Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Please join me in the calld of worship.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good
for his steadfast love endoors forever. Let the redeemed of
the Lord say so, those he redeemed from difficult days.
They cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he
brought them out from their distress. Then, from the east
and the west, from the north and the south, the
(00:28):
Lord saves the down trodden.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
And lifts up the load.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Let them thank the Lord for his stepfast love, for
his wonderful works to humankind. Oh give thanks to the Lord,
for he is good for his stepfast love indoors forever.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
To stas s ss s S.
Speaker 6 (03:08):
Would you pray with me, Almighty Father, we stand before
you this morning and all of your unwavering love for
all people across time. Great is your faithfulness, and steadfast
is your love, even toward us, your unfaithful and fainthearted people.
(03:31):
Please open our hearts, minds, and bodies to sense and
experience your presence with us for your Holy Spirit, so
we can receive the message you have for us as
individuals and as a collective body of believers. On this day,
(03:51):
call us into awareness of you and your will and
ways for our lives and for the world around us.
We are grateful for the example of your son and
for their perspective he offers us through his teachings in
your word. And now we will join our voices as
(04:12):
we pray the prayer he taught us, our Father who
art in Heaven.
Speaker 7 (04:19):
Hower, be thy.
Speaker 6 (04:20):
Name, Thy Kingdom. Come, Thy will be done on earth
as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our
daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive
those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the Kingdom,
(04:44):
the power, and the glory forever.
Speaker 8 (04:48):
Ama d.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
Let's come on, let's see. It's Jesus.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
I love you Lord, for your mercy, never said heil me.
Speaker 9 (08:02):
In all my days I have held in your hands.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
From the moment that away.
Speaker 10 (08:14):
Tell lay my head.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Oh, I will.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Sing of the goodness of God, because all my life,
if you have been for.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
And all my.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Life, if you have been the soul so God.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
With every breath, I am mable.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God.
Speaker 9 (08:55):
I love your voice. You have held me through the
fire in darkest nights.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Your love is like no other.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I've loved you.
Speaker 11 (09:13):
As a firether, loved you as a friend, and I
have lived in the goodness of God.
Speaker 9 (09:26):
He is.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Because no man life. If you have been faithful and
no man life. If you have been so so.
Speaker 12 (09:41):
God with every breath, then I am beable.
Speaker 11 (09:49):
Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God he is.
Speaker 13 (09:58):
Your goodness is running now after running, Now after me,
your goodness is running naw after it's running now after me,
because my life laid down a surrender.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Now I give.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
You every name.
Speaker 13 (10:21):
Your godness is running nafter, it's running now.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
To me, your goodness is running naw after running Now.
Speaker 13 (10:33):
To me, Lord, your goodness is running naw after running
now to me, with my life laid down a serender,
now give you avery day. Your goodness is running na
after it's running naf to me.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Know my life you have been thaful.
Speaker 13 (11:13):
Know my life you have been so so God.
Speaker 12 (11:20):
With every breath that I am made bore, I will
seek other.
Speaker 10 (11:29):
Goodness of God. And all my life you have been feeful,
And all my life you have been so.
Speaker 5 (11:48):
God. With every breath that I am made bore.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
I will see other.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Goodness of God.
Speaker 12 (12:03):
I'm gonna see love the.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
Good name of God. We'll see love the good names,
Oh God.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Maybe pray together for a moment ago.
Speaker 8 (12:45):
But Gracious God, as we still listen to the music
in our ears, we ask that you would be with
us in this time of worship, that we.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
That we take in.
Speaker 8 (12:56):
All that is happening, from Charlotte's baptism to Chriss's music,
to the words of Scripture, and help us to wrestle
with all these ideas and images. And as we hear
your word, may we listen for.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Your spirit in our lives. In Christ, Jesus, we prayed.
Speaker 14 (13:20):
Amen.
Speaker 8 (13:24):
Rachel's also given you already given us a beginning, a four.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Running of the story for today.
Speaker 8 (13:31):
It is the parable of the Poltical Son, in which
I'll be preaching from this week and next week, and
will split the parable in two halves, basically in the
way that Jesus taught it.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
He taught it as a two part story.
Speaker 8 (13:43):
So from the first half the fifteenth chapter of Luke,
beginning with verse eleven. Then Jesus said there was a
man who had two sons. The younger of them said
to his father, father, give me the.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Share of my property. That will belong to me.
Speaker 8 (14:02):
So he divided his property between them. A few days later,
the younger son gathered all that he had and traveled
to a distant country, and there he squandered his property
in desolate living. When he had spent everything, a severe
famine took hold throughout that country, and he began to
(14:26):
be in need. So he went and hired himself out
to one of the citizens of that country, who sent
him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would
gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs
were eating. No one gave him anything, But when he
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came to himself, he said, how many of my father's
hired hands have bread enough and despair, and here I am,
dying of hunger. I will get up and go to
my father, and I will say to him, father, I
have sinned against Heaven and against for you. I am
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no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me
like one of your hired hands.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
So he went off and went to his father, And
while he was still far away, his father saw him.
Speaker 8 (15:27):
And was filled with compassion, and he ran and put
his arms around him and kissed him.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Then the son said.
Speaker 8 (15:34):
To his father I have sinned against Heaven and against you.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
Speaker 8 (15:42):
But the Father said to his slaves and servants, quickly
bring out a robe, the best one, and put it
on him, and put a ring on his.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Finger, and saddles on his feet.
Speaker 8 (15:51):
And get the fatty calf, and kill it, and let
us eat and celebrate.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
For this son of mine was dead and is alive again.
Speaker 8 (15:58):
He was lost, is found, and they began to sell itrate.
Here ends the reading of God's holy Word. May God
bless it for our hearing and understanding. When reading the
Parable of the Political Son, we see first ten evidence
(16:20):
of Jesus as a master storyteller.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
A man has two sons. With that single simple sentence.
Speaker 8 (16:30):
He is already having us assuming sibling rivalry.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Why else do you begin a story?
Speaker 8 (16:36):
A man has two sons, not one son, but two,
And any of us who have been touched by sibling rivalry,
either in pain or with rewards, are already tapped into
the story. And recalling our own stories between our siblings.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
And Jesus does not disappoint with the.
Speaker 15 (17:02):
Second sentence, which says something like this, Dad, I'm sick
of living here with you and my stinking brother, I
wish you were dead, So why don't you just give
me my inheritance now?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
And I'm out of here?
Speaker 8 (17:22):
I mean, with the beginning like that, who can't set
up and listen?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Right?
Speaker 8 (17:28):
And amazingly, the father does not take offense. He doesn't
throw him out of the house and his clothes on
the street. It's the first plot twist in the story. Instead,
the father cashes in his investment account, sells a couple
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of hard assets, and gives his son half of everything
he had what would be the son's inheritance.
Speaker 16 (17:59):
One day, all this to the dismay of the older brother,
the young man predictably heads for the far country.
