Theological Status: COMPROMISED (Worldly/Sloppy)
Biblical Parallel(Archetype): Pergamum
❓ What do these grades mean?
🔍 Biblical Discernment: The 7 Church Parallels
The Cold Orthodox Parallel
Ephesus
Teaching that upholds doctrinal precision yet parallels the loss of the "first love"—the vital, motivating power of the Gospel (Rev 2:4).
The Compromised Parallel
Pergamum
Teaching that parallels churches tolerating the "doctrine of Balaam" through cultural accommodation (Rev 2:14), characterized by weak boundaries, sloppy theology, and worldly compromise.
Why strictly "Mark & Avoid"?
We do not issue this rating to attack the speaker, but to protect the listener. This ministry's overall teaching trend consistently deviates from sound doctrine. As per Romans 16:17, we identify these patterns so believers can guard their hearts.
We do not issue this rating to attack the speaker, but to protect the listener. This ministry's overall teaching trend consistently deviates from sound doctrine. As per Romans 16:17, we identify these patterns so believers can guard their hearts.
🧐 Overview
Theological Verdict & Summary
Sermon Summary: A call to move beyond superficial social interactions to a deep, face-to-face encounter with God and others, framed through the lens of love and community.
Pastoral Analysis: The sermon offers a warm, pastoral invitation to deeper spiritual connection and community, utilizing personal anecdotes and biblical illustrations. However, the theological foundation is compromised by a moralistic approach that emphasizes human effort and emotional experience over the Gospel of grace. The core message of substitutionary atonement is absent, and the sermon leans heavily on therapeutic deism, risking the reduction of faith to a self-help mechanism.
Biblical Parallel (Archetype): Pergamum — This message exhibits significant homiletical compromise by substituting the Gospel of grace with moralistic imperatives and therapeutic deism. While the omission of the central doctrine of substitutionary atonement represents a major theological deficiency, it is classified as Path B rather than Critical. The Pergamum archetype reflects a state of compromised boundaries, where the sacred truth of the Gospel is diluted by worldly accommodation and moralism.
Big Idea: Heaven is not merely a future destination but a present reality of face-to-face encounter with God and others, where love bridges the divide between life and death. 00:35:10 ▶️ 📄
📖 How they Handle Scripture & Jesus
- Primary Text: Genesis 32:24-32
- Usage Classification: Thematic
- Text-to-Talk Ratio: High
- Pulpit Decorum: ✅ PASS - No coarse language or pejoratives were detected.
✝️ Christological Focus: Moralistic/Imitative
"Christ is presented primarily as a model for human behavior and a source of comfort, rather than as the unique Savior whose atoning work is the basis for salvation."
Scripture Saturation: Verses Read: 14 | Referenced: 2 | Alluded: 0
📖 View 2 Passages Read Aloud
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Genesis 32:24-32
00:32:45 ▶️ 📄
"Jacob was left alone. A man wrestled with Jacob until daybreak. And when the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. And then he said, let me go, for the day is breaking. But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And so the man said to Jacob, what is your name? He said, Jacob, which means heel grabber, by the way. That's what that name means. Then the man said, you shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel. For you have striven with God. That's what Israel means, the one who strives with God and with human beings. And you have prevailed. And then Jacob asked him, please tell me your name. But the stranger said, why is it that you ask me my name? And there, the stranger blessed Jacob. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, for I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved. And the sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip."
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Luke 23:39-43
00:34:24 ▶️ 📄
"One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding Jesus and saying, Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us. But the other criminal rebuked Jesus saying, rebuked the first one, the first criminal and saying, do you not fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong. And then the man turned to Jesus and said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus replied, truly, I tell you, Today, you will be with me in paradise."
Key References: Genesis 1:1, 1 Corinthians 13:12
🎙️ Sermon Content & Delivery
Word Count: 3,237 words
📌 View 10 Key Topics Addressed
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Heaven and the Lord's Prayer
00:39:27 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor discusses the concept of heaven as God's realm and the evolving scriptural understanding of it, contrasting cultural views with theological depth. -
Death and Life After Death
00:40:19 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor redefines death not as the opposite of life but as non-being, and describes life after death as a new birth into God's presence, bridged by love. -
Jacob's Encounter with God
00:43:06 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor uses the story of Jacob wrestling with the stranger to illustrate the concept of 'face-to-face' encounter and the transformation of identity from swindler to Israel. -
Paradise and the Cross
00:46:56 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor interprets Jesus' promise to the thief as a vision of paradise (a walled garden) populated by both saints and sinners, emphasizing God's presence in agony. -
Huck Finn and Hell
00:50:13 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor uses the story of Huck Finn choosing hell to save Jim to illustrate that love, rather than doctrinal correctness or heavenly rewards, is the driving force of Christian faith. -
Face-to-Face Encounter with God
00:54:31 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor concludes by referencing 1 Corinthians 13, describing the current state of faith as seeing dimly and the ultimate hope as a direct, face-to-face encounter with God. -
The Nature of Heaven and Divine Encounter
00:53:19 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor describes heaven not as a distant mystery but as a full, face-to-face encounter with the divine, contrasting it with our current limited perception through a 'dim mirror'. -
God's Presence in Life and Death
00:53:51 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor asserts that God is present with believers in life, in death, and in life beyond death, offering hope and alleviating the fear of the unknown. -
The Role of the Church in Relationships
00:55:49 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor defines the church's role as establishing healthy, deep connections between people to model holy living and support one another through suffering, rather than superficial harmony. -
The Mystery of the Afterlife
00:57:09 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor rejects speculative descriptions of heaven, emphasizing that the 'veil of mystery' is intentional and that the focus should be on the quality of divine connection rather than specific details.
🖼️ View 7 Illustrations & Stories
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Sermon Illustration
00:48:02 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor shares a personal anecdote about his sister who died in a house fire five years ago, noting how the pain of her death was related to the depth of love they shared, which helped him understand the connection between grief and love. -
Sermon Illustration
00:43:06 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor recounts the story of Jacob wrestling with a mysterious stranger, where Jacob is wounded but wins a blessing and a new name, Israel, illustrating a transformative face-to-face encounter with the divine. -
Sermon Illustration
00:46:56 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor references the biblical story of Jesus on the cross between two thieves, interpreting Jesus' words to the thief as a vision of paradise as a walled garden where God is present with both saints and sinners. -
Sermon Illustration
00:50:13 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor uses an analogy from 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,' where Huck chooses to go to hell rather than betray his friend Jim, to illustrate that love is the true basis of faith and connection beyond death. -
Sermon Illustration
00:55:08 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor uses the analogy of looking through a 'dirty, dim mirror' or 'looking glass' to describe how humans currently perceive God and the divine, contrasting it with the future 'face-to-face' encounter. -
Sermon Illustration
00:55:31 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor references the Old Testament prophets who had amazing experiences of being face-to-face with the divine, and contrasts this with Jesus, who put on a human face and dwelt among us. -
Sermon Illustration
00:56:12 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor uses the analogy of 'just talking about the weather' to illustrate superficial social interaction, contrasting it with the deep, holy connections the church is called to foster.
🚀 View 1 Calls to Action
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Pastoral Charge
00:57:55 ▶️ 📄
> The pastor invites the congregation to join in a corporate prayer seeking a direct encounter with God.
🧭 Biblical Alignment Dashboard
Overall Verdict: Compromised / Weak
| Category | Status | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Gospel Framework | ❌ FAIL | The sermon fails to articulate the core Gospel framework of Christ's substitutionary atonement and monergistic regeneration. Instead, it relies upon moralistic self-help and therapeutic deism, thereby obscuring the necessity of grace. |
| Soteriology | ❌ FAIL | The sermon presents salvation as a result of human effort and moral improvement rather than the sovereign work of God's grace. |
| Bibliology | ⚠️ WEAK | Scripture is used primarily as a vehicle for moralistic application rather than as the authoritative revelation of God's redemptive work. |
| Hermeneutic | ⚠️ WEAK | The hermeneutic is moralistic, focusing on behavioral change and emotional experience rather than the theological truth of the Gospel. |
| Theology Proper | ⚠️ WEAK | The theology of God is presented as a source of comfort and self-actualization rather than as the holy, sovereign Creator who demands repentance and faith. |
| Sacramentology | ✅ PASS | No sacramental errors were detected. |
| Confessional Depth | ❌ SHALLOW | The sermon lacks depth in doctrinal precision, focusing instead on emotional and moralistic themes. |
⚙️ The Core Gospel Framework ⚠️ Incomplete / Compromised
What is the Gospel Framework? This section audits whether the sermon proclaims the essential foundation of the Gospel: Christ's substitutionary sacrifice, humanity's spiritual need, and salvation by sovereign grace alone.
