Reclaiming the Sabbath!, Luke 13:10-17

Posted on August 26, 2019 by patrick h wrisley
Schwarz_JesusBentWomanPainting better color (1000x750)

Barbara Schwarz, OP, “Jesus and the Bent Over Woman,” acrylic on canvas, 2014.

Sermon:        Reclaiming the Sabbath
Scripture:     Luke 13:10-17
Preacher:      Patrick H. Wrisley, D.Min.
Location:      First Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Date:             August 25, 2019

When pressed this week for a sermon title to print this week, I coughed up, “Churches in America are Operating Under a New Set of Blue Laws.”  I really didn’t like that title for this message and the more I got into the text, the more it just didn’t fit.  So away with that title!  Today, my sermon title is built around these three words: Reclaiming the Sabbath.

Turn in your Bible to Luke 13.10-17. Our Story is placed in a Jewish synagogue and Jesus is teaching. In his day, the “preachers” sat down in front of the crowds to teach their message and we can imagine Jesus sitting down and begin his discussion on some aspect of the Torah, the Jewish Law. As you hear our text, I invite you to join Jesus in that synagogue and take in the sights, sounds and smells of what is around you. In particular, listen to the characters in our Story and imagine what they must have looked like, seen, and felt throughout this exchange.  Put on a pair of “Jewish ears” and see if you can pick up those words that for a Jewish person are a part of their cultural warp and weft. Listen to the Word of the Lord!

Luke 13:10-17

10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. 11 And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” 13 When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. 14 But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” 15 But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” 17 When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.[1]

Who is in our Story? There’s obviously Jesus. There is the synagogue leader who is charged with making sure everything is run decently and in order. There is the sick woman and then there is the crowd of Jewish worshippers who had packed the synagogue that Saturday. So, let’s begin our musings this morning by asking our self, “Which character do I most relate within today’s Story?”

Let’s assume none of us sees him or herself as Jesus in our text…that would be a bit presumptuous on our parts. So, who are you?  Are you the sick woman who has been literally bent over in pain for nearly two decades and has been silently stereotyped by the community as a sinner because of your ailment, unclean and a virtual nobody in the village? Your body does not allow you to look up into the sky or into the face of the person who is speaking with you. Your world is a world spent looking at people’s feet! You have to turn your body side-to-side in order to take in your surroundings. Your move slowly and have to shuffle your feet forward to get anywhere and are easily jostled about by those who are hurrying by you. You feel alone and isolated as who wants to be around a broken old woman with a deformity who doesn’t fit into her community in a way the community appreciates.

Perhaps you relate with the synagogue ruler who is all concerned with protocol and doing things the right way.  You subscribe to the notion of, “It’s worked this way for my grandparents, parents, and now for me and my family, so it’s good enough for people like you today! This is the way we have always done it so don’t rock the boat and deviate from what we’re already doing!” The synagogue ruler enjoys the predictable status quo and the easy power that flows from it. He thinks, “I know the rules. I follow the rules. I will make sure you follow the rules too!”

Then again, maybe you are one of the worshipers who happen to be there that day. You go “to church” that day expecting the same-old, same-old but this new preacher is stirring the pudding. On one hand, you’re tempted to revert to the old “We’ve never done it that before” but on the other hand, you realize there is something refreshingly different in how this teacher/preacher Jesus is presenting his case. You kind of like seeing the stuffy old guard of leadership stirred up a bit and have their myopic points of view challenged and enlarged.

So, beloved, who are you in the Story? How do you personally react to the events of what is unfolding in front of you? Yet, it’s not just about who we relate to in our text; it’s about discerning what the major point of our text is and what is the foil, what is the light that shines on the main point of our Story. Is the Story about the healed woman? Is the Story about Jesus being a rabble-rouser? Is the Story about following religious rules and expectations? Or, is our Story about something else entirely? Although our text talks about a crippled woman who is healed, we realize her healing is really the foil, the light, that shines on the key part of our teaching which is what are we to do about our understanding the Sabbath day.

