'A Pioneering Faith;' sermon for Sunday October 13th, 2019 by Rev. Nicole A.M. Collins

Turning the heart to the Lord and praising Him.  There’s a lot going on this week, but the message is fairly clear. A pioneering spirit, harboring one that is, takes a lot of trust in both the self and of course the Lord to see you through it. We have Ruth and Paul sharing their beautiful heart’s wisdom of faith in things unseen and roads untraveled.  The roads untraveled, that could be pretty much every single day, from the sun’s rise to its setting. When the sun sets, do we think of it as an end or a New beginning? When the Son rises in hearts daily, what He sets within us is peace and a sense of resolve. That sort of comes under the glass half empty or the glass half full category of thinking of each and every day.  We will have a lot of things that chain up our faith to try to keep us in a mode of being discouraged.  Both Ruth and Paul didn’t let hardships or suffering circumstances get in their way they were both determined.

Being determined as a fool for Christ and His beautiful Gospel is something, I can gravitate my heart muscle into engaging in just because I know or continue to grow to know what He needs me to do in the daily ministry of life! Ruth was determined to stay with her mother-in-law and did what she needed to do. This would be the hard work that is, both spiritually and actually to provide for Naomi and Orpah.  Today we would call it harboring a sense of “going that extra mile.” Stretching the self in a myriad of ways that is truly about delighting with a child-like faith: learning, doing, preaching and teaching something new each and every day you’re alive basically.  Our mindset is what limits us; our heart’s voice however has to wage war against can and can’t, do or don’t, would or won’t and most importantly between why and because.

The Apostle Paul says it best for the disciple out in the trenches and his protégé Timothy: “⁹… But the word of God is not chained. ¹⁰Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. ¹¹The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; ¹²if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; ¹³if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.”  Ruth says something similar several centuries earlier to Naomi and Orpah: “¹⁶…Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. ¹⁷Where you die, I will die— there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!”

If we fused both Paul and Ruth’s determination together… what kind of discipleship could we muster for our Lord?  That would be a “shoot the moon” faith, that’s what!  One of my favorite verses of strength from the Old and the New Testament are Psalm 69:32— “Let the oppressed see it and by glad; you who seek God, let your hearts revive!”  From the New Testament, it comes from Paul’s letter to the Philippians chapter 4: “¹²I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. ¹³I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”  Most of us just have verse 13 resonate loudly in our hearts at times when we’re wanting or needing to be optimists about our daily bill of fare.  Verse 12 however resonates two important things just around the number itself, one being the number of the original Apostles and also the number pertaining to the twelve tribes of Israel.  Both were pioneering bands of ordinary people who wound up doing, being and becoming amazing things just because of How God effected their very lives with Grace, love and most importantly hope! 

For the most part the Old Testament lesson from Ruth shows us the very beginning of commitment from a pioneering woman to “role with the olive branches” as I like to say over rolling with the punches.  Lots to do, wavering circumstances or better said kind of being “between a rock and a hard place.” All women concerned had to yield a harvest from the journey, the road they had to travel.  It was physical earth but spiritual mileage needing to be built up and tapped into.  The lives of the martyrs of the church over the centuries built what would become a faith that is 2,000 something plus years old.  A faith built literally and spiritually by blood, sweat and tears! Like the farmer, the Lord has tended to the harvest of disciples whatever caliber or gifts they may possess.

Like the farmer, God plants what He has created and knows in many senses the ways we will tend to grow.  Our momentum may be willfulness, but our turning hearts to God’s rays of wisdom has us aspire beyond ourselves for something more.  Something more according to the Gospel is going against the grain of the world and building up the Kingdom of God not the “unholy trinity of I, Me and Mine.”  I heard that last part of the statement from an early mentor I had in the ministry who basically encouraged me into getting involved with everything to see where my strengths are. He told me, as well, that if I really wanted some good training that you wouldn’t get in a standard internship, that I should work for the customer service center at a Kohls or a Target.  He’s been involved in a variety of things these days that I know have stretched him beyond himself spiritually both in a positive and in a negative way… BUT just from catching up with him on occasion, he is still spiritually growing in his ministry and in his gifts used for a greater purpose and another unknown road either into a valley or climbing another mountain.

We all want to strive beyond the valley with its muck and mire…  Perseverance is what God enhances us to develop which becomes a faith that can and will move mountains. I love and frankly cherish the thought of moving mountains with a group of people seeking what the Lord needs them to face.  It is a profound truth that the Word of God is unchained and in fact links us to be freely responsible citizens, ambassadors to delivering the weary in the world, the Good News, Thanks be to God! We deliver the Good News by living it.  What may be profoundly ordinary to some, can and perhaps may be extraordinary to God.  Our lives are a tapestry of many elements.  Some of these elements as seen in another Gospel, Jesus would like us to consider removing obstacles that hamper our faithfulness.  What hampers our faithfulness is sin, doubt and pessimism.  Truth be known, pessimism runs in my family definitely at times, “to a fault…” but welcome to being human.

