Fairhaven Sermon 8-25-2024

I have to confess I didn't see much of the Olympics last month. I did see some of the swimming and some of the races and the smattering of the other competitions. I saw the amazing steaming on the pummel horse. That was something really amazingly cool.

But I was more interested in watching how others saw the Olympics. For those two weeks all conversations turned away from politics and turned away from other issues and turned into, Did you see? Did you see? Did you watch? My next-door neighbor who comes over frequently to sit on the porch and just talk, she immediately like, Oh, oh, it's 8 o'clock. I gotta go. I gotta go get this, you know, get this thing going.

Simone Miles is gonna be on. I gotta go go watch it. So this is, it was just, there was so much excitement. At every restaurant and Facebook and friends homes we are all watching the ongoing games and cheering on our favorites.

It was an exciting two weeks, whether or not you follow the Olympics. I like the excitement of being excited. I did watch the full opening ceremony, the full three and plus hours of it. What a spectacle it was.

All the competitors coming down the same river on boats. Many smaller countries were put together on the same boat so it wouldn't take so long. But there are musical and dramatic interludes in between the groups of countries. France did themselves proud.

That was a beautiful spectacle and the world, whole world was in celebration. Now we're in the beginning of the football season. I loved when I was a part of the roar, the pit crowd, you know, you're in that stadium and we were the championship team, the 76-77, you know, that we could do nothing wrong and it just was crazy. The whole times were crazy going to football games then.

We're watching Tony Dorsett and Hugh Green and all these future Hall of Famers, you know, doing these wonderful things, magical things. Crowds cheering and our voices getting hoarse by the end of the afternoon. Many of us are dedicated to cheering on the Steelers. At home growing up we could hear the shouts next door.

My family was not a big sports family but right next door in the house next door you could hear whether they're winning or losing there was major shouts going on from the people next door. For the next four months or so the games are going to be on television of every restaurant we go to and you can hear groans and cheers between bites. I actually had an experience, I didn't write it down here, but I had experience actually for Penguins as I was on a business trip to Detroit the year we were competing against them and for the Stanley Cup and I got to the hotel room. I was gonna wear my Penguin shirt and I said, Well what if I have to stop and ask someone for directions? They might send me.

.. Maybe I'll keep it in my suitcase till I get to the hotel. And as I'm checking in I could hear at a far bar, because they had several bars around, you could hear one scream and I look over and said, Oh they scored.

That's my area. I'm going to that bar. Get my shirt on, you go back to that bar. Join in that celebration.

We were lucky to be able to schedule the fall crop walk, hunger walk, before the game, today's game starts, but two days later unfortunately this Saturday Steelers game will have started by the time we get home from our charge conference. So plan on going to charge conference but get home quickly so you don't miss much of the game. This may cut into a few of the parties but we'll try it. A couple, a number, a good number of years ago a Bishop Niiwetiwa of the Zimbabwe United Methodist Conference visited the United States and visited our conference and after he witnessed the enthusiasm and energy of a professional football game, he wondered how would the church react if we did the same, had the same spirit here.

Can you imagine what cheers would come up during the worship service? What would we wave instead of a terrible towel? Would we tailgate worship service? What kind of sometimes we do something, okay. Should we get team shirts? God team shirts. God, we're on God's side. I just, I have this t-shirt and I said, you know, Dan knows I'm not a big football player but I do have a Paul Amalo t-shirt.

It says 70% of the world is covered with water. The rest is covered by Paul Amalo. Still good even though, you know, he's been gone. Now he's selling shampoo.

In the first King's Scripture today there was a similar celebration. Now let me set the stage. Long after God had appointed David to be king, David promised to build a temple for God. Specifically it was to hold the Ark of the Covenant which was the the box, the gold box that held the tablets that Moses brought down from the mountain, the Ten Commandments.

The Ark, God responded that David should not build this temple but rather his son would when his son becomes king. So King Solomon kept that promise and built a beautiful large temple for the Ark. It actually took him seven years to have it built. So when King Solomon finished the building, the Lord's Temple, the king and the priests had a great celebration, brought sacrifices, too many to count it says.

He prayed and brought the Ark of the Covenant into the temple. The celebration was set during another holiday in town so that everybody but everybody would be there. This was a celebration for all of Israel. I mean we're talking parties.

This celebration was bigger and better than any Super Bowl, any Olympics, and Solomon prayed that God would watch over the temple and the people and would visit, keep his eye on that area. In fact he says, May your eyes be toward this temple night and day, this place of which you said, 'My name will be there,' so that you will hear the prayer your servant prays toward this place. And the Lord appeared to Solomon and said, I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me. I have consecrated this temple which you have built by putting my name there forever.

My eyes and my heart will always be there. The Lord's eyes and his heart will always be there. This was the Lord's house and this is the Lord's house. For two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.

Here we are in a holy place, apart from the world, close to God. Psalm 122 says, I was glad when they said unto me, 'Let us go to the house of the Lord.' This is the first Bible verse that I remember memorizing. We didn't have like memorization things, but there was a poster on the side of the wall in the kindergarten room where I helped out as a sixth grader, and it was always there.

And there's this little girl walking, jumping up the steps with her parents right behind her. If I remember right, she had a little yellow dress and she's just wonderful, going in, so happy going into church. I was glad when they said unto me, 'Let us go to the house of the Lord.' We are standing on holy ground and I know that there are angels all around.

Let us praise Jesus now for we are standing in his presence on holy ground. I had this wonderful experience many years ago at a church camp where I still volunteer. Laurel View Camp is in Somerset and it's much smaller than Jumonville, but it's the same idea. It's a youth Christian development camp.