For the crippled woman, Sabbath was the day to come and truly be in the community as an equal worshipper before the presence of God. For the synagogue ruler, it was time for ensuring proper decorum was adhered to while the community gathered to learn about God. For the crowds, it was a day to fulfill all righteousness as a good Jew and meet at the synagogue for learning and praying; it was what doing what good God-fearing Jews were expected to do. For Jesus, however, the Sabbath had grown dank and stale. For Jesus, the Sabbath was majoring in the minors of life and neglecting the weightier, more profound issues of life.  For Jesus, the Sabbath was about learning and prayer…for sure…but Sabbath was primarily a day when the chosen people were to learn, be reminded and experience God’s gracious and grace-full provision and liberation from a hamster-wheel-type life.  Somehow, that very important reality was lost somewhere and the Sabbath became more about “the rules” and obligations you as a good Jew were to fulfill than it was a time to expectantly encounter God in order to be transformed and to be loved with wells of grace that are deeper than we can plumb!

We see this today in churches across America. For some, coming to Sunday worship is a time when those who are isolated feel they can come and be with others like them whether or not they are even noticed themselves!  For some, church services and routines are expected to follow specific protocols and are to be done in a certain way because that’s the way it’s always been done and frankly, “I have a style preference for the old ways.” For some, church attendance is something that you’re supposed to do as Christians because that’s what we are expected to do at least once a week; yet sadly, studies have demonstrated that people do not even feel it’s important to come to church with others in community anymore as we have taken on the attitude and have bit off the lie that “I can find God on my own.” Our friends in AA, recovering alcoholics, know better than that! They know they can’t find sobriety on their own and so they wonder why most Christians think they can develop a healthy spiritual life by themselves without the accountability of others in the community!

And then for some, fewer and fewer these days it seems, some people come really expecting that “God will show up.” Sabbath has become stale and fewer and fewer people that come on Sabbath come without much expectation that they will encounter the bottomless grace-fullness of God’s love and care. We come and we often do not expect miracles to happen like a crippling spirit held captive by Satan being set free from the bondage of spiritual enslavement.

The power of our Story this morning is that Jesus declares and shows us what Sabbath and worship are really about. Sabbath and worship are to focus on God’s purposefully searching for you and me, lifting up this church, and showering us with liberating, extravagant grace.  It’s about our physically coming together as community showing one another that we need each other, and we cannot live a healthy Christ-following life alone. It’s about coming spiritually crippled as we wholeheartedly expect to leave this place and this day with wholeness, healing, and restoration from the hands of Jesus. It’s a day we set aside and expect God to do something wonderful in our lives! This, my beloved, is what it means to reclaim the Sabbath!

Amen!

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

© 2019 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.

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Majoring in the Minors and Minoring in the Majors, Isaiah 1.1, 10-20

Posted on August 12, 2019 by patrick h wrisley

Sermon:           Majoring in the Minors and Minoring in the Majors
Scripture:        Isaiah 1.1, 10-20
Preacher:         Patrick H. Wrisley, D.Min.
Location:         First Presbyterian Church Fort Lauderdale
Date:                August 11, 2019

Over the years, I was taught a slogan by a mentor that is a troublesome little idiom used in business. He’s a successful venture capitalist and he told me, “You know, as a leader you always have to ask of yourself or of your business, “Am I majoring in the minors and minoring in the majors?”” In other words, in one’s personal or organizational leadership, we are to pause every once in a while and ask ourselves if we are spending the majority of our time, resources and creativity on the minor things that will not produce very much and are we investing too little time, resources, and creativity to those major items that will generate the most return for the organization. In our case, that would be the Church. Am I, are we as a church, majoring in the minor unimportant things? Are we minoring on the needed, beneficial major things?  You see, it’s all about a question of stopping to evaluate whether one’s expressed values are truly matching and aligning with their expressed actions.

Our text this morning is one that is an ancient example of God asking the people of the southern Kingdom of Judah whether their lives and worship expressed the values of their God or do their actions reflect more like the values of the decaying culture around them? The deal is, God already knows the answer to the question and so our text from Isaiah 1 is God’s way of declaring to the people of Judah, “Your lives, your worship, your very community is majoring in the minors and are minoring in the major, life-giving values of what it means to follow me and be my people”.  Listen to the opening words from the Prophet in chapter 1:1, 10-20. Hear the Word of the Lord!

