Be Careful What You Ask For by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

  So, this is how the story goes (Mark 10:17-31 from the Message Translation for those following along on the Web). A rich young man, a good and faithful man, runs up to Jesus one day and asks Jesus, “What can I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus tells him to keep the commandments: “Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat, honor your father and mother.”

    The young man says, “That’s easy, I’ve been doing that all my life.”  You see that was the young man’s big mistake. He should have stopped right there. There were Ten Commandments in his day, ten laws that were clear cut – follow the law and you are in good shape with God.

    But for some reason, that young man, knew, in his heart, it was not good enough. I think he had been hanging around with Jesus too much. I think that man had a sense that there was more to this Jesus story than just following some strict moral laws. It’s obvious, isn’t it, that you should not take what is not yours, neither property, nor the life of another human being nor the wife of another man.

    But you see, this young many had everything. He was wealthy. He had a big house, lots of servants, and land; a fleet of camels, and herds of goats and cattle. All the food he could eat and plenty to waste. And yet, he had a sense that he might not have eternal life, so when he had a chance to ask Jesus, he did. He could have just gone along, minding his own business, trusting that following those commandments was enough. Instead, he had to ask: “What more can I do?”

    BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU ASK JESUS A QUESTION. BECAUSE YOU MIGHT JUST GET AN ANSWER.  Anybody out there ever had that happen?

    You see, I think the young man KNEW. He knew that there was more to this life of following Jesus than just following some moral laws. He knew that it was more than what you do not do. You do NOT STEAL, you do NOT MURDER, you do NOT COVET.  It’s about what you DO.

    Jesus said, “Alright, then, if you really want to take this to the next level, I will tell you how to do it. I will tell you how to live in the presence of God not just in this world, but for all eternity, SELL everything you have, and GIVE IT TO THE POOR. Then  come and follow me.  BAM!

    Don’t you just imagine that wealthy young man wished that he could take his question back?  It’s like one of those elaborate domino set ups   And once you start it, you wish you could stop, because you realize that you really did not mean to start it. You wanted to add one more piece. Or you meant to get your video camera. Or you accidentally bump it, when you are almost set up, but not quite done and then you have to start over.

    I think that’s how the rich young ruler must have felt when he asked that question. Darn it! I was feeling pretty good about myself and my life.   Don’t you think he wanted to just suck that question right back into his mouth. I am following all the commandments. And I have a good life.

    Why did I have to mess this all up by asking Jesus: “What more must I do to have eternal life?  BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR! BECAUSE IF YOU ASK JESUS A QUESTION, HE MAY JUST GIVE YOU AN ANSWER, AND then you have to decide whether or not YOU ARE GOING TO LISTEN TO HIM.

    From the story we are not so sure about the young man. Because you see, Jesus tells him:
“There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me.”
22 The man’s face clouded over. This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he walked off with a heavy heart. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go.
He went on to tell his disciples:
27 Jesus was blunt: “No chance at all if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you let God do it.”

    There Jesus goes again, telling us, we can do anything, if we just trust God.  We can do anything with God. But the young man in the story went away really sad, because he had built up a personal storehouse of plenty of material wealth. He did not want to let go of his physical treasure. He felt that those things gave him pleasure and security. He could not imagine that greater pleasure and security could come from letting go of all that stuff, helping people who were homeless and hungry, and putting his trust in God and God alone for his security.   We couldn’t map his mind around that.

    We’re told that the early Christians, in the book of Acts, held all of their property in common. They sold what they had, and put everything together and lived in community. They gave money to buy food for those in their communities who were poor.

    In our own day, a few radical Christians try such experiments, for awhile. It’s usually young adults, idealistic, who don’t have much to share anyway, who try these experiments for awhile. It rarely lasts long. They have kids. Life gets complicated. And they give up.

    Selling all we have, to give to the poor, and holding all our wealth in common, as Jesus challenged the young man to do, does not really seem practical.  Of course, I’m betting it did not seem practical to the young man on that day either. And yet Jesus absolutely dared to ask him to do it.

    Why?  Because it challenged him to let go of ownership of his stuff, and to put his trust in God.

    You see, when we say we want to follow Jesus, then he challenges us to remember that the whole earth belongs to God. It is a gift that God shares with us. None of it belongs to us.

    I am not being philosophical. I am dead serious.  This Earth does not belong to us. God is the creator. God breathes life into each one of us. Everything we have, is a gift from God. We didn’t earn it. And it can be taken away from us at any moment.  We know that, we’ve seen it happen.

    We are stewards. It’s a religious word.  Being a steward means that we work for God. God allows us to take care of this earth, but it belongs to God.   God gave it to us to take care of.

    That’s why Jesus could say to that young man, “So, you want to follow me? Well then, trust me. Give away everything and really follow me.”  Anyone wish they had stayed in bed today?

    So what does this story mean for us?  Well if we take it literally, we could sell everything we have, and give our wealth to the poor and then we could live and work alongside the poor to work for more just systems in our world. A few Christians in our day are called to do that, and I commend them for living out their calling.  And there are people among us doing that.  I admire people who have that calling.  But it’s a tiny fraction of our Christian Community. 

    For the rest of us, we take baby steps, and maybe some grown up steps, to simplify our own lives so that we can share our wealth with others who have less. We try to see the connections between our own actions and how they affect the rest of the world.  In this way, we follow Jesus, and change the world.

    Let me give you a few examples. When I was a senior in college I became a vegetarian. One, I don’t really like the idea of eating animals. A second reason is that I read about how animals are treated. But a third is that I learned about the food chain, and that if we all eat lower on the food chain there would be more food available for starving people in the world. Now, yes, I know that hunger is more about politics than about availability of food, but I also learned that they are cutting down rain forests in South America in order to produce enough beef for our Big Macs. It takes much more of the earth’s energy to produce a pound of beef than a pound of vegetable matter. So, I decided, not to eat meat. At the time, a skeptical friend said to me, “Do you really think your decision is going to change the world?”  Like one person not eating beef is going to stop the destruction of the rain forrest.

    Well of course I knew I was only one person. But that was 27 years ago. And I am guessing I am not the only person who became a vegetarian in those years. So I think the savings do add up.

    And now a movement has started called Meatless Mondays. Have you heard of it? You can read about it as Meatlessmondays.com. Sure enough we can change the world and save our planet by eating vegetarian one day a week. Besides the numerous health advantages to eating vegetarian, we can all reduce our carbon footprint by skipping meat one day a week. You see, “40 calories of fossil fuel energy go into every calorie of feed lot beef in the U.S. Compare this to the 2.2 calories of fossil fuel energy needed to produce one calorie of plant-based protein. Moderating meat consumption is a great way to cut fossil fuel demand.”(source: http://www.meatlessmonday.com/why-meatless/).

    It also takes more water to produce to produce beef than it does to produce vegetable matter, so it cuts down on water usage to eat vegetarian for even one day a week. We are better stewards of this Earth for all the inhabitants, by eating lower on the food chain, even one day a week.

   But there are also many people who do not have access to healthy fresh produce. That’s why urban gardens are so important. The Seagate Foodbank has one of those gardens. Yesterday, we went to work there. We thought we were going to go box up lots of those boxes of food for seniors like we usually do, but when we got there, they told us they needed help in their garden. So we helped them cut down their pepper plants at the end of the season and harvest the last of their harvest.

     In two hours work we harvested 120 pounds of peppers. They will take these out in their traveling fresh market on Monday and Wednesday. They go out to neighborhoods where senior citizens live and other low income people live, who cannot get out to the farmer’s market downtown. And they will give away lots of fresh produce to people who cannot afford to buy it.