How this is evaluated:
How this is evaluated:
- Essential Gospel Pillars: The framework is verified intact when the sermon substantively preaches Christ's atonement, declares human inability (articulated through either Total Depravity or the Law's condemnation), and guards salvation by grace alone against works-righteousness.
- Historic Confessional Depth: Deeper theological distinctives (such as the Active Obedience of Christ) enrich theological depth when expounded, but their absence in a focused topical or expository message is not an error and does not compromise the Gospel Framework.
🏛️ Essential Gospel Pillars
✅ The Cross & Atonement (Penal Substitution): Articulated
"The pastor references the biblical story of Jesus on the cross between two thieves, interpreting Jesus' words to the thief as a vision of paradise as a walled garden where God is present with both saints and sinners." 00:46:56 ▶️ 📄
❌ Human Inability & Need: Not observed (neither human inability nor divine judgment was contextually proclaimed).
❌ Sola Gratia (Salvation by Grace Alone): Compromised
Soteriological errors detected regarding salvation by grace alone.
📜 Historic Confessional Depth
⚪ Active Obedience of Christ: Not explicitly expounded in this sermon.
Assessed under Confessional Depth diagnostic (SHALLOW). Its absence does not compromise the Gospel Framework.
⚠️ Theological Concerns
🟠 Major Assumed Gospel (Thematic/Moralistic)
Root Cause: Moralism
"I don't know what it looks like, but that's good enough. Because once you taste the presence of God and you can be in that fully, nothing else is better than that." 00:54:00 ▶️ 📄
The Belief/Behavior: The sermon assumes the Gospel is already known or irrelevant, focusing instead on the emotional experience of God's presence as the ultimate goal.
Why It's Dangerous: This reduces the Gospel to a therapeutic experience, ignoring the necessity of repentance, faith, and the finished work of Christ. It leads to a shallow faith that is easily shaken by suffering or doubt.
Biblical Correction: Ephesians 2:8-9 "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
🟠 Major Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD)
Root Cause: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism
"God who is holy love we seek a face-to-face encounter with you. We come to you with humility knowing that so much of our life is lived outside of awareness of your presence and yet you continue to call us and you are the bridge into both realms. We give thanks that you are with us in life and in death and in life beyond death." 00:57:55 ▶️ 📄
The Belief/Behavior: The sermon presents God as a source of comfort and self-actualization, reducing the divine to a tool for human emotional well-being.
Why It's Dangerous: This is a form of therapeutic deism, where God is treated as a life-coach for self-actualization. It fails to confront the reality of sin and the need for a Savior, leading to a faith that is fragile and self-centered.
Biblical Correction: John 14:6 "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
✅ Commendations
Pastoral Care | Emphasis on Community and Love
The sermon effectively highlights the importance of deep, resilient community and the value of human relationships as a reflection of God's love.
Illustration | Use of Personal Anecdotes
The pastor's personal stories, such as the loss of his sister and the story of Joan Chidister, are relatable and help to humanize the message.
📜 Full Sermon Transcript (Audit)
Use the 📄 icons next to quotes above to automatically jump to their location in this raw transcript.
[00:03:18] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:03:18] Good morning, y'all. Happy Sunday. We'd love it if you'd stand as you're able and sing some with us.
[00:03:22] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:03:22] Listen, y'all take a moment to pass the peace of Christ.
[00:13:38] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:13:38] If you're visiting with us, we're glad that you're here, and we would love for you to fill out a card for us and let us know a little bit about yourself.
[00:13:46] And we would like to follow up with you, and also just if you have any questions about anything, you can pretty much ask anybody, and they'll say, I don't know, ask Kelly.
[00:13:56] But you can, yeah, do that. And of course, you can always look at our website. It's fairly up-to-date.
[00:14:02] and we want to welcome everybody that is joining us from live stream today at home or out at the beach and having fun and while we are in here sweating our way through the service now I'm just kidding we're not resentful at all okay
[00:14:17] a little bit but we hope this mean this service is meaningful to everybody on live stream as well if you take a notice and through your bulletin there's lots of small print there for you to read one of the things that we're announcing
[00:14:31] today that Sandy shared with us is a rebuild team is heading out next Sunday, I think. Isn't that right? And you can talk to Sandy about that and she can give you some more information. If you
[00:14:43] are interested in joining in with that and want to go sweat along with some people and help restore some houses, she can tell you a lot about that. Now, last week, if you are a fan of organ music,
[00:14:58] you ought to take a look at the YouTube channel and you can hear the concert that was given this past Monday night. It was tremendous. You can hear 400-year-old music sung by eight-voice choir that
[00:15:13] was up in the balcony and eight voices in the choir loft and two organs going back and forth.
[00:15:17] It's really, really tremendous. And right when you're really getting to the good part, almost towards the end it cuts off yeah the lightning struck and it killed the live stream and we got it back up and kept going but anyway it was uh so that it does cut off and just wanted
[00:15:34] you to be aware of that but it's really good stuff there's three pieces in there acapella pieces with the choir that are just tremendous so anyway i recommend it is out there what's that
[00:15:44] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:15:44] the second half is out there too on the streaming oh it is okay i haven't seen that yet so i'm gonna
[00:15:49] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:15:49] it's not second half it's really just a little clip at the end because it's matthew's piece right yeah all right good um the school supply drive is continuing here at the church and if you want
[00:16:02] to take a look at the list of things and when you come to worship next time you can turn those in we have some boxes in the back for that and also just a big thank you to everybody that supported
[00:16:13] us in the big chill. Carolyn Corum and her little army turned out big, and she was crowned queen of the fundraisers, or sitting on her throne of ice. It was really, really great.
[00:16:29] She and I combined the money that was raised, and we didn't raise it. You guys gave us the money. We just harassed you on the phone. I think we raised over $10,000, which was about a quarter of what came in with the cold calling.
[00:16:42] So anyway, just thank you guys so much for all of that.
[00:16:47] And just to let you know, we still are taking, if you didn't get a chance to sponsor us, you are forgiven.
[00:16:55] But we also have envelopes that you can fill out.
[00:16:57] No, I'm just kidding.
[00:16:58] If you'd like, you can still make a donation online.
[00:17:01] So we had a lot of fun.
[00:17:03] There was no award.
[00:17:04] They gave out all these different awards for the different kinds of ice cream.
[00:17:07] And there was no award for the agency that had the most ice cream flavors, but I think I counted 17.
[00:17:16] That's crazy.
[00:17:17] This from Ardmore, 17 flavors.
[00:17:20] Yeah, it was wild.
[00:17:22] My blood sugar was really high.
[00:17:24] Yeah.
[00:17:26] You were counting, okay?
[00:17:27] She was counting ice creams in her head.
[00:17:29] She was like, one, two, okay, good, good, good.
[00:17:34] Those are the announcements that I have.
[00:17:35] Anybody got one that they wanna share before we go to a time of prayer?
[00:17:42] Okay.
[00:17:43] I have a couple of prayer concerns I want to share with you all.
[00:17:48] The first one, I got a text from Molly Stewart.
[00:17:52] You all remember Molly.
[00:17:53] She's a Wake Forest student.
[00:17:58] And her mother has a tumor behind one of her eyes.
[00:18:03] It started affecting her vision.
[00:18:05] They are at Duke.
[00:18:06] And they're doing some more tests.
[00:18:09] But they expect to be able to do surgery on it.
[00:18:12] They do not expect that it is cancerous, but it's certainly concerning and certainly scared Molly.
[00:18:18] And she wanted me to know and for us to pray for her and her mom.
[00:18:23] And so we expect that she'll be going home this week, but did want to share that with you all.
[00:18:29] And please keep Molly and her family in your prayers.
[00:18:33] How about other prayer concerns that you might have today?
[00:18:36] Yeah, this is your sister, and she has breast cancer and cataracts, right?
[00:19:01] Tell me your sister's name, Denise.
[00:19:07] Debbie, okay.
[00:19:14] Others?
[00:19:15] Yeah, Sandy.
[00:19:16] A firefighter friend of Sandy had two strokes in one day, and what's his name?
[00:19:33] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:19:33] Bruce.
[00:19:34] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:19:34] What is it?
[00:19:34] Bruce.
[00:19:35] I thought you said Ruth for a second there.
[00:19:37] I said another one.
[00:19:37] All right.
[00:19:39] Bruce.
[00:19:41] Two strokes.
[00:19:43] Sorry, I didn't hear that.