So much to do too little time, there’s one imprisonment right there.  A number of years back I knew a fellow artist who not only painted about time but was bound to their lists upon lists and spinning their wheels.  Many saw this person as a typical “Gen X’er BoHo” listening with their Bosch headphones on while blasting Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody as perhaps the unsung anthem to someone who was in the trenches a little too long and couldn’t see that the glass is possibly half full and not half empty.  That fellow artist was the Old me.  I’m still a struggling butterfly working my way out of its chrysalis shell but at least I made it past caterpillar!  Did you ever see a caterpillar crawl?  They’re pretty darn slow just as bad as my laptop on certain days where I would like to imagine sets of tires running it over!  On a more serious note, discipleship, faith in the Lord is a gift of motivation from God.

God has a straight path for us actually to travel but we’re the ones that make things a lot harder when we’re constantly battling between faith and doubt and spinning our wheels to doing and becoming. The world out there is going to be resistant.  The world out there is going to be filled to the brim with people who perhaps take pleasure in being an obstacle to your progress…  but it is truly hope that carries us through all things that can and often temporarily imprison us.  It is hope that creates the fruit of gratitude which can and does heal the self from its spiritual infirmities.  We have to take that leap of faith pioneering onto an unknown road with human nature being our greatest “demon.” For if we can imagine a world of peace…  what kind of prosperity should we be truly shooting for?  It’s not necessarily “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die…”  It is about flourishing as a child of God.  We are children of Grace and promise and tomorrow is not just another day.  It is a brand New day where the Son rises within our hearts and we are called to embrace, praise and thank God for every single moment.  Paul and Ruth did this, exampled this by pioneering their faith.

Let us pray,

Loving and Gracious Lord Jesus,

We do need to thank you for every single day

We do need to strive to battle our negativity,

We need to muster that ounce of hope we have within us

And grow it to move mountains, travel valleys

And wade through the occasional tears of our struggles

In order to be the many limbs of Your church

Active in this world for a greater purpose—LOVE.

Help us to be committed to our faith and pioneer our struggles

So that with the Holy Spirit’s help, we can be planted, grow and flourish

Into the life, destiny that You have planned for each and everyone of us.

AMEN

A Reflection on 2 Timothy by Rev. Nicole A.M. Collins

2 Timothy 1:1-14

¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,

² To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

³ I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. ⁴Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. ⁵I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. ⁶For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; ⁷for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. ⁸ Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, ⁹who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, ¹⁰but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. ¹¹For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, ¹²and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him. ¹³Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. ¹⁴Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.

This coming Sunday as you see above, we have a particularly beautiful scripture from Paul speaking to his protege Timothy. This particular scripture really had me thinking about how we allow God to define roles of potential in our hearts to serve Him. The Words that we see in the scriptures we sometimes have a hard time relating and understanding to ourselves in this postmodern age. In some senses this has done us a grave disservice to not think about those words prayerfully in being encouraged in our own individual unique work in the world as the Body of Christ.

One of these words is the word apostle. It literally means one who is sent. We are probably more comfortable perhaps with the term disciple and wonder what the difference is really, and does it matter. There have been many an article written about discipleship as well as there has been many a conversation about discipleship; but what sets apart someone to be considered an apostle? I would just like to take a guess out there and say that it really has to do with a deep personal relationship with the Lord. This is one that is invested in building up the foundation of your heart for service.

How deep of a relationship can you have with the Lord truly depends on you. One of the beautiful aspects of doing different forms of praying and contemplating the scriptures has had me wonder, what it would be like to see Jesus in action? We have many, many paintings over the centuries of what our Lord possibly look looked like in His incarnate human form, but you can't help but wondering when the Holy Spirit is at work in your life and speaks through you... He is the third person. The third person of the Trinity. The Lord Jesus in our human form we can see by His beautiful words, His Living Word, a picture in our hearts of what He may have looked like but it is still an impression that we as people living in the 21st century do not have a photograph of.

Why would this really be so essential for some people? I think this is a matter of witness and I think it is a matter of truly how deep your faith is. I'm sure many of us have heard of the film that came out a couple of years ago about a little boy who kept painting a picture of Jesus that in my impression looked like Barry Manilow. The young boy was adamant that this truly was Jesus coming to him in a vision. Who are we to judge how the Lord is perceived in our hearts? For this young boy, he looks like a cross between the famous R. Hook painting of Jesus and Barry Manilow the singer. If I had to sketch out a picture of Jesus for myself I see him as a combination of the famous painting in the Saint Catherine of Siena monastery of ‘Our Lord the Pantocrator,’ as well as perhaps a combination of the Hook painting and the Franco Zeffirelli Jesus of Nazareth mini-series’ actor. 

