This past week there was a lot of talk about the end of the world that was supposed to happen on the 23rd of September.  Well, according to my calendar, today is September 24th, and we are all still here, so I guess they were wrong. The problem with that is since I thought the world was coming to an end on Saturday, I did not prepare a sermon for today and had to throw something together at the last minute, well that is not exactly correct.  Why do we seem to be so hung up on the end of the world?  For generations, people have been trying to “read the signs” to determine when the world is going to end.  But we read in Matthew 24:36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” “Only the Father!”  Jesus is telling us that he does not even know when the end will come, only the Father knows, and he’s not telling.

So here is what I do not get. Nowhere in Scripture can I find a passage that says I need to worry about tomorrow or what will happen in the end. I do find lots of scripture about loving our neighbor and trying to make the place we live a better place and to bring a little bit of heaven right here. But some folks are so willing to follow anyone that they fall for this every single time. Jesus tells us, also in Matthew 24:5 “For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.” We are so desperate that we even look to world leaders as the savior and the fixer of all our problems when scripture tells us in Psalm 146:3 “Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save.”

But it is not just us that do not trust in God look at the people of Israel that we heard about in today’s Scripture lesson.  Moses has led them out of bondage. They had been enslaved by the Egyptians for generations, and finally one has come to lead them out.  Great signs were performed in the name of God to convince Pharaoh to let them leave, and he finally does, the people finally have their freedom and what do we find, they are whinny, ungrateful, little children.

Scripture tells us that “whole company of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron.” This is not just a few folk this is everyone, there was a rebellion brewing here. There were complaining that they did not have enough to eat. They mention the pots of meat they used to have when they were slaves, but now that they have been set free they have no food, they have their freedom but no food, so they complain.  Here is your freedom, but we have no food!

So Moses spoke to God, and God provided. He told them exactly what to do, take just what you need, no more, no less.  Some did, and they had all that they wanted, some took more, and it spoiled.  The problem was, they had no faith.

I think I have shared this story with you before. There was a storm coming, and a man was sitting in his house watching the weather, and the weather people were telling him to evacuate, the man says, God will save me. The government folks say to leave, the man says, God will save me. The rainwater comes, and the water rises so high he is on the second floor of his house, and a man comes by in a boat and says, come on, get in, and I will bring you to dry land, and the man says, God will save me.  The water continues to rise, and the man has to cut a hole in his roof, and he is now on his roof, and the water is still rising. A helicopter comes and drops a rope, and a man yells down, take the rope and tie it around you, and I will lift you up to safety, and dry land and the man says, God will save me. Well, the man dies and is standing at the pearly gates, and God is there, and the man says to God, I trusted that you would save me and here I am. And God looks at him and says, I sent a weatherman, a government guy, a man with a boat, and a helicopter what more do you need?  Apparently, he needed more faith.

We are like the people of Israel at this present time. They were going through a transition, and we are going through a transition. The future is bright but also a little scary we do not know what it will hold. We are standing at the opening of the door but we cannot see past the threshold, and that makes us nervous.  We are people who like to be in control and looking into the future, with no end in sight, makes us nervous and we are not sure how to act. God is saying, it will be okay, I will send you what you need, and we need to have faith that he will do just that very thing. But we have to trust that all will be well.  Will it be easy, nope, it sure was not easy for the people of Israel out there in the wilderness, but they survived.  They got angry and lost faith, but in the end, their faith was restored, once they discovered who their faith needed to be in, not Moses or Aaron, but God.

You all know that one of my favorite passages of Scripture is the story of Peter stepping out of the boat. When I am looking for guidance for one thing or another, I come back to that Scripture, and I think about it and meditate on it. The boat, the water, the storm, they are all metaphors for life, and Jesus is calling us to make bold moves and take steps in faith, and as long as we keep our eyes on Him, all will be well. Peter stepped out and was able to do something that he was not able to do before, walk on water, but the second he took his eyes off of Jesus, the second he started to doubt God’s word, he began to sink. But the story did not end there, even though he doubted, even though he lost faith, Jesus was still there and gave him his hand and raised him up.

Jesus is calling each of us to step out of the boat, get away from what we think is comfortable, throw our foot over the side and do something we have never done before. He is calling us in faith, not by anything that we can do, but to have faith in God, and even if we stumble, and I am sure we will, Jesus will be there to lift us back up. But we need faith and the willingness to throw ourselves over the side of the boat, and take that first step.