Speaker 8 (18:15):
Why say I wish you were a dead, dad? If
you're not going to go far away, might get away
as far as you can where he lives it up
for some time in desolate living.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
He's throwing big.
Speaker 8 (18:29):
Parties, in other words, spending a lot of cash, buying
some friends, and he burns through the money fast. Before long,
we do not know how long, a year, two years,
five years, He runs through money, runs through all the inheritance,
his father's life's work, and then a famine occurs. He
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was too busy living enough to finish college, and he
says he wasn't from around here. Nobody is hiring him
for as a job. The best he can do is
a demeaning job for a Jewish boy, feeding the pigs animals.
His religion wouldn't even let him eat. He is so hungry,
(19:17):
so poor, so desperate. He wished at times to eat
the food he was giving the pigs. He had reached
the bomb. But at this point a miracle happens. In
the story, Jesus says that he came to himself. We
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might say he looked at himself.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
In the mirror and didn't like what he saw. The
whole story turns on that sentence.
Speaker 8 (19:56):
It pivots the parable like an alcoholic or an act.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
It took bottoming out before he.
Speaker 8 (20:04):
Realized what his life had become.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
And he was determined to change it.
Speaker 8 (20:15):
In looking in the mirror, he realizes that he was
worse off than even the unskilled laborers on his father's ranch.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
His awareness.
Speaker 8 (20:29):
Was at least twofold, if not free. He looked inside
of himself, He looked at the time of life in
which he was, and he looked at all that was
happening around him. He critically assessed his reality. He decides
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to go home, the place that he had ran away
from in the first place, but he is.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Not going to return as a favored son.
Speaker 8 (21:05):
Humble, he will simply ask his father, will you let
me work on the.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Ranch as one of your hired hands.
Speaker 8 (21:16):
So important is his awareness and his humble solution that
this sentence is repeated twice in the story. This sentence,
in which he's going to pitch his father to be
a hired hand on the farm, takes fifteen percent of
the story by itself just that sentence.
Speaker 14 (21:40):
Personal awareness is the key to transformation, and Jesus makes
it the pivot point in this most famous of his parables.
Speaker 17 (21:56):
How can we learn the wisdom of the prodigal hopefully
before we bottom out? How come we learn the wisdom
of the prodigal son and cultivate awareness into our life
and into our faith? What are the first habits we
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need to get into if we're going to cultivate awareness
in our life is.
Speaker 8 (22:28):
To develop a faithful skepticism. Now I don't mean just
being skeptics and being cynical about everything.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Got too many curmudgeons. As we have we don't need
any more around.
Speaker 8 (22:41):
Us, but a faithful skepticism, one that keeps us looking
for God in the midst of what's going on around us.
I mentioned this briefly a couple months ago in my
sermon on sermons, in which I told you not to
swallow any of my sermons whole, or for that matter,
(23:04):
any preachers. Don't swallow a sermon like you might swallow
a communion wafer.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Sermons, I said, are.
Speaker 8 (23:12):
Meant to be chewed on, to work around in your mouth,
to think about it, to reflect upon it, at least
the rest of the service, maybe for the whole day,
possibly for the week.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
How I wrestle with a sermon, text, a scripture.
Speaker 8 (23:31):
Passage may or not be how you should wrestle with you.
But in sharing with you how I'm wrestling and reading
this Texas Word of God to us, I'm inviting you
to wrestle beside me in your own way. First John,
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chapter four, verse one says, beloved, do not believe every spear.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
But test the spirits to see whether they are from God.
This is what we should do with all information.
Speaker 8 (24:11):
Test what you are watching, listening to, reading to see
if God is in it, and where we cannot, for instance,
accept traditional or online or social media at safe face value.
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The job of the talking heads on ESPN or Fox
News or MSNBC or CNN or even the Weather Channel,
their job is to keep us watching.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
So they're gonna raise up fear, and I'm gonna raise up.
Speaker 8 (24:47):
Controversy to get us agitated, so you're gonna watch a
little bit more.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
I'm always fascinated about the Weather Channel.
Speaker 8 (24:54):
When a storm comes, it is always the storm of
the century, right, and you better stay riveted by your
televisions that so every single moment so you can avoid it.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Right. This sense of fear, well back.
Speaker 8 (25:06):
That sense is in ESPN where I'm talking about your
favorite ball teams, or any news channel.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Just to keep you watching.
Speaker 8 (25:16):
Faithful skepticism invites us, encourage us to ask, why are
they telling me this? And why are these two talking
heads yelling at each other? Do they want me to
yell at somebody else? And if so, why we are
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bombarded with information twenty four to seven, in this information
twenty fourth century world, and we have to be faithfully
skeptical about all of them.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Remember last week, simple illustration.
Speaker 8 (25:52):
Last week in my sermon, I quoted a passage that
I had seen several months before, and I say that something.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
I'm going to use that at sometime in a sermon.
Speaker 8 (26:02):
Comparison is the Thief of Joy, I said, which supposedly
was by Teddy Roosevelt, but as and again trying to
define a source so that I could then share it
with you as a congregation.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Another phrase popped up. Comparison is the Death of Joy
by Mark Twain. So I began looking for that one
as well.
Speaker 8 (26:23):
After over two hours, I could not find any proof
that either of those guys had said those phrases.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
That's kind of how it worked with information. Now.
Speaker 8 (26:38):
Maybe one of them said that if one of you
all find out, please let me know.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
It's like a market for future sermons.
Speaker 8 (26:45):
More likely, some non famous person said that phrase. It
passed on somebody else said well who said that? They said, well,
it sounds like Teddy Roosevelt, or.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
It sounds like Mark Twain. And there you go.
Speaker 8 (26:58):
And if you look it up on the internet, it's
all over the place, except nobody says where they said it.
So before we swallow the news or the social media
thread or rumors around the church or any other information,
somebody gives you, even a.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Preacher's sermon chew on it for a while.
Speaker 8 (27:25):
We should be asking at least three questions with every
bit of information.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
What's the source of this information? What evidence is this
person sharing to verify this information?
Speaker 8 (27:48):
And why are they telling me this? Who? What?
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Why?
Speaker 8 (27:56):
In order to operate in this information age, we all
have to be about that so that we can find
if God is in this, and if so where in
the parable The podical son makes a change when he
assesses his situation with the hired compares it to the
hired hands on his father's farm. He had first hand
(28:19):
knowledge of his father's integrity.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
He had first hand knowledge of how his father's employees were.
Speaker 8 (28:25):
Treated, and he realized he was worse saw than they were,
and he determined it was time to go home, not
as a son, but as a hired hand on his
father's farm. I understand, of course, the political certain had
to learn this the hard way.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
At first, he believed.
Speaker 8 (28:47):
That if he could just run away from home and
live his life free, he would find his life.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Then he believed that.