Isaiah 1:1,10-20

1The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah….

10Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! 11What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. 12When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; 13bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation— I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.14Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. 15When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.

16Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, 17learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.18Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. 19If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; 20but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.[1]

Written during a very unstable political period where wars and rumors of wars were swirling, the prophets of God were trying to forestall a calamity. The kings and the people were playing fast and loose with the covenant they made with God and were at best giving God lip-service in their relationship. The prophet Isaiah quickly opens up his diatribe with a courtroom scene and the people of Judah are on trial.  He immediately outlines the problem in verses 11-17 and then verses 18-20 offer the promise from God if the people get their act together. Sadly, we know from history that the people of Judah failed to get their act together and were taken into exile.

So what’s the problem?  In this courtroom scene, God speaking as the judge goes and compares the leadership and the people to those inhabitants of the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Sadly, he’s not the only prophet to do so.  In Ezekiel 6:49 as the prophet address the people of Jerusalem, he says,

This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but you did not aid the poor and the needy.

This was God’s charge against the people. The people were guilty of committing injustice with their blessings. The Torah demanded the people look after the most vulnerable people in society: The poor, the orphaned and the alien, or as we call them today, the migrants who come searching for a better life among God’s people. A part of the fabric of the Torah was the belief that the covenant people of God looked out and after one another. There was a built-in safety net that demanded they take care of each other. As God showered grace, protection, and provision upon the people delivered from slavery in Egypt, so the people were to exercise the same grace, protection, and provision with their neighboring Jew and alien in their midst. But they didn’t.  Everyone was out for themselves.

Years ago, I heard businessman and author, Ken Blanchard, speak about the problem of expressed values in leadership and the leader’s lack of living into those expressed values. Blanchard, head of a multimillion-dollar company, believed that all employees be treated with equal respect and dignity whether it was a senior vice-president, a Board member, or the night janitor. He had a stated edict among all his employees that if at any time an employee personally felt Blanchard treated them with disrespect or gruffness, they had the right to come to his office and say, “Mr. Blanchard, Gap!”  In other words, if they ever detected that there was a gap or break between Blanchard’s expressed values on how people are to be treated and how he actually related with them, they had the right to come and call him on it. They would tell him there was ‘gap’ between what he said was important and the way he actually acted.

Friends, our text today is God telling the people of Jerusalem, “Gap!”  Isaiah has God telling the people that their sacrifices, their prayers, their incense, and their worship are making him nauseated. All their special holy day celebrations, all the animals they are needlessly sacrificing do not mean a thing to God. In God’s eyes, their worship is shallow.  In God’s eyes, there is a gap between what the people are expressing in worship as love and adoration to God and the way the people are treating the ‘least of these’ in their community.

There’s a gap between the peoples’ celebration of God’s provision when there are hungry people in the streets.

There’s a gap between those shouting, “thank you, Jesus!” and the way the poor are exploited with unfair wages, limited housing, and unjust labor practices.

There’s a gap between how the spiritual community is lifted and celebrated as the highest ideal and the way the people of the faith community actually live out their faith. Sadly, frankly, God is sick of all of it.

Yet, God being God and all, offers a solution and a way out: The Lord says in verses 18 and 19 if you purify yourselves from sin and restore the gap between what you say you believe and how you really behave, if you seek justice for the most vulnerable of the community, if you defend the orphans and widows, then your sin will be bleached white, you will prosper and enjoy the benefits of the land. If your inner compass is directed towards me, and your life reflects what you believe about me, then you will prosper. If you continue to rebel, you have set the course for your own demise.

Beloved, let us stop right here and pause for some self-reflection. What is our text saying to us as members of Christ’s church? What does it say to you as you reflect upon your professed faith in the Lord and how you worship and serve the beloved lambs of God who are on society’s edges?

Our text today is a reminder for thorough spiritual Examen on our parts.  You know, we often have a tendency to compartmentalize our lives into our family life, our social life, our business or school life, and then our spiritual life. The greatest gap of all emerges when we think this way because the reality is our spiritual life is the all-embracing womb that provides nourishment and growth for our family life, social life, business life, and school life. When our spiritual life is not the womb that nourishes, supports, and embraces our whole life, we will live in a perpetual gap-state.  We will live our lives majoring in the minor issues of life that are least important and minor and treat lightly life’s major issues like racism, bigotry, hate and the erasure of moral boundaries.