    There are lots of these community gardens around town that need volunteers to keep them going. One of the baby steps could be that we could get more involved with them next Spring and Summer. Giving our precious time to help hungry people get healthy food is another way to live out the call of Jesus to give away what we have in order to follow him. 

    What else can we do? Kurt and I have worked to increase our giving to our church every year since we got married. And we are now giving at least 10% of our family income. It took us awhile to get there, and we have made some sacrifices. It was not easy, but it is an important value for us. We defer spending on some things so we can do this. If you drive by our house you can see that it still needs painting. I mentioned that last year.  We defer spending on some things, but don’t defer giving to the church and charity.  Becca and I buy lots of our clothes at Savers. (We kinda think that is fun.) But we will not cut our giving to this ministry because it is too important.

    Christmas is coming soon. The Lead Team is meeting next week and we will be firming up plans for our Village Christmas offering. If you are new to The Village get ready for some fun. We do Christmas big. That is, we don’t just set up a mitten tree and ask you to buy a toy for a child in need. We ask you to be sacrificial in your giving. Because you see, Christmas is Jesus’ birthday, not ours.  We like to honor Jesus on Jesus’ birthday.

     So whatever we do for ourselves, we ask you to equal it in your giving to Jesus. We want to honor Jesus in our celebration of his birth. So we will take up an offering for Jesus’ birthday to help some of Jesus’ most vulnerable children and we will ask you to give generously. There are undoubtedly people on your Christmas list who don’t NEED anything, and so we will give you a chance to give to our Christmas offering in their name and honor Jesus with a meaningful gift for their Christmas gift this year. A meaningful gift rather than another sweater. Stay tuned.

    All these changes in our lives, big and small, add up: A meatless Monday, giving some time in a community garden so that others can have fresh produce, diverting our own money from something we don’t need and toward our church or another charity. They add up. It is sort of like dominoes. You knock one over and it is no big deal. But when you put a bunch together, the cumulative effect begins to make a difference. Watch this.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu1qMezJRlcHYPERLINK "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu1qMezJRlc&feature=relmfu"HYPERLINK "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu1qMezJRlc&feature=relmfu"feature=relmfu

    So how about you?  If Jesus asked you/challenged you to do something you might do, what might you do? What have you done to change your patterns in order to follow Jesus? Is there something you might challenge us all to do?  In a few weeks, at our anniversary celebration we will be asking you all for ideas beyond what we already are doing to change the world, so some bring us those ideas.  We’re already working for time to time with places and organizations  like the Seagate Food Bank, Food for Thought, Jobs with Justice, Equality Toledo, Second Chance, Sunshine of NWO, AIDS Resource Center of Northwest Ohio and many more.

    If you want to be challenged and be part of a community that challenges other to do something to change the world, find one out there. If you’re near the corner of the Anthony Wayne Trail and Conant Street in Maumee, come check us out.  We are following Jesus and changing the world from this little corner in Northwest Ohio.

RECEIVE GOD LIKE A CHILD by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

    My dad was a United Methodist pastor for a good part of his life. One of his passions was Christian Education. You may not know this about my mother, but her undergraduate degree is actually in Christian Education. When my sisters and I were young my parents were both active in this United Methodist program called Lab Schools where they train Sunday School teachers to be better teachers. Usually they would go to a church or maybe a church camp for a week in the summer and expert teachers like my parents would teach others teachers how to be creative teachers. It was called a Laboratory School because they would use local kids, or the kids of the teachers, like us, as “lab rats.”   My sisters and I got to be the lab rats, which was pretty fun.

    My mom was certified to train teachers of 5th and 6th graders. Lots of the trainers were stay at home moms like her. But my dad, was one of the few pastors, who stood 6’ 2” was trained to teach the teachers of 3 and 4 year olds. He was one of the only certified lab teachers in the whole country for that age group who was a man. We often got to travel across the country to help teach others how to do this.

    My Dad loved the wonder of little children. I can still remember his smile at showing me a real glass prism on the nature table. At one camp location, Camp Junaluska there was a white picket fence outside the kids’ room and he let them paint with real painter’s paint brushes and water. And here’s the thing: when you do fun stuff like that with kids, and then you tell them stories about Jesus and how much Jesus loves them. Guess what? They listen!

     It’s not that complicated when you are 3 or 4. You go to Sunday School, and a kind teacher let’s you do fun stuff, and tells you a story about Jesus, and tells you that God loves you. You experience kindness, and you get to be creative, and you learn that God is kind and creative and made you creative and kind, and that message can stick with you for the rest of your life!

    Well, I know it gets a little more complicated when we get older. Life throws us some curve balls.  Sadly God even throws some curveballs to three and four year olds.  You come to me and you say: “How can I trust God?” “I don’t feel God’s presence.” “There are some things in the Bible that just I just don’t understand.”

    Jesus had some advice for us when we feel like this. He says this just go and “Hang out with some children. BE LIKE children. THEY are the ones, in their simple joy, who get it.”

    Jesus said: “These children are at the center of life in the kingdom.” He said “kingdom” but we are going to use the word kindom today. Kingdom implies that God is a king and we are his subjects. It’s a very hierarchical understanding of the world that was present when the Bible was written and describes a vertical relationship. Kin-dom is a new word Christians are using that refers to a more horizontal relationship between “kin.” We are all “kin” as part of the family of God.

    So back to what Jesus said. “Children are at the center of the kindom.” Isn’t that funny?  We are supposed to put them at the CENTER of this life we have together.

    Now, I can tell you there is not a church around that does not want have children in their church. Everyone knows that children are one of the signs of a church that is alive. They keep us alive. Many of you have happy memories of being in a church family. What are some of those memories? Travis told us a story of music in church.  Tanner remembered playing in Sunday School.  Betty told us of Aunty Jenny using an old (8 decades ago) slide projector.  Jinny told us of her confirmation class being the first where afterward the girls got to light the candles up front.     For many the thought of being in the Christmas play was one of the best experiences.  Or was it running around the building after church and exploring the hiding places in the building For many, there were people who cared about you; I remember Mr. Whitaker who gave me a nutcracker as a present; and who would buy girl scout cookies from me. I remember when I was about to move, my SS class gave me a little surprise going away party.

I remember getting a Bible when I was in the 3rd grade; we are making plans to give bible to our kids here in a few weeks.

    Jesus said, “Don’t push these children away. Don’t ever get between them and me. These children are at the very center of life in the kindom.” The presence of God on Earth was centered on these kids.

    Well Jesus did not have a degree in child development. But he knew that who we are going to be as adults gets formed when we are children. And so children need to be close to God. We need to expose them to the ways of Jesus. We need to encourage them to be passionate, compassionate and forgiving. We need to help them practice doing justice and being people who serve. We need to help them experience what it means to seek not to be first, but to put themselves last. Remember this? The last shall be first and the first shall be last. Children can learn to be generous. When we start practicing the ways of Jesus as children, then we will walk in these ways as adults. It comes naturally.

    So, first, Jesus said they need to be at the CENTER of the life of the kindom. But then he said something really interesting to the adults. He said, “Unless you accept God’s kindom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.” Unless you accept the kindom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.

    We adults need to be like children!  That is really fascinating. You see, it would be our inclination to think that as adults, we need to be mature. We need to study. We need to have deeper understandings of the more complex issues of life. We need to ask the hard questions and work to grow into a mature faith.

    But Jesus says, “Nope! You need to accept God’s kindom with the simplicity of a child. Otherwise, you are lost.”  All hope is lost.  Why would Jesus say this?