Speaker 8 (28:56):
If he spent a lot of money, he would draw
all sorts of friends to him, friends for life. And
then he believed that when he fell at hard times,
all of those friends that he had met that way
would take care of him. Wrong.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Wrong, wrong. Thankfully he learned through those hard lessons, he
became aware.
Speaker 8 (29:27):
Of what he had lost, and he decided to change
his life.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Only when we learned the hard way. Sometimes, like the
prodigal son, do.
Speaker 8 (29:41):
We learn to have a faithful skepticism about life. The
second thing I think we need to cultivate if we're
going to cultivate the witness our life.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Is to understand that life comes us in seasons. We
see the seasons like right now, it is summertime. Folks.
Speaker 8 (29:56):
If anybody had any doubt about that, you know it
by being in this sanctuary. Right is summertime. Life comes
from winter, spring, summer fall, and discipled return. One of
the things we have to ask ourselves from time to
time is what season of life am I here? My
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son just took a big job, a big new job,
a big scary job.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
He's twenty five years old. He might be way over
his head with this new job.
Speaker 8 (30:28):
But as he was talking about this with a life
in me, he said, Michael, when are you else going
to take a chance like this? Right?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
You're twenty five, it's the spring of your life. Go
ahead and take this big job.
Speaker 8 (30:42):
If it fails, you've got plenty of time to try
something else. But this is a big, bold thing you
can do now, in the spring of your life.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
It's the time to do it now. Taking this chance.
Speaker 8 (30:57):
Might not have been good if he was my age
and trying to figure out how to figure out how.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
To work towards retirement. But he's not. He's in the spring.
If he's line, are you aware of kind of what
time is it? What season is it? In your life?
Speaker 8 (31:13):
Sometimes you have to be aware also the seasons of
other people, the lives of the people around you.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
I received the text a few weeks ago. Kind to
have this. I've never had to use this before, but
it comes in handy today.
Speaker 8 (31:25):
We received the text a few weeks ago from someone
I knew pretty well, and they.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Were just biting my head off. They were so angry
at me.
Speaker 8 (31:34):
I was looking at the text figure out what I
had said was not a pan So I kind of
just try and joke back a little bit and said, WHOA,
what's going on?
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I don't think I messed up your weedies?
Speaker 18 (31:47):
Today?
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Can we talk not texts?
Speaker 8 (31:54):
Can we talk, came to find out he had just
gotten chewed out by his.
Speaker 19 (32:02):
Boss, wondering if he would be fire before too long,
and all that anxiety and that fear just came up
when he took something wrong in.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
This text thread we were working with.
Speaker 8 (32:18):
Now, if I had taken offense, as I easily could
have and jumped right back in and said what are
you calling me that for, everything would have escalated.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
But I took a moment to listen, and I heard
the season.
Speaker 8 (32:35):
That was going on in his life, scared about his job,
wondering if his boss was going to fire him.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
All that anxiety was in him, and it came out
on me.
Speaker 8 (32:47):
Had nothing to do with me, everything to do with
the season of his life. One of the things that
operating in relationships is we need to be aware of
what's going on in our lives and what's going on
in the lives of the people around us, what season
is for them. The prodigal son realized he was so
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young enough to start over again, so he took this
risk and went back home to his father.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
The third thing that we need to cultivate is an.
Speaker 8 (33:21):
Awareness of ourselves within ourselves.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
At the beginning of the parable The prodigal son thought that.
Speaker 8 (33:28):
The thing he wanted most in life was just to
be free from home. Only if he could be out
of the control of his father and his thinking brother,
then he could be free to be the person he
was meant to be. So he left home with this
inheritance money to a distant country. The problem, however, with
trying to find yourself by running away, is that we
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always ended up running in the opposite direction, which is
always reacting to whatever we.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Think is going on. You know, there's a pop.
Speaker 8 (34:01):
Psychology joke that says that sooner or later we all
become just like our parents, which you may have seen
in some Geico commercials, or we become the opposite of
our parents.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Right now, either we.
Speaker 8 (34:15):
Follow them we're just like them, or we say we
run away and go the opposite way. The political son
did exactly what rebellious children always do. He ran to
the far country, as far from home as he possibly could.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Now he could be free to be himself.
Speaker 8 (34:30):
Or was he unaware of himself? He simply becomes a caricature,
a predictable, rebellious child who wants to be the opposite
of mom or dad. There's an old Jewish tale from
the Middle Ages about a rabbi named Zuza. One night,
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God comes to Zusa in a dream. God asked him, Susa,
and how are you doing with your life? Zusa apologizes
for not leading his people like Moses had led the Israelites.
God said, I did not ask you why you're not Moses.
(35:18):
Rabbi Zuser then apologize for not being as faithful as
Daniel was in the face of persecution. God said, I
did not ask you why you were not Daniel. The
rabbi then asked God, well, then, what is it you
want me to do.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
God replied, I want to know why you have not
been Zuza.
Speaker 8 (35:53):
None of us are free to be whatever he wants
to me. We all have these bodies, we have the
DNAs our parents and grandparents gave us, We have these
limitations upon us.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
None of us are free to be whatever we want
to be. But we are free to be ourselves. And
we can only be ourselves when we are aware of
what's going on inside of us. That's what the part
(36:29):
of our son realized as.
Speaker 8 (36:30):
He stood in the mud and the mud of the
pig pen and wished he could eat the pig slide,
but rather than fight who he was, rather than run
any longer from who he was, He came to himself,
and he.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Went back home.
Speaker 8 (36:49):
I'm not free to be whoever I want to.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Be, but I am free to be me true.
Speaker 8 (37:03):
Parker Palmer, the Quaker theologian educator, describes our souls like
wild animals. If you want to see a wild animal,
he says, you have to be very.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Stupid and wail.
Speaker 8 (37:20):
If you were wandering in the woods, just stop, take
a seat and watch.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Maybe you catch a glimpse of someone. So you sit five.
Speaker 8 (37:30):
Minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, and then the mother deer
and her dough walk right past you.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Or maybe a moose pops through some trees and starts
going into the pond. It's between you and the moose.
Speaker 8 (37:51):
And begins swimming all the way under like a baptism underwater,
cooling off in the sum heaped, and as the moose
pops up, the water drips like waterfalls off his end.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
And maybe it's a small.
Speaker 15 (38:10):
Bird that you could hear but you couldn't see, And
so you just stand and closer and closer you.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Hear the song until you finally see it.
Speaker 8 (38:18):
A small bird, a shiny brown feathers and a bright
white belly. Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe could call.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
If you later find out, it's.
Speaker 8 (38:31):
Called the Eastern Phoebe because of its call. All these
moments came in different moments. When my family and I
were hiking National parks and woods, we watched the moose.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
For forty five minutes.
Speaker 8 (38:48):
Parker Palmer said, that's how our souls are.