[00:19:44] Others?
[00:19:53] Yeah, yeah.
[00:19:55] Yeah, all right.
[00:20:00] Jim and Elaine's daughter got married.
[00:20:03] And yeah, awesome.
[00:20:06] Got another outlaw in the family.
[00:20:08] Yeah, congrats.
[00:20:12] It's great.
[00:20:14] Any others?
[00:20:15] Joyous concerns?
[00:20:20] They went to Camp Toccoa.
[00:20:21] Oh.
[00:20:29] Can you guys sing us a Camp Toccoa song?
[00:20:33] You know you can.
[00:20:36] You came home with those songs going through your head all night long.
[00:20:39] Yeah, we know.
[00:20:40] Yeah.
[00:20:41] You know, but we can give you a microphone and you can lay it on us.
[00:20:48] You can teach us all the motions to it.
[00:20:51] Come on.
[00:20:52] All right.
[00:20:52] We'll let you guys off the hook.
[00:20:55] That's great.
[00:20:59] Camp Toccoa.
[00:21:00] Love it.
[00:21:02] Others?
[00:21:03] Any other Perkinserts?
[00:21:07] Well, friends, let's keep in mind all of the people that are really struggling with this extreme heat, and let's keep them in our prayers.
[00:21:16] And for those that aren't fortunate enough to have air conditioning and those that are just trying to keep cool, so let's keep them in our prayers as well.
[00:21:28] Friends, let's go to a time of prayer.
[00:21:31] Casey, would you want to come and give us some centering music?
[00:21:35] And as we go, let's remember these folks.
[00:21:38] Remember Debbie and Bruce and Jim and Elaine's new son and law daughter.
[00:21:46] And Camp Toccoa, of course.
[00:21:49] And Molly's family, too.
[00:22:24] Gracious God, we come to you in a time of prayer.
[00:22:27] And as we say, we lift up our hearts to you.
[00:22:32] And for some of us, our hearts may be broken from loss, from the pain that we may feel within our bodies, within our souls.
[00:22:42] for some our hearts are filled with the life and love but we pause for a moment to remember your presence is alive and working in our world that you are a healing and guiding presence so as we take this time together in worship we
[00:23:05] pray that you will infuse our lives once again help us be aware of the way in which you are at work god we we remember those who are in great need today for denise's sister
[00:23:26] debbie she's facing breast cancer and cataract surgery and a little too much to handle we pray for laureen spa who also is facing procedures for bruce has experienced two strokes in a day We pray for Molly's family, Molly Stewart's mom.
[00:23:51] We hope that she can find her way to health and wholeness as well.
[00:24:00] God, we pray for Brett Kogan, my friend who is receiving radiation for his cancer and is living in some deep pain but struggling to hold on to life for as long as he can in the deepest way possible.
[00:24:18] We pray, O God, for all of us that have gathered here, for the ways in which we may be struggling with our own health, with our own limitations, to keep our courage up to face
[00:24:33] and to know your healing presence in our lives.
[00:24:38] We give thanks for places like Camp Toccoa, where we can build memories and come back with songs in our hearts, remembering your presence always in our lives, and especially in those special places and times.
[00:24:56] Today, God, teach us a little bit about the way in which the realm in which you dwell in heaven is infused with this world and that you call us and set your ideals so that we may be about your business in this world.
[00:25:13] Fill us with your love so that we may be ready to bear it for the world.
[00:25:18] We pray all of this in the name of Christ Jesus who taught us to pray together.
[00:25:23] Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
[00:25:29] Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:25:34] Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
[00:25:44] And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
[00:25:48] For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
[00:26:28] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:26:28] Wonder if I'll ever find my way.
[00:26:34] Wonder if my life could really change at all.
[00:26:42] Could all that is lost ever be?
[00:26:58] Could a garden come up from this ground?
[00:27:05] All the dust.
[00:27:21] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:27:21] I have two scripture lessons to read for you, and neither of them have anything to do with the sermon.
[00:31:19] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:31:19] No, they do, but you'll see, but I really want to, last week I mentioned as we were talking about heaven, and we talked about how the concept of heaven is changing.
[00:31:34] At one time when heaven in Genesis 1, it's really the sky, and then later it's the realm where God is, And then another way that it sort of developed was it was the place where the ideals all lived in the platonic universe.
[00:31:49] So heaven changed over time, and as we grew and evolved, so did the concepts and the ideas.
[00:31:58] One of the ideas in which it grew is one that I wanted to talk about today, and that is that heaven is the place where we go, we die.
[00:32:07] Now, being a place may be problematic, but I'm going to talk a little bit about that.
[00:32:12] I want to read for you two passages that, for me, touch on some things as I understand a little bit about what we refer to.
[00:32:21] First one comes from Genesis chapter 32.
[00:32:23] This is one of my favorite stories.
[00:32:26] It's the story of Jacob wrestling with God, wrestling with God.
[00:32:31] Sometimes you may have heard that he wrestled with an angel, but I think it was God.
[00:32:35] So, listen for the word of God.
[00:32:38] I feel the same way I do.
[00:32:45] Jacob was left alone.
[00:32:48] A man wrestled with Jacob until daybreak.
[00:32:51] And when the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.
[00:33:01] And then he said, let me go, for the day is breaking.
[00:33:04] But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me.
[00:33:10] And so the man said to Jacob, what is your name?
[00:33:12] He said, Jacob, which means heel grabber, by the way.
[00:33:15] That's what that name means.
[00:33:17] Then the man said, you shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel.
[00:33:22] For you have striven with God.
[00:33:24] That's what Israel means, the one who strives with God and with human beings.
[00:33:31] And you have prevailed.
[00:33:33] And then Jacob asked him, please tell me your name.
[00:33:36] But the stranger said, why is it that you ask me my name?
[00:33:42] And there, the stranger blessed Jacob.
[00:33:46] So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, for I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.
[00:33:55] And the sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.
[00:34:02] The word of God for the people of God.
[00:34:04] This other passage you may have heard if you came to any of the Good Friday services.
[00:34:14] This is one of the seven last words of Jesus spoken from the cross.
[00:34:20] So this is from Luke's Gospel.
[00:34:24] One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding Jesus and saying, Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.
[00:34:33] But the other criminal rebuked Jesus saying, rebuked the first one, the first criminal and saying, do you not fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?
[00:34:44] And we indeed have been condemned justly for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds.
[00:34:49] But this man has done nothing wrong.
[00:34:52] And then the man turned to Jesus and said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
[00:34:58] And Jesus replied, truly, I tell you, Today, you will be with me in paradise.
[00:35:05] The word of God for the people of God.
[00:35:08] Thanks be to God.
[00:35:10] Would you pray with me?
[00:35:20] Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of the hearts of all of us be acceptable in your sight.
[00:35:28] O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.
[00:35:32] Amen.
[00:35:36] Joan Chidester.
[00:35:39] She's an activist, Benedictine nun.
[00:35:43] She grew up in a home where her mother's family was very devout Roman Catholics, and her father's family was just as devout, but they were Presbyterian.
[00:35:58] She told this story.
[00:35:59] She says, you know, when I was in second grade in religion class, sister, she was taught in the Catholic schools, sister taught us that Protestants don't go to heaven.
[00:36:08] I was seven and a half or eight years old, and I knew we were in trouble.
[00:36:14] I was scared about what might happen to my dad, but I was also scared because, well, there was a custom in our house.
[00:36:22] My father and I commonly would get home about the same time, and he would come home from the shop, and I would come home from school.
[00:36:30] And the minute we got into the house and the hellos were over, one of them would turn to me and say, Joan, what did you learn in school today?
[00:36:39] Having learned that my Chittister relatives were not going to heaven, I shot out of school, took a shortcut home as fast as my little legs would carry me and i went screeching into the house and my mother was in the kitchen and she said to me well you're you're home early and you're
[00:36:54] all excited what happened i didn't say anything she goes honey what did you learn at school today what happened she goes today i learned that protestants don't go to heaven her mother said is that right well what do you think about that joan she goes i remember looking at her hard
[00:37:17] and thinking for just a second.
[00:37:19] And then I said, I think that's wrong.
[00:37:25] And she said, you think it's wrong?
[00:37:27] Well, if it's wrong, why do you think sister would say that?
[00:37:33] And I said immediately, because sister doesn't know daddy.
[00:37:38] And I can remember mother taking a step toward me.
[00:37:44] She put her arms around me.
[00:37:45] She pulled me toward her and gave me a hug and said, you are a very smart little girl, and I'm proud of you.
[00:37:52] And what did you say to sister?