And a long time ago I was directing the elementary age camp with a group of teenagers and young adult counselors. And then we had the counselors over Labor Day weekend for a relaxing, just hanging out kind of weekend. It was Saturday night, about 1 a.m.

thereabouts. We had been near the end of an extremely long card game. And one of the group turned to me and said, What are the plans for church tomorrow? I hadn't made any plans for church tomorrow. I planned the food, I planned the housing, I didn't plan for church.

So I said, What do you want to do? As it turned out, each person had a different idea of where to go in the morning. Each person's reasoning showed some of what they look for in worship and church. And I have to tell you, it was great to just sit there and listen to teenagers and young adults spend a full hour debating which church they preferred to worship in. Now since they were mostly disciples, disciples of Christ, Terry thought they should go to the Disciple Church in town.

We didn't know anybody there, but they wanted to, you know, get to know more disciples. My suggestion to go to the United Methodist Church in town was very politely ignored. Sonny and others wanted to go to the Connellsville Disciple Church, about 45 minutes away, because we loved the minister there and enjoyed a vigorous singing by the congregation. He had such a beautiful voice and his congregation went along and they, it was just, you were spirit-filled.

If you've ever been to a church where you're spirit-filled because of the music. Corrie wanted to go to the Brethren Church down the hill to visit the minister's family, which with whom we become friends, but also because she was intrigued by our description of their services. A little bit different, but very nice, wonderful, and very warm church to go to. Others wanted to go to the services led by the Laurel Hill State Park Chaplain out in nature, and several of us wanted to plan our own service here as we did during camp.

I've got my community where two or three are gathered. There were many reasons to choose a different church and worship, but the desire to worship God was uniform. I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go to the house of the Lord. Now you may have felt a mountain top, mountain high during a week of church camp or at a revival or at a gather concert or other places.

We get short glimpses of a heaven on earth during those times. When we say the Lord's Prayer, I've learned to emphasize some of the pronouns. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Live on earth as you want heaven to be, a place of grace, joy, love, and hope.

At our home churches, we have the opportunity to have a glimpse, just a glimpse, of heaven on earth. We're speaking not just of the life beyond, but the life here and now. The book of Acts describes the time following Pentecost as they devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the Apostles.

All the believers were gathered and had everything in common, selling their possessions and goods they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in the homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the peoples. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

A glimpse of heaven on earth. And everyone was filled with awe every day. They remembered that the center of the church was the miracle of Christ. It is a miracle, truly awesome.

Christ lived, Christ died, Christ will come again. How awesome is that? What kind of joy must have filled these early Christians? Now I'm not talking about being oblivious to the pain and loss that are always present. We've all lost persons we loved. We know that there are all types of local and worldwide woes.

We cannot and must not separate ourselves and close ourselves off from those in need. But to survive through all our hurt, we need to know deep within our souls that the Lord is present and to know and feel the joy of his love. In the 1980s our minister Jack Piper would visit a lady from our church, a Mrs. Brown, who had a degenerative disease that slowly took her life.

At the time she was in a wheelchair and had really difficulties speaking and moving. And yet our minister would say when he left her house he felt his spirit had been ministered to. For she had a joy that lived within her no matter what. And she blessed him every time he came.

Do we stop and feel the joy, the delight in the Lord? Do we also feel strangely warmed? Or are we, as often the case, and with me I included, caught up in going through the motions of worship while really trying to figure out what's happening the rest of the day and the week? Do we have all that we need? Did I make the doctor's appointment? Should I stop at the bank? Did I record that movie that I wanted to see? To receive the blessing of God we have only to be ready, to be open to him, to enter. All we can do is invite, welcome, receive, introduce, and watch as the Spirit does what the Spirit does best. It's not about you, it's not about me, it's about Jesus. When the priests entered the Temple of Jerusalem with the covenant the temple was filled with the Holy Spirit.

It was so thick that they could not see. God wants to fill us with the Holy Spirit, not a part of us, not a section that fits into the Sunday morning, but fully and completely. How awesome that would be. Today's psalm reading said, How dear to me is your dwelling, O Lord of hosts.

My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God. The sparrow has found her a house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young. By the side of your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God, happy are those who dwell in your house.

They will always be praising you. Ann Weems is a poet who celebrates the awesomeness of Christ's Church. I'd like to read to you part of one of her poems. In fact, I copied too much of it, I think.

But, I celebrate the Church of Jesus Christ, where two or three or thousands can gather in the Lord's name and touch the world with the amazing good news that somebody cares, that God joins us in the community so that someday the world would be loved to wholeness. I celebrate this community where people say yes in the face of no, where they're like candles in the darkest night, where healing and compassion leave no time for self-righteousness and the life-sustaining love of Christ is evident in the life of the believers. I celebrate the love lives among us, that God's Spirit pervades our being, our community. I see God's face within the lives of these celebrants.

I hear God's voice in the vision of men and women who call us to a better way, a higher hope. For God works miracles in common day clay pots, changing caterpillars to butterflies and water to wine, changing seeds to oak trees and night to day, changing winter to springtime, changing lives from ordinary to abundant. We as God's celebrants dance through this world together, listening for God's music, responding to God's work, praising God with clapping hands and moving feet, and praising God with justice and mercy and humbleness, praising God with changed lives. Let us worship the Church of Jesus Christ where the wonderful wildness of God breaks through the common clay pots and fills us with the Holy Spirit that overflows and we see rainbows, many splendid colors, light in pitch darkness, and every day is a festival of faith.

Let us pray. Lord, enter our hearts today. Help us to find our joy in you and strengthen our Church of faith. Help us to recognize your presence within us and in our church community, and we will celebrate.

Amen.