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March 30, 2008

Unseen but Not Unknown

Easter 2: March 30, 2008
1 Peter 1:3-9, John 20:19-31

Today’s scripture reading acknowledge the gift of faith in Jesus as the Son of God.
1 Peter in verse 8 referring to Jesus writes, “Although you have not seen (known) him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy,” And John 20, verse 29 when Jesus speaking to Thomas says, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Let me tell you about my experience with this coming to believe in Jesus as the Son of God. I grew up in the Methodist Church. My grandfather was a Methodist minister and our family life revolved around church and church activities. When I was a little girl I remember going on youth group day trips with my parents. We’d be on a bus going somewhere and I’d be hanging out with the big kids and feeling like quite a big girl myself. It was fun getting home late and falling exhausted into bed.

Most of our friends came from the church and it was a stabilizing force in our lives. When our family moved to Petoskey, that all changed. I was a freshman in high school. My dad worked out of town and was only home on the weekends. My mom was working in real estate and so she worked on Sundays. We never found a church when we moved to Petoskey and the stability that church provided was missing in our family, and thus in my teenage life. Up until that point in my walk of faith, I don’t remember any substantive talks about Jesus. It may have been that I was just getting to the age when those talks would start.

So here I am the stability of a church community is gone. My family community was falling apart, and I did not know where to turn. I was left to depend on myself. I was able to cope and hold it together through college. After college, I moved here to Chicago, and I quickly realized that I was making a mess of my life. I had no clue what I was doing and things were going downhill quickly.

As I began to look for a saving presence in my life, the Jesus I heard people talk about frightened me. Looking back on my life, I realized I had been given so much and had so many opportunities only to make a big mess of my life. How could I be welcomed by the judgmental, legalistic Jesus that I heard about? My guilt and shame (other names for fear), along with my narrow interpretation of Jesus that I nurtured, kept Jesus as arms length. Today, my relationship with Jesus continues to grow and deepen. I work at it like any relationship.

For much of my life, I was (maybe I still am at times) more comfortable with a God who is out there and who visits through the power and presence of the Spirit. It’s hard to look Jesus in the eyes and see your Savior there if you feel unworthy.

I want you to think of a close friend—someone who knows all about you—the great, the average and the embarrassing. Name that person. What is it about your relationship with that person that has put them in the category of close friend? Now think about your relationship with Jesus. Is it anything like the relationship with your close friend? Why or why not?

Have you, like me, allowed others to define Jesus and thus your relationship with him? Maybe you have wondered about Jesus and how to develop a deeper relationship with him but didn’t know who to ask or how to do it. If you didn’t belong to a faith community, who would you ask and would they want to help? If you attend church on a regular basis are you afraid to ask about having a relationship with Jesus because you assume you should just know how? Maybe you are blessed to have a deep and personal relationship with Jesus. Can you recall how that happened? Have you shared your relationship with Jesus with anyone else?

Concerned about the decline in church membership, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life recently interviewed more than 35,000 adults and some of the results were reported in the March 14 issue of our UM Reporter. One telling statistic is that more than one quarter of American adults have left the faith of their childhood for another religion or no religion at all. Specifically, among Protestants, about six in 10 Baptists and Lutherans stay with the church they were raised in.
Compare this with less than half of the Methodist, Presbyterians or Episcopalians stay where they were raised. The fastest growing group is the unaffiliated—those with no church home—at 16.1%.

Scott Brewer, director of research for one of our general agencies, made this comment about the troubling loss of United Methodist members, “For whatever reason, a sizeable population raised in the Methodist tradition is no longer Methodist. Maybe we haven’t done a good job of showing what is unique, special, and important about being a United Methodist.”

Through my experience, I might say it a little differently. Maybe as a mainline church, we United Methodist's have not done our best to help people strengthen their spiritual lives, their relationship with Jesus. It might be that because we have not made strong disciples, people have left the church seeking what they have not found here someplace else. I’m not picking on the UMC as a whole, or the past ministries here at Irving Park UMC. I’m suggesting that we look at ourselves as individuals, and as a community of faith, and see if God is giving us an opportunity.

I realize I’m making a huge assumption. I’m assuming that many of you do not have a deep personal relationship with Jesus. If I’m wrong, let me know! That would be great! It won’t be the first time I’ve made assumptions that were incorrect. But if I’m speaking to you today, if you desire a deeper relationship with this Jesus who lived, died, and was resurrected from the dead…allow me to keep going.

Using one scholars outline (1) as my jumping off point, I want to suggest to you this morning that we have four stages in our relationship with Jesus. They are
1) Curious; 2) Come and See; 3) Come to Believe; 4) See Clearly.

Stage One—We are curious to meet Jesus. We seek people and places where we think we will find Jesus. During Jesus’ time, people sought him out. Nicodemus came to Jesus in the middle of the night. Crowds gathered around him everywhere he went. After his death, during the beginning of Christianity, people sought out the first disciples of Jesus so they could be close to him. In our time, we come to church hoping to meet him here, in the worship, and in the fellowship of other Christians.

In stage one, we are curious to meet Jesus. Once we’ve met him, Jesus invites us into a deeper relationship with him. Just as he responded to some followers of John the Baptist, Jesus invites us to “Come and see” where he lives.

Stage Two (Come and See): For the early disciples that was hanging out with Jesus, listening to his teachings, eating with him. Being his companion, student, friend. We recall that Jesus told his disciples (Matthew 18:20), “Where two or more are gathered in my name, I am with them.” We also get to know Jesus by taking time on our own and studying the scripture and church doctrines, by praying to him, thinking about him and making him an important person in our life.

