Our Discipleship: Hear and Obey 01/29/06
Deut. 18:15-20 and Mark 1:21-28
Before very long, I will have been on this earth 4 decades. And as an old man, I'm noticing my failing memory. For example, the other day I stopped at Dierbergs, walked in the door, stopped and said to myself: "what are you doing here?" I knew that answer was twofold. One I was there for food--that is why one goes to a grocery store. And two, I was there for a small list of food items--a list I would remember, eventually.
The question does occasionally arise at church: "what am I doing here?" When you are at the grocery store, you're there because you know you need food. When you are at work, you know you're there because you've got to pay for your food. When you are at the club you're there to play golf. When you are at the restaurant, you are there to eat. When you find yourself at Home Depot, you are there to improve your living quarters. Etc. Etc.
So when you find yourself at church... you are here to do what? There are lots of answers to that: hear lovely music, meet lovely people, socialize, have fun, do your duty, be seen, be smiled at... All those are good reasons. But saying you come to church to listen to music, is like saying you go to Schnucks to socialize or to the office to listen to the radio. Indeed you might have the greatest conversation with the clerk at the store, and you might spend the day listening to the radio at your desk—but the grocery store and the office, as you well know, have a more fundamental reason for existence. I'm sure it's possible to meet your lifelong mate at a grocery store. But you go there to get potatoes.
You are here for spiritual potatoes. We have a community here. This community has a distinct purpose. It is summed up in the Great commission of Jesus: baptize, teach, observe. I.e., identify, learn, do. Or to make it really simple: to hear and obey.
Many of you studied this text in this morning's SS lesson: (James 2:14) "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?" Can such a faith same him? ... faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."
As if anticipating this very text, Mark's gospel lesson tells us that Jesus was a man of faith and works, of words and deeds, of teaching and of action.
He went into the synagogue and began to teach. Not as the religious lawyers, parsing every word. "Well here the law says this, and there the law says that." Not as the scribes: "There is a law for every thing we think and do." But as the prophets of old; the prophets who spoke not just about rules but about character, not just about outward standards, but inner peace. Jesus spoke with authority that the hearers had never heard.
Today's OT passage reminds us that God promises God's people a message. This message does not come through wind and fire, but by the words of the prophets; prophets whom God calls. And the passage deals with the central difficulty of this method of communication. It's easy to claim to be a prophet of God. Anybody with a voice, anybody who can communicate at all, can make this claim.
So the implicit warning is to watch out. Test the words of those who claim to be prophets. Make sure they are solid, and consistent with what you know of God. This is the hearing part. We listen, reflect, pray, and think about the word of God as it comes to us through the prophets, through Jesus, through the followers of Jesus.
Mark, says that Jesus not only taught with extraordinary authority, he also commanded extraordinary authority over evil. He healed the sick, cast out the demons. First he taught in the Synagogue and then he healed people in the street.
Hear and obey, faith followed by deeds, belief that leads to action. This is why we are here. So that we can hear, have our faith challenged and go into the street bringing love. These are our potatoes. This is the meat of it.
Starting over a year ago, I divided this twofold call into the five fold KBC commitment: 1) Worship where we encounter God, 2) Bible study where we encounter God's spoken truth, 3) Service to one another, where we express love and truth in community, 4) Missions, where to express Christ love in our community and world, and 5) stewardship, where we are reminded that everything we have is to be used doing the first 4 things. This is why we are here. This is what we are here after: to hear from God, and to obey God in this way at this time.
I'm telling you this based on authority. We get authority and power mixed up, but they are quite different. I have little power, but when I speak truth, I have the authority of the Word. This message is from God, and so it has authority. It has authority both over our ignorance and our evil spirits—that is—both over our need to know, and our need to do. God can help our intellect and will.
I know that sometimes you come to church, and not out of forgetfulness, but out of despair at your life and the world wonder: what are we doing here? Does our faith make a difference?
John W. Fountain is a professor of journalism at the University of Illinois. He has been a reporter for The Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post, and a national correspondent for The New York Times. And this is his answer to our question:
"I believe in God. Not that cosmic, intangible spirit-in-the-sky that Mama told me as a little boy "always was and always will be." But the God who embraced me when Daddy disappeared from our lives—from my life at age four—the night police led him away from our front door, down the stairs in handcuffs. The God who warmed me when we could see our breath inside our freezing apartment, where the gas was disconnected in the dead of another wind-whipped Chicago winter, and there was no food, little hope and no hot water.
The God who held my hand when I witnessed boys in my 'hood swallowed by the elements, by death and by hopelessness; who claimed me when I felt like "no-man's son," amid the absence of any man to wrap his arms around me and tell me, "everything's going to be okay," to speak proudly of me, to call me son.
I believe in God, God the Father, embodied in his Son Jesus Christ. The God who allowed me to feel His presence—whether by the warmth that filled my belly like hot chocolate on a cold afternoon, or that voice, whenever I found myself in the tempest of life's storms, telling me (even when I was told I was "nothing") that I was something, that I was His, and that even amid the desertion of the man who gave me his name and DNA and little else, I might find in Him sustenance."
We are here to find that sustenance, that's why we're here. You need a word & you need to respond to that word. You need to embrace your faith, no matter how small, and to walk out of here, determined to live it in renewed action. You need to believe and be embraced by a Spirit that will lead you out of a decimated past into a dedicated future.
George Herbert, one of the great "metaphysical poets" and contemporary of Shakespeare, wrote the text of the anthem and the poem I put on the front of the worship folder. It also speaks with the authority of one who believes and whose belief has transformed life.
Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.
"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here:"
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"
"Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "Who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.