[00:37:55] And I was ashamed, and I looked down, and I said, I didn't say anything.
[00:37:59] And she said, that's fine to you.
[00:38:01] That was the right thing to say today.
[00:38:03] You can tell sister later.
[00:38:11] Who are you judging and perhaps condemning because you don't really know them?
[00:38:19] You know, it's hard to condemn someone that you know intimately.
[00:38:28] When we know a person, when we know them inside and out, When we know the pain they carry and the hardship of their past and the burden that they bear from their family or maybe even from their health, how do we condemn them when we know that history?
[00:38:47] In those that we know, I mean, people that we know intimately, our closest relationships, we see them, you know, we see them often at their worst, but also often at their best.
[00:39:00] Sometimes we see people that we know and compassion breaks through their humanity in a way that is stunning.
[00:39:08] You can see the image of God in which they were created and it breaks through this earthbound mortality.
[00:39:17] When we know someone, it's hard to judge.
[00:39:23] Sister doesn't know daddy.
[00:39:27] Last week, I was talking about heaven and that's a word that we say twice in the Lord's Prayer.
[00:39:33] And so as we go this summer, looking at those phrases that we say in the Lord's Prayer and trying to mine their meaning, you know, we're looking at that.
[00:39:42] We say heaven twice in that prayer.
[00:39:45] And heaven is the realm where God is, our Father who art in heaven.
[00:39:49] Our lives on earth are related to heaven.
[00:39:55] That's what we talked about last week.
[00:39:58] Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:40:01] We think of heaven as God's home and as the sky or as the transcendent realm of ideas that might help and shape us and guide us while we're on earth.
[00:40:11] In scripture, the concept of heaven is really, though, evolving and it's changing and still changing.
[00:40:19] Today, I want to reflect on the idea of heaven as the place that we go when we die.
[00:40:24] I want to share with you some words that I say at funerals.
[00:40:30] and I say these words because I've been trying to get a hold of what it is that I want to say and we get prayers given to us and I read those but this is what I often say I say folks I want
[00:40:44] you to know that death is not the opposite of life the opposite of life is non-being is having never been lived that the opposite of death actually is birth our faith declares in the face of the mystery of death, that a new birth can take place, a birth into the eternal presence
[00:41:08] of God. Life after death, that life after death idea, it is veiled in mystery. And scripture sometimes gives us little glimpses of it. And they use ancient imagery of the life beyond death.
[00:41:24] But our faith, our faith is what declares that the bonds that we make in this world, the bonds that you and I make with one another, do not end in death.
[00:41:36] They are part of the eternal realm.
[00:41:40] The bonds we make with loved ones is somehow mingled with the idea that God is present.
[00:41:46] And that is enough.
[00:41:48] It is enough for us to face the mystery of death.
[00:41:56] Now look, Jesus' concern in the Lord's Prayer is really not about heaven or even life after death.
[00:42:04] But in the prayer, he teaches us how to relate to God.
[00:42:08] Words that can bridge the divine between our realm and the realm of God.
[00:42:14] And as we've noted, when we ask for things from God in the prayer, the prayer requires the same kinds of things back from us.
[00:42:21] We may pray for daily bread, right?
[00:42:25] But we know now that daily bread was manna, the idea of the bread that we needed for one day.
[00:42:32] It's not about having more bread than your neighbor.
[00:42:36] In fact, it's about manna is about everybody having enough.
[00:42:42] So when we pray for daily bread, we're praying that everybody has daily bread.
[00:42:47] And forgiveness, when we pray for forgiveness, it's not just our own forgiveness that we're praying for.
[00:42:51] Forgive us as we forgive others who sinned against us.
[00:42:57] Our relationship to God, the God of heaven, shapes our relationship to one another on earth.
[00:43:06] In the story of Jacob, I just love the story.
[00:43:08] It's mysterious, and the divine stranger is there.
[00:43:12] Jacob's name means heel grabber.
[00:43:14] Now let's translate heel grabber into an idiom today.
[00:43:17] Swindler, cheat, okay?
[00:43:19] uh he the swindler cheat heel grabbing jacob he contends with this mysterious stranger and the stranger uh and jacob is wounded in the struggle because he's starting to win and so his hip is thrown out of joint but he still wins he pins pins the stranger and the
[00:43:40] stranger says let me go for the dawn is breaking now why why does the stranger say that we well there's an old adage in the old testament especially and that is that no one can look
[00:43:52] upon the face of god and live i mean jacob somehow pinned god to the ground but you know but he seems to be saying look you're about to see me face to face and so let me go for your sake
[00:44:08] right jacob says not until you bless me and god agrees to bless jacob and gave him a new name No longer will you be called heel grabber, swindler, cheat.
[00:44:22] You will be called the one who strives with God, Israel.
[00:44:28] That's what Israel means.
[00:44:30] The encounter is so significant that Jake declares the place holy, a place where he had encountered God face to face, face to face.
[00:44:44] You know, the French have a way of saying it.
[00:44:46] It sounds a lot better, vis-a-vis, vis-a-vis.
[00:44:51] And sometimes we use that when we require somebody to sign a legal document.
[00:44:56] You can't just do it over the phone.
[00:44:57] You can't do it through the mail.
[00:44:59] You have to be present face-to-face, vis-a-vis.
[00:45:03] But in Scripture, face-to-face means more than just some legal accountability.
[00:45:09] The encounter about being face-to-face is really being fully known and knowing the other person.
[00:45:16] And the face-to-face experience is holy ground.
[00:45:22] There are a number of face-to-face experiences in the Old Testament.
[00:45:25] We don't know if they saw all of God or partial or whatever it was, but Moses, Jacob, Elijah, even Job, they encounter the very presence of God in a way that was really different.
[00:45:40] Most of us may be able to have a feeling of that experience, But the real encounter of face to face is bigger and larger and it is more transforming.
[00:45:51] It is what we might say a taste of heaven on earth.
[00:45:56] The gospel lesson, we hear Jesus' words from the cross.
[00:46:00] He's spoken while he's hanging there.
[00:46:03] And he's between two thieves, one on his right, one on his left.
[00:46:08] And you know, whenever you hear somebody say there was one over here and one over here, what are we going to do?
[00:46:13] We're going to compare the two.
[00:46:15] That's the way our minds work.
[00:46:17] It's not just two people.
[00:46:18] It's two people that are now lifted up in our minds for comparison.
[00:46:21] One's got to be righteous, and one's trying to skate into paradise just under the wire, right?
[00:46:27] And the human mind is quick to compare.
[00:46:30] Who's good, who's bad, who's better, who's best?
[00:46:32] It's an automatic reflex in the way in which our mind does that.
[00:46:38] But Jesus seems to be in a different state of mind.
[00:46:43] Jesus is thinking about a garden.
[00:46:47] about a garden. Paradise, you might think of as the opposite of the cross. It's not suffering or dying or abandonment. Paradise means a garden. It is a piece of nature that is walled off.
[00:47:05] That's what a garden means. The paradise actually means a walled off garden.
[00:47:09] It's set aside for beauty and blooms and food and life. In the midst of this agony of death, Jesus includes, his mind wanders to this realm where God is waiting.
[00:47:23] And not just God, by the way.
[00:47:25] No, Jesus hears the conversation and he includes the thieves with him.
[00:47:33] With arms outstretched against his will onto the cross while dying a torturous death, Jesus pictures a garden that is populated by God and by presumably swindlers and saints.
[00:47:49] Some of you have heard me tell stories about loved ones that I've lost, my parents, Lynn's parents.
[00:48:02] I had a sister who died a very untimely death in a house fire five years ago.
[00:48:10] And some of those deaths, especially the unexpected ones, and my roommate in college who died too, they were so untimely, they just seemed devastating.
[00:48:21] And it was hard.
[00:48:23] People whose connection to me had at times felt like a vis-a-vis, a face-to-face encounter, a deep connection.
[00:48:37] And in those connections with him, I had a taste of what was transcendent, what was heaven-like.
[00:48:46] It helped, you know, in the aftermath of that, in grief, it helped to remember that grief, pain is related to the amount of love that we love someone.
[00:48:56] for the person who died.
[00:48:58] If you want to know why it's really hurting, it's because of the love you have.
[00:49:03] We are confronted with the divide between these realms of life and life after death.
[00:49:12] And it is love that can bridge that, those two realms.
[00:49:16] And I know that that is the case for many of you.
[00:49:19] There are moments where we might be able to just share in the mystery of an ongoing connection between those that have gone before us and died and those that remain.
[00:49:33] In the Christian faith, we have language about this.
