Community Church Sermons

Year C

September 8, 2013

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

With All My Breath

Deuteronomy 34:1-7

Rev. Martin C. Singley, III

Senior Pastor

One of my favorite Tellico families were the Goldfines – Milton and Vivian. Milt – who passed away just before my arrival here – was a Jewish boy from New York City. Vivian – who survived him several years before going home to God herself – was a Southern Baptist girl from Blount County, TN. Vivian had a career as a teacher, and was an avid Lady Vol fan. She was smart and free-spirited, and Vivian was the one who talked my wife Sandy into playing golf with the 4-holers when we first arrived here. She said, “Sandy, it’s easy. You hit the ball, hit the ball, hit the ball…and then we go have lunch!”

Milt was a scientist, working for NASA out at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. He had major responsibilities for a particular mission that sent two spacecraft out to explore the planet Mars. It was the Mars Viking Project. The two spacecraft were launched just about this time of year in 1975. They took almost a full year to reach Mars before successfully landing and sending back valuable data for several more years.

You might wonder what a Jewish boy from New York was doing married to a Southern Baptist girl from East Tennessee. Well, who can figure out love? Love crosses all boundaries. And you might wonder what a Jewish boy from New York was doing sitting in the pews every week at the Christ-centered Community Church at Tellico Village.

I think the answer is: because Milt was a man of great faith.

Faith, the Bible says, is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Put more simply, faith is living out into the certainty of a future you can’t yet see.

The Viking Project took faith! Launching a rocket from Planet Earth that will have to escape Earth’s gravitational pull, perform something called the “Hohmann maneuver” which consists of two bursts of propulsion – one to move the spacecraft into its own orbit around the sun, the second to de-orbit the spacecraft onto the same plane as the destination planet and to slow it down sufficiently to be captured by the gravitational pull of the other planet. And the whole process will take a year! Space travel is never about the present. It is about what will happen in the future. It is not about the launch site. It is about the destination. And it requires planning and working and dedication to bring about that future you can’t yet see.

Milt was a man of great faith.

Life is full of stories about people like Milt Goldfine who grasped that great truth and accomplished amazing things because they lived in the present in such a way as to shape and inherit a future that was more beautiful than anything they could have imagined.

Faith is living today for tomorrow’s joy!

I’ve been thinking this week about children. We just celebrated our granddaughter Avery’s 3^rd birthday. While we were there at the party it struck me that she is not the same little girl she was at the party last year. Or the year before that! For one thing, she’s TALKING! Last year she hardly talked at all. Now we can’t shut her up! And she thrills us as she counts to 13, and sings the Alphabet Song – both things her parents started teaching months ago and now – so many months later – she’s DOING IT!

That’s what parenting is: nurturing our children today with skills, values, and beliefs that will blossom in their lives TOMORROW!

And that’s how God created people to be – optimistically and constantly stepping forward into a future we can’t yet see, but we believe is there and will come! So a baby one day dares to stand up and try walking – a little girl gets on a bike and rides away – a young man calls up a girl and asks her on a date – a bride walks down the aisle and says, “I do!” – a college graduate accepts a career opportunity and moves away from home – a couple has a baby and become parents – a person ends a career and steps into retirement – a woman who’s never played golf before hits the ball, hits the ball, hits the ball and then goes has lunch – a man or woman comes to the end of their time on earth…and…then what?

Our faith has something to say about that, you know!

The Bible tells us the future does not end when the present runs out. The Bible is full of stories about people – even at the end of their lives – still living into the future. One of my favorites is the story of Moses.

He’s been leading those cantankerous Israelites for forty years in pursuit of a dream God gave him. It’s not been easy. In fact, it’s been terribly difficult. Their journey has taken them through the desert. They have lacked food, and water, and even the ability to settle down. The journey from Egypt has been hard, and after forty years, many think the dream of a Promised Land was really just a mirage.

Moses is 120 years old. He’s not going to make it to the land God said was flowing with milk and honey. So as the hours of his life count down toward zero, he separates himself from the people of Israel and goes up into the Pisgah mountain range. Slowly he ascends upward on Mount Nebo, the highest of the peaks. And on the last day of his life, he reaches the summit and looks to the west.

AND THERE IT IS!

