Stay Well, Go Well

Scripture: Matthew 25.14-30; 1 Thessalonians 5.1-11

I know what I will do with my first million. Why do I need to know that you ask? Well, when Seth and I watch Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? we naturally contemplate what we would do with all that money. I would buy a home with some woods, and a nice porch on front and back and feed the birds and read, and I would give some to missionary friends and I would probably give to my children – oh, and I would pay for a swimming pool at Wesley Forest. That’s what I would do. If I won Powerball, I don’t know what I would do with 34 million or whatever it is. Seth said he would buy lots of gameboy games.

It’s fun to fantasize once in a while, but of course, the real question is what do we do with what we actually have got? Paul reminds the Thessalonians that “the day of the Lord is coming like a thief in the night.” And the time we have been given should not be wasted in drunkenness, selfishness, and other deeds that people do under the cover of darkness. The time is given to use what we have for the good.

It’s like a wealthy entrepreneur went away for awhile and entrusted his assets to several key employees, each according to their abilities. “Talents” is the word used in our story. It’s a good word. At one of my first churches we did a little exercise in faith and stewardship by passing out ten dollars to each church member to see what they would do with it. They had a month to see what they could do with this “talent”. They could pool their resources in groups and they came up with some interesting things – bake sales, pie sales, a softball tournament, an ATV rally – an returned quite a sum of interest on their investments. And that was only on $10 per person.

We should understand that a biblical talent is worth a lot more. A talent is a very large sum of money, equal to many years wages for a day servant. That’s what makes the story compelling. The wealthy man didn’t give his employees each ten dollars. He gave them each a lot of money, some more than others, but all an incredible resource at their disposal. He was a master of high standards. His employees knew that he expected a lot. How would they respond to this challenge?

I will tell how one of them responded. They did nothing. They were afraid. They were afraid that they would do something wrong and lose the money. They were afraid maybe that it would run out before the master came back. They thought the time was something they should just get through. They didn’t see it as a time of opportunity, a time to venture boldly and live.

The unfaithful steward was the one who did nothing because they look at the time as one of scarcity. Parker Palmer tells of a time when he was stuck in an airplane on a runway for several hours. Weather had delayed the flight. The pilot got on the intercom and said, “I’ve got some bad news and some really bad news. The bad news is Denver is snowed in and we’re stuck here. The really bad news is that we have no food and it’s lunch time.” Everybody on the plane groaned. Some passengers started to complain and others became angry. But then, Palmer recalls, one of the flight attendants did something amazing. She stood up and said, “We’re sorry folks. We didn’t plan it this way. But here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to pass a few breadbaskets around and I’m asking everybody to put something in the basket. Some of you brought a little snack along just in case something like this happened, some peanut butter crackers, a candy bar. Some of you have Lifesavers, gum, or Rolaids. And if you don’t have anything edible, you have a picture of your daughter, a boyfriend, a business card. Everybody put something in and then we’ll reverse the process. We’ll pass the basket around again and everybody can take out what he/she needs.”

“Well,” Palmer said, “what happened next was amazing. The griping stopped. People started to root around in pockets and handbags, some got up and opened their suitcases stored in the luggage racks and got out candy, a salami, a bottle of wine. People were laughing and talking. She had transformed a group of people who were focused on need and deprivation into a community of sharing and celebration. She had transformed scarcity into a kind of abundance.” After the flight Palmer stopped the stewardess and said to her, “Do you know there’s a story in the Bible about what you did back there? It’s about Jesus feeding a lot of people with very little food.”

“Yes,” she said, “I know that story. That’s why I did what I did.”

Can you see the difference in how we respond to the challenge of the time and resources we’ve been given? Can you see the difference between scarcity thinking and abundance thinking?

