Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons

Becoming Tight by Being Loose

Rev. Dean Snyder Ephesians 4:4-7; 11-16

Everyone is called to ministry. Everyone has spiritual gifts. Everyone has things they are particularly passionate about because of our unique life experience.

You are called to ministry, not just ordained clergy, not just church staff, not just board members. You have a ministry. There is someone who needs your ministry.

If you will take the initiative to live out your ministry it will propel your life to new levels, it will propel the lives of those you minister to. It will propel the church.

This is the theme of our propel series of sermons, small groups and classes.

To get at this theme we are studying the Book of Ephesians.

There are many kinds of gifts for ministry. You can find dozens of gifts listed in the New Testament alone.

The Book of Ephesians says that every congregation needs to have at least five gifts present within it.

Ephesians 4: 11 says: ‘The gifts God gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.”

Every congregation –if it is going to be effective at equipping and empowering its people ande serving the world needs people who have the gift to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.

So we made up this flyer this week with short definitions of what apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers are.

Take a look at it with me.

Apostles are people who can cast a vision and lead others toward it. Often apostles are the people who initiate new ministries and missions and organize people to do the work. Sometimes they step in and revitalize existing ministries. They are leaders who know how to inspire and organize people.

Prophets are people who foresee and work for the just and inclusive world God wills. Prophets foresee God’s future for the world and communicate it. They have a strong drive toward social justice.

Evangelists are people who can invite and encourage others on their faith journey. Evangelists are not evangelists necessarily like Billy Graham. Evangelism is often a one-to-one mentoring of someone else in their faith and life path.

Pastors in this sense are not people who stand up front and preach. That actually might more often be apostles. Pastors in this sense are those who support others in their times of need. They provide pastoral care.

Teachers are people who teach. They can help other learn ideas and practice skills.

So these are the five basic and essential gifts which need to be present in every congregation for it to thrive.

Then we added another gift that was not explicitly named in Ephesians but which is especially important here at Foundry –music and the arts.

So we want to try an experiment here at Foundry today … something we’ve never done before.

We’d like you to pick what you think your number one spiritual gift is out of this list. Take a minute to think about it. It is a forced choice. If you just have these to choose from, which one of these comes the closest? It is just an experiment, not a permanent life decision.

Pick one.

Now, we’ve got some folk who are going to hold signs at various places in the sanctuary. When I tell you, I want to invite you to gather around your sign and talk to 2 or three other people in the group for three or four minutes about this topic: How did you first begin to realize that you had the gift to be an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher or artist.

This is going to be a little noisy but we are going to celebrate Holy Communion in a few minutes which will be very holy.

So please go to the sign that best fits you and share with two or three other people and I’ll call you back to attention in a few minutes. Go.

…

OK. That was energizing. (Get people’s attention) If you met somebody you’d like to talk to more, please share your contact information. Give your sheet to the person with the sign and you can return to your pew/seat.

We need at least these particular spiritual gifts to thrive as a congregation. Apostles need to lead groups and ministries. Prophets need to work for social justice. Evangelists need to invite and nurture others into our congregation. Pastors need to care for those going through difficult times. Teachers need to teach. And singers need to sing.

Without you exercising your ministry, our body will not be complete.

You cannot wait for someone to come and ask you to do something here at the church. You need to step out and exercise your gift for ministry. Propel yourself into ministry.

It used to be that we waited to do our ministry until somebody elected us to a church office. But God has already elected you to your calling.

So we are trying to loosen up and allow more freedom for everyone to exercise their ministry.

There is only one proviso. Your ministry has to build up the body of Christ. It has to build up the body in love. We will talk more about that next week.

But for today, we want you to think and pray about your gifts for ministry and how God might be calling you to step out in new ways. Think about this as we celebrate communion together.

Becoming Rich in Differences

Rev. Dean Snyder Ephesians 3:7-13

From Consumers to Creators

Rev. Dean Snyder Ephesians 2:1-10

Lucky You! Lucky Me!

Rev. Dean Snyder Ephesians 1:3-14

Jane and I have been away for two weeks visiting our daughter who is living in Istanbul, Turkey. It was a wonderful trip and it is wonderful to be home.

Let’s start out this morning with a moment of prayer. Let us bow our heads. Please pray silently for the person on your right that God might meet them today wherever they are in life and whatever their need. Pray for a moment for the person on your left. Pray for yourself that your heart and mind might be open to the message in the scripture for today. Amen.

We begin a new series today, one that we have been preparing for and praying about for months - Propel: Spirit Enhanced Living.