    First of all, let me say that I don’t think it’s because he does not want us to study and ask questions. I believe he does want us to grow in our faith.  I believe his point is this: in the end, joyful faith is simple. And we must never forget that. And if it begins to get too complicated, we need to remember what life was like when we were children.

    You see, when I give my young child a big hug and tell him God loves you and I love you too, it is not complicated and he believes me. That is all there is to it. There are no questions. There is no uncertainty.  That’s the kind of assurance God wants us to feel.  There is just gratitude and comfort. Love is a gift. There is certainty in that love. It is unconditional. (He does not question, like an adult, whether or not this love you will stay or go.)

    When a young child sees beauty in the world and she embraces that beauty; there is simply wonder and joy. A child looks at a big blue sky with puffy clouds. Or a child looks at huge trees with leaves that have bright orange, red, and yellow colors. She asks what makes them that color and you say God makes them that color to give us a gift. She smiles, gathers a bunch of them and makes a bouquet. (She does not complain, like an adult, that here comes another fall, and that means we have to rake those blasted leaves!).  She’ll figure out in science class what makes them change colors.

    When Jesus says, “Unless you accept God’s kindom with the simplicity of a child” I think he was also imploring us, to live life a little like children – to relax – to live with wonder – and joy.  God’s kindom is here on earth. We make that kindom here on earth when we choose to live as God’s people more consciously in our daily lives.   I wonder, Do you allow yourself to stop, and wonder, like a child?

    As adults, who are always on a time clock, it is hard for us to stop and pay attention to beauty in our world. Children can help us do this, because they have no need of clocks. When you are with a child, and they want to stop and look at something interesting or beautiful, can you let their sense of wonder be your invitation to STOP! Remember this scripture to “accept God’s kindom with the simplicity of a child” and STOP to see something beautiful or interesting.

    You know how children are, don’t you. They will call you to come outside because they are building something out of leaves, sticks and mud. We’ll say we are too busy, and we think it is the craziest thing ever. We certainly had more important things to do with my time. Like post on facebook, or fold socks, or watch the home shopping network. Maybe we are working at home and we really need to work. (Big sigh.) Sometimes we say we just do not have time to go see their creations, but sometimes, we give in to the fun, and just watch their joy at whatever thing they have created. When I follow my child outside for a few minutes, I realize how thankful I am that they can’t watch TV all the time and you can’t even do homework all the time.

    It is still in their DNA to go outside and wonder at the beauty of God’s creation. And even though our children have become victims of our overly technological world it is still in their nature to love to go outside now and then and love God’s creation. And they will coax us out there if we will let them. Sometimes, when just need to receive God, and God’s creation as a little child.

    Another gift that children give us is the ability to laugh. When we went on our Confirmation Retreat to Cleveland this summer, those kids learned much about the United Methodist and United Church of Christ and they worked really hard. They sat and listened intently to quite a few people talk about various ministries of our churches. Then at night we went out to dinner and they laughed about the stupidest stuff ever. They reminded me of why young people are so important: because they can laugh about anything.  They can also demolish one desert in about thirty seconds.

    I was just at a music workshop yesterday with my friend Mark Miller who is a nationally respected church musician. He just happened to come to the Toledo area and Travis, Kristen and I went to his workshop. He said something that I believe. He said we have to be able to laugh and have some fun as a part of worship. “Playfulness is important when you are preparing the music for worship.” He loves to play a song and then work in the tune of another song in at the end just to get a laugh. He did it all the time on Saturday. He worked in Adele, or a song from Glee, and all kinds of show tunes to the hymns and other religious songs we were doing. It gave us a laugh. Why? Because playfulness is part of our human experience. It lightens our hearts. God appreciate laughter because God appreciates laughter like children.

    Nobody knows more about play than children. Their work is play. They play all the time. Jesus said, “Don’t separate me from the children because they are at the center of the kindom of God.” It only follows then, that a sense of playfulness would also be at the center of God’s kindom.

    My friend Paul is an expert in church development and planting .  He says the best churches have a sense of laughter and playfulness.  I’m glad we have that at the Village.

    So, what about you? What can a child show you about how you can grow closer to God? Is there something simple that you are missing? Is there some simple act of faith, or truth, that a child would accept, but has you perplexed?

    My friends, sometimes we just make this all too complicated. Once a young student of the great theologian Karl Barth, who I had to read in seminary, asked if he could sum up what was most important about his life’s work and theology in just a few words. Barth just thought for a moment and then smiled, “Yes, in the words of a song my mother used to sing me, ‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.’”

    The great Karl Barth got the message. Jesus loves us. Don’t let it get complicated. Remember that God loves you, and you will always live in God’s kindom. Amen.

Message: Fan the Good Flames by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

   I don’t like to use political stories, but I’m going to use it one more time.  Because, we live in a swing state.  Did you know that?  I hear tell from some of my friends who do not live in a swing state, that the Presidential candidates are not visiting their towns every few weeks like they are visiting NW Ohio. I also hear tell that some media markets are not getting nearly as many political ads as we are getting. Hmm! I had no idea.

    Some of us wish that once we vote early next week, that somehow that would cause the TV ads to disappear from our TV’s. Wouldn’t that be nice? Lots of people tell me that the especially hate the negative ads where one candidate tells us the bad things about the other candidate. We wonder, why do they all have to use negative campaigning?  Why can’t you be positive and get elected in this country?

    Now, my husband happens to be trained in campaign management. And he will tell you that the reason the candidates use negative ads, is because they work. It is sad but true (the husband agrees, but we can change the world).

    I wish, I wish I had the ability to snap my fingers and change human nature.  I wish I could make the whole world more prone to focus on positive rather than the negative.   The fact is that they use those negative ads because they do work.   I wish I could make us focus on that positive.

    And you know, when I think about it I believe that is one of the main messages that Jesus came here to give us. He came to tell us, to quit focusing so much on being critical of one another, think about it.   He came to tell us to do good with humility, and to trust that God will notice and God will join us in fanning the flames of what is good, and God will multiply our good works. God wants to multiply the goodness.

    You see this is my personal metaphor for ministry. When I see someone doing something positive in their life, doing something good.   I love to fan those flames. If you have ever built a fire, out camping, or maybe in a fire place, you know that there can come a time when the fire begins to die out. Maybe there are just a few embers left. This is like a time in our lives, when we are discouraged. We need some direction. We are beaten down, or just worn out.

    But something happens. Something triggers just a little flame. I don’t really know the science of fire, but I think some oxygen mixes with the heat and a flame ignites (science geek husband  - Oxygen + Heat + Fuel). I do know that if you fan those flames the fire can get bigger. If you add more fuel to the fire, some nice dry wood, and more oxygen then the fire can grow from those tiny embers to a blazing fire again. I love to fan the flames in your lives. That is my calling in life as a pastor, to fan those flames.

    Well, Jesus had a conversation with his disciples once and he was telling them that their job was to fan the flames of anyone who wanted to be part of this movement. That was part of being a disciple.  They were to look for that little spark that might ignite into a passionate Jesus follower.

    But you see, his disciples were human beings, like us. They were imperfect people, so they did not always get it right.  Any imperfect people out there?

    In the first part of scripture that we read to you today (Mark 9:33-42 for those following along at home) there was this little scene.  Jesus catches his disciples having a conversation about who was the greatest.   Are you kidding me?  It was all about status. All about competition. Sound familiar? You see they lost track of the goal to help encourage lots of passionate disciples. He had to remind them of what is important. It is not about being the most important disciple. It’s not about putting one person down, so that you can feel superior. Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

    You don’t get ahead in this world by doing good and then bragging about what a great Christian you are -- putting yourself above others. And you sure don’t please God by speaking badly about your opponent. We please God by being humble, and being the best follower of Jesus that we can be.