I attended the funeral of Dan Lightner this past week. Of the many generous and moving tributes paid to this man, there were two that impressed me most, that will stick with me. One came from his sister who recalled how even as a teenager, Dan worked hard and took care of the whole family. She said that he never spent money on himself but he was always ready to get them something they needed. When he was seventeen years old, he bought his mother and sisters a house. Let me say that again. As a teenager, Dan Lightner worked and saved hard enough to buy his family a house. The second tribute came from State police Commissioner Jeffrey Miller who said, “It should come as no surprise to any of us that God’s plan includes a man of the caliber of Daniel Lightner.”

It’s clear to me that Dan Lightner died to selfishness long before he died in Iraq. He gave his life and his life touched hundreds.

There is a greeting in Africa that is typically given by hosts and guests. When a guest leaves the home, he says to his host, “Stay well.” And the host then replies to the departing guest, “Go well.” Stay well. Go well.

How will we mark our stay in this world? What will we do with the time and resources God has given to us? Will we live with an attitude of scarcity, hoping just to get by? Or will we live with an attitude of abundance, trusting that God will provide all that need? Will we give to others as much as we give to ourselves?

How will we go from this life? Will our leaving be marked by others with tears of gratitude and praise found in faith? Will we leave this world a better place for us having been in it?

“The master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”

The Doctrine of End Times

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 4.13-18; Matthew 25.1-13

Who here is not a “morning person” ? Don’t be ashamed. You know who you are. You are night owls. You hunt by night and sleep by day. You are accomplished at sleeping in. But if you think you are something, consider the black bear, Ursus Americanus. The black bear in North America may hibernate for 5 to 7 months through a bitter winter. And yet bears don’t appear to waste away. What happens to human beings who are bed-ridden for months? We lose muscle mass and body weight. And when we try to get up and get going, our bodies don’t work right. Not so the bear – she can get up after a 5 month power nap and spring into action. Scientists suspect the bear’s secret is in how they sleep. While they sleep their body does a daily regimen of muscle stimulation and contraction. They awake really hungry, but ready to go.


That brings me to a story about ten virgins who fell asleep. In this story they are prospective brides waiting for the bachelor/groom to give them the rose, you know, pick them to marry. It occurred to me that if I were preaching this parable say, five years ago, three years ago, I would have probably said, “Now, of course, women don’t line up in a row waiting for a guy to come and pick them out of a lineup today – not respectable women anyway.” But now we have reality television to take us back to the future. I would suggest to you that the parable is set in a culture that is, in some ways, a little more respectful of brides and virgins. But here we are. The ten virgins waiting for Prince Charming all fall asleep! And what’s interesting is the distinction made between them. They are divided into two groups by the storyteller – five wise virgins and five foolish ones. The five who are called “wise” are not so because they knew when the groom was going to return. They are wise because they were prepared. They had prepared for a long wait, the duration of which they could not accurately predict. All ten fell asleep, but only five were watchful and faithful.

The five who are foolish, well, of them it could be said, “fall asleep on the groom and you may not wake feeling rested and refreshed.” This parable is about the last days, the end times. Most parables are about “any time.” This one begins, “At that time. . .” Theologians call it the eschaton. A crucial teaching of Jesus is simply this – I will return, you don’t know what age, what year, what hour, but I will return. So watch! Watch! And it is how we watch that is crucial. A frequent misconception that some people have is that Jesus wants us to focus on the future. But I say, by reminding us of how the future will come to fulfillment, in His return, Jesus urges us to focus on living in the present for the Kingdom.

A popular and controversial question in the church has always been, “Are we living in the last days?” I believe we are, in this sense – all the time between the Resurrection of Christ and the Last Judgment is the Last Days. We are living in the age of the Church. We are called to broadcast the gospel to every person, people, and nation, to every corner of the world. In fact this is one of the signs that we are approaching the Last Day – all the nations will have had the gospel preached to them. There are other signs:

The appearance of antichrists (1 John 4:3; Matt 24.24)
The coming of a world dictator (Rev. 13.7)
The revival of the occult (1 Tim. 4.1)
The ingathering and conversion of the Jews (Luke 21.24; Rom. 11)
Great earthquakes and famines (Luke 21.10-11)
The widespread persecution of believers (Matt. 24.9)
A falling away from faith accompanied by false prophets (Matt. 24.10,11)


These signs are not meant to be used as proofs – in fact, most of these signs are found in every age – but as reminders to the faithful that His coming is on the horizon. As that day approaches, these signs will intensify to a degree not before seen in history.