[00:49:36] We talked, you know, in the letter to Hebrews, there's a whole saying about, you know, we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, a mysterious sense that people were present, people that had gone were still present.
[00:49:53] This connection, this connection that can sometimes be sensed.
[00:49:59] It's about love.
[00:50:05] A book that all of you probably had read at one point or another in your life that you should go and read.
[00:50:12] It's a good read.
[00:50:13] The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
[00:50:17] The widow, Douglas, took in Huck and tried to civilize him, which wasn't easy because Huck wasn't used to having any manners or clean clothes or praying before supper.
[00:50:31] But she worked with him.
[00:50:32] She worked at him hard and scrubbed him down, and she tells Huck stories from the Bible.
[00:50:37] And Huck said, well, you know, I prefer hearing stories of people who are living.
[00:50:45] And he says these words.
[00:50:49] Huck says, she went on and told me all about the good place.
[00:50:55] She said all a body would have to do in the good place was to go around all day with a harp and sing forever and ever.
[00:51:03] So I didn't think much of it.
[00:51:05] he resolves not to bother even trying to get there.
[00:51:11] And when Huck asks her if she thinks that his friend Tom Sawyer will get to go to the good place, Miss Watson says, there is no chance that he will end up in heaven.
[00:51:24] And Huck thought to himself, good, because I want him to be with me, he and me together.
[00:51:32] And the bad place, after all, when she described that, well, it sounded like a nice change of pace.
[00:51:38] and a place of adventure for Tom and Huckleberry.
[00:51:44] Spoiler alert, okay?
[00:51:46] At the end of the story, way at the end of the story, after Huckleberry befriends Jim, the black slave, runaway slave, he makes a big decision.
[00:51:58] Jim is caught and brought back into slavery, and knowing, struggling with what was good and right and wrong, and not understanding why Jim had to be a slave, he decided that he knew that he was going to hell
[00:52:18] for caring for this slave.
[00:52:20] And knowing that, he says, well, I might as well go whole hog.
[00:52:28] And so he accepts the fate in hell and helps Jim get free.
[00:52:33] And do you know why?
[00:52:35] Because of love.
[00:52:37] He loved him.
[00:52:40] He was loved by him.
[00:52:42] They had a face-to-face connection.
[00:52:48] I am with Huckleberry in many ways.
[00:52:51] Sitting on a cloud playing a harp is not appealing.
[00:52:54] Maybe a guitar.
[00:52:55] But it's actually not even biblical, you know.
[00:52:59] We don't become angels.
[00:53:02] There are images of heaven that you can read in Revelations, but I don't find them particularly compelling.
[00:53:10] And I do think it was based off a big three-tier universe.
[00:53:15] As I mentioned last week, our understanding about heaven is changing.
[00:53:19] Beyond the veil of death, beyond what we can see is a mystery.
[00:53:26] And I believe that that mystery is a full encounter with the divine.
[00:53:31] And that's what we're waiting for.
[00:53:35] But in our faith, our resurrection story gives us a sense of hope that, you know, on the other side of the veil, God is already there, waiting on us to be fully with us.
[00:53:47] But God is also here with us in the here and now.
[00:53:51] God is with us in life.
[00:53:53] God is with us even in our death.
[00:53:55] God is with us in life beyond death.
[00:53:58] And that is our hope.
[00:53:59] And you know what?
[00:54:00] I don't know what it looks like, but that's good enough.
[00:54:05] Because once you taste the presence of God and you can be in that fully, nothing else is better than that.
[00:54:15] And Paul writes in the great chapter of 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, but he says these words at the end, and I love these words because of their mystery. He says, now we see
[00:54:31] in a mirror or a glass dimly, but then we shall see, what does he say? What does he say, Jim?
[00:54:39] Face to face. Then we shall see face to face. We're not there yet. A face-to-face encounter vis-a-vis with God. That's what we want. It's what we're hungry for. That's why we gather.
[00:54:53] But fully we know that at the point of death, to know holy love, to know it face to face. But now it's like we're only looking through a dirty, dim mirror, through a looking glass, and all we see
[00:55:08] are the distorted images of our own humanity. No dim glass, no veil on the other side, just a face-to-face encounter with the divine. Those Old Testament prophets had these amazing experiences somehow face-to-face with the divine. But, you know, what we say has happened and has been
[00:55:31] revealed in Jesus was that God put on a human face and walked around and dwelt among us.
[00:55:42] And so we know a little bit more of what that divine encounter.
[00:55:49] You know, if the church is about anything, if this is what our role in this world is, it's really about relationships.
[00:55:58] It's about establishing connections with each other, healthy, whole ways of being together, and to be modeled for the world, to live them out.
[00:56:10] It's not about just getting along.
[00:56:12] I mean, that's easy.
[00:56:13] Just don't talk about anything except the weather, right?
[00:56:17] No, it's about deepening our connections to find the place where we can meet with one another face-to-face on holy ground, to connect in such a way so that when we all face a time of struggle and trial,
[00:56:34] when we can alleviate the pain of loneliness when suffering hits us, when we can come together and do something good, something better and greater than any one of us can do alone we can do it together
[00:56:47] this is our purpose and the foundation of that is relationships this is what we mean when we are calling us towards a face-to-face encounter with one another yes and with God this is our call
[00:57:09] this is what we're after we may not see what the other side of looks like and I'm asked occasionally what heaven is going to be like and i just hate conversations like that because you
[00:57:21] know there's a reason the veil of mystery is there we don't know and everybody when they start describing it yeah doesn't work for me like huckleberry you know but i know something about relationships and i know how deep they can go and i know that when i connect with them i encounter
[00:57:42] a divine connection and I want that us for all of us. Would you pray with me? God who is holy love we seek a face-to-face encounter with you. We come to you with humility knowing that so much of our
[00:58:09] life is lived outside of awareness of your presence and yet you continue to call us and you are the bridge into both realms. We give thanks that you are with us in life and in death
[00:58:27] and in life beyond death.
[00:58:31] Amen.
[00:03:18] Good morning, y'all. Happy Sunday. We'd love it if you'd stand as you're able and sing some with us.
[00:03:22] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:03:22] Listen, y'all take a moment to pass the peace of Christ.
[00:13:38] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:13:38] If you're visiting with us, we're glad that you're here, and we would love for you to fill out a card for us and let us know a little bit about yourself.
[00:13:46] And we would like to follow up with you, and also just if you have any questions about anything, you can pretty much ask anybody, and they'll say, I don't know, ask Kelly.
[00:13:56] But you can, yeah, do that. And of course, you can always look at our website. It's fairly up-to-date.
[00:14:02] and we want to welcome everybody that is joining us from live stream today at home or out at the beach and having fun and while we are in here sweating our way through the service now I'm just kidding we're not resentful at all okay
[00:14:17] a little bit but we hope this mean this service is meaningful to everybody on live stream as well if you take a notice and through your bulletin there's lots of small print there for you to read one of the things that we're announcing
[00:14:31] today that Sandy shared with us is a rebuild team is heading out next Sunday, I think. Isn't that right? And you can talk to Sandy about that and she can give you some more information. If you
[00:14:43] are interested in joining in with that and want to go sweat along with some people and help restore some houses, she can tell you a lot about that. Now, last week, if you are a fan of organ music,
[00:14:58] you ought to take a look at the YouTube channel and you can hear the concert that was given this past Monday night. It was tremendous. You can hear 400-year-old music sung by eight-voice choir that
[00:15:13] was up in the balcony and eight voices in the choir loft and two organs going back and forth.
[00:15:17] It's really, really tremendous. And right when you're really getting to the good part, almost towards the end it cuts off yeah the lightning struck and it killed the live stream and we got it back up and kept going but anyway it was uh so that it does cut off and just wanted
[00:15:34] you to be aware of that but it's really good stuff there's three pieces in there acapella pieces with the choir that are just tremendous so anyway i recommend it is out there what's that
[00:15:44] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:15:44] the second half is out there too on the streaming oh it is okay i haven't seen that yet so i'm gonna
[00:15:49] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:15:49] it's not second half it's really just a little clip at the end because it's matthew's piece right yeah all right good um the school supply drive is continuing here at the church and if you want
[00:16:02] to take a look at the list of things and when you come to worship next time you can turn those in we have some boxes in the back for that and also just a big thank you to everybody that supported
[00:16:13] us in the big chill. Carolyn Corum and her little army turned out big, and she was crowned queen of the fundraisers, or sitting on her throne of ice. It was really, really great.
[00:16:29] She and I combined the money that was raised, and we didn't raise it. You guys gave us the money. We just harassed you on the phone. I think we raised over $10,000, which was about a quarter of what came in with the cold calling.
