Sermon

Jesus' disciples tried to talk him out of going to Jerusalem to be crucified, he used despised Samaritans and tax collectors as examples of how we are to live, the Prodigal Son's father welcomed the wayward son back, washed his disciples' feet, teaches that there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than 99 people who do not need repentance, and in this passage he prioritizes children above the adults.

Do any of those things make sense according to the world's values? To yours?

Truthfully, I probably would have been right alongside Jesus' disciples shooing the children away from Jesus. Jesus would have been surrounded by people who needed what only he could do, as well as those who came to hear him teach. The children would only get in the way, I would think.

Instead, shocking human values and ideas, Jesus calls for the children and tells his disciples to let them come. In fact, he tells them, that it is for people like these children that the kingdom of God belongs.

But, what should shock us to our core, if we truly consider what it means, Jesus says, "Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

Over and over, Jesus reveals God's heart and purposes as being surprisingly different than our own - the surprise is often the value God places on outsiders and people we often look down on.

Some examples from recent sermons from the Gospel of Luke:

• More rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that repents than 99 people who do not need repentance - Luke 15
• The welcome the prodigal son receives from his father upon his return - Luke 15
• "What is prized by humans is an abomination in the sight of God" - Luke 16:14
• A Samaritan leper is the only one out of ten that Jesus healed that praises God and returns to thank Jesus - Luke 17:11-19

In Sunday's Gospel reading, Jesus tells a parable about a Pharisee and tax collector who go up to the temple to pray. That Pharisee boasts in prayer that he is not like all the other sinners and that he is devout. The tax collector, distancing himself from others in shame, prays, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!"

One is a person who does and says all the "right" things and the other is a notorious sinner.

Unexpectedly, Jesus reveals that God forgave the brokenhearted tax collector who was guilty of innumerable sins and not the self-righteous Pharisee who does so many right things.

Dictionaries define glad as experiencing pleasure, joy, or delight, and grateful as being appreciative of benefits received. Glad is our experience but gratefulness looks beyond ourselves in appreciation for the source of the joy.

One day Jesus healed 10 lepers. You can bet that all 10 were very glad that they were healed. They had been excluded from family, friends, and public places due to their disfiguring disease. Jesus told them to go to the priests who could certify them as healed, and on the way they were made clean.

Interestingly, while all were assuredly very glad to be healed, only one appeared to be grateful. Upon noticing that they were healed, only one praised God with a loud voice, returned to Jesus, and thanked him. Jesus asked out loud where the other nine were and wondered why only this one, a Samaritan at that, returned to give glory to God.

They were all glad, but only one appreciated the source of his healing.

I've discovered that whenever I take the time to reflect on my circumstances, even amid difficulties, when I consider even the little blessings among troubles, it awakens gratefulness for those blessings, which in turn sheds a little light in dark times, helping me to find my way when I was otherwise lost. When I am grateful for what I have I am more generous with others. When I am grateful that God has forgiven me I find the ability to forgive others.

Being glad feeds us, but when we are grateful we feed others, only to discover that we, ourselves, are additionally blessed.

Jesus tells a parable about a manager who fraudulently deals with people who owe his boss, hoping that they will return the favor when he needs it. While the boss recognizes the short-sighted shrewdness in the manager's plan, Jesus points far beyond earthly wealth. True lasting value is not found in shrewd crooked choices but in God's eternal values and purposes.

As Bob Dillon sang, we gotta serve somebody. We need to choose. Will we serve earthly wealth or eternal treasure?

Heart & Mind Partnership https://www.heartmindpartner.org/

Caleb Ives preached this Sunday bringing this opportunity to life. He is the executive director for Emmaus Ministries which specializes in teaching and preparing people to understand and apply God's Word in their lives.

Emmaus Ministries emmausbibleministries.org

The fullness of Jesus' divinity co-existed with Jesus' humanity, neither overcoming the other.

Familiar Bible verses ought to boggle our minds rather than just glossing over them. For God so loving the world that he gave his only son, the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, and the angel's news of a Savior's birth ought to cause our brain to glitch.

Jesus is a divine dichotomy - fully human and fully God.

It is beyond human expectation and understanding, but there it is. Amazingly, God so loves the world that he gave his only son as an atoning sacrifice to do something every bit as amazing. Rather than condemning us, he saves us through the gift of his son.

Her pregnancy disrupted her betrothal to Joseph. Her pregnancy made her undesirable to other potential husbands. We can only imagine the gossip surrounding her circumstances. The other women likely treated her differently than before. She was once highly respected, but now people spoke ill of her.

Mary found herself amid very unexpected circumstances, in a situation she did not choose or create.

Even though she knew and believed from her angelic visitation, that the child she carried would be called the Son of God, others did not. But she knew something that the others didn't.

Her cousin Elizabeth, upon seeing Mary, cries out, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb."

Upon hearing this support from her cousin, Mary proclaims the difficulties that she faces as nothing in comparison to what God is doing.

What Mary never expected resulted in her greatest joy, but also joy to the world.

As children, we sometimes threw what we thought were well-deserved tantrums when we didn't get our way. We were sometimes very afraid of imagined problems, like monsters hiding in the closet. As we grew older we began to discover that we could live without that toy we wanted and that there were no monsters in the closet. Instead, we face health issues, relationship problems, loss of loved ones, financial struggles, people let us down, and many more problems.

Some of the storms in our lives are all in our imagination, some are very real, and some we make worse ourselves. Just this week, I found a storm raging inside me as I dealt with two different customer service issues for the church. My frustration grew as customer service people agreed with what needed to be done but were unable to do it or were obviously not reading the problem ticket I filed. By the time I gave up on these two issues Friday evening, I was exhausted.