Do these signs mean bad news or good news for the church and the believer? It means a testing of faith. There will be times of trial when it becomes more difficult to witness and live as a believer. There may be a schism in the church as a whole – indeed the beginnings of this may already be happening. To be a disciple of Christ will require sacrifice, hard work, and endurance. But when has this not been true?
The first-century Christians who had to meet in secret, those who were crucified and thrown to lions – will they not look at our age of comfort and ease and wonder what we sacrificed for the kingdom?

For two thousand years the church has worked as if the coming of Jesus would happen within the lifetime of every believer. This is the only way for the church to live. To live this way is to live in virtue, in humility, with passion in serving, with a sense of urgency that there are people to love and work yet to be done.

“This much is clear and all-important for us today that the return of Jesus will take place suddenly. That fact is more certain than that we shall be able to finish our work in his service, more certain than our own death,” wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, someone who knew what it meant to live with a sense of urgency and sacrifice.

In C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, the Land of Narnia is in the icy grip of a never-ending winter brought on by the reign of evil. That winter is not broken until the return of Aslan, the King, who sacrifices himself and in the end, claims victory over evil in the last battle. We are living in Narnia, as of course Lewis was suggesting; and we will not be freed, and the creation will not be freed until the King comes again.

I remember being taught about end times as a kid at church camp. I remembering being afraid that Jesus was going to come back before I had a chance to return home from camp and see my family. I don’t think God wants his church to fear, but rather to live with expectancy and longing for the Son’s return. Because ultimately and completely, that is what the Last Day is about – the Return of the One for whom the whole creation longs to see again, the Creator, the Redeemer, the Savior and Judge – the One who will free us from the long winter of sin and bring healing, peace, and life as it was meant to be, forever.

So I say, Sleepers awake, be ready, for your Lord draweth nigh!

The Doctrine of the Church

Scripture: Revelation 3.14-22; Matthew 16.13-19; 1 Peter 2.4-10


I had to drive down 36 to Everett and over the mountain to McConnellsburg last weekend for a wedding rehearsal. It was a rehearsal for the wedding of a girl from my first parish. I did it out of courtesy and genuine pleasure to help the family out. But the way home from the rehearsal was an hour and half drive that was dark and very foggy. And when the fog lifted it started pouring rain in sheets. At about that time I said to myself, “What am I doing here? Is this really worth the risk?”

Think about the risk you took to get here. Some of you drove some distance and some of you probably drove faster than you should to get here on time. You trusted your lives not just to the driver but to other drivers around you, total strangers. It has been said that we trust strangers more to get to church than we trust the Holy Spirit once we arrive.

Let me explain what I mean by that. Think of images or metaphors that come to mind when you say church. “Building” often comes to mind – we say we’re going to church. We think of the building, a place. And the main part of the building is called the “sanctuary.” Sanctuary is an image that has for a long time meant safety, particularly safety from the outside world; safety from an alien or hostile culture. Bad guys out there, good guys in here. But it was not always this way. And I would suggest that we need to reclaim a new meaning for sanctuary – “a safe place to take risks for the kingdom of God.”

Some years ago I was leading a church in a discussion about a new step in ministry. The church had experienced some growth and I believed needed to take this next step to continue to be faithful to God’s mission. Of course, there was some risk involved and no guarantees that we would be successful. I framed it with the words, “We need to risk this for God.” One woman, a very good woman and a friend, said to me, “risk, that doesn’t sound like faith to me.” It doesn’t because for most of us, faith has meant playing it safe.