The premise of this series, based on the New Testament book of Ephesians, is that each and every one of us of us is called to ministry, each and every one of us is gifted for ministry, and each of us has within us a God-given passion for ministry. And if we can discover our calling, gifts, and passions and live into them, it will propel our lives to new levels of meaning, engagement, energy and effectiveness.

We are studying the Book of Ephesians. Jane and I visited the ruins of the city of Ephesus while we were in Turkey as some of you have. Ephesus was a great city at the time the Apostle Paul planted a church there.

The Book of Ephesians is one of the late epistles of the New Testament. It was probably written by one of the Apostle Paul’s disciples after Paul’s death but written in Paul’s name and based on his teaching as was a common practice of the time. By the time the Book of Ephesians was written, the church at Ephesus had become a largely and maybe entirely gentile church.

In chapter one of the Book of Ephesians, Paul’s disciple –let’s just call him Paul-- Paul wants the gentiles of the Ephesian church to know that their inclusion in the church was not accidental.

Three times in the Book of Ephesians Paul says that their inclusion as gentiles in the church was not an accident but an inheritance that had been intended for them from before the creation of the world. (Eph 1:14, 18; 5:5) When they were included within the church and received the Holy Spirit into their lives, it was an inheritance waiting for them, to be claimed by them.

The Greek word that Ephesians uses that we translate “inheritance” is the word kleronomia, a combination of kleroo, the Greek word that means fortune or luck and nomos, the Greek word that means law or rule.

Your inheritance is the fortune meant for you according to the laws of inheritance. Paul’s message to the Ephesian gentiles is that God had put into place laws in the universe that assured the gentiles their inheritance of a place in the church, a place in God’s plan, and the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives. All they needed to do was to claim it.

If you are part of a gentile group in the life of the church – a group that has been either excluded or whose presence has been diminished – if you are a woman, especially a feminist, if you are a person of color, if you are gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender, if you are a straight male who has not been successful in the way straight men are supposed to succeed, if you are single, if you are divorced, if you are differently abled, if you are an immigrant, if you are an artist, if you are an intellectual, if you have had an abortion, if you use birth control, if you wrestle with depression, if you are bi-polar, if you are HIV positive, if you have a chronic health condition, if you are homeless, if you are poor, if you are rich … if you are part of any of the categories of people who have been treated as questionable or second-class in the church … you need to know that your inclusion in the church, your leadership within the church, the Holy Spirit in your life, is an inheritance that God has intended for you from the very beginning. You were always meant to be here. It is an inheritance waiting for you to claim it.

That’s Paul’s message in Ephesians, chapter one, to the gentiles at Ephesus.

Now here is the interesting thing that I want to work on this morning/evening. When Paul talks in Ephesians 1:11 about his inheritance, his own destiny, his own ministry, his personal role in the plan of God for human history, he does not use the word kleronomia—which means an inheritance by law. He uses only the word kleroo which means pure luck.

This is the distinction I want to argue this morning: Our inclusion in the church, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, our salvation, this is an inheritance that we can claim because God intended it for us from the very beginning. God put it in his last will and testament.

Our personal ministries, our personal role in God’s plan for human history, our personal destinies, this is kleroo, pure good luck.

We can claim our inclusion in the church, we can claim our salvation, and we can claim our portion of the Holy Spirit in our lives. These are our inheritance intended for us by God from the very beginning by law.

But our personal ministries are our special good luck.

We are all called to ministry. Our being chosen and called to ministry is part of our inheritance by law.

The specific nature of the ministry to which we are called is good luck. And it is determined by our innate gifts, our passions, and our personal life experience.

There is a little book called The Will of God written by Leslie Weatherhead. I did some calculations and figured out this week that during my 40-some years as a minister, I have bought and given away more than 200 copies of this little book because so many people have come to me with questions about whether something that happened to them in their life was the will of God for them or not.

Leslie Weatherhead was a Methodist pastor in London and he wrote this little book during World War II. A British soldier would be killed in the war and somebody would say, Well, it must have been God’s will, and Weatherhead would reply, No, it was Hitler’s will, not God’s will.

So to help people think more clearly about the idea of God’s will, Weatherhead made a distinction between three ways of using the expression “the will of God.”

1) He said there was first of all God’s intentional will. God’s pure will. What God really wants. Jesus says in Matthew 18:14 “It is not the will of your [Parent] in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost [or perish]. This is God’s intentional or pure will.