    So then we come to the heart of today’s story. The disciples say: “Teacher, we saw a man using your name to expel demons and we stopped him because he wasn’t in our group.”  I bet they wanted Jesus to pat them on the back for that.

     That is like us saying, “That church does not deserve to be a church because they don’t do things the way we do things.” Ouch! That sounds familiar,
doesn’t it? Sometimes we can get a little high and mighty around here. Because we really do think The Village is better than most other churches. We are proud of our church. We think we’re the best church.
    Listen to what Jesus says to that kind of thinking: “Don’t stop him. No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath cut me down. If he’s not an enemy, he’s an ally. Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side. Count on it that God will notice.”

    So, if someone is trying their best to do something good, they are a friend of Jesus, and they are a friend to us.  We are on the same side and we need to fan their flames. They may be a bit awkward in how they do it. They may not have a cool band like us. They may not let you bring coffee into their worship space. They have mostly older people. But if they love Jesus, and they are trying to spread compassion in the world, then they are with us. We need to remember that. It is not our place to judge them.

    There may be more churches out there that are with us than we think.  Yes, I know some of us have been hurt by the judgment of some well-meaning church folk. I am not trying to diminish that. But let’s not let the hurtful actions of some, cause us to cut ourselves off from our Brothers & Sisters in Christ.

    Instead let’s be people who focus on the good. Let’s join in, and work WITH those who do good. Let’s do good with humility, because Jesus says that God will notice. And I believe that God will fan the flames alongside of us and multiply the good that will come.

    Jesus said, that when someone is giving even a cup of cold water in his name, then that person is on his side.  Do you know what disappoints me? It disappointments me when I see Christians bickering with one another, when I see us being so critical of one another. It happens from church to church, from denomination to denomination, and it even happens within a local congregation like The Village.

    What!   What did she say? Do we have bickering here at The Village? Yes. For example, when we first opened up we had some differences of opinion about whether or not we should have white or black table cloths out in the hospitality area. And sometimes we have differences of opinion about the music. Some people like a song the band plays and other people don’t! Imagine that. Some people think having a Village kids program is so important that we should pay to have leaders for it, and others wonder why we don’t just keep the kids in here with us and save some money!  I hear tell there are even some people that don’t like every decision the pastor makes! Say it isn’t so! Differences of opinion at The Village!

    These sorts of things are just the sort of things that can split apart a community. You’ve seen them if you’ve been a part of a community for more than a month. That is why this passage of scripture is so important. Think about some of the things I just listed, in light of our scripture for today.  “Jesus, there are some people casting out demons and they are not part of our group.”

    Jesus asked his disciples: Were you just arguing about who is the most important? Jesus’ response was clear: It’s not about us, and who is first and who leads and who decides how we do things. It’s about all of us putting Jesus first, and putting ourselves last. It’s about looking for ways in which the love for God is being acted out in the word, like the action of giving a cup of water for someone who is thirsty.

    Look for an ember of compassion or kindness and then fan those flames. Don’t worry about who got there first, or whether the person did it the way you would have done it.  It doesn’t really matter what color table cloths we have.  If you see Jesus in a person, if you see God’s goodness in a person, then encourage them. If you know someone has claimed to be a follower of Jesus and they are trying, then don’t beat them down with negative energy. Fan those flames!

    We are all in this together. This work of being a Christian community is hard enough. But there are enough negative forces in the world already. We need to pull together.

    The message of Jesus is clear: “If [s he’s] not an enemy, [she’s] an ally.” Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side. Count on it that God will notice. When we do good, with humility, God will notice. God will join us in fanning the good flames and our good works will multiply.

    I’ve invited one of our members of The Village community to come tell her story now. Kelly Phillips is going to tell a story of situation when someone gave her an opportunity to do good. She did; and as she showed compassion, God fanned the flames and the blessings just kept multiplying.  Kelly shared this story with us:

It started when My friend asked me for help. She needed compassion and because of the situation we both shared, of course I gave it to her.  That situation was being the victim of sexual assault.  Because of going through that, I was able to show her compassion, to give her encouragement and be there for her.
Then I saw how strong she was.  Her strength, gave me the opportunity to be strong.  Her courage not only inspired me, but fanned the flames inside of me.  Thanks to that I was able to turn this dark time into something positive and to share that with others.      Kelly did not worry about whether or not she was qualified to help her friend. And she certainly did not judge her friend for what happened to her. She showed compassion. And God blessed them both.   Giving Kelly a new career and way to serve.

    As a result, God created space for Kelly to be strong enough to deal with her own situation and now she has found a calling to work professionally in this career.

    When has God given you an opportunity to fan the flames for good, and how did God help you fan those flames so that the goodness could multiply in that situation?  If you’ve not had a place where the embers of the flames are fanned, find one.  There are many places out there.  One is at the corner of Conant Street & The Anthony Wayne Trail, Sundays at 10:30 AM. 

Take Up Your Cross by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

We had an interesting conversation at the dinner table this week. My son Jamie asked this: “Are you not supposed to talk about religion WITH politics? Or are you not supposed to talk about either one?  I just don’t get it.” We explained that in polite social situations some people think you are better off avoiding talking about religion and politics because they tend to be controversial.   We kind of had a good laugh.

    But with a mom who is a pastor and a dad who is working on a political campaign we NEVER avoid these two subjects. Then the two kids had a little fun wondering what their life would be life if they had two parents who had nothing to do with religion or politics. I think it had something to do with Kurt being a plumber and me having a flower shop.

    We talk about religion and politics at our house a whole lot of the time. Our values drive our passion about both. Which is why today’s scripture is so important to me. You see Jesus tells his disciples that his work is ultimately going to get him into so much trouble with the religious and political authorities and that will lead to his death. The stakes are high.  He asks them if they are really prepared to go with him down that road. You see, today’s scripture is not about the peace and happiness we receive when we decide to follow Jesus, it’s about the sacrifice he demands of us. This thing we call discipleship has two sides.

    It reminds me of a saying we had when I was in seminary. Our job as pastors is this: to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Sometimes you are both the afflicted and the comfortable, aren’t you? And after 22 years in ministry, I have to say that pithy little description of ministry isn’t a bad description. So some weeks my job is to comfort you and some weeks my job is to afflict you. I spend quite a bit of time and energy giving comfort to people during times and seasons of affliction; through sorrow and challenges in life. On the other hand, as a pastor who takes seriously the call to follow Jesus, I find myself often in a position to challenge the comfortable status quo.

    I speak the truth to those with the power, who are usually those who are more comfortable. I also challenge all of us who are blessed to give up what we have and be generous so that those who have less can be comforted. I challenge us to be sacrificial, to live simply so that others may simply live.

    You may remember that last week’s message was on healing. We heard a story about a woman who was bold to ask for healing for her daughter. I asked you to think about what affliction you have. What demon or habit you have that you suffer with, that you want God to take away. We prayed and asked God to release us from our suffering. I asked you to be bold and ask God for help wit this.  Because I believe the God wants to take away our burdens.

    Well then look what happens, just one chapter later (Mark 8:27-38 from The Message for those following along on the internet), Jesus is talking to his disciples and says this: Don’t run from suffering, take up your cross, embrace it.

    Why would he say this? Because when we follow Jesus it is not all sweetness and light, right? There is some sacrifice required. Anyone ready to sneak out the back door yet?  Jesus went to the cross for our sake. And so, if we are in this movement with him, there will be some sacrifice required of us too.