Listen to what Jesus has to say to the church of Laodicea in Rev. 3. “I know what you have done, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!” What is Jesus saying? Stop being mediocre and apathetic. Stop playing it safe. Get passionate about something for God’s sake! As it is, “you make me want to throw up.”

What is the church? The church is not a building of course, but people, engaged in a life-saving mission. In many ways the culture is hostile, but the people we want to reach are drowning in that culture. Those people are not enemies, but our friends. We are their life-saving station and lifeboat. The motto of the Coastguard should be our motto, “We have to go out, but we don’t have to come back.” See, the church is the only organization in the world that exists for those not yet part of it. And so we have to rightly understand who we are and what is our mission. The great mission statement of Jesus is that we go and make disciples in cultures. Our job is not to transform or replace cultures, but transform people in cultures. Our job is to get a hearing for the greatest story ever told, a story that is meant for all human beings, everywhere, always. Our job is to tell the truth in love.
Phillip Yancey tells the story of an election in the Ukraine. The government had opened up free elections thinking there was no way they couldn’t win. But as the ballots were being counted it soon became clear that the incumbents were going to be thrown out of power by Yushenko, the reform candidate. So what did the government do? They rigged the election. They ignored the ballot count and just had the television stations and newspapers announce that the incumbent party had won. It would have worked except that on of the tv stations there was an interpreter for the deaf, who instead of doing what she was told, on camera kept signing, “They lie. Yushenko won.” And the course of the country was changed.

The church is called to tell the truth to people who have been fed lies. We are not called to successful results, just faithful witness. It means using whatever is at our disposal to get that witness out, the story told. Len Sweet tells about visiting a church that used gourmet coffee as part of their ministry to people. He noticed that there were coffee stains all over the carpet. The pastor told him, “We believe the carpet exists for the people, not the people for the carpet.” Sweet said it was the first carpet he met that was in ministry. The church is not the carpet or the building, but the people engaged in ministry to the world.

So we don’t have to concern ourselves with the small stuff. We should not get distracted by stains on the carpet or whether so and so looks or acts like we do. See, the church is not a subculture to which we must conform. Someone told me about a coworker of theirs who suggested if you weren’t a member of their church then you weren’t saved. The church doesn’t save anybody, and certainly the peculiar styles and ways in that particular church does not. The church is the bearer of the Good News of Salvation in Jesus Christ. In that sense, there is no salvation outside the Church, (Big C) because the church carries the message.

The church is the spiritual house of God’s presence. We remind the world of an unseen, spiritual reality. See, the fundamental heresy of our time is that the most powerful forces and realities are physical and material, that the trees move the wind. We remind people that it is the wind that moves the trees and the trees acknowledge the wind’s supremacy – like Isaiah says, “the trees of the field clap their hands” in obeisance to the invisible power. What are we, the church? We are masters of the wind, sailors of the spirit, windsurfers.

We could spend days talking about what’s wrong with the church. And people do. We must acknowledge our weaknesses and our sins, but we must never forget our identity and our power and our potential. As St. Augustine said, “The church is a whore and she is my mother.” And for reasons I don’t fully understand but I fully know, Jesus loves the church. “He loves the church,” Don Miller writes, “With the same strength of character He displays in His love for me. Sometimes it is difficult to know which is the greater miracle.”

The Doctrine of Salvation

Scripture: John 6.35-44; 2 Corinthians 5.17-21; Ephesians 2.1-10


When last we met for Christianity 101 we were talking about human sin. This is what I like about preaching a series of sermons, it feels like we are having a conversation that is ongoing, that gets interrupted but is then resumed the next week. We left off this conversation recognizing that humanity has fallen and can’t get up of its own strength or wisdom. We need outside help. That’s what salvation is all about.