Our worship of God is the drivetrain that propels us into the world for mission. If it is not, our discipleship is flat and the Church’s future is doomed. The prayers, songs, and offerings of worship that are beautiful in God’s sight are when we inconveniently go out of the way to love the orphan, the widow, the homeless, the sick, the lonely, the hungry, the migrant, the Jew, the Muslim, the Democrat or the Republican. Until we can become aware of that, work on that, and naturally and spiritually live like that, well, God’s not going to be a Happy Camper.

Beloved, what are the gaps in your life? Does what we personally profess we believe and value match with the way we express those values and love to others in the world?  What we say we value as a church match with our commitment as a church with our investment in and with the ‘least of these’?  That’s our homework friends. That’s our homework.  Amen.

Patrick H. Wrisley, D.Min.
Senior Pastor & Teaching Elder
First Presbyterian Church
401 SE 15th Avenue
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
patrickw@firstpres.cc
www.patrickhwrisley.net

© 2019 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] The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, 1995 by 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.

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The Southern Spiritual Practice of Ponderin’, Psalm 107:1-9, 43

Posted on August 5, 2019 by patrick h wrisley

Sermon:         The Southern Spiritual Practice of Ponderin’
Scripture:      Psalm 107.1-9, 43
Preacher:      Patrick H. Wrisley, D.Min.
Location:       First Pres Fort Lauderdale
Date:               August 4, 2019

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Today is communion Sunday, and frankly, I cannot be more grateful. I awoke this morning at four and scanned the news while waiting for the coffee to finish brewing and saw the new headline, “Ten Dead in Dayton” as some guy shot up a bar last night in Ohio.  Thirty people dead and some fifty others wounded in the last twenty-four hours from violence. Today is communion Sunday, and frankly, I cannot be more grateful.  The meal gives me comfort during a time when I feel unsettled. It gives me hope to look forward to the time when violence of any kind will be no more than a sad recollection of the way things used to be.  It gives me grounding and stability to remain steady and focused while cultural earthquakes from politics, scandals, and illness plague the community we live in and in the lives of those you and I love. Yes, today is communion Sunday, and frankly, I cannot be more grateful.

Our scripture this morning is from Psalm 107:1-9, 43. It’s a wonderful foil to our Gospel reading in Luke 12.13 ff. where Jesus is talking about building bigger barns for our wealth only to die and realize we cannot take it with us. Our psalm this morning reminds us that what’s really crucial in our life is not our money, our stuff, or our things; what matters in our life is God’s steady, consistent loving grace even when our life feels most out of control.  Hear the Word of the Lord from Psalm 107.1-9, 43:

1 O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever.
2 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
those he redeemed from trouble
3 and gathered in from the lands,
from the east and from the west,
from the north and from the south.
4 Some wandered in desert wastes,
finding no way to an inhabited town;
5 hungry and thirsty,
their soul fainted within them.
6 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress;
7 he led them by a straight way,
until they reached an inhabited town.
8 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wonderful works to humankind.
9 For he satisfies the thirsty,and the hungry he fills with good things.

43 Let those who are wise give heed to these things,
and consider the steadfast love of the Lord.[i]

Our psalm is one that is focused upon God’s sustaining love in our lives and in our world even when we open the news and learn of another 10 people dead overnight.  Psalm 107 is a Hebrew song that begins and ends with an ascription to God’s love. In verse 1, we hear how we are to give thanks for the Lord is good and his unmerited love endures forever. The psalm bookends itself with verse 43: Let the wise pay attention to these things and reflect upon the sustaining, unmerited love from the Lord.  As a reader of the text, we are forced to pause and ask, “what things are we supposed to pay attention to?”

