It’s Time We All Hit the “Pause” Button, 2 Corinthians 13:5-13, Trinity Sunday

Posted on June 8, 2020 by patrick h wrisley

Sermon:        It’s Time We All Hit the Pause Button
Scripture:     2 Corinthians 13:5-13
Preacher:      Patrick H. Wrisley, D.Min.
Location:      First Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Date:             June 7, 2020, Year A, Trinity Sunday

Our scripture today comes from the collection of letters from the Apostle Paul to the church in Corinth. Corinth was a salty sea town that was also a valuable crossroads where vital land and sea routes intersected. It had a plethora of different people there coming and going from all parts of the world. It was a place of rousing business deals and trades. Like today, it was a stratified community where there was a huge gap between the rich and the poor, the locals and the newbies, and a mixture of what we would call Anglo European inhabitants with the others from Persia, the Middle East, and Africa.

The collection of churches in Corinth was some of the most challenging of Paul’s career and the corpus of letters comprising First and Second Corinthians are the Apostle’s attempts to get the church healthy and back on track. The issues the church was having to deal with had to do with everything from their promise to help financially support the Church in Jerusalem but then failing to live into that promise, distorting the work of Jesus, having to prevent various philosophies from corrupting the very unique message of Jesus, to struggling with issues of discrimination within the church. Topping it all off were the Corinthians’ habits of fighting, bickering, and gossiping about each other in the church.

Our scripture today comes from the closing of Paul’s last letter to them. He’s letting them know that he is coming back to Corinth for a third time to set things right in this troubled church and he ends his letter with some simple instructions: Take stock of who you are; does your life and does the Church life look like Jesus is there; are you growing into a whole, well-rounded follower of Jesus; and for crying out loud, get along with each other!  Let’s hear Paul say it. Listen to the Word of the Lord!

2 Corinthians 13:5-13

5Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? —unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test! 6I hope you will find out that we have not failed.

7But we pray to God that you may not do anything wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. 8For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. 9For we rejoice when we are weak and you are strong. This is what we pray for, that you may become perfect. 10So I write these things while I am away from you, so that when I come, I may not have to be severe in using the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down.

11Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. 12Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. 13The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.[1]

Today we are going to focus on verse 5 of our text and I am building my thoughts around the title, “It’s time we all hit the pause button.”

Each of us knows what a pause button is; you’re watching your favorite TV show or movie when all of a sudden you get interrupted. Someone’s at the door. The phone rings. All beverages you’ve been quaffing have to find an exit. For whatever reasons, an interruption will occur and you have to hit the pause button on the remote so you do not miss any action. Today, the Apostle in our text is saying that it’s time for you and me hit the pause button in this swirly life of ours.

This past week, the General Presbyter for Tropical Florida Presbytery, Daris Bultena, posed a very sobering question to the pastors and elders of our presbytery. He asked, “How are you seeing this time we are living in right now?  Is it an interruption or rather, is it a disruption?” His question hit all of us and got us thinking. It was a question that jolted us to hit the pause button and do some reflecting.

Are all the events of 2020 an interruption or are they a disruption? The events of this colorful year are many: a world pandemic; international economic challenges and upheaval; social disruptions in Hong Kong, the United States, Europe, and South America because of abuses of power and privilege against those who are voiceless; violence and land-grabs by one nation against another; and then there is the reality of our ever-evolving weather and climate.  Are these interruptions or are they disruptions?

One could say this swirly year contains both.  Our lives have been interrupted with death and loss and they have been disrupted with fear, anxiety, and hopelessness. But there is a difference between the two and this is what Dr. Bultena was trying to get us to see. If we view the events of 2020 as an interruption, then we will have failed in learning anything. Once the interruption is over, everything will return to normal and we will walk blissfully on our way as though nothing has happened.  However, if we view the events as a disruption, then we take the intrusions thrust upon us this year and see them as value-inducing crises that will help us grow deeper, wiser, and closer together. It’s a reminder there is no return to a safe status quo but that life is going to require you and me, the Church, our governments, to learn new ways of being, relating and leading.