Last week I stood here, and I asked you to pray for those affected by Hurricane Harvey.  This week I stand here, and I will ask you to keep all of those affected by Hurricane Irma in your prayers. At this very moment, in Florida, people are hunkering down as Category 4 Irma, the most powerful storm in recorded history slams into their neighborhoods. I ask you to keep the people of the tiny Island nation of Barbuda in your prayers. I had never heard of Barbuda before the news reported that 95% of the structures on the island have been destroyed and that as of yesterday, the entire Island has been evacuated. Just for some perspective, the population of Barbuda is 1,638 people who are now homeless. This is a dangerous storm that is not over yet.

I have been encouraged by the outpouring of offers to help from the people right here at Bethany. Last week I sent a letter to all of you asking for donations and we will take a special offering today for Disaster Relief, and all week, people have been sending in checks to the office for us to add to what will be collected and blessed this very day.  While storms are still raging, we are doing what we can. We have a plan in the works to assemble kits that will be sent by our partner Church World Service to devastated areas to assist people in cleaning up. The need will be great, and this will not end anytime soon.

But I have also been rather dismayed by the chorus of Christians blaming this on God’s divine retribution and twisting they’re theological understand for some fundraising or political means.  Keep this in mind, people are literally, as we speak, fleeing for their very lives and fine Christian theologians and preachers are telling people this is God’s anger unleashed on them.  Well let me make this clear, that is a load of you know what!

Here are just a couple of examples; One “Pastor” has said that God is systematically destroying America over the homosexual agenda. An on air personality, and devout Christian, when asked about climate change in relation to Harvey said that Houston’s election of a lesbian mayor was a more credible explanation of Harvey than climate change. And just so you don’t think these people are only on the right of the theological spectrum, a Tampa University professor tweeted, during Harvey by the way, that Harvey was God’s punishment on Texas for voting for President Trump. He was fired. By the way, the other two examples I used, they are both still employed.

Now I am not sure where these folks received their theological training, but I was taught that God is love. The pages of the New Testament are filled with stories of love, not destruction. Now I know what you’re thinking, what about the Old Testament there are lots of stories of smiting and what not, sure let’s look at one, the bog one if you will, the story of Noah found in the 9th chapter of the Book of Genesis.  We all know the story, God finds the righteous man Noah, he builds the ark. All the animals come in. The rains come. The earth is flooded. Only Noah’s family and the animals survive.  Now I have some issues with this story but putting that aside for a moment we tend to skip over that last part of that story;

“I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” Genesis 9:11-16

“Never again will I destroy the earth.”  NEVER AGAIN!

That is the 9th chapter of the 1st book of the Bible.  We don’t have to wait long before we hear God say. NEVER AGAIN WILL I DESTROY THEY EARTH! 9th Chapter!

Not enough evidence? Let’s look at a few more.

“For this is like the days of Noah to Me, When I swore that the waters of Noah Would not flood the earth again; So I have sworn that I will not be angry with you Nor will I rebuke you. Isaiah 54:9

But He, being compassionate, forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them; And often He restrained His anger And did not arouse all His wrath. Psalm 78:38

I will not execute My fierce anger; I will not destroy Ephraim again For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, And I will not come in wrath. Hosea 11:9

Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last because in them the wrath of God is finished. Revelation 15:1

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. John 3:16

God sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world, and he watched him die.  He could have smited the lot of us, but he did not, he sent his own Son to show us the way and even after we killed him he continues to show us, love.

Our human minds want to find answers to questions about why things happen, and sometimes there is no explanation, and sometimes things happen because of the choices that we or others make. If we put this all on God reduces God to the human condition, and when we do that, God stops being God!

If we think that God punishes us then logically, we have to believe that God is the source of that punishment which is evil and therefore God is the source of evil. But if we read the Bible we see that God is love. If God wanted us to suffer if God inflicted suffering on us, why would he have sent us his son?

Suffering is part of the human condition but it is not God’s divine retribution and to say that is it is to deny that God is love and to say that God participates in evil.

So where is God in all of this? God is right in the midst of it. God is the one in the boat that comes and rescues people. God is in the science that can predict these things to give people warnings to get out. God is with you when you place your hard earned money into the offering plate to assist others. God is in the midst of the suffering bringing us peace and bringing us strength. I have no idea who the God of Pat Robertson is or the God of Jim Baker, but my God sent his Son not to destroy but to love, and that is the example he has left for us.

There are words, everyday words, whose meaning has changed over time and sacrifice is just one of those words. In the opening verse of the passage we heard read to us today, Paul urges us to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice.”  The way we approach this passage today is much different than the way those who were listening to this being read to them shortly after it was written by Paul.