    I believe this is where politics comes in. Now I am not a political scientist, but I believe one definition of politics has to do with who gets what and how they get it and who decides how they get it. (I’m sure my husband will correct me later. And from Kurt, pretty close for a woman who doesn’t have a degree in political science with an emphasis on Campaign and Interest Group Management.  Politics is who gets what, when. )

    Jesus says that when we follow him we have to let him lead and this is his way:
“Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?”

    We know from reading other stories, that Jesus talked a great deal about those who have much, sharing with those who don’t have so much. Some might call that socialism or taxation, I just call it, following Jesus. He says right in this scripture that if we try to get everything we want, we will lose ourselves. Has that ever happened to you.  We will lose our souls. I want to tell you a simple story about some teen agers discovering that.

    I want to take you back in time. I was a young pastor in my first church as a youth minister in Cincinnati. It’s around 1992. I am one of the staff on the West Ohio Conference Youth Ministry trip to New York City. We are taking Juniors and Seniors in high school to visit the General Board of Global Ministries in New York and to visit mission sites in New York so they can see the United Methodist Church in action.

    One morning when we have a break, I take a couple of the girls to a department store shopping. One of them wanted to buy a prom dress. It was really exciting to think that she can go home to small town Ohio with a prom dress from New York City. She tries on a beautiful pink dress. It is perfect for her, and she buys it. She is so happy.

    Later that afternoon we go to Harlem and we work in a soup kitchen. We have to ride on the subway to get there. We get off at the wrong stop and so we have to hike across Harlem to get to the right place.  We got to the church, and we get our instructions. Some of the kids serve food to the people at the tables while other kids work in the kitchen. We look at the faces of the men, women and children who come into this soup kitchen for a meal. They looked tired. The director of the place meets with us and tells us how many hundreds of people they feed each week, and how much money they need to do their work. She tells us how many people they can feed with such a small amount of money because they go to a food bank to get the money. But it is still hard to make ends meet.

    We go back to our hotel. We travel in family groups because it is easier to travel in groups. When we meet back at our hotel, in a meeting room for our debrief session for the night, we find out that one of the groups had to wait in the train station. There was a delay because there was a knife fight in the train station.

    When it comes times to do our evening devotional and sharing, one of the boys stands up and says this:
“I came here this week, with a wad full of money in my pocket.”  And he reaches into his pocket and throws his money on the floor in the center of the room. He says: “I know most of you did too. We came here with money to buy souvenirs and clothes and other stuff. But now that I have seen how some people live, I can’t do it. I can’t keep this money for myself. I want to give my spending money to one of the projects we have visited and I challenge the rest of you to do the same.”

    And one by one I watched as those teen-agers started emptying their pockets and talking about how the week had changed their lives.  They became disciples of Jesus that week. Their lives were transformed. They learned about sacrifice. Most of these kids lived really comfortable lives.  They had NO affliction in their lives. But they saw pain that week in NYC. They saw Jesus, and they will never be the same.

    You see, one day, Jesus asked his disciples, “Do you really know what it means to follow me?”He said, “They are going to kill me. My life is one that ends in suffering and death, but then I will rise. Today, It’s time to choose your path,”  And then he said, “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering, take up your cross, embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self.”

    So how do we follow Jesus? How do we follow?  How do we embrace suffering and go to the cross with Jesus in 2012? I believe we engage in the political process. We are coming up on an election day in November. I am not going to tell you who to vote for. That is not my place as your pastor. But I am going to tell you to be an informed citizen and vote. And I am going tell you to be engaged in the political process.

    Jesus spoke the truth to power, he spoke the truth to the Government. It got him into trouble. He did it anyway. He would have broken all those rules of polite conversation about not discussing religion and politics for fear of offending someone. Why would we not talk about those things that are most important to us?  I don’t get that. The end of this scripture is the best part:
38 “If any of you are embarrassed over me and the way I’m leading you when you get around your fickle and unfocused friends, know that you’ll be an even greater embarrassment to the Son of Man when he arrives in all the splendor of God, his Father, with an army of the holy angels.”
Well, if you put it that way.

    I believe God would want us to choose our candidates and then work for them. If your candidate is working for your values give hope to the oppressed, to feed the hungry and give a voice to the voiceless, then why would we not shout from the rooftops, instead of not making waves?

    There are other ways to sacrifice and follow Jesus too. We can direct our resources to help those who are in need. Many of us live pretty comfortable lives compared to the rest of the World.; some of us are struggling in this economy compared to the rest of America . Jesus challenges us to share our resources of time and money to help those who are afflicted with poverty. Next Sunday we are taking an offering to help the Seagate Foodbank. There are hungry people right here in Toledo who need our help. Yes, it demands sacrifice on our part. Toledo Area Ministries is asking every member of every congregation to give $1 to this offering. I am asking you to sacrifice and give more.

    We can do this.  The Seagate Food Bank needs that money.  There are hungry people that need that food here in Toledo.  There are people here at the Village who are getting that food.  And we’re going to help with this.

    Perhaps you are hearing God calling you to do something new in your life to serve in a way that is sacrificial. If so, I encourage you to pay attention to that voice speaking to you. It probably will not go away. It will get stronger. I would be happy to meet with you to talk more about it.  Pay attention to that voice if you are hearing it.

    Jesus’ question is clear. Are we really ready to follow him and do we really understand what that means? This is not an easy road. It means other people may think we have made a wrong choice. Following Jesus means sacrifice of some personal comfort so that others will have what they need. Other people have made sacrifices in their lives to get you where you are.  It’s not easy.  But let’s do it anyway. Because we know, in our hearts, it’s the choice we want to make.

Be Bold in Your Asking by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

    I watched some of the political convention that was on television this week (so did Kurt this week, he took the picture that is with this post). Now as a church, we are not supposed to be partisan. I respect whichever political party you may be a part of. We are not going to go there today. But I was struck by the pictures of the crowds this week. The diversity of humanity was amazing. If you watched the convention, did you notice that? There were people of all ages and races. It was the salad bowl of America’s citizens. And the speeches were all about how folks care about bringing everyone one along, until everyone has certain basic things like housing, jobs, education and healthcare. We won’t be satisfied until everyone has those basic needs met. The message, as I heard it, seemed to encapsulate the best of Jesus’ theology. The beloved community of God is a community where everyone receives blessings and everyone is cared for.

    Well, in today’s scripture, we find a fascinating story, where a bold woman actually stands up to Jesus. She pushes him on the question of whether or not God’s blessings are for everyone. This encounter comes a bit early in Jesus’ ministry. Maybe he was still growing in his understanding of the fullness of God’s grace and love for everyone.

    Here is how the story goes. Jesus has traveled to a part of the country that is pretty far from Galilee where he lives. We think he is trying to get away for a break. He goes to Tyre. He goes into a house where he thinks he won’t be found, he wants to get some rest. This is an area where it’s mostly Gentiles, not Jews.  The Jews consider the Gentiles unclean.  The Jews are his people. The Gentiles are everyone else. The Jews don’t associate with Gentiles. They are “unclean.” Jesus thinks he can relax and lay low here, but word of his healing power has spread farther than he thought.

    There is this woman, a Syrophonecian woman, born in the Phonician part of Syria. She was a Greek and a Gentile. Her daughter has some kind of demon or affliction and she comes to Jesus and she begs, she begs Jesus to heal her daughter.