When news of El Paso and Dayton come to our attention, when we learn the news our loved one of four decades is fighting an incurable illness, when we in our joy of being

pregnant suffer the hell of a miscarriage, the psalmist is asking us to do the counterintuitive thing and invites us to sit with and ponder our difficult moment on the one hand, but also sit with the remembrance of God’s consistent, repetitive expressions of grace to us when our life has been hard in the past. Although our portion of the psalm only addresses those who are hungry and thirsty, three other stanzas of the song 107 address issues of being bound and persecuted, being sick nigh unto death, and what it’s like to be cast upon an angry, chaotic sea where no hope seems visible. In each instance, the psalm gives us a way to respond to our lives’ crises and disappointments. We see it in our text today.

First, the psalmist declares the presenting problem to God. Verses 4 and 5 says the people were wandering around the desert finding no home to live in while suffering from thirst and hunger.

Second, verse 6 has the psalmist lifting up those concerns to the Lord with tearful cries for help.

Third, verse 6 flows into verse 7 with a description of how the Lord answered their prayer and leads them to a new home.

Fourth and finally, 8 and 9 are a call to remember to give thanks to God for their deliverance in the midst of trouble.

This pattern of the description of adversity, a crying out to God for help, a reminder how the Lord answers prayer, and a call to remember God’s faithful love is repeated three other times in our psalm this morning. Perhaps we are to learn something from this. Let’s look at a moment in Jesus’ life that where we can see this pattern at play.

Jesus’ adult life was filled with conflict, backstabbing, gossip, and violence. On the night he was betrayed, we see him fall on his face crying with tears of blood asking God that the calamity about to break open to be taken from him. Even though Jesus may not be aware of it or sense it at the moment, God the Father was already working on answering the prayer.  We see Jesus fall victim to an unjust political, cultural and spiritual system that nails him to a tree. We may feel God has ignored his prayers and has remained silent.  But as we ponder upon Jesus’ life, we realize it’s not the end of the story yet. We hear him utter his last breath, “It is finished”, but then three days later rise again to new life! God was answering Jesus’ prayer for help in ways Jesus did not originally see or know.  Our Lord’s Supper, our celebrating communion, is our way of entering the ancient drama of this cycle.

We bring our lives as swirly as they are to God in prayer. We come to the Table awaiting the answer to those prayers and as we eat of the bread and drink from the cup, we add our hopeful voice to the pattern of the psalm as we thank God for his steadfast love which endures forever…

…in spite of senseless death;

…in spite of senseless illness or miscarriage;

…in spite of lost jobs and dashed dreams.

In the midst of our chaos moments when we cry for help and wonder if our prayers are falling on deaf ears to the Holy One in heaven, we look through the pain as Jesus did and know we will once again dine with the Lord and those who have gone before us; the Lord’s Supper is our waystation reminding us of this. Our prayers will be answered faithfully and lovingly, and yet, it takes discipline on our part to experience or hear those answers.

This morning I invite us to look at the Supper as a way to participate in and experience the Southern spiritual practice of pondering. Those of us in the South realize there is a reason for porches and patios under the cool of the shade.  It gets too hot to really do anything so we have designed our living places with outdoor spaces we can just go and sit awhile in a rocking chair, brush off the mosquitos and ponder life. We watch the sunsets from our rocking chair and listen to the rain pound on the roof while we sit on the porch just listening, waiting, smelling the air, and pondering. Porch time, pondering time is the Southern spiritual practice of being present with God. It’s calling out and naming our needs and our hurt.  It’s a lifting those needs to God in prayer. And this is the important part to the spiritual practice of pondering: In the midst of the current chaos we are undergoing, we remember how the Lord through the community, this community, has answered our prayers in the past. God always answers prayer but we often do not sit and ponder on how God might be doing that in our life right this moment. We might not see it right away just like Jesus didn’t that night he was betrayed, but pondering is the practice by which we know that God’s love is consistent and true and will not change or leave us.  The promise is that through the consistent spiritual practice of pondering, we will begin to hear, see and experience those Divine answers.

What ails you, my friends? Let’s come and ponder at the Table together, lifting our cries to God and practice together how we can hear the answers.  So be it.

Patrick H. Wrisley, D.Min.
Senior Pastor & Teaching Elder
First Pres Fort Lauderdale
401 SE 15th Avenue
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
Wrisley@outlook.com
patrickhwrisley.net

© 2019 Patrick H. Wrisley. Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church of Fort Lauderdale, Florida and may not be altered, re-purposed, published or preached without permission.   All rights reserved.