2) But God has given you and me free will. God has given human beings free will. I even think God has given creation free will. So things happen as a result of our free will that are not part of God’s original intention. Still God wants us to respond in certain ways when things happen that are not part of God’s intentional will. Weatherhead called this God’s circumstantial will.

Weatherhead argued that it was not God’s intentional will for Jesus to be rejected and to die on a cross. But given the reality of evil and the human rejection of Jesus, it was God’s circumstantial will for Jesus to face the cross with a sense of holy purpose.

It was not God’s intentional will that London be bombed during World War II, Weatherhead said. But given the reality of the bombing, it was God’s circumstantial will that people take care of each other during the bombings.

3) Then finally, he said, there is God’s ultimate will. God works in our human lives and in human history to redeem and transform our rebellion and resistance and sin to achieve God’s ultimate intention and purpose. So the cross which we meant for evil becomes the instrument of our salvation.

God’s intentional or pure will is for all of us to thrive … to have abundant life. (John 10:10) But God has given us free wills. And God gave our ancestors and parents free wills. God gave Hitler free will. God has given the American electorate free will. We can elect any president we choose to elect. God is not going to decide the election. If you win the election, it is not because God willed it. It is because God gave people free will and the people willed it.

But in every circumstance, God is working to redeem the situation so that God’s ultimate will can come to be. God is always working to redeem wrongdoing and sin and evil in our world … and in our lives … so that ultimately we can thrive.

One of my favorite verses of the Bible is Romans 8:28 which is mistranslated in most of your Bibles as “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to God’s purpose.”

The way it ought to be translated is “We know God works in all things for good for those who love God and are called according to God’s purpose.”

It is not that everything just sort of turns out for the good. It is not that everything that happens in the world is good. It is not that everything that happens to you or me is good. Bad things happen that are not part of God’s intentional will.

But in every situation God is working to redeem the situation so that we all thrive and live meaningful, joyous, abundant lives.

In fact, I believe that when we say we believe in God what we are saying is that evil can be redeemed. To believe in God means to believe that that no evil is ever final. No evil is unredeemable.

So, back to Ephesians Chapter one; you and I are called. It is part of our inheritance. But the way our calling works out can be circumstantial. It can be a matter of pure luck.

It is not God’s intention that you grew up with parents who were not able to love you fully but God may use that experience in your life to help shapes the nature of your calling when you yourself become a parent or a teacher or an aunt or an uncle.

God takes what was not God’s intention and turns it into your good luck.

It is not God’s intention that you experience poverty or homelessness in your life but it might shape the nature of your calling and ministry.

It is not God’s intention that you get cancer but it might shape your ministry and calling. We have a wonderful cancer support team at Foundry. If you are ever diagnosed, there are people here who will counsel you and stand with you. These are folks who took a God-awful experience and turned it into a ministry.

You’ve experienced addiction…Lucky you. You have a wonderful potential gift for ministry.

The point is whatever our particular and unique personal make-up (physically, emotionally, personality-wise, experientially), this is our good fortune. Whatever it is gives us our unique abilities, gifts, passions and perspectives to make our contribution to God’s plan. The trick for us is to recognize that when it is offered to God, all luck is good luck. God uses it all.

There is nothing in our lives that God will not use.

When we came up with the title for this sermon this week, someone told me that they had always been taught that there is no such thing as luck. I myself think there is. I think that when God created a humanity with free will, it opened a space where things could happen that were not part of God’s original intention.

What I do believe is that there is no bad luck that God can’t turn into good luck. I believe that there is nothing in our lives that God won’t use to help accomplish God’s ultimate will.

Offered to God, our bad luck becomes good luck. It becomes a gift. It shapes our passions. It colors in our calling so that we can have our special ministry and place in what God is doing in the world.

You are called. You are a minister. To be called is your inheritance. You are not excluded.

The specifics of your calling are shaped by your gifts, experience and passion.

And often the things in our lives that we least appreciate about ourselves and our lives are the very basis of our gifts and will shape our passions and flesh in our ministry. The Spirit will use them to propel your life.

I want encouraging you to participate in a small group during this series. We are using William Carter’s booklet “Each One a Minister.” You can sign up for a small group on our website. We are also offering some special classes to support this series which you can sign up for on our website as well.

You will get maximum benefit from this series if you join a small group so we really encourage you to think about doing that. If you are already part of a small group, we encourage your group to study the Each One a Minister booklet during September and October.

To be called, to be a minister is your inheritance. The particular shape your ministry will take is your good luck. Lucky you. Lucky me.

Stone Silence

Rev. Dawn M. Hand Romans 8:15-27