Think of it like this: A hurricane is an interruption. The storm comes, we clean up and get back to living again. A disruption is different. The effects of climate change with rising sea levels and warmer ocean temperatures are a disruption that will have much longer-lasting and deeper consequences. Disruptions cause paradigm shifts in the way we see and experience God, each other, our political, economic and justice systems, and the environment. Disruptions are seeds for new beginnings and life. What is vital is how each of us experiences the disruptions. Friends, what our nation, what the world has experienced this year are major disruptions; there is no going back to the nostalgic normal. Hence, Paul’s words in today’s text:

Examine yourselves to see if you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Don’t you realize that Jesus Christ is living in you?”

For followers of Christ, we should not be afraid of all that’s going on in the world. World events are, as Jesus said, birth pangs for something new to be born and where God is already waiting for us. Whether or not we will see this time in our lives as a fruitless cause and interruption, or, whether it is an opportunity for new birth, new growth in our spiritual and communal lives that is redeemable by God’s Holy Spirit through Jesus’ redemptive work is up to each of us as we hit the pause button. In this moment of disruption, we pause to examine ourselves, testing whether we are living our lives in and like Christ.

Beloved, as Christians, let’s deeply examine ourselves to see if we are both publicly and interiorly in our souls living out our faith as though Jesus is living in each of us.

If there are hubris and pride, he’s not there.

If there are airs of superiority and entitlement, he’s not there.

If our dedication to political causes overshadows Jesus showing love to all people, he’s not there.

If we have forted-up to the point we cannot have a dialogue on important issues, he’s not there.

If we fail to show humility, he’s not there.

Beloved, these disruptive times are uncomfortable but they are also redeemable. These disruptive times are violent in speech and behavior but they are able to be made peaceful through the love and power of Jesus Christ. These disruptive times can be painful but new life and birth only come as a result of the pain.

Beloved, hit the pause button.  Where is Jesus trying to work in new life, new opportunities, new growth for you? The Church? Our nation? The world?

I close with a poem I found this week on Instagram written by Leslie Dwight. She writes:

What if 2020 isn’t canceled?
What if 2020 is the year we’ve been waiting for?
A year so uncomfortable, so painful, so scary, so raw —
that it finally forces us to grow.
A year that screams so loud, finally awakening us
from our ignorant slumber.
A year we finally accept the need for change.
Declare change. Work for change. Become the change.
A year we finally band together, instead of
pushing each other further apart.

2020 isn’t canceled, but rather
the most important year of them all.[2]

Paul says to examine ourselves to test whether we are living in the faith.  How is Jesus living in each of us during these disruptions?  Amen.

Patrick H. Wrisley, D.Min.
Senior Pastor & Teaching Elder
First Presbyterian Church
401 SE 15th Avenue
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301

© 2020 Patrick H. Wrisley. Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida and may not be altered, re-purposed, published or preached without permission.   All rights reserved.

[1] New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

[2]By leslie dwight, located on Instagram, June 2, 2020.

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I So Thank God for a Drafty Church!, John 14:15-21

Posted on June 8, 2020 by patrick h wrisley

Sermon:        I So Thank God for a Drafty Church!
Scripture:     John 14:15-21
Preacher:      Patrick H. Wrisley, D.Min.
Location:      First Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Date:             May 17, 2020

John 14.15-21

15”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

                  18”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”[1]

Open the window.  It’s just a little thing, really, but there is something refreshing when the inside air is still and stale and then you open windows on each end of the home; air begins to flow and lovely breezes begin to fill the rooms.

Living in southeast Florida this week, we have heard the blustery and gusty winds up and down the coast. This morning as I sat during my prayer time, I could hear the wind howling outside. Tree branches were battering the windows. There was some heavy drizzle getting blown about giving everything outside a thin sheen and coating of water. But I was dry and safe.  My window was closed.  The winds remained outdoors and I was safely covered by my quilt with the shades drawn like some valetudinarian wanting to keep all illness and the ill effects of the world “out there!”

Listening to the gusty winds over the last few days has given me an insight into our scripture from John’s Story today. Let me explain a bit.

John chapters 13 -17 all contain a singular scene of Jesus and the disciples having dinner together and a heartfelt crucial conversation. This time tomorrow, Jesus would be dead. He was using this table talk in a strategic way to impress upon the disciples things were about to get really different.  It was his expression of what’s called an Ethical Will whereby a person bequeaths not money or property per se to those they love; instead, they bequeath and leave their loved ones with a set of ethics and values,  lessons and blessings they don’t want the other to forget. What is it that Jesus wanted them to remember?