    Jesus is downright rude in his response. This is the first time we ever hear Jesus refuse someone who asks for healing. And his words are not kind:   "Stand in line and take your turn. The children get fed first. If there's any left over, the dogs get it."  The dogs!  Yep! He calls her a dog.

    Sweet, kind, compassionate Jesus calls a woman with a sick child a dog!  Now, I do not how this woman has the gumption to stand up to Jesus, but she does. She shoots right back at him with this: "Of course, Master. But don't dogs under the table get scraps dropped by the children?"

    She was fast.  I wish I could have a comeback like that. She will not let go.  She is a mother, and she WILL get healing for her child. You have seen the movies right? And heard the stories, about people with sick children who will do anything get help for their children? Sell the house. Walk across hot coals. We will do anything for our children.

    So this woman said to Jesus: “Hey, wait a minute! I thought God’s healing power and transformative love was for everyone?” I’ll take the scraps, I’ll take anything.  It’s as if the woman slapped Jesus in the face and HE GOT IT!

Of course! Of course, everyone is included in God’s family, your child is healed.
Of course, your daughter is healed. “Your daughter is no longer disturbed. The demonic affliction is gone." She went home and found her daughter relaxed on the bed, the torment gone for good.

    I love this story, because it shows the humanity of Jesus. For a minute, even he failed. He forgot that when God says EVERYONE, God means EVERYONE. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even being a “dirty Gentile”.  But when a mother reminded him, Jesus GOT THE MESSAGE. He remembered. And he healed the daughter of the woman.

    Jesus would have looked out on that convention floor this week, at the diversity of humanity and said, “Yes, all those people are my people, and they all need jobs, and health care, and all of their children need the best education possible.” ALL OF THEM. They all need the transformative love that God has to offer. So this is what that scripture has to say to us. We can’t be afraid to be BOLD to ask for what we need. God’s promises are for all of us.

    What do you need? The political parties are talking about big things – and systems – and the way to solve problems at the organizational level. And those things are really important. And here at The Village we care about justice and we work together to make the world better for every person.

    But Jesus also came into the world, to show God’s healing love to individual people. That is what that unnamed woman in the story reminded Jesus with her bold words. Jesus said to her, “One thing at a time, woman. I’m tired. Can’t I take care of the Jews first, and then I will get to the Gentiles.”

    But she did not care about categories of people. She just cared about her daughter who had some kind of affliction; a demon of some sort that controlled her life. She looked him in the eye and said, “Everyone needs God’s healing.”  Everyone individual needs healing. 

    And Jesus knew that of course, she was right. She told him what he already knew. But he was tired. He had had a long day. He wanted to rest. But she reminded him of what he came to this Earth to do. God’s healing power is for everyone.  There is no time to wait.

    So I ask you again: what do you need from God?If you were that woman, and had the chance to walk right up to Jesus and ask him, what would you ask for?

    Because you see, you don’t have to wait. That little girl could not wait. Her mother could not wait. They needed healing that day! That is why the woman was BOLD to ask Jesus.

    What is your affliction? What is your demon? Some of us have negative thought patterns that weigh us down. Some of us have habits or addiction that we just can’t break without God’s help. Some of us are lonely and discouraged, and we can’t get past it. Some of us are grieving and we need to put that behind us and step into a new life.  Some of us have afflictions that are not so obvious, but we still have something in our life we would like God to change.

    We can be bold, like the unnamed woman in today’s story, and Jesus will listen to us. God wants to heal us. God wants us to live free from these weights, these burdens and these afflictions. Do you believe me?  You look a little skeptical. God wants to give us hope. God wants to give us strength to live new lives.

    It may take some time, but when we give our afflictions over to God, the weight can be lifted from our lives. We can live in the freedom that comes from knowing that God loves each one of us, and heal us, not just some of us – ALL OF US.

    I want you to respond to this message with a ritual.  You can do it at home or where ever you are.  Think about what your affliction is.  Then hold it in your hands. Pack it like a snow ball in your hands. Close your eyes and just squeeze that burden hard between your two hands and feel the weight of it.  Just feel the weight of what that thing is.

    On the count of three we are all going to raise our hands to the ceiling and be bold to release our afflictions. ONE, TWO, THREE, give up now. “Be healed. Accept the power God gives you to walk in freedom and to live as God’s beloved people. Let it be so. Amen.”

ALL WE NEED IS LOVE by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young, the Beatles & the Village Band)

    In October we are coming up on our three year anniversary since The Village opened with weekly worship. On Palm Sunday of that first year we had our first baptism service. Some of you have been with us since that first few months but most of you don’t remember that service. I want to tell you about a couple of the people we baptized with us that Sunday because their stories embody today’s message: ALL WE NEED IS LOVE.

    Jesse was 19 years old, just starting college when he came to The Village. He came because one of his high school teachers was attending and she invited him to come. Jesse told me that when he was in high school he tried to commit suicide 2 or 3 times because he was gay. He was told by people really close to him, that God did not love him and he was going to hell.

    And then this teacher, who was like a second mother to him, invited him to come to The Village. One day when our message finally sank in to Jesse he came up to me and gave me a big hug and he said, “Thank you, Pastor Cheri, for planting this church, I never knew a church existed that would accept me for who I am.” You see, we told Jesse that God loves him and accepts him, and that God created him as a gay man. It’s really that simple.  We told him God loved him and Jesse’s life was changed. ALL WE NEED IS LOVE. Do you hear me?

    Another person who came to The Village that first year was Vanetta. She was pregnant when she came to us. Her first child was being raised by another relative because the county had determined that Vanetta was not able to care for her. Vanetta has some challenges in her life. She walked to our church. She had a case manager and a counselor but she also wanted a church family. She came to an Open House we had for our neighborhood, and said: “I need a church family because I want to keep this baby.” The Village embraced Vanetta and became her second family.

    In fact when her own mother could not go to the hospital when baby Faith was born, one of the members of The Village went to the hospital with her for the delivery and birth of her child.  We gave her a baby shower, and on that Palm Sunday we baptized both Vanetta and baby Faith. The Village embraced Vanetta and Baby Faith.  Sadly, when we moved to this new location, Vanetta has not been able to make the trip across town to be with us. But she was with us for a season and she will always know the love of God that she experienced through The Village church. That love is powerful. ALL WE NEED IS LOVE.

    As a congregation, we are called to continue to find and care for the Jesse’s and the Vanetta’s that God is putting in our path to surround with love. This past Spring on Mother’s Day some of you will remember we went out for a nice lunch at Degage here in Maumee. We worked with the Maumee Court system and the staff who work with the women and children affected by domestic violence to invite some of those families to join us for lunch as our guests.  To be treated like our mothers are treated.  To not be separated out but included in.   It was one small act of love we could offer to women and children who are trying to rebuild their lives. LOVE is a powerful healing force.

    You see, we do these things, because we follow Jesus, and Jesus models the way of love for us. Our scripture for today (John 6:1-21 from the Message for those following along on the net) gives us two simple stories of Jesus showing LOVE to his followers.   God sent Jesus to love this world because God knows that ALL WE NEED IS LOVE.

    In the two stories we heard today, we see examples of love and generosity. They are both miracle stories. The first is about a big crowd of people getting fed. We have several of these stories in the gospels. A big crowd has gathered around Jesus attracted by the miracles they had seen him do among the sick.

    In this version of the story it is Jesus who asks one of his disciples: "Where can we buy bread to feed these people?" He said this to stretch Philip's faith. He already knew what he was going to do.  You may remember that Philip says there is not enough money to feed this many people.