Most of us, sitting here today, have no point of reference for presenting a dead sacrifice to God. Sacrificing animals by way of atonement for sin or as a gift of thanksgiving is so removed from our experience that we have to redefine this term for our present understanding.

When we think of this word, sacrifice, we often come up with negatives in our minds. Parents of athletes often sacrifice time and treasure for their children. Employees are sometimes asked to sacrifice benefits when their company falls on hard times. A heroic soldier sacrifices his or her life for their comrades. Of course, this last example is one of the few times, sacrifice, is used involving the physical body and in this case, can mean death or severe injury.

But Paul calls on us to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice.” For Paul, this does not indicate that we are to “take up our cross” in the manner that we will have to die physically in the course of our discipleship, but he also does not rule it out. What Paul is doing is trying body, and living sacrifice to discerning and living into the will of God. Connecting the body in the way Paul has done pushes us past an emotional or intellectual response to “serving God” and causes us to look at the implications for our very bodies when we live out our discipleship to God.

Paul indicates that this may mean we need to do things that will put us outside the norms of behavior for our society, wrapping our minds around what we do day to day in our lives that express God’s will.

The passage goes on to spell out some of those of those expressions. We are called, each according to our gifts, to use our bodies as prophets, ministers, teachers, exhorters, givers, leaders, and in acts of cheerful compassion. In verse 3 Paul paints a picture for us that the world does not revolve around us as individuals. “It is not about you.” Paul seems to be saying, “and that includes your body.”

We are all about our individual rights. They are spelled out for us in our founding documents, free speech, freedom of religion, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, etc. All of these freedoms, essential freedoms, involve me, my freedom, not yours, but mine. The world spends a tremendous amount of time telling us how we should live, projects unhealthy body images on young men and women. The world says we have to do whatever we can to get to the top to get the big car, the big house, the 2.5 kids, etc. all the while it is telling us not to care about the person next to us. We are walled off in our cubicles, we sit on the train or the bus with ear buds in our ears, and before the older generation gets all self-righteous, we used to do it with books and newspapers.

So individualistic has the world become that we have no issues with how others are treated as long as we get to do what we want when we want to do it, and how we want to do it.

Friday night I officiated at a wedding of a young couple. They have their whole lives before them. The place was picture perfect, right on the water, the sun was setting behind them, the dress, the tuxedos, the food, the drink, everything had been planned down to the minute.  When I told them that marriage was a sacrifice, I used the word martyrdom, and they looked at me a little surprised. I reminded them that in marriage we no longer live for “I, ” but we live for “we.” We do not lose who we are as individuals but now rather than one person; we are two. Sure, we still have and do the things we like, but tiny sacrifices are made each day, and in an authentic sense we become martyrs for each other, we lay aside what I want for what we want.

The same happens in a community such as church. We, as a community, are on the threshold of a new generation, a reformation if you will. We are in transition and, with the help of God; we have to determine what the direction is that we will take. We have to conform our church body to the will of God, and that means that it is not about what I want, it is about what we want.

All of us have gifts to be used for the building up of the kingdom.  Paul reminds us that we are all part of one body and that if that body is going to function properly, then all of the parts have to work together. Each part of the body works, not to being glory to itself or to meet only its needs, but to ensure the healthy functioning of the whole system. Each of our gifts is be used for the common interest.

A healthy community is a community that can speak openly and honestly about issues that the community has without fear of one another or bullies, and yes, there are church bullies.  A healthy community exists where each person, and their opinion, is valued on equal footing. A healthy community is where one does not need to submit anonymous suggestions in a wooden box, but can speak openly with the leadership of the community and talk about their concerns and their desires.  Discernment comes in many forms, and if we believe that God is still speaking and leading, then we have to listen to every voice because we never know what voice God is going to use. I will remind you that God does not call the equipped, he equips those he calls.

Paul’s instruction to us to not think of ones self-more highly than another ought to help foster an atmosphere where communities may work together harmoniously and productively.

But the opposite may also be true, just as there are those who like to think too highly of themselves there are those of us who might think that their skills and not “good enough” to contribute to the working of the community. Paul’s metaphor challenges us to consider that everyone – every member of the body of Christ in the church – has a gift to contribute to the functioning of that body.

Discernment can be scary, stepping out can be scary, but we do so with faith, and we do so with the knowledge that if we are following the will of God, all will be right and the mission will succeed.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, whose compassion embraces everyone, gather the outcast and the lost, heal the wounds of fear and distrust, and make us a community of reconciliation that we may embody your merciful love and rejoice in your astounding grace in Jesus Christ. Amen.