He wanted them to remember that things were going to get a little swirly. He wanted them to remember to look out and care for each other. He wanted them to remember the culmination of the commandments of God which is found in John 13:34 where Jesus says:

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love another.  By this everyone will know you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

He also wanted them to remember that both he, Jesus, and the Father in Heaven were One.  If you knew one, then you knew the other. And finally, he wanted to remind them that they would never be left alone but that God would send the Helper, the Spirit, to live within them. In other words, Jesus was reminding them, that from now on, the divine dance between the Father, Son, and the disciple would be sewn together and intertwined by the Spirit. Jesus describes this sweet, mystical fusion between heavenly reality and our physical presence. And yet, if we read too quickly, we will miss the conditional clause placed by Jesus for this dance to occur in the life of the disciple. What’s the condition he placed as to whether or not this dance between the Divine and humanity can occur? The conditional clause is for you and me to open the window. Our lesson’s opening words today are Jesus declaring,

15”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.

In other words, if you love one another as the Father and I have loved you, THEN you are able to open the window of your life and allow the Holy Wind, the Spirit, the Helper, to blow into and out of your life and into and out of the house called the Church!

Beloved, the key to opening the window for the Spirit to come blowing is to open the windows of our hearts and let the breath of our discipleship be carried outside by the Holy Breezes of the Spirit in ever-widening circles of love and grace! To have faith in Jesus is so much more than saying, “I believe!” For you and me to have a fully-formed dynamic faith means for us we not only mentally assent to who Jesus is, but it also means for us to throw open the doors and windows of our hearts and let the Spirit who lives within us to take our expressions of love for and to others out of our houses and into the world. It’s one thing to believe in Jesus but it’s entirely something else to put skin on the bones of our faith by expressing love to not only Jesus but to each other!  It’s at that point the doors and windows of our lives, our Church, are thrown open and the beatific breezes of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit blow more powerfully impacting more and more people.

But if we keep our doors and windows shut, the air will grow stale inside of the house and the air becomes still and stagnant, and stuffy. The Holy Spirit of Jesus cannot live in a stuffy house; we have to open the windows to let the love of Christ’s Spirit flow out the windows!

Over the years in ministry, a pastor learns the difference between mediocre churches and great churches.  Mediocre churches keep their windows nailed shut and locked tight.  Great churches have learned to open their windows and allow themselves to be drafty whereby the Spirit of Jesus enters in and carries out the love of Christ to a broader world.  It’s a church that takes the storyline from Leviticus 19:34 seriously  when it says,

The alien that resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

In order to be a drafty church, we have to love each other as well as the aliens, the strangers in our midst. Great churches, drafty churches, throw open the windows, and let the Spirit blow blessings to whomever it wills!  As pastor of First Pres Fort Lauderdale, I am overwhelmed that you, the members of this congregation, make us a drafty church, a great church! You’re a church that has learned the importance of opening the windows and letting the Spirit of Life blow unhindered through this place and in and throughout Broward County! Like a gloating parent awash in the pride for a child, I am overwhelmed with how this church has kept the Spirit blowing even during a time of lockdown!

On Thursday of this week, I woke up to read the headline from a nationally released press story entitled, A visible mission against an invisible enemy. Fort Lauderdale’s First Presbyterian Church enlists an army of volunteers to make thousands of protective masks[2]. The article goes on to outline how you, Church, began a movement of Spirit to help people in our community you will never know to safely care for thousands of patients and strangers you will never know during a time of forced lockdown.  As Christ-Followers, we know that a lockdown cannot lock up Holy Spirit work, especially when the Church throws open her windows and lets the Wind blow through! You, beloved, produced nearly 11,000 HEPA-quality face-covering for medical professionals in Broward County, along with her firefighters, first responders, police officers, and sheriff deputies.  Singles, widowed, married adults, and their children have all come together and have made a huge dent in the COVID-19’s spread in our community. Jesus saves and you definitely help him!  Families sewed together. Others who could not sew drove supplies all over the county to people who could stitch and sew in order that our production of these life-saving masks could continue.  Others delivered masks to the hospitals, sheriff’s department, firehouses, and assisted living centers. How I thank God for being a part of a drafty…no, windy Church that lets the Spirit blow through!