Speaker 17 (38:54):
If you want to see our souls, if you want
to be aware of what God is doing deep within us,
we have to.
Speaker 8 (39:00):
Be still, just like you do to see the Doe
and her mother Dean, or the moose or the bird.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
In our twenty four to seven world, we rarely have
moments where we just stop and listen, stop and reflect.
Speaker 8 (39:25):
Sometimes we're so in fear, afraid of what our minds
do when we stop. As soon as we have a
free moment, as soon as something as nothing has happened,
we have to whip out our phones and begin putting
more information in our minds. If you're going to be
aware of what's going on in your life, if you're
going to be aware of what God.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Is doing deep within your soul, you've got to stop
every now and then and just listen and be still.
Speaker 8 (40:00):
Letdy Russell, one of the first major female theologians in
the twentieth century at a professor at Yale Dividia School,
in her book Becoming Human, wrote that our strengths and
our sins are oftentimes the opposite sides of the same crew.
And if we're not listening to ourselves, if we're not
(40:21):
aware of ourselves, we can be pushing on our strengths
and not realizing our sins and our problems are building up.
The personality trait that gives you most vibrancy that brings
you a claim and achievement, also may give you traits
that get you in trouble. The charismatic personality that attracts
(40:42):
multitudes of people may find forming deep relationships difficult. The
strong leader may become too dominant and leave others' opinions out,
and soon builds up resentment around him. Great students and
great minds can get so deep in their books that
they have problems relating to people on a more fun level.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Wonderfully kind and emotionally warm.
Speaker 8 (41:10):
People might struggle making decisions based on rational or logical
thinking because they rely so much on.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Their intuition.
Speaker 8 (41:21):
Some of the things we see as problems in our
lives may just be the flip side of our strengths.
Sometimes the greatest inspirations and life come to us at
our lowest moments, times when we like the prodigal son,
come to ourselves, times when we realize the mess that
(41:42):
we've paused may just.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Be our misapplied strengths. Accepting who you are and accepting how.
Speaker 7 (41:52):
God has made you can allow us to live as
we are, not as people are plotting us to be.
Accepting who you are, Accepting how God has made you.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Is the key to transformation.
Speaker 8 (42:10):
Frederick Beiegner, my favorite author, was traumatized at age twelve.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
And his father committed suicide.
Speaker 8 (42:20):
In his young childhood mind, he saw that in his
mind that his father had abandoned him. He didn't have
the ability to see how depressed and alone his father was,
but in his mind his father had abandoned him, and
this caused great problems the rest of his life in
building relationships because he always wanted to smother the people
(42:42):
he loved because he was so afraid they would abandon
him too. But the smothering of them oftentimes made them
want to push him away. It wasn't until he was
finally able to say, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Twelve year old again. I can relate to people differently.
Speaker 8 (43:06):
And this person I'm trying to smother the whole time,
she is not my father.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
She went on abandon me like I felt Peep.
Speaker 8 (43:19):
Once he got into his story and understood his pain,
then he could begin relating to people in different ways
to improve relationships. Sometimes we have to dig deep into
our own history. Isn't this what the political son did
for himself realizing that his father's servants were better than he.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Was standing in this pig pen and the scene.
Speaker 8 (43:44):
Remember most of the story, when the father runs down
to his son and gives him a big bear hug
and knocks him down and tells the servants quick, get
a band, get a party, let's.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Have a feast.
Speaker 8 (43:56):
The son begins repeating what he had rehearsed, father, I'm
no longer worthy to be your son. Treat me as
your hired hand, and the father pays it no attention.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
But the thing is, we don't know what happens at
the end of the story.
Speaker 8 (44:15):
We don't know if the son goes on to insist
to be a hired worker, or if he goes back
in the role of a son.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
I'd like to imagine maybe they had a compromise.
Speaker 8 (44:26):
The prodigal son got to live like a son again,
but now he was like the foreman on the farm,
overseeing the field.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Hands, or something like that.
Speaker 8 (44:36):
I'd like to imagine the prodigal saying to his father,
I want to be free to be me, and I
imagine the father saying, yes, you are, you always have been.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
That's why I created you the way you are, so
you can be free to be you.
Speaker 8 (45:08):
We end our worship service in our Baptist's tradition of
having an invitation here, and while we sing together softly
and tenderly, we invite you. If you have never made
a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, like Charlotte did
and was baptized this morning, we hope this will be
the day you want to say, I want to follow
Jesus as Lord and Savior as well and be baptized
as church. Or maybe you loved God for a long time,
(45:29):
you've been a Christian for a long time, but.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
You're looking for a new church home.
Speaker 8 (45:33):
Whatever decision you have, I'll be down here by the steps,
and we're gladly welcome you.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Let's stand together.
Speaker 18 (45:39):
And sing.
Speaker 5 (46:02):
Ss s s s s.
Speaker 8 (47:49):
S s.
Speaker 17 (48:02):
S s.
Speaker 8 (49:53):
Well, if you didn't have a clue, you are summertime,
like I hope you got to joy the summer solstice
in some ways that up late having a cookout something
like that. Better cook in right now. But I'm glad
we're here and it's joy coming back all right. All right,
Charle is trying to finish up to get back in here,
so I want to see here in a minute.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Let me just say a couple of things to you.
Speaker 8 (50:15):
First of all, big thanks for all those who helped
us make worship happen today. Appreciate Katie and Debbie for
leading us in prayer. And Chris, Wow, thank you so
much for offering your gifts and music and leading us
in worship through that.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
That was wonderful.
Speaker 8 (50:27):
Now, I also want to appreciate, Uh, Steve Wigner.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
Steve is ahead of our properties commission.
Speaker 8 (50:32):
And for his whole team to making it possible for
us to be here. I know we're kind of hot,
but it would be worse if they weren't work, So
we appreciate all that they're doing to do that, and
then we can have Charlotte's baptism here in the sanctuary.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Let's see it, all right, I think that's all episode.
All right, we's got about addiction.
Speaker 8 (50:55):
All right, we're gonna we're gonna walk to We're gonna
recognize Charlotte another Sunday, and you know, actual of us
can get out and flew.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Off when we get a chance. Okay, let's up. You
see the benediction.
Speaker 8 (51:06):
Friends, as you go back out into the world, love
God with your whole.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Being, your heart, mind, soul, and strength.
Speaker 8 (51:15):
And love your neighbor as yourself, and friends, even love
your enemies so that we might transform the world as
Jesus taught us to transform. And as you go out
into the world this week, know that God, the creator
of the universe, has already God had prepared a way
for you and Jesus the Christ walks beside of you
(51:37):
every step of the way, and the Holy Spirit, God's
Love swirl around you and be with you whatever you
face this week. So go now in God's peace.
Speaker 18 (51:48):
Amen in
Speaker 5 (52:19):
St In
Good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Please join me in the calld of worship.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good
for his steadfast love endoors forever. Let the redeemed of
the Lord say so, those he redeemed from difficult days.
They cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he
brought them out from their distress. Then, from the east
and the west, from the north and the south, the
(00:28):
Lord saves the down trodden.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
And lifts up the load.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Let them thank the Lord for his stepfast love, for
his wonderful works to humankind. Oh give thanks to the Lord,
for he is good for his stepfast love indoors forever.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
To stas s ss s S.
Speaker 6 (03:08):
Would you pray with me, Almighty Father, we stand before
you this morning and all of your unwavering love for
all people across time. Great is your faithfulness, and steadfast
is your love, even toward us, your unfaithful and fainthearted people.
(03:31):
Please open our hearts, minds, and bodies to sense and
experience your presence with us for your Holy Spirit, so
we can receive the message you have for us as
individuals and as a collective body of believers. On this day,
(03:51):
call us into awareness of you and your will and
ways for our lives and for the world around us.
We are grateful for the example of your son and
for their perspective he offers us through his teachings in
your word. And now we will join our voices as
(04:12):
we pray the prayer he taught us, our Father who
art in Heaven.
Speaker 7 (04:19):
Hower, be thy.
Speaker 6 (04:20):
Name, Thy Kingdom. Come, Thy will be done on earth
as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our
daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive
those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the Kingdom,
(04:44):
the power, and the glory forever.
Speaker 8 (04:48):
Ama d.
Speaker 5 (07:05):
Let's come on, let's see. It's Jesus.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
I love you Lord, for your mercy, never said heil me.
Speaker 9 (08:02):
In all my days I have held in your hands.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
From the moment that away.
Speaker 10 (08:14):
Tell lay my head.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Oh, I will.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Sing of the goodness of God, because all my life,
if you have been for.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
And all my.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Life, if you have been the soul so God.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
With every breath, I am mable.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God.
Speaker 9 (08:55):
I love your voice. You have held me through the
fire in darkest nights.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Your love is like no other.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
I've loved you.
Speaker 11 (09:13):
As a firether, loved you as a friend, and I
have lived in the goodness of God.
Speaker 9 (09:26):
He is.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Because no man life. If you have been faithful and
no man life. If you have been so so.
Speaker 12 (09:41):
God with every breath, then I am beable.
Speaker 11 (09:49):
Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God he is.
Speaker 13 (09:58):
Your goodness is running now after running, Now after me,
your goodness is running naw after it's running now after me,
because my life laid down a surrender.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Now I give.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
You every name.
Speaker 13 (10:21):
Your godness is running nafter, it's running now.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
To me, your goodness is running naw after running Now.
Speaker 13 (10:33):
To me, Lord, your goodness is running naw after running
now to me, with my life laid down a serender,
now give you avery day. Your goodness is running na
after it's running naf to me.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Know my life you have been thaful.
Speaker 13 (11:13):
Know my life you have been so so God.
Speaker 12 (11:20):
With every breath that I am made bore, I will
seek other.
Speaker 10 (11:29):
Goodness of God. And all my life you have been feeful,
And all my life you have been so.
Speaker 5 (11:48):
God. With every breath that I am made bore.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
I will see other.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Goodness of God.
Speaker 12 (12:03):
I'm gonna see love the.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
Good name of God. We'll see love the good names,
Oh God.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Maybe pray together for a moment ago.
Speaker 8 (12:45):
But Gracious God, as we still listen to the music
in our ears, we ask that you would be with
us in this time of worship, that we.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
That we take in.
Speaker 8 (12:56):
All that is happening, from Charlotte's baptism to Chriss's music,
to the words of Scripture, and help us to wrestle
with all these ideas and images. And as we hear
your word, may we listen for.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Your spirit in our lives. In Christ, Jesus, we prayed.
Speaker 14 (13:20):
Amen.
Speaker 8 (13:24):
Rachel's also given you already given us a beginning, a four.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Running of the story for today.
Speaker 8 (13:31):
It is the parable of the Poltical Son, in which
I'll be preaching from this week and next week, and
will split the parable in two halves, basically in the
way that Jesus taught it.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
He taught it as a two part story.
Speaker 8 (13:43):
So from the first half the fifteenth chapter of Luke,
beginning with verse eleven. Then Jesus said there was a
man who had two sons. The younger of them said
to his father, father, give me the.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Share of my property. That will belong to me.
Speaker 8 (14:02):
So he divided his property between them. A few days later,
the younger son gathered all that he had and traveled
to a distant country, and there he squandered his property
in desolate living. When he had spent everything, a severe
famine took hold throughout that country, and he began to
(14:26):
be in need. So he went and hired himself out
to one of the citizens of that country, who sent
him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would
gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs
were eating. No one gave him anything, But when he
(14:52):
came to himself, he said, how many of my father's
hired hands have bread enough and despair, and here I am,
dying of hunger. I will get up and go to
my father, and I will say to him, father, I
have sinned against Heaven and against for you. I am
(15:13):
no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me
like one of your hired hands.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
So he went off and went to his father, And
while he was still far away, his father saw him.
Speaker 8 (15:27):
And was filled with compassion, and he ran and put
his arms around him and kissed him.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Then the son said.
Speaker 8 (15:34):
To his father I have sinned against Heaven and against you.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
Speaker 8 (15:42):
But the Father said to his slaves and servants, quickly
bring out a robe, the best one, and put it
on him, and put a ring on his.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Finger, and saddles on his feet.
Speaker 8 (15:51):
And get the fatty calf, and kill it, and let
us eat and celebrate.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
For this son of mine was dead and is alive again.
Speaker 8 (15:58):
He was lost, is found, and they began to sell itrate.
Here ends the reading of God's holy Word. May God
bless it for our hearing and understanding. When reading the
Parable of the Political Son, we see first ten evidence
(16:20):
of Jesus as a master storyteller.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
A man has two sons. With that single simple sentence.
Speaker 8 (16:30):
He is already having us assuming sibling rivalry.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Why else do you begin a story?
Speaker 8 (16:36):
A man has two sons, not one son, but two,
And any of us who have been touched by sibling rivalry,
either in pain or with rewards, are already tapped into
the story. And recalling our own stories between our siblings.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
And Jesus does not disappoint with the.
Speaker 15 (17:02):
Second sentence, which says something like this, Dad, I'm sick
of living here with you and my stinking brother, I
wish you were dead, So why don't you just give
me my inheritance now?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
And I'm out of here?
Speaker 8 (17:22):
I mean, with the beginning like that, who can't set
up and listen?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Right?
Speaker 8 (17:28):
And amazingly, the father does not take offense. He doesn't
throw him out of the house and his clothes on
the street. It's the first plot twist in the story. Instead,
the father cashes in his investment account, sells a couple
(17:49):
of hard assets, and gives his son half of everything
he had what would be the son's inheritance.
Speaker 16 (17:59):
One day, all this to the dismay of the older brother,
the young man predictably heads for the far country.