 8-9One of the disciples—it was Andrew, brother to Simon Peter—said, "There's a little boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But that's a drop in the bucket for a crowd like this."
 10-11Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." There was a nice carpet of green grass in this place. They sat down, about five thousand of them. Then Jesus took the bread and, having given thanks, gave it to those who were seated. He did the same with the fish. All ate as much as they wanted.
 12-13When the people had eaten their fill, he said to his disciples, "Gather the leftovers so nothing is wasted." They went to work and filled twelve large baskets with leftovers from the five barley loaves.
 14-15The people realized that God was at work among them in what Jesus had just done.

    Now, perhaps Jesus actually physically worked a miracle and caused bread to appear where there was none. Or perhaps, there were people there who had food. They had packed food for their journey, and when Jesus asked them to sit down to eat, and when they saw the love in Jesus, the love in their own hearts grew. They shared their food, and there was more than enough. I went to a family pot-luck yesterday, we all brought a dish to share and when we left there was plenty of food left over, and I can tell you there was plenty of love at that family gathering too.

    Where there is love, there is plenty of everything else. Truly, ALL WE NEED IN THIS WORLD IS LOVE.   I don’t want to be simplistic, and we’ll go back to that.  But ALL WE NEED IS LOVE.

    The second story comes in the evening. Jesus had slipped away to the hills by himself, for a break, which he often did to pray.
 16-21In the evening his disciples went down to the sea, got in the boat, and headed back across the water to Capernaum. It had grown quite dark and Jesus had not yet returned. A huge wind blew up, churning the sea. They were maybe three or four miles out when they saw Jesus walking on the sea, quite near the boat. They were scared senseless, but he reassured them, "It's me. It's all right. Don't be afraid." So they took him on board. In no time they reached land—the exact spot they were headed to.

    We don’t know for sure why the disciples were scared senseless. They could be scared because of the storm. They certainly seem to be frightened because of a figure walking on the water. But Jesus reassures theme of who he is, he gets into the boat and they find their way to their destination even in a storm. To me it’s a metaphor for their life together. These disciples, without Jesus, often got off track. They encountered storms, and got scared easily. But Jesus would go to great lengths to get back to them, to reassure them, and get them back on course.  Sound familiar?  Do you get off course and find yourself alone and afraid. Because Jesus loved them. ALL WE NEED IS LOVE.

    Now, lest I be accused of being overly simplistic, I do understand that our world is complicated. I know that you and I are dealing with big problems: unemployment, disease, not enough money at the end of the month, childhood traumas that haunt us, bad relationships and all that. Then you add the layers of the big problems of the world and the idea that “ALL WE NEED IS LOVE” may seem a bit too easy, a little simplistic.

    But we have to start somewhere. And I say, that LOVE is a powerful place. It was a powerful force for Jesse when we baptized him, when we gave him a message of love, and told him that God loves him just the way he is. Now I can tell you Jesse has had bad days since.  But he has had love and message that God loves you there with him as well.

     Love was a powerful force for Vanetta when baby Faith was born and this church family surrounded her with support. Nothing can take that away.

    So my question for us today is this, my Village people. How are we going to love one another today? We continue to grow as a church and we have new Jesses and Vanettas in our midst every week with new names, how are we going to love them. This is the challenge God puts before us every week, every month and every year to be a community of love.

    Because you see, we all have our challenges in life. Some of our challenges are more obvious than others, but we all have challenges. We all need love. And I believe we are all here looking for some form of love or support. We want to know that God accepts us just the way we are. God made us after all, so God must love us the way we are, but it’s funny how the world can convince us that we are not good enough. We need to be smarter, thinner, less wrinkled says the world.  But God says I made you and I love you just the way you are.

    Some of us will say that we are here looking for friends and support, like Vanetta was, and others of us are simply here to connect with God. But either way, We all need love.

    But here is the thing. As I look out here on the congregation, I know most of you, but I know that many of you do not know one another. Now, you are not all going to be friends, and that is fine. But I want to challenge you with this, will you love one another, in the way that one follower of Jesus loves another? And will you commit to getting to know the other people in your Village family in some way? Here is what I want to ask you to do. Because there are some Jesses and Vanettas sitting here who need you. And we won’t know who they are and what they need unless we pay attention, so I have three challenges for you:
·    Spend three minutes at the end of worship talking to someone you do not know well. Your friends will wait three minutes. But a new person will leave if no one talks to them. Ask them how they found The Village, and tell them how you got here.
·    When you get here, don’t sit in the same place each week, and look for someone who is sitting at a table alone and ask if you can sit with them; or invite someone who is coming in alone to sit with you.  It is really hard to go into a new church for the first time.  Even for me, a Pastor, I had a hard time visiting a church on Sabbatical. I sat in the parking lot for 10 minutes.  Really?  Me, a Pastor, was afraid to go.
·    Pray for the people of The Village.

    All we need is love. My dream for The Village is that this is a community where anyone can come and receive God’s love. I pray that you know you are loved when you come here.   But we can’t forget there are lots of Jesse’s and Vanetta’s out there who need us.   

    The band is going to come back up now and sing a couple more songs. John Lennon wrote a song in which he dreamed of a world of peace. He imagined a world of no hunger or greed. As you listen to the song, I invite you to dream about what the world could be like if we had more love for everyone.

    Do you have a faith community where this is what you are doing?  If the answer is Yes, then reach out to others and bring them there, they need places like that.  But if you find yourself answering No, come check us out.  We’re at the corner of Conant Street and the Anthony Wayne Trail in the Maumee Indoor Theater, Sundays @ 10:30 AM.   All we need is love and we all need to hear that again and again and again. 

The Hunger Games: No Greater Love by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

    In the summer of 1977, I was 14 years old. A blockbuster movie came out that summer. The subtitle of the film was: A New Hope. I saw that movie more than 10 or 15 times that summer and more than 26 times in the first year or two after it came out. It was a movie about good and evil, light and darkness. And of course, the good guys, and girl came out the victors at the end. It was, after all, 1977. Do you know the movie?

    Of course, it was the original Star Wars film, A New Hope. (By the way, I am really not a sci fi geek, I just like guys who like sci fi, I dated one then and I married one.) But the Star Wars movies are different. They have great stories.

    I like to go to movies with happy endings and movies that make me laugh. My family and I still love to go to Disney movies. The great thing about Disney movies is that you can pretty much count on the fact that they will have a happy ending. There might be a little tension in them now and then, but you KNOW everything will come out fine in the end.

    Now, even though there are a variety of types of stories and movies in the world; you have your action and adventures, you horror movies, your historical fiction movies that are teaching you about some time in history, many of the blockbusters of the 20th century were still pretty happy. The Star Wars saga is a great example. Good wins over evil every time. The picture is one of utopia: an ideal place to be.

    But something begins to happen in the 21st century. Suddenly, we get books and films like the Harry Potter series, and books about vampires, and now, The Hunger Games.  Children, teens and adults by the millions are reading these books. These are not books with pie in the sky happy endings. These are no stories of utopia. They are what are called stories of dystopia. That was a new word for me. I think about the word “dysfunctional.”  While utopia is defined as “an ideal place or state,” dystopia is  defined as a “society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding” (http://dictionary.reference.com/ browse/HYPERLINK "http://dictionary.reference.com/%20browse/dystopia?s=t"HYPERLINK "http://dictionary.reference.com/%20browse/dystopia?s=t"=t). The word was actually coined in 1868 by John Stuart Mill as “an imaginary place where everything is as bad as it can be” (ibid.)

    In this century we are seeing more and more stories and movies about dystopia rather than utopia. Why have our stories changed? When did they change?

