Social Holiness

 Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Luke 10:25-37:

When people find out that I’m a minister I never know what to expect. Often people will project onto me whatever they think about the church, for good or for ill. Those on the right tend to instantly assume that I’m a fundamentalist, and those on the left tend to instantly assume I’m a fundamentalist. But it can lead to some interesting conversations, interesting being in all its connotations, although sometimes people don’t want to talk anymore once they know what I do. I was having a conversation once and when they found out I was a minister they then asked one of the inevitable follow-ups which is what denomination, which is part of the reason for this series on Methodism so that we can be able to say what it is that makes Methodism unique, which is not always the easiest thing, but his response was not what I expected.

He said “I grew up a Methodist, but I stopped going when they began to be interested in social justice issues,” and my response, which was definitely not what he expected, and maybe not as pastoral is it should have been was “really, you were around in 1908 because that’s when the Methodist Church published the Social Creed which laid out the church’s position on many social issues.” Although I didn’t say this part, the Social Creed called for, amongst other things, the end to child labor, safety standards for industrial workers, a six-day work week for everyone, and a living wage. Now my response to this gentleman certainly didn’t further the conversation, which was part of my hope, honestly, and it wasn’t actually fully accurate because the Methodist movements concern with social issues goes back much further than that. In fact, it goes all the way back to the beginning.

Personal Holiness

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was John 14:23-29 and 1 Peter 1:13-23:

On May 24, 1738, John Wesley recorded in his journal “in the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." And thus, was what has become known as Wesley’s Aldersgate experience, where his heart was strangely warmed. And as we heard in the introduction to singing O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing, his brother Charles had had a similar experience three days before on May 21. I can’t imagine that there wasn’t just a little bit of jealousy on John’s part surrounding that reality. And so, as we remember that experience, and Charles’ on what has become known as Heritage Sunday in the United Methodist Church we continue in our series looking at beliefs that are unique to Methodism and move onto the idea of personal holiness.

Now personal holiness in and of itself is not very unique, but we do have some unique takes on it. And before we dive into those, it’s also important to give some context to the Aldersgate experience so that we can better understand what comes before, during and after that shapes Wesley’s thinking about personal holiness, conversion experiences as well as the acceptance of God’s salvation, or God’s saving grace given to everyone, including John himself, as well as you and I. Last week I talked about John and Charles coming to the Georgia colony in 1736, which didn’t end really well for either of them. On the boat trip over, they encountered a major storm and while the Wesley brothers, and others, were fearing for their lives, a group of Moravians, who were the first protestant church, coming into existence in Eastern Europe fifty years before Martin Luther. Who were on their way to the colonies for religious freedom, and rather than being terrified of the storm, they were instead praying and singing praises to God. This had quite an impact on John, and he began to wonder about his faith, and began to explore even more other religious movements beyond the church of England. But one of the things that the Moravians told him, as did the leaders of some other pietist movements, was that he needed to have a dateable conversion experience. That without that he was not a true Christian, and he was also told that unless he was absolutely filled with joy all the time that he also wasn’t a true Christian. Some of these groups were then ones that would deny him communion because they didn’t think him Christian enough to receive it. Johnj would write, as he was headed back the London, “I went to Georgia to convert the Indians,” a task at which he failed miserably, and then writes “but who shall convert me?”

Core Values: In Service and Mission

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was 1 John 3:11-24 and Mark 10:35-45:

Shortly after I was appointed to my last church in Albuquerque, a member of the congregation came to me with a service project that he wanted to do, which is the best place for service to begin. Albuquerque did not have a food pantry anywhere west of the river and north of the interstate, which is a pretty large section of town. There was one way up in Rio Rancho, and one in the south, but none close to us, and so he wanted to start one. I was totally supportive of that effort, and having some experience with food banks, I told him that it would be great to have some other churches involved because I didn’t think we would be able to support the pantry by ourselves, especially to do what he was hoping it would do. So he went off and met with the 3 churches that were within a ½ mile of us, two of whom were immediately on board and another said they would think about it, so we were off to a great start. He then went to meet with another church that was close by which happened to be one of the largest in the city, and also the 10th largest in their denomination in the country, which I am not going to name in order to protect the guilty.

But, he sat down with them and explained what we were doing and asked if they would be willing to be a partner. The pastor he met with then asked how they could get new members of the church from the pantry? He wasn’t sure what they were asking, and so asked for clarification, and was told that unless they could be guaranteed that new people would start attending their church because of the pantry then they weren’t interested in participating. That is, the only reason to be of service to the world, the only reason to help others in need, the only reason to offer Christ’s love was if, to be a little blunt, it would put more butts in the seats.