[00:16:42] So anyway, just thank you guys so much for all of that.
[00:16:47] And just to let you know, we still are taking, if you didn't get a chance to sponsor us, you are forgiven.
[00:16:55] But we also have envelopes that you can fill out.
[00:16:57] No, I'm just kidding.
[00:16:58] If you'd like, you can still make a donation online.
[00:17:01] So we had a lot of fun.
[00:17:03] There was no award.
[00:17:04] They gave out all these different awards for the different kinds of ice cream.
[00:17:07] And there was no award for the agency that had the most ice cream flavors, but I think I counted 17.
[00:17:16] That's crazy.
[00:17:17] This from Ardmore, 17 flavors.
[00:17:20] Yeah, it was wild.
[00:17:22] My blood sugar was really high.
[00:17:24] Yeah.
[00:17:26] You were counting, okay?
[00:17:27] She was counting ice creams in her head.
[00:17:29] She was like, one, two, okay, good, good, good.
[00:17:34] Those are the announcements that I have.
[00:17:35] Anybody got one that they wanna share before we go to a time of prayer?
[00:17:42] Okay.
[00:17:43] I have a couple of prayer concerns I want to share with you all.
[00:17:48] The first one, I got a text from Molly Stewart.
[00:17:52] You all remember Molly.
[00:17:53] She's a Wake Forest student.
[00:17:58] And her mother has a tumor behind one of her eyes.
[00:18:03] It started affecting her vision.
[00:18:05] They are at Duke.
[00:18:06] And they're doing some more tests.
[00:18:09] But they expect to be able to do surgery on it.
[00:18:12] They do not expect that it is cancerous, but it's certainly concerning and certainly scared Molly.
[00:18:18] And she wanted me to know and for us to pray for her and her mom.
[00:18:23] And so we expect that she'll be going home this week, but did want to share that with you all.
[00:18:29] And please keep Molly and her family in your prayers.
[00:18:33] How about other prayer concerns that you might have today?
[00:18:36] Yeah, this is your sister, and she has breast cancer and cataracts, right?
[00:19:01] Tell me your sister's name, Denise.
[00:19:07] Debbie, okay.
[00:19:14] Others?
[00:19:15] Yeah, Sandy.
[00:19:16] A firefighter friend of Sandy had two strokes in one day, and what's his name?
[00:19:33] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:19:33] Bruce.
[00:19:34] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:19:34] What is it?
[00:19:34] Bruce.
[00:19:35] I thought you said Ruth for a second there.
[00:19:37] I said another one.
[00:19:37] All right.
[00:19:39] Bruce.
[00:19:41] Two strokes.
[00:19:43] Sorry, I didn't hear that.
[00:19:44] Others?
[00:19:53] Yeah, yeah.
[00:19:55] Yeah, all right.
[00:20:00] Jim and Elaine's daughter got married.
[00:20:03] And yeah, awesome.
[00:20:06] Got another outlaw in the family.
[00:20:08] Yeah, congrats.
[00:20:12] It's great.
[00:20:14] Any others?
[00:20:15] Joyous concerns?
[00:20:20] They went to Camp Toccoa.
[00:20:21] Oh.
[00:20:29] Can you guys sing us a Camp Toccoa song?
[00:20:33] You know you can.
[00:20:36] You came home with those songs going through your head all night long.
[00:20:39] Yeah, we know.
[00:20:40] Yeah.
[00:20:41] You know, but we can give you a microphone and you can lay it on us.
[00:20:48] You can teach us all the motions to it.
[00:20:51] Come on.
[00:20:52] All right.
[00:20:52] We'll let you guys off the hook.
[00:20:55] That's great.
[00:20:59] Camp Toccoa.
[00:21:00] Love it.
[00:21:02] Others?
[00:21:03] Any other Perkinserts?
[00:21:07] Well, friends, let's keep in mind all of the people that are really struggling with this extreme heat, and let's keep them in our prayers.
[00:21:16] And for those that aren't fortunate enough to have air conditioning and those that are just trying to keep cool, so let's keep them in our prayers as well.
[00:21:28] Friends, let's go to a time of prayer.
[00:21:31] Casey, would you want to come and give us some centering music?
[00:21:35] And as we go, let's remember these folks.
[00:21:38] Remember Debbie and Bruce and Jim and Elaine's new son and law daughter.
[00:21:46] And Camp Toccoa, of course.
[00:21:49] And Molly's family, too.
[00:22:24] Gracious God, we come to you in a time of prayer.
[00:22:27] And as we say, we lift up our hearts to you.
[00:22:32] And for some of us, our hearts may be broken from loss, from the pain that we may feel within our bodies, within our souls.
[00:22:42] for some our hearts are filled with the life and love but we pause for a moment to remember your presence is alive and working in our world that you are a healing and guiding presence so as we take this time together in worship we
[00:23:05] pray that you will infuse our lives once again help us be aware of the way in which you are at work god we we remember those who are in great need today for denise's sister
[00:23:26] debbie she's facing breast cancer and cataract surgery and a little too much to handle we pray for laureen spa who also is facing procedures for bruce has experienced two strokes in a day We pray for Molly's family, Molly Stewart's mom.
[00:23:51] We hope that she can find her way to health and wholeness as well.
[00:24:00] God, we pray for Brett Kogan, my friend who is receiving radiation for his cancer and is living in some deep pain but struggling to hold on to life for as long as he can in the deepest way possible.
[00:24:18] We pray, O God, for all of us that have gathered here, for the ways in which we may be struggling with our own health, with our own limitations, to keep our courage up to face
[00:24:33] and to know your healing presence in our lives.
[00:24:38] We give thanks for places like Camp Toccoa, where we can build memories and come back with songs in our hearts, remembering your presence always in our lives, and especially in those special places and times.
[00:24:56] Today, God, teach us a little bit about the way in which the realm in which you dwell in heaven is infused with this world and that you call us and set your ideals so that we may be about your business in this world.
[00:25:13] Fill us with your love so that we may be ready to bear it for the world.
[00:25:18] We pray all of this in the name of Christ Jesus who taught us to pray together.
[00:25:23] Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
[00:25:29] Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:25:34] Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
[00:25:44] And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
[00:25:48] For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
[00:26:28] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:26:28] Wonder if I'll ever find my way.
[00:26:34] Wonder if my life could really change at all.
[00:26:42] Could all that is lost ever be?
[00:26:58] Could a garden come up from this ground?
[00:27:05] All the dust.
[00:27:21] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:27:21] I have two scripture lessons to read for you, and neither of them have anything to do with the sermon.
[00:31:19] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:31:19] No, they do, but you'll see, but I really want to, last week I mentioned as we were talking about heaven, and we talked about how the concept of heaven is changing.
[00:31:34] At one time when heaven in Genesis 1, it's really the sky, and then later it's the realm where God is, And then another way that it sort of developed was it was the place where the ideals all lived in the platonic universe.
[00:31:49] So heaven changed over time, and as we grew and evolved, so did the concepts and the ideas.
[00:31:58] One of the ideas in which it grew is one that I wanted to talk about today, and that is that heaven is the place where we go, we die.
[00:32:07] Now, being a place may be problematic, but I'm going to talk a little bit about that.
[00:32:12] I want to read for you two passages that, for me, touch on some things as I understand a little bit about what we refer to.
[00:32:21] First one comes from Genesis chapter 32.
[00:32:23] This is one of my favorite stories.
[00:32:26] It's the story of Jacob wrestling with God, wrestling with God.
[00:32:31] Sometimes you may have heard that he wrestled with an angel, but I think it was God.
[00:32:35] So, listen for the word of God.
[00:32:38] I feel the same way I do.
[00:32:45] Jacob was left alone.
[00:32:48] A man wrestled with Jacob until daybreak.
[00:32:51] And when the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.
[00:33:01] And then he said, let me go, for the day is breaking.
[00:33:04] But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me.
[00:33:10] And so the man said to Jacob, what is your name?
[00:33:12] He said, Jacob, which means heel grabber, by the way.
[00:33:15] That's what that name means.
[00:33:17] Then the man said, you shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel.
[00:33:22] For you have striven with God.
[00:33:24] That's what Israel means, the one who strives with God and with human beings.
[00:33:31] And you have prevailed.
[00:33:33] And then Jacob asked him, please tell me your name.
[00:33:36] But the stranger said, why is it that you ask me my name?
[00:33:42] And there, the stranger blessed Jacob.
[00:33:46] So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, for I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.
[00:33:55] And the sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.
[00:34:02] The word of God for the people of God.
