{"id":439,"date":"2019-09-15T13:19:02","date_gmt":"2019-09-15T13:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=439"},"modified":"2019-09-15T23:21:27","modified_gmt":"2019-09-15T23:21:27","slug":"fourteenth-sunday-after-pentecost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2019\/09\/15\/fourteenth-sunday-after-pentecost\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Exodus 32:7-14, Luke 15:1-10<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace to you and peace\nfrom God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All\nof our readings today speak of sin, a breakdown of the relationship between God\nand humanity, they also speak of God\u2019s anger and God\u2019s mercy and the distance\nthat God, that Jesus is willing to travel to restore a lost sheep to the fold. But\nwhat does sin and a need for forgiveness have to do with us? We are good church\ngoing people; we are Christians who worship here in church as often as\npossible; we give generously (as we are able) to the church and its many\nministries; we don\u2019t steal or murder; we don\u2019t worship other gods; we keep the\nCommandments that God has given to us; more than that we love each other, we love\nour neighbors and even those who stand against us. Right? And, if you have any\ndoubts, I can stand up here and tell about all the good things that you have\nbeen doing through the church and some of what you\u2019ve been doing on your own; I\ncan highlight your generosity for PACS and the Good Samaritan Shelter, your\ngenerosity in providing meals to St. Mary\u2019s Shelter and the efforts you\u2019ve\nexerted to help the youth raise money to go to a youth assembly. We\u2019re good\npeople! And I as your pastor, I\u2019ve got to be good, right? I hold to the Commandments;\nI\u2019m always reaching out to those who need comfort and care; I preach almost\nevery Sunday, study and teach about the Bible. How much better can I get? Just don\u2019t\nask my wife. She\u2019ll tell you about how I regularly get myself in trouble with her\nand others? And if I\u2019m so good, why is it that I often feel the need to ask the\nLord for forgiveness? Maybe I\u2019m not so good, maybe we are not so good after\nall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nthis is not about beating everyone over the head about sin. We do not, necessarily,\nwantonly act against God\u2019s will and Commandments. But let\u2019s be real; you and I occasionally\nfind ourselves imagining all kinds of ways that we could break God\u2019s\nCommandments; we even talk about these ways; we even enjoy the idea of maybe breaking\nsome of God\u2019s Commandments. There is a reason why we sometimes cheer for the,\nso called bad guys, in certain movies, especially when they are not hurting\nothers; there is a reason why we are intrigued by men and women who get romantically\ninvolved with people, not their spouses; there is reason why we fantasize about\njoining with vigilantes. And of course, who among us has not made up excuses\nfor such things as, missing church, not helping out where needed and not\nsupporting the church as well as we could. The truth is hard to hear, but we\nneed to face the fact that we are not as good as we might like to believe we\nare. Which means, and this is the important part, we have not fully committed\nourselves to having a serious relationship with Jesus. We are much like the\nmen, women, boys and girls who just want to have a little fun together, feeling\nthat they are not ready for a real committed relationship or are maybe afraid\nto make a commitment to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus\ngives to us everything that he has, even his life; his commitment to us is\ntrue; he loves us and forgives us liberally, waiting for a return of love from\nus, waiting to see if we will follow the Commandments and expectations had for\nus, waiting and waiting and waiting. And, not without, a great deal of\nfrustration, even anger. God was ready to be done with Israel in the\nwilderness, when they turned to other gods and crediting those other gods with\nfreeing them from Egypt. Can you imagine? But God relented of his anger and God\nremained faithful to an unfaithful people. Jesus was a bit put off by the\ncomplaints of the Pharisees and the Scribes, as he described how a shepherd\nmight seek out a lost sheep and return it to the fold; he was put off by the\nwillingness of those so called faithful, to abandon those who have sinned or who\nstood outside of their circle. Put off, but Jesus did not abandon them and he\ndid not condemn them to be punished. That is the message here for us today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nfact, not only does Jesus remain committed to love and forgive us, his parables\nmake it very clear that he is willing to take the first step to heal the\nrelationship between us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every\ntime in my life, when I wandered away from the fold, the Lord came to get me,\nor sent his angels and messengers to lead me back, in spite of the many times I\nsent them away. Eventually I recognized my need for Jesus; eventually I went\nalong with Jesus and his representatives. I don\u2019t want you to miss this one\npoint, Jesus, every time we wander off, seeks us out. Strange, now that I think\nof it, how many times he now sends me out to straying members, to the lost\nsheep of the fold, to invite them to return, to remind them of Jesus\u2019 love for\nthem and to help them know they are missed by their church family. I\u2019m not an\nangel, but I am sent out as Jesus\u2019 messenger. In this I am not alone! There are\noccasions when you too have been sent out and times when you will be asked\nagain to go out and find those who have wandered from the fold. Our Sunday\nSchool leaders have been talking about reaching out to parents and children who\nhave wandered away from church. We all of us know people who have wandered away\nfrom the church; right here and now you are being called upon by Jesus to\ninvite these wandering sheep back to St. Peter\u2019s. You are being called to this\nministry; we are being called! Except for the Lord himself, there is no one\nbetter to do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nit turns out our readings are not so much about our sinfulness, as they are\nabout God\u2019s desire to restore all of us to a good relationship with God, with\nJesus. Going through my head right now, is the voice of my mother, yelling at\nme after I did something wrong and ran away from her, \u201cDon\u2019t make me come up\nthere and get you!\u201d That was a scary prospect! She was the disciplinarian. But\nthat is not Jesus, he lovingly says, \u201cLet me come up there and bring you back\ninto my loving arms, so that I may heal your anger, your fear, your hurt, your\nconfusion, your loneliness, your sinfulness. He comes for us in love (he or his\nmessenger) when we need him and he sends us out to others when they need Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exodus 32:7-14, Luke 15:1-10 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ All of our readings today speak of sin, a breakdown of the relationship between God and humanity, they also speak of God\u2019s anger and God\u2019s mercy and the distance that God, that Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":440,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439\/revisions\/440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}