Friends, as your pastor and friend I want you to know I thank God for each and every one of you! You give of yourself, of your time, and of your resources…not until it hurts but until it feels good!

This week, look for the closed windows in your life and be conscious to opening them up to let the Spirit blow through! This week, let’s ask the Spirit to guide us to what we are called to do next in and through this place!  Who are the other strangers, aliens in our midst we are to love on in the Name of Jesus? Amen.

Patrick H. Wrisley, D.Min.
Senior Pastor & Teaching Elder
First Presbyterian Church
401 SE 15th Avenue
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
http://patrickhwrisley.com

© 2020 Patrick H. Wrisley. Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida and may not be altered, re-purposed, published or preached without permission.   All rights reserved.

[1] New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

[2] Tammy Warren, Presbyterian News Service, May 14, 2020, accessed at https://www.presbyterianmission.org/story/a-visible-mission-against-an-invisible-enemy/?fbclid=IwAR3vEcmejnfSvWNEoPtkdGzMghZyIB-j6o-4Fz7jMzmDbBQqWnOfTtKuuNM

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Pastoral Prayer for Pentecost Sunday, May 31, 2020

Posted on June 1, 2020 by patrick h wrisley

Spirit of tender mercies, your scattered Church comes together in the unity of the one Lord, one faith, and one baptism to collectively pray for the blowing rush of your Holy Spirit to descend upon us; our God, now is the time to breathe into your people and enliven us to be a living witness of Love in a world that is bleak and heartbreaking.

Our nation, one that should be celebrating the hard work of our seniors finishing their studies and marveling at humankind’s ability to shoot people into orbit, is instead  mourning the deaths of those we know who have died from an invisible illness and for the unweaving of the social and moral fabric of our culture.

Holy Spirit, purify our hearts of stone with your Holy Fire. Set your Church apart and make us holy in Christ and not full of ourselves. Enable your churches to show others what it means to transcend all the -isms of our world from racism to classism, from narcissism to barbarism. Lord, fill us with your Spirit to remind us we are not victims of what the world throws at us but rather we are victors and change-agents of love, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Holy Spirit, wake up your Church to be what you always dreamed it to be: A beacon of love and grace. Descend upon your people, O God, and turn the lenses of our hearts back out and into our streets and neighborhoods to let us see the needs, the injustice, the violence, the brokenness, the prejudice that surrounds us. We have become so obsessed with selfies we are not able to see the face of Christ in the other in our midst. Give us your Holy Spirit’s vision to see a world that needs each of us to live and act like Jesus to one other.

We pray for the students and their parents who are graduating to a new phase of their lives. The students may not see it now but they are the solution to our world gone awry. In-Spirit them!

We pray for those who are ill and for those who are dying, in many cases alone because of the isolation COVID-19 generates. In-Spirit them!

We pray for our leaders – that politics and partisanship melts into a collegial civitas that works together for prosperity and justice for all.  In-Spirit them!

We pray for those whose hearts are full of weight from their silent prayers to you as a result of a failed marriage or relationship, broken dreams with lost work, or from unspoken fears of a new diagnosis.  In-Spirit them!

We pray for all those who have been victims of abuse, racism, and unjust social systems; we hold up to you our civil servants and institutions that they would serve the people with energy, imagination, purity and love.  In-Spirit them!

And now hear us as we pray as your scattered but smothered in the Spirit of Christ Church, the prayer Jesus taught his followers to say as we pray –

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed by Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come;
Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day, our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors;
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory forever!
So be it! Amen!

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Resources for Leaders: Re-Opening In-Person Gatherings for Places of Worship

Posted on May 24, 2020 by patrick h wrisley

These are documents from the Presbytery of Tropical Florida that have been compiled from pastoral and presbytery officials since mid-March 2020.