Speaker 8 (18:15):
Why say I wish you were a dead, dad? If
you're not going to go far away, might get away
as far as you can where he lives it up
for some time in desolate living.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
He's throwing big.
Speaker 8 (18:29):
Parties, in other words, spending a lot of cash, buying
some friends, and he burns through the money fast. Before long,
we do not know how long, a year, two years,
five years, He runs through money, runs through all the inheritance,
his father's life's work, and then a famine occurs. He
(18:54):
was too busy living enough to finish college, and he
says he wasn't from around here. Nobody is hiring him
for as a job. The best he can do is
a demeaning job for a Jewish boy, feeding the pigs animals.
His religion wouldn't even let him eat. He is so hungry,
(19:17):
so poor, so desperate. He wished at times to eat
the food he was giving the pigs. He had reached
the bomb. But at this point a miracle happens. In
the story, Jesus says that he came to himself. We
(19:43):
might say he looked at himself.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
In the mirror and didn't like what he saw. The
whole story turns on that sentence.
Speaker 8 (19:56):
It pivots the parable like an alcoholic or an act.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
It took bottoming out before he.
Speaker 8 (20:04):
Realized what his life had become.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
And he was determined to change it.
Speaker 8 (20:15):
In looking in the mirror, he realizes that he was
worse off than even the unskilled laborers on his father's ranch.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
His awareness.
Speaker 8 (20:29):
Was at least twofold, if not free. He looked inside
of himself, He looked at the time of life in
which he was, and he looked at all that was
happening around him. He critically assessed his reality. He decides
(20:52):
to go home, the place that he had ran away
from in the first place, but he is.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Not going to return as a favored son.
Speaker 8 (21:05):
Humble, he will simply ask his father, will you let
me work on the.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Ranch as one of your hired hands.
Speaker 8 (21:16):
So important is his awareness and his humble solution that
this sentence is repeated twice in the story. This sentence,
in which he's going to pitch his father to be
a hired hand on the farm, takes fifteen percent of
the story by itself just that sentence.
Speaker 14 (21:40):
Personal awareness is the key to transformation, and Jesus makes
it the pivot point in this most famous of his parables.
Speaker 17 (21:56):
How can we learn the wisdom of the prodigal hopefully
before we bottom out? How come we learn the wisdom
of the prodigal son and cultivate awareness into our life
and into our faith? What are the first habits we
(22:24):
need to get into if we're going to cultivate awareness
in our life is.
Speaker 8 (22:28):
To develop a faithful skepticism. Now I don't mean just
being skeptics and being cynical about everything.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Got too many curmudgeons. As we have we don't need
any more around.
Speaker 8 (22:41):
Us, but a faithful skepticism, one that keeps us looking
for God in the midst of what's going on around us.
I mentioned this briefly a couple months ago in my
sermon on sermons, in which I told you not to
swallow any of my sermons whole, or for that matter,
(23:04):
any preachers. Don't swallow a sermon like you might swallow
a communion wafer.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Sermons, I said, are.
Speaker 8 (23:12):
Meant to be chewed on, to work around in your mouth,
to think about it, to reflect upon it, at least
the rest of the service, maybe for the whole day,
possibly for the week.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
How I wrestle with a sermon, text, a scripture.
Speaker 8 (23:31):
Passage may or not be how you should wrestle with you.
But in sharing with you how I'm wrestling and reading
this Texas Word of God to us, I'm inviting you
to wrestle beside me in your own way. First John,
(23:56):
chapter four, verse one says, beloved, do not believe every spear.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
But test the spirits to see whether they are from God.
This is what we should do with all information.
Speaker 8 (24:11):
Test what you are watching, listening to, reading to see
if God is in it, and where we cannot, for instance,
accept traditional or online or social media at safe face value.
(24:31):
The job of the talking heads on ESPN or Fox
News or MSNBC or CNN or even the Weather Channel,
their job is to keep us watching.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
So they're gonna raise up fear, and I'm gonna raise up.
Speaker 8 (24:47):
Controversy to get us agitated, so you're gonna watch a
little bit more.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
I'm always fascinated about the Weather Channel.
Speaker 8 (24:54):
When a storm comes, it is always the storm of
the century, right, and you better stay riveted by your
televisions that so every single moment so you can avoid it.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Right. This sense of fear, well back.
Speaker 8 (25:06):
That sense is in ESPN where I'm talking about your
favorite ball teams, or any news channel.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Just to keep you watching.
Speaker 8 (25:16):
Faithful skepticism invites us, encourage us to ask, why are
they telling me this? And why are these two talking
heads yelling at each other? Do they want me to
yell at somebody else? And if so, why we are
(25:37):
bombarded with information twenty four to seven, in this information
twenty fourth century world, and we have to be faithfully
skeptical about all of them.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Remember last week, simple illustration.
Speaker 8 (25:52):
Last week in my sermon, I quoted a passage that
I had seen several months before, and I say that something.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
I'm going to use that at sometime in a sermon.
Speaker 8 (26:02):
Comparison is the Thief of Joy, I said, which supposedly
was by Teddy Roosevelt, but as and again trying to
define a source so that I could then share it
with you as a congregation.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Another phrase popped up. Comparison is the Death of Joy
by Mark Twain. So I began looking for that one
as well.
Speaker 8 (26:23):
After over two hours, I could not find any proof
that either of those guys had said those phrases.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
That's kind of how it worked with information. Now.
Speaker 8 (26:38):
Maybe one of them said that if one of you
all find out, please let me know.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
It's like a market for future sermons.
Speaker 8 (26:45):
More likely, some non famous person said that phrase. It
passed on somebody else said well who said that? They said, well,
it sounds like Teddy Roosevelt, or.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
It sounds like Mark Twain. And there you go.
Speaker 8 (26:58):
And if you look it up on the internet, it's
all over the place, except nobody says where they said it.
So before we swallow the news or the social media
thread or rumors around the church or any other information,
somebody gives you, even a.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Preacher's sermon chew on it for a while.
Speaker 8 (27:25):
We should be asking at least three questions with every
bit of information.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
What's the source of this information? What evidence is this
person sharing to verify this information?
Speaker 8 (27:48):
And why are they telling me this? Who? What?
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Why?
Speaker 8 (27:56):
In order to operate in this information age, we all
have to be about that so that we can find
if God is in this, and if so where in
the parable The podical son makes a change when he
assesses his situation with the hired compares it to the
hired hands on his father's farm. He had first hand
(28:19):
knowledge of his father's integrity.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
He had first hand knowledge of how his father's employees were.
Speaker 8 (28:25):
Treated, and he realized he was worse saw than they were,
and he determined it was time to go home, not
as a son, but as a hired hand on his
father's farm. I understand, of course, the political certain had
to learn this the hard way.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
At first, he believed.
Speaker 8 (28:47):
That if he could just run away from home and
live his life free, he would find his life.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Then he believed that.