I had just graduated from college. To this point I had no long-term plans or prospects, a had a teaching degree, but no prospects. So what did I do? I bought a car. In my defense, I had never owned a car before, and I needed one. So, there it was, a used, but very nice-looking, white VW GTI. And it was all good because my brother-in-law helped me get a job with Albarano Construction in Williamsport. It paid what I thought was decent money for a young guy and I was able to make my car payments every month with money to spare. At the end of the summer another job opportunity came up that paid a lot better, so I quit my job at Albarano to go work at this other place. Only the job never materialized. I had to scrape together a couple of jobs that really didn’t pay well. I started to have trouble making the car payments. In the middle of this I was wondering what to do with my life and I sensed God calling me to seminary. So I went to Kentucky and started at Asbury Seminary. Now I had classes to take. What I didn’t have was any recognizable income and of course, I still had my car payment.

I went home to Williamsport on break for a few weeks and a family friend had a painting business and he hired me to come help with a job for a few days. His name was Skip and he had been friends with my dad. In fact, they had worked together years ago. Skip asked me how I was doing. He had heard I was having trouble paying for my car. He said, “What are you going to do while you’re a school?” I said I didn’t know. I remember him saying, “Well, you can’t just bury it somewhere.” Although that’s how I had begun to feel about it. It was this great big burden hanging around my neck. Doesn’t it stink to have bills to pay and not know how you are going to pay them?

Well, Skip paid me for the couple days work I gave him, and let me say he was generous with the wage. But he didn’t stop there. He asked me what I needed to make a couple months payment on my car, and then he handed that money to me. It was money that I hadn’t earned. The debt I had earned. Someone else paid my debt for me.

That’s salvation by grace. Theologians call it Substitionary Atonement. Jesus took our sin debt to the Cross and paid the debt for us. St. Paul tells the Corinthians that Jesus, who knew no sin, became our sin for us. “The wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

To the Ephesians Paul wrote, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and tis is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of our own works, so that no one may boast.” God looked at you and me and said, “Here, this is what you need so the debt can be forgiven. I will provide it for you.” What did God provide? He provided himself, in the person of the Son.

One might ask why any debt had to be paid by anyone. Why is the wages of sin death? Why does someone have to die for sin? Because sin is the disruption of the image of God in the whole of Creation. Sin has messed up the harmony and perfection of God. It has broken the relationship between the Creation and the Creator. A God of holy love would have that harmony and perfect relationship with the whole of Creation restored. And He will have it restored. God will. You might as well ask, “Why is water wet?” as to ask why must sin be accounted for.

You see, in the midst of life we are in death. We are moving on to something. Our lives are not lived in a circle so much as they are on a trajectory to somewhere and something. Things are changing, always changing. Even in order for things to stay relatively the same, they must change.

Did you know that your body is sloughing off thousands of cells every minute? Thousands of cells are dying, in order for you to live (in the midst of life we are in death), in order for you to stay relatively the same. Have you seen all those dust bunnies under the bed? Dead cells. Dead you. Makes you wonder whether you are coming or going. Every five years you are a totally new person. Which means, if you married for twenty-five years or more your wife is living with her fifth husband.

We’ve been married for ten – my wife wonders why her second husband is more bald and wrinkled and no better looking.

What is God’s answer to all this changing and dying? Salvation. Grace. The mystery of the universe that is this – Christ is in you. Salvation is the life of God born in you. That moves the Apostle Paul to exclaim that “outwardly we are dying but inwardly we are being renewed daily.” Salvation, zoe life, cannot be destroyed by killing the body. Salvation by the grace of Jesus Christ immerses us in this hidden reservoir of life.

Salvation = Life. God changes your destiny from the inside out, not only paying your sin debt but giving you eternal life so that you will never be in debt to sin and death again. The price has been paid, the victory won. Listen to Jesus:

“I am the Bread of . . .Life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. . .This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.”

Can I get a witness? That out to shake up your dead cells a little bit. Don’t worry, we’ll vacuum the carpet later. Christ lives in you! You are a vessel of eternal life! So, again, as Paul says, “From now on we look at no one from a human point of view (a collection of dying cells) If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

Friends, we are not immoral people become moral, bad to good, we are dead people resurrected to life! Worship and thank the Lord of Life right now.