A Letter from our General Presbyter

A Session Planning Workbook

 A Conversation Guide for Re-Opening In-Person Gatherings

 A Sessional Report to be Returned to the Presbyter

Here is a list of documents from Mayor Trantalis’ Office regarding Re-Opening Measures for Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Guidelines for opening Fort Lauderdale, Phase 1

City of Fort Lauderdale’s Voluntary Guide to Re-Opening Religious Institutions

CDC Guidelines

For Opening Workplaces

CDC Guidelines for Re-Opening Faith Communities

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We Are God’s Peculiar People!, 1 Peter 2.2-10

Posted on May 16, 2020 by patrick h wrisley

Sermon:        We Are God’s Peculiar People
Scripture:     1 Peter 2:2-10
Preacher:      Patrick H. Wrisley, D.Min.
Location:      First Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Date:              May 10, 2020

Today we are looking at a text that tradition says was written by the Apostle Peter although the verdict is still out on that fact.  This general epistle or letter was sent to a number of churches during a time of intense political and cultural persecution of the Church and Christians in general during the last third of the first century.  1 Peter is a letter of encouragement and was written to shore up the spirits of the persecuted Christians as well as remind them who they really are to begin with. Turn in your Bible to 1 Peter 2.2-10 located towards the end of your New Testament right before you get to the book of Revelation.

Peter is writing to a Church that was undergoing an identity crises as a result of persecution, Roman political pressure (think, Emperor Nero and the likes), antagonism from other faiths like the Jews as well as from the local, indigenous religions, and then by the age-old problem of Christian values being borrowed by the culture who follow the faith’s form but dolefully lack in its depth, purpose, and Christ-like expression.  In many ways, the environment surrounding the first century church is an environment the Church finds itself ensconced today.

Church in America is losing its true Christian identity.  Once considered a necessary part of our American ethos, it is viewed more negatively than in any point in our history.  Like the first century, the Christian faith has been conscripted by politicians from as far back as Constantine when he decreed the Holy Roman Empire. Let us not forget that the Holy Roman Empire was established because Constantine saw how Christianity could be the thread that united his vast empire. It was because of his political shrewdness that forced the ancient Church Fathers to gather in Nicaea and come to an agreement about what being a Christian really means! The Romans had a certain way they understood Jesus.  The eastern /Persian influences had an understanding of who Jesus was. The folks in Palestine understood Jesus in a very Jewish way while folks in northern Africa thought to that to know Jesus was to know the secret knowledge about who he was.  Constantine told the Church to get its act together and sort out the facts about Jesus so he could have a united political power.  Thank God, politics hasn’t influenced the Church in America like that today!

Church in America today is ridiculed today for being patronizing, sexist, homophobic, privileged, racist, and out of touch with who and where the people are in our culture.  The church has gone to great lengths to make itself “user friendly” and has adapted to the cultural milieu instead of asking the culture to form itself to Christ’s. Contemporary critics of organized religion today indict religious folks with one of two arguments. First, they remind us that there is little difference between how Christians and pre-Christians live; it’s hard to tell the two groups apart; do people we encounter even know that we are a followers of Christ? Second, those who act like Uber-Christians are seen as unreasonable and out of touch; I cite those pastors near Miami and in Tampa that continue to hold worship services exposing their members to the virus because its their god-given right to do so.

Beloved, the Church today is in danger of losing its identity in ways the churches in the first century did.  Our text today is a call for the church to reclaim her Christian identity and make a difference in the world today. Listen to the Word of the Lord!

1 Peter 2:2-10

                  2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

                  4 Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and 5 like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in scripture:

“See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

                  7 To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,

“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the very head of the corner,”

8 and

“A stone that makes them stumble,
and a rock that makes them fall.”

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

                  9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

10 Once you were not a people,
but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy.[1]

Beloved, the Good News of the Gospel is this: The Church is in a perfect position to disengage from the Constantinian shackles of reacting to and reflecting back to the surrounding culture’s demands; the opportunity lies before us, says Rodney Clapp, former editor of Christianity Today, for the Church to regain its thoroughly Christian identity and emerge as a culture of influence in its own right.[2]

How does our text suggest we do that? First, we are return to the font of goodness to be nourished by God and not by the culture. Second, we are to build upon the foundation stone, the Source of our faith in Jesus. Third, we are to proudly reclaim our identity as God’s peculiar people!

