”. This is looking at the assets of people first, rather than seeing them as problems that need to be fixed. Does that sound familiar? Isn’t that the way we were taught we share Christianity? First by seeing people as the problem or sinners and the by introducing salvation by believing in Jesus who died as a payment for your sins. Maybe we should introduce them first as good pastry and then identify the challenges in their lives and not the other way around. We can change the church community by approaching people as assets rather than sinners. This is more of the approach God has, loving the world so much that we are given God’s very best, in Jesus. (Jn3:16) Then imagine the stories what we tell each other about how God had become real to us; because of love, because of acceptance, because of caring, because of prayer, because of healing. Imagine a church who is willing to give up a parcel of land to the community to use for Affordable Housing, because they want to do something loving for their good neighbors, so that those born and raised on Maui could have an opportunity to raise their families here. That is good pastry. A church who loves their community so much because God loves them. CONCLUSION Evangelism comes from the Greek words ‘Eu’ which means ‘good’ and ‘angel’ which means ‘messenger’. Putting them together it is sharing the good news or witnessing. So, we took a box of malasadas home, with and assortment of scones. We had different flavors and fillings, and some were hits while others were misses. But the sugar, malasada, blue berry scone and bacon cheddar and chive scone were winners. Share your stories of Jesus with others, not as ways to fix someone’s life, but as a story of where to find good pastry.
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