Speaker 8 (28:56):
If he spent a lot of money, he would draw
all sorts of friends to him, friends for life. And
then he believed that when he fell at hard times,
all of those friends that he had met that way
would take care of him. Wrong.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Wrong, wrong. Thankfully he learned through those hard lessons, he
became aware.
Speaker 8 (29:27):
Of what he had lost, and he decided to change
his life.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Only when we learned the hard way. Sometimes, like the
prodigal son, do.
Speaker 8 (29:41):
We learn to have a faithful skepticism about life. The
second thing I think we need to cultivate if we're
going to cultivate the witness our life.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Is to understand that life comes us in seasons. We
see the seasons like right now, it is summertime. Folks.
Speaker 8 (29:56):
If anybody had any doubt about that, you know it
by being in this sanctuary. Right is summertime. Life comes
from winter, spring, summer fall, and discipled return. One of
the things we have to ask ourselves from time to
time is what season of life am I here? My
(30:18):
son just took a big job, a big new job,
a big scary job.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
He's twenty five years old. He might be way over
his head with this new job.
Speaker 8 (30:28):
But as he was talking about this with a life
in me, he said, Michael, when are you else going
to take a chance like this? Right?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
You're twenty five, it's the spring of your life. Go
ahead and take this big job.
Speaker 8 (30:42):
If it fails, you've got plenty of time to try
something else. But this is a big, bold thing you
can do now, in the spring of your life.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
It's the time to do it now. Taking this chance.
Speaker 8 (30:57):
Might not have been good if he was my age
and trying to figure out how to figure out how.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
To work towards retirement. But he's not. He's in the spring.
If he's line, are you aware of kind of what
time is it? What season is it? In your life?
Speaker 8 (31:13):
Sometimes you have to be aware also the seasons of
other people, the lives of the people around you.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
I received the text a few weeks ago. Kind to
have this. I've never had to use this before, but
it comes in handy today.
Speaker 8 (31:25):
We received the text a few weeks ago from someone
I knew pretty well, and they.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Were just biting my head off. They were so angry
at me.
Speaker 8 (31:34):
I was looking at the text figure out what I
had said was not a pan So I kind of
just try and joke back a little bit and said, WHOA,
what's going on?
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I don't think I messed up your weedies?
Speaker 18 (31:47):
Today?
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Can we talk not texts?
Speaker 8 (31:54):
Can we talk, came to find out he had just
gotten chewed out by his.
Speaker 19 (32:02):
Boss, wondering if he would be fire before too long,
and all that anxiety and that fear just came up
when he took something wrong in.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
This text thread we were working with.
Speaker 8 (32:18):
Now, if I had taken offense, as I easily could
have and jumped right back in and said what are
you calling me that for, everything would have escalated.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
But I took a moment to listen, and I heard
the season.
Speaker 8 (32:35):
That was going on in his life, scared about his job,
wondering if his boss was going to fire him.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
All that anxiety was in him, and it came out
on me.
Speaker 8 (32:47):
Had nothing to do with me, everything to do with
the season of his life. One of the things that
operating in relationships is we need to be aware of
what's going on in our lives and what's going on
in the lives of the people around us, what season
is for them. The prodigal son realized he was so
(33:09):
young enough to start over again, so he took this
risk and went back home to his father.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
The third thing that we need to cultivate is an.
Speaker 8 (33:21):
Awareness of ourselves within ourselves.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
At the beginning of the parable The prodigal son thought that.
Speaker 8 (33:28):
The thing he wanted most in life was just to
be free from home. Only if he could be out
of the control of his father and his thinking brother,
then he could be free to be the person he
was meant to be. So he left home with this
inheritance money to a distant country. The problem, however, with
trying to find yourself by running away, is that we
(33:52):
always ended up running in the opposite direction, which is
always reacting to whatever we.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Think is going on. You know, there's a pop.
Speaker 8 (34:01):
Psychology joke that says that sooner or later we all
become just like our parents, which you may have seen
in some Geico commercials, or we become the opposite of
our parents.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Right now, either we.
Speaker 8 (34:15):
Follow them we're just like them, or we say we
run away and go the opposite way. The political son
did exactly what rebellious children always do. He ran to
the far country, as far from home as he possibly could.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Now he could be free to be himself.
Speaker 8 (34:30):
Or was he unaware of himself? He simply becomes a caricature,
a predictable, rebellious child who wants to be the opposite
of mom or dad. There's an old Jewish tale from
the Middle Ages about a rabbi named Zuza. One night,
(34:55):
God comes to Zusa in a dream. God asked him, Susa,
and how are you doing with your life? Zusa apologizes
for not leading his people like Moses had led the Israelites.
God said, I did not ask you why you're not Moses.
(35:18):
Rabbi Zuser then apologize for not being as faithful as
Daniel was in the face of persecution. God said, I
did not ask you why you were not Daniel. The
rabbi then asked God, well, then, what is it you
want me to do.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
God replied, I want to know why you have not
been Zuza.
Speaker 8 (35:53):
None of us are free to be whatever he wants
to me. We all have these bodies, we have the
DNAs our parents and grandparents gave us, We have these
limitations upon us.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
None of us are free to be whatever we want
to be. But we are free to be ourselves. And
we can only be ourselves when we are aware of
what's going on inside of us. That's what the part
(36:29):
of our son realized as.
Speaker 8 (36:30):
He stood in the mud and the mud of the
pig pen and wished he could eat the pig slide,
but rather than fight who he was, rather than run
any longer from who he was, He came to himself,
and he.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Went back home.
Speaker 8 (36:49):
I'm not free to be whoever I want to.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Be, but I am free to be me true.
Speaker 8 (37:03):
Parker Palmer, the Quaker theologian educator, describes our souls like
wild animals. If you want to see a wild animal,
he says, you have to be very.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Stupid and wail.
Speaker 8 (37:20):
If you were wandering in the woods, just stop, take
a seat and watch.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Maybe you catch a glimpse of someone. So you sit five.
Speaker 8 (37:30):
Minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, and then the mother deer
and her dough walk right past you.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Or maybe a moose pops through some trees and starts
going into the pond. It's between you and the moose.
Speaker 8 (37:51):
And begins swimming all the way under like a baptism underwater,
cooling off in the sum heaped, and as the moose
pops up, the water drips like waterfalls off his end.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
And maybe it's a small.
Speaker 15 (38:10):
Bird that you could hear but you couldn't see, And
so you just stand and closer and closer you.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Hear the song until you finally see it.
Speaker 8 (38:18):
A small bird, a shiny brown feathers and a bright
white belly. Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe could call.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
If you later find out, it's.
Speaker 8 (38:31):
Called the Eastern Phoebe because of its call. All these
moments came in different moments. When my family and I
were hiking National parks and woods, we watched the moose.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
For forty five minutes.