[00:34:04] This other passage you may have heard if you came to any of the Good Friday services.
[00:34:14] This is one of the seven last words of Jesus spoken from the cross.
[00:34:20] So this is from Luke's Gospel.
[00:34:24] One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding Jesus and saying, Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.
[00:34:33] But the other criminal rebuked Jesus saying, rebuked the first one, the first criminal and saying, do you not fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?
[00:34:44] And we indeed have been condemned justly for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds.
[00:34:49] But this man has done nothing wrong.
[00:34:52] And then the man turned to Jesus and said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
[00:34:58] And Jesus replied, truly, I tell you, Today, you will be with me in paradise.
[00:35:05] The word of God for the people of God.
[00:35:08] Thanks be to God.
[00:35:10] Would you pray with me?
[00:35:20] Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of the hearts of all of us be acceptable in your sight.
[00:35:28] O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.
[00:35:32] Amen.
[00:35:36] Joan Chidester.
[00:35:39] She's an activist, Benedictine nun.
[00:35:43] She grew up in a home where her mother's family was very devout Roman Catholics, and her father's family was just as devout, but they were Presbyterian.
[00:35:58] She told this story.
[00:35:59] She says, you know, when I was in second grade in religion class, sister, she was taught in the Catholic schools, sister taught us that Protestants don't go to heaven.
[00:36:08] I was seven and a half or eight years old, and I knew we were in trouble.
[00:36:14] I was scared about what might happen to my dad, but I was also scared because, well, there was a custom in our house.
[00:36:22] My father and I commonly would get home about the same time, and he would come home from the shop, and I would come home from school.
[00:36:30] And the minute we got into the house and the hellos were over, one of them would turn to me and say, Joan, what did you learn in school today?
[00:36:39] Having learned that my Chittister relatives were not going to heaven, I shot out of school, took a shortcut home as fast as my little legs would carry me and i went screeching into the house and my mother was in the kitchen and she said to me well you're you're home early and you're
[00:36:54] all excited what happened i didn't say anything she goes honey what did you learn at school today what happened she goes today i learned that protestants don't go to heaven her mother said is that right well what do you think about that joan she goes i remember looking at her hard
[00:37:17] and thinking for just a second.
[00:37:19] And then I said, I think that's wrong.
[00:37:25] And she said, you think it's wrong?
[00:37:27] Well, if it's wrong, why do you think sister would say that?
[00:37:33] And I said immediately, because sister doesn't know daddy.
[00:37:38] And I can remember mother taking a step toward me.
[00:37:44] She put her arms around me.
[00:37:45] She pulled me toward her and gave me a hug and said, you are a very smart little girl, and I'm proud of you.
[00:37:52] And what did you say to sister?
[00:37:55] And I was ashamed, and I looked down, and I said, I didn't say anything.
[00:37:59] And she said, that's fine to you.
[00:38:01] That was the right thing to say today.
[00:38:03] You can tell sister later.
[00:38:11] Who are you judging and perhaps condemning because you don't really know them?
[00:38:19] You know, it's hard to condemn someone that you know intimately.
[00:38:28] When we know a person, when we know them inside and out, When we know the pain they carry and the hardship of their past and the burden that they bear from their family or maybe even from their health, how do we condemn them when we know that history?
[00:38:47] In those that we know, I mean, people that we know intimately, our closest relationships, we see them, you know, we see them often at their worst, but also often at their best.
[00:39:00] Sometimes we see people that we know and compassion breaks through their humanity in a way that is stunning.
[00:39:08] You can see the image of God in which they were created and it breaks through this earthbound mortality.
[00:39:17] When we know someone, it's hard to judge.
[00:39:23] Sister doesn't know daddy.
[00:39:27] Last week, I was talking about heaven and that's a word that we say twice in the Lord's Prayer.
[00:39:33] And so as we go this summer, looking at those phrases that we say in the Lord's Prayer and trying to mine their meaning, you know, we're looking at that.
[00:39:42] We say heaven twice in that prayer.
[00:39:45] And heaven is the realm where God is, our Father who art in heaven.
[00:39:49] Our lives on earth are related to heaven.
[00:39:55] That's what we talked about last week.
[00:39:58] Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:40:01] We think of heaven as God's home and as the sky or as the transcendent realm of ideas that might help and shape us and guide us while we're on earth.
[00:40:11] In scripture, the concept of heaven is really, though, evolving and it's changing and still changing.
[00:40:19] Today, I want to reflect on the idea of heaven as the place that we go when we die.
[00:40:24] I want to share with you some words that I say at funerals.
[00:40:30] and I say these words because I've been trying to get a hold of what it is that I want to say and we get prayers given to us and I read those but this is what I often say I say folks I want
[00:40:44] you to know that death is not the opposite of life the opposite of life is non-being is having never been lived that the opposite of death actually is birth our faith declares in the face of the mystery of death, that a new birth can take place, a birth into the eternal presence
[00:41:08] of God. Life after death, that life after death idea, it is veiled in mystery. And scripture sometimes gives us little glimpses of it. And they use ancient imagery of the life beyond death.
[00:41:24] But our faith, our faith is what declares that the bonds that we make in this world, the bonds that you and I make with one another, do not end in death.
[00:41:36] They are part of the eternal realm.
[00:41:40] The bonds we make with loved ones is somehow mingled with the idea that God is present.
[00:41:46] And that is enough.
[00:41:48] It is enough for us to face the mystery of death.
[00:41:56] Now look, Jesus' concern in the Lord's Prayer is really not about heaven or even life after death.
[00:42:04] But in the prayer, he teaches us how to relate to God.
[00:42:08] Words that can bridge the divine between our realm and the realm of God.
[00:42:14] And as we've noted, when we ask for things from God in the prayer, the prayer requires the same kinds of things back from us.
[00:42:21] We may pray for daily bread, right?
[00:42:25] But we know now that daily bread was manna, the idea of the bread that we needed for one day.
[00:42:32] It's not about having more bread than your neighbor.
[00:42:36] In fact, it's about manna is about everybody having enough.
[00:42:42] So when we pray for daily bread, we're praying that everybody has daily bread.
[00:42:47] And forgiveness, when we pray for forgiveness, it's not just our own forgiveness that we're praying for.
[00:42:51] Forgive us as we forgive others who sinned against us.
[00:42:57] Our relationship to God, the God of heaven, shapes our relationship to one another on earth.
[00:43:06] In the story of Jacob, I just love the story.
[00:43:08] It's mysterious, and the divine stranger is there.
[00:43:12] Jacob's name means heel grabber.
[00:43:14] Now let's translate heel grabber into an idiom today.
[00:43:17] Swindler, cheat, okay?
[00:43:19] uh he the swindler cheat heel grabbing jacob he contends with this mysterious stranger and the stranger uh and jacob is wounded in the struggle because he's starting to win and so his hip is thrown out of joint but he still wins he pins pins the stranger and the
[00:43:40] stranger says let me go for the dawn is breaking now why why does the stranger say that we well there's an old adage in the old testament especially and that is that no one can look
[00:43:52] upon the face of god and live i mean jacob somehow pinned god to the ground but you know but he seems to be saying look you're about to see me face to face and so let me go for your sake
[00:44:08] right jacob says not until you bless me and god agrees to bless jacob and gave him a new name No longer will you be called heel grabber, swindler, cheat.
[00:44:22] You will be called the one who strives with God, Israel.
[00:44:28] That's what Israel means.
[00:44:30] The encounter is so significant that Jake declares the place holy, a place where he had encountered God face to face, face to face.
[00:44:44] You know, the French have a way of saying it.
[00:44:46] It sounds a lot better, vis-a-vis, vis-a-vis.
[00:44:51] And sometimes we use that when we require somebody to sign a legal document.
[00:44:56] You can't just do it over the phone.
[00:44:57] You can't do it through the mail.
[00:44:59] You have to be present face-to-face, vis-a-vis.
[00:45:03] But in Scripture, face-to-face means more than just some legal accountability.
[00:45:09] The encounter about being face-to-face is really being fully known and knowing the other person.
[00:45:16] And the face-to-face experience is holy ground.
[00:45:22] There are a number of face-to-face experiences in the Old Testament.
[00:45:25] We don't know if they saw all of God or partial or whatever it was, but Moses, Jacob, Elijah, even Job, they encounter the very presence of God in a way that was really different.
[00:45:40] Most of us may be able to have a feeling of that experience, But the real encounter of face to face is bigger and larger and it is more transforming.
[00:45:51] It is what we might say a taste of heaven on earth.
[00:45:56] The gospel lesson, we hear Jesus' words from the cross.