    One big event happened in 1999 at Columbine High School. “Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Harris_and_Dylan_Klebold", embarked on a shooting spree in which a total of 12 students and one teacher were murdered. They also injured 21 other students directly, with three further people being injured while attempting to escape the school” (source: Wikipedia).  This remains the deadliest high school massacre ever in the United States. This one, and so many others, in shopping malls and places of worship have become such a common occurrence, that my children are almost numb to the stories on the news. Yet I can’t escape the belief we all live with a certain level of fear about them every day.

    Of course, the biggest turning point happened on September 11th. When terrorism hit American soil in a catastrophic way, whatever fantasy we had that we were living in anything like utopia, came crashing down with those towers.  Life would never be the same.

    So, you see, our teen-agers, and our young adults, really can no longer tolerate the simplicity of stories and movies with a pie in the sky happy ending. They just are not real enough. We can blame the internet if we want. We can blame video games and television. But our world has changed. So the stories we read and the movies we watch have changed to reflect the reality changes in our world.

    Now we come to the point of a popular book series and movie called The Hunger Games, so popular that your pastor decided to preach on it today.

    Let me stop here and tell you that the first SEVERAL times that I saw the movie trailer for The Hunger Games in the theater, I turned to Kurt and said something like this: “Is this really a movie about a world in which there is a game about young people competing to the death?” It sounded like laser tag or paint ball gone to the extreme. I thought it was just another piece of junk horror movie, to be honest.

    Then my daughter wanted to read the book, along with about 23 million other people. I decided there must be more to it. After Kurt and Becca both read all three books and went to the midnight showing of the movie on opening night, Kurt came home and told me I need to read it, because I would want to preach on it, I read the book. Becca was thrilled. They were both right. Because you see it does have a message for those of us who are trying to follow Jesus in this difficult world. It has a message of hope and compassion in the midst of great misery and fight for survival.

    Now how many of you have neither read the book, nor seen the movie?
Let me give you some brief details:
·    The setting is American, in the future. There has been a great disaster, and the United States, Mexico and Canada have become a single country. The new country is called Panem. There is a capitol where the wealth and power is concentrated. There was a great uprising in Panem 75 years or more before.  The people in the capital live very well. The rest of the people live in 12 districts, across what we now know as the United States. The 12 districts are quite poor. They provide natural resources to the capitol so they are vital to the wealthy elite in the capitol.

·    Every year, there is this reality game, called “The Hunger Games.” It’s called that because the people living in the 12 districts are literally hungry. So two children, one boy and one girl, between the ages of 12 and 18, from each district compete on behalf of their district, to the death. So 24 children compete until one is left alive. That one child’s district gets extra food – thus the name, “The Hunger Games.” The Districts are told that the reason for the Games is because there had been a terrible war, an uprising caused by the districts. When peace came the capitol put in place these “Hunger Games” in the President’s words: “Each district will offer up a tribute” (a child, actually two), who show “honor, courage, and sacrifice;” “the victor is bathed in riches” because the one district that wins gets extra food and resources. You see, this forced competition is really about power and control, to show them they must never revolt against the central government again.

·    One of the most powerful scenes in the movie, to me, is when the President is talking with the man in charge of running the Game. He is called the Game Maker. The President talks about the purpose of the Game.  He tells him that the only thing stronger than fear is hope.  A little hope is effective, but a lot is dangerous.  A spark is fine, as long as it is contained.

    You see, this is what they try to do with the Hunger Game. They try to contain the hope, and they try to keep the people living in fear.

        But this is the truth.  Human beings want to live in hope. We don’t want to live in fear. Because this is how God created us.

        The power of the human desire for of hope, fueled by love and compassion, shows forth,  over and over and over
again in the film. You see: hope cannot be contained; and with every act of human love we give fuel to the fire of our hope.

        I think everyone of the students in our Confirmation Class has read The Hunger Games book. I asked them this week a simple question: where do you see a character in the book, acting like Jesus? It was easy: Katniss, the main girl in the story. She acts like Jesus. “13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Katniss puts her life on the line for her sister at the beginning of the story. Her younger sister is selected to play the game and Katniss volunteers to take her sister’s place. Katniss knows her sister, who is 12, has no chance to survive, and so Katniss takes her place.

         Later in the story, Katniss puts her life on the line to go into a dangerous situation to get medicine for her friend Peeta.

        There are several points in the story, where one child has a chance to kill another and then lets one go. You can tell that most of them don’t want to be killers. It’s the leaders in the capitol that are forcing them to do this. When they have a chance, they choose love. Hope cannot be contained; and with every act of human love we give fuel to the fire of our hope

        9Jesus said this: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. 12“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you."

        You see, the whole point of The Hunger Game, is for the capitol to keep control over the people in the Districts so those people will provide natural resources to the capitol: food, coal, steel, materials for clothing. The capitol must keep them living in fear.  But we know, that where there is love, fear cannot prevail. “Perfect love casts out fear” (I John 4:18).

        Jesus did not fear death, did he? He gave himself up to death. He sacrificed himself. As the Son of God, he could have found a way to save himself. But the only way to show the people the power of the resurrection, was to suffer that horrible physical death as a human being and so he did it   He could give the ultimate sacrifice  so he could show his love to them.

        You know, this story of Jesus and his first disciples is a lot more like a story of dystopia than utopia. Even though it ends with Resurrection which is great, it is really not a sweet and happy story. It is a HARD road to Easter morning. And for his disciples, even though they got to see that Jesus was resurrected, they still lost the daily physical presence of their teacher and friend.

       And they were left to fulfill the mission of building God’s church on earth by themselves. That was no small task.

       But do you know what they had to do it with?  Hope.  They had hope.  And Hope cannot be contained; and with every act of human love we give fuel to the fire of our hope. And so do you know what those disciples did? They starting going out and performing acts of love and compassion. In the midst of a world that hated them.

        Just as Jesus could not be contained in the tomb, and the disciples could not be contained in a meeting room behind closed doors, because the Holy Spirit came to them and filled them with power and drove them out into the streets to proclaim the gospel story. They went out to love boldly, to forgive, and to work for justice for the oppressed and spreading the message of God.  And that’s why we are here today.

       My friends, our Hope cannot be contained either. Even though we live in a world where there is lots of bad stuff happening every day, we live as a people of Hope. Our hope cannot be contained; and with every act of human love we give fuel to the fire of our hope.  We hold on to God’s love. We look for the good. We treat one another with compassion, even when other people don’t treat us that way. Because living in hope is a better way to live, than living in fear. And God gives us the power to do it.

       My favorite scene in the Hunger Games is a scene that many people probably find the saddest. This is a spoiler alert if you are going to stay for the film and you have not read the book or see the movie before. I apologize.  There is one of the tributes that is young, and reminds Katniss of her younger sister. She and Katniss band together for awhile during the game. While they are separated the young girl gets in trouble, and then when Katniss returns the girl gets a mortal injury. When she dies, Katniss is devastated. Usually the bodies are taken away immediately, but Katniss gathers beautiful flowers and covers the little girl with flowers. It is a sort of funeral for the girl. When I see it, I am convinced that the girl has gone to be with God; and Katniss is presiding over her blessing and her memorial service. KATNISS CLAIMS THE HOPE OF ETERNAL LIFE for the little girl. Katniss’ hope will not be contained or destroyed. With her every act of human love she gives fuel to the fire of her hope.

       Jesus’ hope was never contained, or constrained by fear. That is how he wants us to live. 12“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

       So beloved, let us love one another. Let us remember that Hope cannot be contained; with every act of human love we give fuel to the fire of our hope. Go, and live in the world as a people of hope! Amen.