Speaker 8 (38:48):
Parker Palmer said, that's how our souls are.
Speaker 17 (38:54):
If you want to see our souls, if you want
to be aware of what God is doing deep within us,
we have to.
Speaker 8 (39:00):
Be still, just like you do to see the Doe
and her mother Dean, or the moose or the bird.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
In our twenty four to seven world, we rarely have
moments where we just stop and listen, stop and reflect.
Speaker 8 (39:25):
Sometimes we're so in fear, afraid of what our minds
do when we stop. As soon as we have a
free moment, as soon as something as nothing has happened,
we have to whip out our phones and begin putting
more information in our minds. If you're going to be
aware of what's going on in your life, if you're
going to be aware of what God.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Is doing deep within your soul, you've got to stop
every now and then and just listen and be still.
Speaker 8 (40:00):
Letdy Russell, one of the first major female theologians in
the twentieth century at a professor at Yale Dividia School,
in her book Becoming Human, wrote that our strengths and
our sins are oftentimes the opposite sides of the same crew.
And if we're not listening to ourselves, if we're not
(40:21):
aware of ourselves, we can be pushing on our strengths
and not realizing our sins and our problems are building up.
The personality trait that gives you most vibrancy that brings
you a claim and achievement, also may give you traits
that get you in trouble. The charismatic personality that attracts
(40:42):
multitudes of people may find forming deep relationships difficult. The
strong leader may become too dominant and leave others' opinions out,
and soon builds up resentment around him. Great students and
great minds can get so deep in their books that
they have problems relating to people on a more fun level.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Wonderfully kind and emotionally warm.
Speaker 8 (41:10):
People might struggle making decisions based on rational or logical
thinking because they rely so much on.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Their intuition.
Speaker 8 (41:21):
Some of the things we see as problems in our
lives may just be the flip side of our strengths.
Sometimes the greatest inspirations and life come to us at
our lowest moments, times when we like the prodigal son,
come to ourselves, times when we realize the mess that
(41:42):
we've paused may just.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Be our misapplied strengths. Accepting who you are and accepting how.
Speaker 7 (41:52):
God has made you can allow us to live as
we are, not as people are plotting us to be.
Accepting who you are, Accepting how God has made you.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Is the key to transformation.
Speaker 8 (42:10):
Frederick Beiegner, my favorite author, was traumatized at age twelve.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
And his father committed suicide.
Speaker 8 (42:20):
In his young childhood mind, he saw that in his
mind that his father had abandoned him. He didn't have
the ability to see how depressed and alone his father was,
but in his mind his father had abandoned him, and
this caused great problems the rest of his life in
building relationships because he always wanted to smother the people
(42:42):
he loved because he was so afraid they would abandon
him too. But the smothering of them oftentimes made them
want to push him away. It wasn't until he was
finally able to say, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Twelve year old again. I can relate to people differently.
Speaker 8 (43:06):
And this person I'm trying to smother the whole time,
she is not my father.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
She went on abandon me like I felt Peep.
Speaker 8 (43:19):
Once he got into his story and understood his pain,
then he could begin relating to people in different ways
to improve relationships. Sometimes we have to dig deep into
our own history. Isn't this what the political son did
for himself realizing that his father's servants were better than he.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Was standing in this pig pen and the scene.
Speaker 8 (43:44):
Remember most of the story, when the father runs down
to his son and gives him a big bear hug
and knocks him down and tells the servants quick, get
a band, get a party, let's.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Have a feast.
Speaker 8 (43:56):
The son begins repeating what he had rehearsed, father, I'm
no longer worthy to be your son. Treat me as
your hired hand, and the father pays it no attention.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
But the thing is, we don't know what happens at
the end of the story.
Speaker 8 (44:15):
We don't know if the son goes on to insist
to be a hired worker, or if he goes back
in the role of a son.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
I'd like to imagine maybe they had a compromise.
Speaker 8 (44:26):
The prodigal son got to live like a son again,
but now he was like the foreman on the farm,
overseeing the field.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Hands, or something like that.
Speaker 8 (44:36):
I'd like to imagine the prodigal saying to his father,
I want to be free to be me, and I
imagine the father saying, yes, you are, you always have been.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
That's why I created you the way you are, so
you can be free to be you.
Speaker 8 (45:08):
We end our worship service in our Baptist's tradition of
having an invitation here, and while we sing together softly
and tenderly, we invite you. If you have never made
a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, like Charlotte did
and was baptized this morning, we hope this will be
the day you want to say, I want to follow
Jesus as Lord and Savior as well and be baptized
as church. Or maybe you loved God for a long time,
(45:29):
you've been a Christian for a long time, but.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
You're looking for a new church home.
Speaker 8 (45:33):
Whatever decision you have, I'll be down here by the steps,
and we're gladly welcome you.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Let's stand together.
Speaker 18 (45:39):
And sing.
Speaker 5 (46:02):
Ss s s s s.
Speaker 8 (47:49):
S s.
Speaker 17 (48:02):
S s.
Speaker 8 (49:53):
Well, if you didn't have a clue, you are summertime,
like I hope you got to joy the summer solstice
in some ways that up late having a cookout something
like that. Better cook in right now. But I'm glad
we're here and it's joy coming back all right. All right,
Charle is trying to finish up to get back in here,
so I want to see here in a minute.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Let me just say a couple of things to you.
Speaker 8 (50:15):
First of all, big thanks for all those who helped
us make worship happen today. Appreciate Katie and Debbie for
leading us in prayer. And Chris, Wow, thank you so
much for offering your gifts and music and leading us
in worship through that.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
That was wonderful.
Speaker 8 (50:27):
Now, I also want to appreciate, Uh, Steve Wigner.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
Steve is ahead of our properties commission.
Speaker 8 (50:32):
And for his whole team to making it possible for
us to be here. I know we're kind of hot,
but it would be worse if they weren't work, So
we appreciate all that they're doing to do that, and
then we can have Charlotte's baptism here in the sanctuary.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Let's see it, all right, I think that's all episode.
All right, we's got about addiction.
Speaker 8 (50:55):
All right, we're gonna we're gonna walk to We're gonna
recognize Charlotte another Sunday, and you know, actual of us
can get out and flew.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Off when we get a chance. Okay, let's up. You
see the benediction.
Speaker 8 (51:06):
Friends, as you go back out into the world, love
God with your whole.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Being, your heart, mind, soul, and strength.
Speaker 8 (51:15):
And love your neighbor as yourself, and friends, even love
your enemies so that we might transform the world as
Jesus taught us to transform. And as you go out
into the world this week, know that God, the creator
of the universe, has already God had prepared a way
for you and Jesus the Christ walks beside of you
(51:37):
every step of the way, and the Holy Spirit, God's
Love swirl around you and be with you whatever you
face this week. So go now in God's peace.
Speaker 18 (51:48):
Amen in
Speaker 5 (52:19):
St In
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