[00:46:00] He's spoken while he's hanging there.
[00:46:03] And he's between two thieves, one on his right, one on his left.
[00:46:08] And you know, whenever you hear somebody say there was one over here and one over here, what are we going to do?
[00:46:13] We're going to compare the two.
[00:46:15] That's the way our minds work.
[00:46:17] It's not just two people.
[00:46:18] It's two people that are now lifted up in our minds for comparison.
[00:46:21] One's got to be righteous, and one's trying to skate into paradise just under the wire, right?
[00:46:27] And the human mind is quick to compare.
[00:46:30] Who's good, who's bad, who's better, who's best?
[00:46:32] It's an automatic reflex in the way in which our mind does that.
[00:46:38] But Jesus seems to be in a different state of mind.
[00:46:43] Jesus is thinking about a garden.
[00:46:47] about a garden. Paradise, you might think of as the opposite of the cross. It's not suffering or dying or abandonment. Paradise means a garden. It is a piece of nature that is walled off.
[00:47:05] That's what a garden means. The paradise actually means a walled off garden.
[00:47:09] It's set aside for beauty and blooms and food and life. In the midst of this agony of death, Jesus includes, his mind wanders to this realm where God is waiting.
[00:47:23] And not just God, by the way.
[00:47:25] No, Jesus hears the conversation and he includes the thieves with him.
[00:47:33] With arms outstretched against his will onto the cross while dying a torturous death, Jesus pictures a garden that is populated by God and by presumably swindlers and saints.
[00:47:49] Some of you have heard me tell stories about loved ones that I've lost, my parents, Lynn's parents.
[00:48:02] I had a sister who died a very untimely death in a house fire five years ago.
[00:48:10] And some of those deaths, especially the unexpected ones, and my roommate in college who died too, they were so untimely, they just seemed devastating.
[00:48:21] And it was hard.
[00:48:23] People whose connection to me had at times felt like a vis-a-vis, a face-to-face encounter, a deep connection.
[00:48:37] And in those connections with him, I had a taste of what was transcendent, what was heaven-like.
[00:48:46] It helped, you know, in the aftermath of that, in grief, it helped to remember that grief, pain is related to the amount of love that we love someone.
[00:48:56] for the person who died.
[00:48:58] If you want to know why it's really hurting, it's because of the love you have.
[00:49:03] We are confronted with the divide between these realms of life and life after death.
[00:49:12] And it is love that can bridge that, those two realms.
[00:49:16] And I know that that is the case for many of you.
[00:49:19] There are moments where we might be able to just share in the mystery of an ongoing connection between those that have gone before us and died and those that remain.
[00:49:33] In the Christian faith, we have language about this.
[00:49:36] We talked, you know, in the letter to Hebrews, there's a whole saying about, you know, we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, a mysterious sense that people were present, people that had gone were still present.
[00:49:53] This connection, this connection that can sometimes be sensed.
[00:49:59] It's about love.
[00:50:05] A book that all of you probably had read at one point or another in your life that you should go and read.
[00:50:12] It's a good read.
[00:50:13] The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
[00:50:17] The widow, Douglas, took in Huck and tried to civilize him, which wasn't easy because Huck wasn't used to having any manners or clean clothes or praying before supper.
[00:50:31] But she worked with him.
[00:50:32] She worked at him hard and scrubbed him down, and she tells Huck stories from the Bible.
[00:50:37] And Huck said, well, you know, I prefer hearing stories of people who are living.
[00:50:45] And he says these words.
[00:50:49] Huck says, she went on and told me all about the good place.
[00:50:55] She said all a body would have to do in the good place was to go around all day with a harp and sing forever and ever.
[00:51:03] So I didn't think much of it.
[00:51:05] he resolves not to bother even trying to get there.
[00:51:11] And when Huck asks her if she thinks that his friend Tom Sawyer will get to go to the good place, Miss Watson says, there is no chance that he will end up in heaven.
[00:51:24] And Huck thought to himself, good, because I want him to be with me, he and me together.
[00:51:32] And the bad place, after all, when she described that, well, it sounded like a nice change of pace.
[00:51:38] and a place of adventure for Tom and Huckleberry.
[00:51:44] Spoiler alert, okay?
[00:51:46] At the end of the story, way at the end of the story, after Huckleberry befriends Jim, the black slave, runaway slave, he makes a big decision.
[00:51:58] Jim is caught and brought back into slavery, and knowing, struggling with what was good and right and wrong, and not understanding why Jim had to be a slave, he decided that he knew that he was going to hell
[00:52:18] for caring for this slave.
[00:52:20] And knowing that, he says, well, I might as well go whole hog.
[00:52:28] And so he accepts the fate in hell and helps Jim get free.
[00:52:33] And do you know why?
[00:52:35] Because of love.
[00:52:37] He loved him.
[00:52:40] He was loved by him.
[00:52:42] They had a face-to-face connection.
[00:52:48] I am with Huckleberry in many ways.
[00:52:51] Sitting on a cloud playing a harp is not appealing.
[00:52:54] Maybe a guitar.
[00:52:55] But it's actually not even biblical, you know.
[00:52:59] We don't become angels.
[00:53:02] There are images of heaven that you can read in Revelations, but I don't find them particularly compelling.
[00:53:10] And I do think it was based off a big three-tier universe.
[00:53:15] As I mentioned last week, our understanding about heaven is changing.
[00:53:19] Beyond the veil of death, beyond what we can see is a mystery.
[00:53:26] And I believe that that mystery is a full encounter with the divine.
[00:53:31] And that's what we're waiting for.
[00:53:35] But in our faith, our resurrection story gives us a sense of hope that, you know, on the other side of the veil, God is already there, waiting on us to be fully with us.
[00:53:47] But God is also here with us in the here and now.
[00:53:51] God is with us in life.
[00:53:53] God is with us even in our death.
[00:53:55] God is with us in life beyond death.
[00:53:58] And that is our hope.
[00:53:59] And you know what?
[00:54:00] I don't know what it looks like, but that's good enough.
[00:54:05] Because once you taste the presence of God and you can be in that fully, nothing else is better than that.
[00:54:15] And Paul writes in the great chapter of 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, but he says these words at the end, and I love these words because of their mystery. He says, now we see
[00:54:31] in a mirror or a glass dimly, but then we shall see, what does he say? What does he say, Jim?
[00:54:39] Face to face. Then we shall see face to face. We're not there yet. A face-to-face encounter vis-a-vis with God. That's what we want. It's what we're hungry for. That's why we gather.
[00:54:53] But fully we know that at the point of death, to know holy love, to know it face to face. But now it's like we're only looking through a dirty, dim mirror, through a looking glass, and all we see
[00:55:08] are the distorted images of our own humanity. No dim glass, no veil on the other side, just a face-to-face encounter with the divine. Those Old Testament prophets had these amazing experiences somehow face-to-face with the divine. But, you know, what we say has happened and has been
[00:55:31] revealed in Jesus was that God put on a human face and walked around and dwelt among us.
[00:55:42] And so we know a little bit more of what that divine encounter.
[00:55:49] You know, if the church is about anything, if this is what our role in this world is, it's really about relationships.
[00:55:58] It's about establishing connections with each other, healthy, whole ways of being together, and to be modeled for the world, to live them out.
[00:56:10] It's not about just getting along.
[00:56:12] I mean, that's easy.
[00:56:13] Just don't talk about anything except the weather, right?
[00:56:17] No, it's about deepening our connections to find the place where we can meet with one another face-to-face on holy ground, to connect in such a way so that when we all face a time of struggle and trial,
[00:56:34] when we can alleviate the pain of loneliness when suffering hits us, when we can come together and do something good, something better and greater than any one of us can do alone we can do it together
[00:56:47] this is our purpose and the foundation of that is relationships this is what we mean when we are calling us towards a face-to-face encounter with one another yes and with God this is our call
[00:57:09] this is what we're after we may not see what the other side of looks like and I'm asked occasionally what heaven is going to be like and i just hate conversations like that because you
[00:57:21] know there's a reason the veil of mystery is there we don't know and everybody when they start describing it yeah doesn't work for me like huckleberry you know but i know something about relationships and i know how deep they can go and i know that when i connect with them i encounter
[00:57:42] a divine connection and I want that us for all of us. Would you pray with me? God who is holy love we seek a face-to-face encounter with you. We come to you with humility knowing that so much of our
[00:58:09] life is lived outside of awareness of your presence and yet you continue to call us and you are the bridge into both realms. We give thanks that you are with us in life and in death
[00:58:27] and in life beyond death.
[00:58:31] Amen.