[i]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.

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Now, wait just a second before you start throwing people under the bus!; Luke 10:25-37 – The Good Samaritan

Posted on July 15, 2019 by patrick h wrisley

Sermon:       Now, wait just a second before you start throwing people under the bus!
Scripture:    Luke 10:25-37
Preacher:     Patrick H. Wrisley
Location:     First Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Date:             July 14, 2019

This morning we are continuing in Luke chapter ten.  Last week, we learned how we can set our watch’s alarm to 10:02 and it will remind us that we are each to pray for laborers to go out and bring in the Lord’s harvest. If you missed last week, note Luke 10:02 as you’re turning to our Story today.  The thirty-five pair of disciples have returned from their trip and they were sharing all types of wonderful news of their adventures when Jesus tells them in verse 23, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!”  And this brings us to our Story in Luke 10:25 and following.

I’ll be honest, I was not really sure I wanted to use this text because it’s one of those texts that people have heard before over and over again and I dared wonder what we could possibly add to it that’s not already been said.  It’s at this point, a wise older member of the church who heard my dilemma told me, “It’s a Story we need to hear again and again.  Preach it!” So, with his words ringing in my ears, this morning I’m framing my words around the title, “Now wait for just a second before you start throwing people under the bus!”  Listen to the Word of the Lord!

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Set Your Watch to 10:02!; Luke 10.1-11 (Evangelism)

Posted on July 9, 2019 by patrick h wrisley

Sermon:        Set Your Watch for 10:02

Scripture:     Luke 10:1-11

Preacher:     Patrick H. Wrisley, D.Min.

Location:      First Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale,FL

Date:          July 7, 2019        

Last week, Pastor Nic had us look at Luke 9 where we saw Jesus going through Samaritan towns who were not receiving him so well. Nic highlighted that when we choose to align our lives to Jesus and say we will follow him, that it requires more than a tacit nodding of one’s mental approval for doing so; indeed, we heard how when Jesus says, “Follow me,” it will require you and me to readjust our relationships and our values by placing them into secondary placement to the call of God on our lives. That’s hard stuff to hear and even more difficult to put into practice.

            At this point in the Story, Jesus has turned his face to Jerusalem and realizes time is growing short. So today, we have him sending out 35 advance teams to head out to villages he has yet to visit but plans to on his way to Jerusalem.  This is where we pick up in the text today.

Luke 10:1-11

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ 6And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house.8Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’[1]

            I love how the lectionary text intersects with today’s events at worship. Today we celebrate holy communion where we taste and experience the sacrifice the inauguration of the Kingdom of God demanded. It’s a text that accentuates the missional call placed upon our church as today we install our new pastor for Congregational Care, Pamela Masten. And finally, I love how our text opens with Jesus using a metaphor that our new pastor for congregational care can relate with as a farmer’s daughter from upstate New York!

            Harvest time on a farm. You’re up before sunrise and momma’s cooked a big breakfast for everyone before they go out and begin their work.  The days are full and long because you are racing against the fleeting hours of the day with good sunlight to harvest the crop. You are also racing against the reality that there is only a limited time you can harvest the produce of the farm before the crops and grain begin to rot. There is a sense of intentionality at harvest time. The quiet long days of growing are over; there’s work to do and there’s only so much time to get it done. Harvest time is a busy time when everyone has his or her part on the farm to get the crop in on time.

            In our Story today, we see the ebb and flow of God’s grace and our participation in it. We are reminded that our job as disciples is not to prepare the harvest as that is God’s sole responsibility. Our job is to physically, personally, intentionally respond to that graceful giftedness of God and gather the harvest in and to pray that others will come and join us in this critical time and labor in the fields bringing the crops in before they rot.[2]

            So today Jesus is letting us know that it’s harvest time for the Church. Today we are gathered around the Table Jesus has prepared and he is giving us our job duties for the day (i.e. go harvest and pray for more laborers for the harvest) It’s at this point that Jesus gives us some advice before we hit the fields. As we eat from his Table, we are hearing words of Truth and advice from the Farmer himself. What does Jesus tell us gathered around his Table?