Off in the distance there is a little patch of green – grass upon which cows and goats can graze and give milk to the children – wildflowers in colorful array that bees can pollinate and then make honey. It is just as God said it would be – a land flowing with milk and honey!

And there on the mountain, gazing out to the future, Moses breathes his last. No one – to this day - knows where he is buried. God himself buried him, the Bible says.

Because even in death, God is still creating us a future.

But how do you receive that promised future? How do you get there?

Our faith is centered around a single commandment. Jewish people know it as the Shema. “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One…and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” The Shema is the central prayer of the Jewish prayer book, and the very first scriptures a Jewish child memorizes.

This is where the journey of faith begins.

The first part – “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One” – is not so much a theological description of God as it is an oath of loyalty. It is saying, “The Lord is my God, and only the Lord. God has the number one position in my life and I will obey him.”

And that is the first step in the journey of faith - when you answer the question “Who is going to lead my life, and who am I going to follow into the future?” Myself? A lot of people try to live as their own gods. They may say they have committed their lives to God, but they really haven’t because when it comes to the decisions we make and the actions we take in life, God’s will is often trumped by our own wants.

But God can only lead those who are willing to follow. So if you really want God’s future, then you have to accept God as the leader of your life. You have to put God first. I’m hoping everybody here today has made that decision already. If you haven’t committed your life to God, I hope you WILL today!

And then, the Shema says, we must love God.

A famous Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages taught that loving God is learning to love God’s LOVE! The Bible teaches that God IS love. So to love God is to love God’s love - for YOU! God loves you NO MATTER WHAT! God loves you so much that when you fail, all God wants for you is to pick yourself up, learn from your mistakes, and move on. And if you can’t get up by your own power, God will use HIS POWER to help you up! I hope that you love God’s love for YOU because God loves you with a love that will never let you go, and never let you down!

And I hope you love God’s love for your neighbor, too!

You know, Roberta Burwell and Bob Puckett are co-leaders of our IMAGINE campaign and they are both wonderful examples of people who love God’s love for others! Bob LOVES to hug people – especially women. But in addition to that have you ever noticed that Bob always has a smile for you? He never talks bad about people, but always tries to find something good to say. And Roberta? Well there’s never been a mission project she didn’t like! You show Roberta a need in our community and she’s out there organizing people to meet that need. And she does it with that big, beautiful, infectious smile of hers! Roberta and Bob are wonderful illustrations of people who love to love their neighbors because they love God’s love!

The Shema teaches that we are to love God’s love with all our heart – meaning our thoughts, emotions, the very center of our lives; with all our soul which I’ll get to in a second; and with all our might which one rabbi says means “with all your oomph!” – and then further describes the Hebrew sense of oomph as your money – your wealth – your increase – the blessings with which you’ve been blessed. That’s what the word “meode” – that we translate “might” - actually means.

Loving God’s love – for you – for others – and for the world. And loving God’s love with all your heart, all your wealth – and all your SOUL.

The Hebrew word is nephesh and it means to love God with all your LIFE – or even more beautiful – UNTIL YOUR LAST BREATH.

It was at the death camps during World War II that German soldiers witnessed something extraordinary. As Jewish people were herded into the gas chambers, the doors closed and locked, and the gas turned on, they heard this: “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

And the Shema was recited over and over again – until the very last breath.

Like Moses on the last day of his life.

Like Jesus on the cross, when the Bible tells us “he gave up his breath.”

Hebrews 12 tells us that Jesus is our great example of true faith. It says he lived as he lived and died as he died – enduring the cross, experiencing its shame and pain – FOR THE JOY THAT WAS SET BEFORE HIM.

A portion of that joy that Jesus lived toward is this church – and all of you – those who have come to love God through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. I sometimes wonder what Jesus may have seen out in the distance from that old rugged cross, like Moses saw the Promised Land from the mountain.

I wonder if Jesus saw US – faithfully gathered as part of the body of Christ, committed to God as the number ONE in our lives, loving God’s love for ourselves, each other, and our neighbors. And practicing that love with all our hearts, with all our wealth, and with every breath we breathe.

As we begin this journey called IMAGINE…what do you think Jesus sees for us?

And are you willing to come and find out?

I’m inviting you today to IMAGINE a future where we are free to give, to reach, and to love! Come and follow Jesus!