Being a faithful people is very hard these days when we tried to go beyond wonder to define and declare who Jesus the Christ is, and was and DOES for the world still. This could become a Pandora's box of many theological discoveries, debates, controversies and so forth. My interest here is purely as a person of Faith, as a disciple. I am a disciple who believes in a costly Grace.  I am a disciple who believes in a prayerful obedience to be committed to the cause of delivering the Living Word as the task of being an aspect of the Body in the world.

I consider myself as someone who has been sent but what is that really saying? Is that coming from a place of the ego or is it coming from a place of hearing God deeply and realizing that God truly answers prayers? I spent the earlier part of my life as an artist, a thinker and a poet. The second half of my life has seen a crossroads between various ministries in valleys and over mountaintops, but I truly see this as God's plans for me to minister to one's deepest heart's desire to grow in faith with God. Growing in faith with God is not just a Sunday morning affair that's a common thing to say of course, it is to be a lifestyle.

Shepherding the church of God in the world as a humble servant is a key towards a discipleship that stretches the self, beyond the self.  I think the best way to really begin to wrap your mind around this is to really think of that third person of the Trinity literally there within your heart, within your very self. Prayer brings about the conversation with that very Holy Spirit within us and helps to shape us to see that we are in the world, but not to be of it. One of the greatest images I have collaged together to encapsulate our struggle as the Lord's disciples was something years later as thinking of a pair of little horns holding up a halo. The Reformation saw this as ‘simul justus et peccator’ or as translated from the Latin as “simultaneously both Saint and sinner.”

Within the ordinary of our everyday lives we overlooked the reigning Grace, gifts and miracles of God on our journey. If we even began to not only see miracles come to life, no matter how small they may be and begin to truly feel God within us as this guiding Holy Spirit we would understand what an apostle truly is. Should I dare to think myself that I have the potential to be an apostle of the Lord? If we really looked at Timothy's second letter not just seeing it as a sketch or snippet from the beautiful pastoral ministry of Paul to his protégé, we can see the truth of God in efforts to share the Holy Spirit with others to develop a faith that can move mountains.

The abstract poetic words and thoughts of a faith that can move mountains comes from how powerful our spirit is when encouraged, enlightened, strengthened and inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. This is a life built by witness no matter how flimsy at times your witness may seem or overly ordinary your witness may seem to others; we all have something beautiful in common: we have been constructed in the image of God. We truly are the children of Grace and promise.  This is not just a staple statement I have incorporated into many of my messages, but it is a truth. 

It was said when our Lord and savior was ready to be condemned to the cross that Pontius Pilate rebuked back to him saying: “what is truth?” That's an important question for us to think about today when we have gone way past Eden’s apple incident in condemnatory behavior and justification of self over and above God and neighbor.  The moments we have made God purely an aspect of the heavens in distance from us and not one who has come down to earth and be in many senses a sacrifice even within us as His Holy Spirit; how can we relate ourselves our very selves to the sense of a covenantal discipleship?

I do not see myself as merely a ministerial professional or pastor of a church in the world, but I see myself as a covenantal disciple. The only one who could really judge our roles which we need to keep clear here, is the Lord... if your faith has uplifted you to feel you can move mountains of doubt and other people's stigmas upon you then perhaps you do have an extra ordinary discipleship! Why not? There is a fine line in our doubting each other as well as within ourselves between the ego and being a humble servant to the Lord and our neighbor.

One of the beautiful Ministries I have had the opportunity to investigate early on in my own faith Journey has been Stephens Ministries. This is literally training laity to develop a skill of compassion, empathy for those within their own congregation and even beyond the congregation in visitation ministry. I've been seeing the other side of that by doing Hospice Care again in the interim hope of serving up north in the near future. Being the hands and feet of Jesus the heart's ears are greatly open to one suffering and sorrow.  This is just one side or one of many things that we can discover when we allow ourselves to deeply feel the Lord's presence in our very self, working through us.

Harboring a faith that can move mountains goes beyond faith in action it is really truthfully how God's love, His Holy Spirit's guidance is genuinely incorporated in our very selves. For us to be encouraged today, I would challenge you to think beyond “the 12.” Take the time to think about and see the many people who have been people pioneering in their faith doing amazing things in their little corner of the world whether in the country or in the desert with a love within themselves that can move mountains and touch the sky.

Rev. Nicole A.M. Collins