            Beloved, you’re going to be exposed and vulnerable. You are going out into a world that will be hostile to the message and way of life you are demonstrating. The news of the Kingdom of God will butt up against the kingdoms, the values, and the mores of this world and in response lions of the world will try to bring you down and silence you (verse 3).

            Yet, the Farmer also tells us at the Table in verse 4, “Beloved, take heart and trust God completely.”  Travel light with the bare necessities. You don’t need a lot of stuff to harvest; you only need to trust God.

            Jesus, the Sower, tells us at the Table to travel with single-minded focus (vs. 4b).  Don’t dilly-dally on the way as the crops are ready for harvest now…not next week or next month but now! He cautions us there will be distractions along our way from the Table to the field and we are to keep our focus.

            Furthermore, Jesus tells us from the Table that we are to go into the fields with words and spirits of peacefulness that will stand in stark contrast to the world of angst and darkness in the world today (v. 5). He says that while out harvesting, we show others that it’s okay to live simply.  Living within the Kingdom of God means being content with who we are, where we are and with who God is and what God expects (v. 8).

            One of the greatest challenges in US Christian congregations today is that we are full of consumers of the spiritual fruit and produce and that there are not enough willing laborers in the church to go out and bring in the harvest.  We sit and wait to be served the fruits from the labors of others when our call is to be day-laborers in the Kingdom gathering in the crops today ourselves.

            Friends, it’s a temptation to look at our text today and focus on the fruit “out there” which has been the traditional way of looking at this Story. I want to remind us that as we gather at this Table, as we install this new pastor for congregational care, we need to remember this text is a demand on us a church first before it’s a mandate on bringing others to faith. Emphatically, Jesus tells us to pray to the Lord of the Harvest to give us laborers for the harvest.  In other words, we are to pray that like members of a family farm, we are to pray that everyone in the family gets their fanny out of bed and helps out. Harvesting requires everyone not just a few. Everyone on the farm has his or her part whether it’s harvesting, gleaning, or storing. Others prepare the mid-day meal and evening suppers for the laborers while the others are in the field sweating and getting covered with manure-infused soil. The deal is everyone is involved in the harvest time.  It’s intentional. It’s focused. Everyone has her or his part.

            Church, our text today demands we get off the porch rocker and into the rhythmic dance of the harvest. All of us have a job to do. The Church and her neighborhoods are a farm that needs harvesters not consumers.  

            Pamela, as you take your place among this farm, your call is to help gather members of this church together to teach them, love them, to become fruitful harvesters of compassionate grace among this community and in our surrounding area. We do not expect you to carry the full weight of caring for the members of this church but we do expect you to rally us together, model for us, and teach us how to be the caring presence of Jesus to each other.  Use your farm-girl experience and teach us how to harvest!

In just a moment, we will share in the meal of holy communion and as we prepare for it, I have something for you to do while you wait to be served.  But first a story.

Some years ago I met a retired Presbyterian pastor and in the midst of our conversation, his watch alarm begins to chime. He says, “Excuse me,” as he looks down and presses a button and then looks at me and smiles. I quickly asked him, “Do you need to go! I didn’t mean to keep you!” and he replies, “Oh, no. It’s 10:02.” I gave him a doggie-head tilt look and he said, “It’s my reminder to pray for  laborers of the harvest. In Luke 10.2, Jesus tells us the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few; therefore, we are to pray that the Lord of the Harvest will send out laborers into the harvest.”[3]        

Beloved, as you wait to be served, take a moment and do two things. First, ask yourself if you are a Church and spiritual consumer or are you a harvester? Second, take a moment and set your phones or watches to sound a chime at 10:02 to remind you who you are and what God needs you to do – go labor in His vineyard!!  So be it. Amen. 

 

Patrick H. Wrisley, D.MinSenior Pastor & Teaching ElderFirst Presbyterian Church401 SE 15 AvenueFort Lauderdale, FL 33301

© 2019 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]David Lose, Feasting on the Word.

[3]Harland Mirriam, Presbyterian pastor and Chaplain, US Army (RET).

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