Another way to get to know Jesus is through the arts. Look around this church, or any church that you visit. There was a long period in the Christian church when the gospel was communicated was through artwork. There is a magnificent exhibit of Christian artifacts at the Cloisters Museum in north Manhattan. It’s a small museum compared to others but some of the artwork is stunning. For us in the 21st century, art is one way we can get to know Jesus that is beyond our intellectual understanding.

In stage two, we spend time with Jesus, both individually and in community. We need to be careful here because we can stay in stage two for a life time. We can get comfortable here and never move on to the next stage of being committed disciples. Jesus’ disciples stayed in this stage until they saw and accepted the resurrected Jesus.

Stage Three (We Come to Believe): When we leave stage two and move into stage three we have now come to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. He is the Messiah, God in human flesh who came to earth to live among us. We know him personally in our heart. How is this stage different from stage two? It is beyond, “Come and see.” In stage three, having gotten to know him, we say, “Yes” to his invitation to follow him. We say, “Yes, I want to live as you lived, serve as you served, and love as you loved. And I want to do all this because I have come to believe in you.”

A good example of this is the song entitled, “I Am Thine O Lord.” It can be found in the United Methodist Hymnal, number 419. When we sing this song, we say Yes to Jesus.

Jesus said to his disciples during that first visit the night of his resurrection, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you…If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any they are retained.” Earlier in their live together Peter asked Jesus, “Lord..how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Thinking himself to be quite righteous if he forgave someone seven times! Jesus replied, “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” And then Jesus did what he often did to drive home the point, he told a parable (Matthew 18:21).

This is where I believe our faith as United Methodists can make a difference in our world. In stage three we answer Yes to Jesus’ invitation to follow him and to serve others in his name. How does he send us? Not as judge and jury but as those who offer forgiveness, as we ourselves have been forgiven. Not to be served, but as one who serves. This leads to Stage Four, See Clearly.

It is suggested by E.G. Selwyn that we do not reach this stage until after we die. Until that point, this stage is a beautiful vision, a living hope of what will come. Described in 1 John 3:2 the author writes, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.” Or in 1 Corinthians 13:12 Paul writes, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known”. As the disciples saw the resurrected Jesus, so one day, we will see him face to face and all our doubts and questions will be answered in one breathtaking look.

Before recapping the four stages, I want to remind us that these stages are not linear in nature but we ebb and flow between them. Similar to when we grieve, we move in and out of the various stages. So it is with our faith. Over time, we will find ourselves landing in one stage more than the others and that will indicate to us where we are in our relationship with Jesus.

1) Curious; 2) Come and See; 3) Come to Believe; 4) See Clearly. Where do you find yourself right now? Is it where you want to be? This church will be offering some opportunities and ways to strengthen and deepen your relationship with Jesus. Our district has a variety of opportunities, as well as our conference and the Harvest 2020 Initiative. Would you make a commitment to do one thing this next week to strengthen your relationship with Jesus? Get your Bible out this week and re-read the events of Holy Week. Include Jesus in your prayer time and ask him to come into your heart. Share your struggles or questions with a Christian friend who has a strong relationship with Jesus and ask them for some guidance.

Remember the relationship with your close friend, what are you willing to do to make time for Jesus to be a close friend?

Dr. Rachel Remen, in her book, “My Grandfather’s Blessings” (2) tells the following story. It was 1984. She was one of two women and several men invited to speak at a pioneering conference on mind/body health. Some 1,000 people would be in the auditorium. A friend asked Dr. Remen if she planned on inviting her mother who lived nearby. She had not.
Reflecting on the idea, Dr. Remen realized her mother had never heard her speak publically so she invited her. Imagine her surprise when her elderly mother who was quite ill said yes. They arrived early. She got her mother situated in the middle of the tenth row. As the auditorium filled and Dr. Remen sat on the stage with the others, she kept her eye on her mother.

When it was her turn to speak, she shared her counter cultural theory about healing. She shared stories from her practice to support her theory and found herself engrossed in her presentation. When she finished speaking, there was a moment of silence and then people began to applaud and slowly many stood up. The reaction was unexpected to say the least.

Only one person in the tenth row remained seated. Her arms were crossed and there was a tiny smile on her face. As the renowned doctor continued to look at her mother, the elderly eyes narrowed and she nodded slowly, twice. Dr. Remen shares with her readers that no other acknowledgement has ever equaled this. She draws strength from it still.

We all want validation from those who are important to us, whether we realize it or not. A parent, spouse, boss, coach, mentor, a child.

In the sea of people who want us to live life according to their rules, their values, their agendas, God invites us to look to our spiritual mentor, Jesus for our validation. Let us remember to look to Jesus. While we may not see him, we can hope that as the world might be standing and applauding for us Jesus is lovingly smiling at us, eyes filled with love and compassion, and he ever so slightly nods his head twice as if to say, “well done, good and faithful servant.”

Endnotes:
1) E.G. Selwyn’s four stages of man’s apprehension of Christ, found in William Barclay’s study on The Letters of James and Peter. ©1976 William Barclay. Publishers Westminster John Knox Press.
2)Completion, written by Rachael Naomi Remen in My Grandfather’s Blessings. © R.M.Remen. Published by Riverhead Books.

Posted by vickie at 10:00 AM