Peter instructs you and me to be like infants who are yearning, rooting, for pure spiritual milk so that we can grow strong in our salvation.  Friends, let us not forget what a hungry baby sounds and acts like! How do you know when a baby wants to be fed?  That’s right! They cry and scream until the nipple is in the mouth! They are hungry, they are craving momma’s milk and will not stop letting you know it until they’re satisfied! We know that breast milk is good for newborns in that its full of essential nutrients and antibodies from the momma. There are no chemical additives; it’s warm and pure.

One of the reasons Church has lost its identity is that over the years, it has made the Bible the best-selling book in the world but also the least read as well. In one LifeWay study, it reported that only 32% of Americans who attend a Protestant church read the Bible daily. As quoted in an article on biblical literacy, the authors muse, “Perhaps Google really has made us stupid, and we’ve lost the ability to concentrate. Perhaps we’re surrounded by too many distractions. For some, the Bible gets displaced by Instagram or Twitter or (now) Disney+. For others (the Martha-types), the Bible could be crowded out by feverish serving and activities. But for many others, it’s more subtle”[3] and the article asks you and me, “What’s your excuse?” The question of Christian identity emerges by asking ourselves, “What am I being fed by?”

Yet, our identity is also defined by the foundation upon which we build our faith.  Is it the American dream? If so, what does that even mean now when the definition of “returning to normal” is as elusive as ever. Is it money, stocks and bonds? Maybe it’s real estate or even the power you perceive you have at the job. Friends, the American Dream isn’t a bad thing. Normal is not necessarily a bad thing. Money, real estate and professional influence are not bad things in and of themselves but the facts on the ground in our world today is that our Christian identity is shaped by our nationalism, party affiliation, bank account and stock portfolio as opposed to being shaped by the cornerstone, cut straight and true, named Jesus. We have lost our identity by allowing culture to shine light on our faith and not vice-versa.  Our grounded identity in Jesus Christ gives meaning to our dreams, our sense of social justice expressed through our politics, as well as how we are faithful trustees of the financial provisions we have been given. The hard question Peter is asking us is whether our identity is built on the cornerstone and foundation of Christ or is our spiritual identity set upon the shifting foundations of a fickle culture?

Finally, how do we regain our Christian identity?  We regain it by totally embracing the fact that we, the Church, are God’s peculiar people!  Verse 9 in our version this morning reads, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”  The King James Version has a refreshingly appropriate reading of the same verse.  It reads, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light!”

We are a chosen generation. A royal priesthood. A holy nation. A PECULIAR PEOPLE! As Dr. Clapp mentioned earlier, this is the Church’s grand moment to stand up and be a counterculture in the larger culture!  This is our chance to rise up as a peculiar people who are foils to the culture around us.  When culture looks at Church and Christ-followers, we should expect they view us as a peculiar people!

We are peculiar because we don’t espouse party planks but embrace the challenge of living our lives with a deeply committed sense of justice grounded in selfless giving and love.

We are peculiar because we don’t identify ourselves by whom or what we are against but are known as people who are strident about who and what they believe and who they are for.

We are peculiar because we identify with the lost and not the found, with the last and the least instead of the first and the best, with the down and out as opposed to the high and mighty.

We are a peculiar people because we are not impressed with power but are infatuated with the humble who choose to be last in line.

Beloved, what shapes your Christian character and identity in Christ? How are you getting nourished, with fatty spiritual carbohydrates that make you feel fat, happy and comfortable or through the pure spiritual breast milk of God?  Which provides the foundation and cornerstone of your faith – the whims of culture or Jesus Christ? Do people know that you and I are peculiar people or are we just a part of the flow of the crowd?  Let’s reflect upon these things, my friends.  Amen.

Patrick H. Wrisley, D.Min.
Senior Pastor & Teaching Elder
First Presbyterian Church
401 SE 15th Avenue
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
https://patrickhwrisley.com

© 2020 Patrick H. Wrisley. Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida and may not be altered, re-purposed, published or preached without permission.   All rights reserved.

[1] New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

[2] Rodney Clapp, A Peculiar People. The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Pres, 1996), pp 39, 75.

[3] Bible Literacy Crisis! (And What You Can Do About It in 2020) JANUARY 14, 2020 by Justin Dillehay and Ivan Mesa. Accessed on May 7, 2020 at https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/bible-literacy-crisis/.

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