We are here, to sit and eat. That we might rise and serve.
Before very long, I will have been on this earth 4 decades. And as an old man, I'm noticing my failing memory. For example, the other day I stopped at Dierbergs, walked in the door, stopped and said to myself: "what are you doing here?" I knew that answer was twofold. One I was there for food--that is why one goes to a grocery store. And two, I was there for a small list of food items--a list I would remember, eventually.
The question does occasionally arise at church: "what am I doing here?" When you are at the grocery store, you're there because you know you need food. When you are at work, you know you're there because you've got to pay for your food. When you are at the club you're there to play golf. When you are at the restaurant, you are there to eat. When you find yourself at Home Depot, you are there to improve your living quarters. Etc. Etc.
So when you find yourself at church... you are here to do what? There are lots of answers to that: hear lovely music, meet lovely people, socialize, have fun, do your duty, be seen, be smiled at... All those are good reasons. But saying you come to church to listen to music, is like saying you go to Schnucks to socialize or to the office to listen to the radio. Indeed you might have the greatest conversation with the clerk at the store, and you might spend the day listening to the radio at your desk—but the grocery store and the office, as you well know, have a more fundamental reason for existence. I'm sure it's possible to meet your lifelong mate at a grocery store. But you go there to get potatoes.
You are here for spiritual potatoes. We have a community here. This community has a distinct purpose. It is summed up in the Great commission of Jesus: baptize, teach, observe. I.e., identify, learn, do. Or to make it really simple: to hear and obey.
Many of you studied this text in this morning's SS lesson: (James 2:14) "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?" Can such a faith same him? ... faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."
As if anticipating this very text, Mark's gospel lesson tells us that Jesus was a man of faith and works, of words and deeds, of teaching and of action.
He went into the synagogue and began to teach. Not as the religious lawyers, parsing every word. "Well here the law says this, and there the law says that." Not as the scribes: "There is a law for every thing we think and do." But as the prophets of old; the prophets who spoke not just about rules but about character, not just about outward standards, but inner peace. Jesus spoke with authority that the hearers had never heard.
Today's OT passage reminds us that God promises God's people a message. This message does not come through wind and fire, but by the words of the prophets; prophets whom God calls. And the passage deals with the central difficulty of this method of communication. It's easy to claim to be a prophet of God. Anybody with a voice, anybody who can communicate at all, can make this claim.
So the implicit warning is to watch out. Test the words of those who claim to be prophets. Make sure they are solid, and consistent with what you know of God. This is the hearing part. We listen, reflect, pray, and think about the word of God as it comes to us through the prophets, through Jesus, through the followers of Jesus.
Mark, says that Jesus not only taught with extraordinary authority, he also commanded extraordinary authority over evil. He healed the sick, cast out the demons. First he taught in the Synagogue and then he healed people in the street.
Hear and obey, faith followed by deeds, belief that leads to action. This is why we are here. So that we can hear, have our faith challenged and go into the street bringing love. These are our potatoes. This is the meat of it.
Starting over a year ago, I divided this twofold call into the five fold KBC commitment: 1) Worship where we encounter God, 2) Bible study where we encounter God's spoken truth, 3) Service to one another, where we express love and truth in community, 4) Missions, where to express Christ love in our community and world, and 5) stewardship, where we are reminded that everything we have is to be used doing the first 4 things. This is why we are here. This is what we are here after: to hear from God, and to obey God in this way at this time.
I'm telling you this based on authority. We get authority and power mixed up, but they are quite different. I have little power, but when I speak truth, I have the authority of the Word. This message is from God, and so it has authority. It has authority both over our ignorance and our evil spirits—that is—both over our need to know, and our need to do. God can help our intellect and will.
I know that sometimes you come to church, and not out of forgetfulness, but out of despair at your life and the world wonder: what are we doing here? Does our faith make a difference?
John W. Fountain is a professor of journalism at the University of Illinois. He has been a reporter for The Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post, and a national correspondent for The New York Times. And this is his answer to our question:
"I believe in God. Not that cosmic, intangible spirit-in-the-sky that Mama told me as a little boy "always was and always will be." But the God who embraced me when Daddy disappeared from our lives—from my life at age four—the night police led him away from our front door, down the stairs in handcuffs. The God who warmed me when we could see our breath inside our freezing apartment, where the gas was disconnected in the dead of another wind-whipped Chicago winter, and there was no food, little hope and no hot water.
The God who held my hand when I witnessed boys in my 'hood swallowed by the elements, by death and by hopelessness; who claimed me when I felt like "no-man's son," amid the absence of any man to wrap his arms around me and tell me, "everything's going to be okay," to speak proudly of me, to call me son.
I believe in God, God the Father, embodied in his Son Jesus Christ. The God who allowed me to feel His presence—whether by the warmth that filled my belly like hot chocolate on a cold afternoon, or that voice, whenever I found myself in the tempest of life's storms, telling me (even when I was told I was "nothing") that I was something, that I was His, and that even amid the desertion of the man who gave me his name and DNA and little else, I might find in Him sustenance."
We are here to find that sustenance, that's why we're here. You need a word & you need to respond to that word. You need to embrace your faith, no matter how small, and to walk out of here, determined to live it in renewed action. You need to believe and be embraced by a Spirit that will lead you out of a decimated past into a dedicated future.
George Herbert, one of the great "metaphysical poets" and contemporary of Shakespeare, wrote the text of the anthem and the poem I put on the front of the worship folder. It also speaks with the authority of one who believes and whose belief has transformed life.
Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.
"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here:"
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"
"Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "Who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.
We are here, to sit and eat. That we might rise and serve.
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