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    Feb 26, 2017

    How Will We Know the Path Jesus Has Chosen for Us?

    Passage: Micah 6:2-8

    Speaker: Rev. Vivian McCarthy, Pastor

    Category: Discipleship

    Very few people feel they hear God's direction for their lives. Scripture and the teachings of Wesleyan theology can point us to knowing God's will for our lives.

    Today’s sermon starter – or title – came from one of the people in our congregation. Some of you may not know this, but I really like receiving requests on topics for Sunday worship. What are you wondering about? Over the next few months, except for Lent, the topics have been requested by someone in the congregation.

    How will we know the path Jesus has chosen for us? We didn’t have a discussion. This question came in an email, and it’s been rolling around in the back of my mind since September or October.

    Wouldn’t it be easy if God just talked with us directly? Kind of like how parents teach their children the right path – by conversation and correction? In most households, children learn the rules – the path – by trying things out, by testing where the lines are. While things have changed a lot in the last 100 years or so, parents aren’t as apt today to literally choose a life path for their children, but have you noticed how often our children go into similar fields, even if they don’t go into “the family business?”

    For us as disciples, it may not be that easy – especially if we have been convinced that God will literally tell us what to do.

    The first scripture for today is Romans 12:1-2:

    I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

    Do you remember the rich young man that approached Jesus and wanted to know how to inherit eternal life? Jesus told him he lacked just one thing – to go and sell everything he had. Some days I would like to ask Jesus a similar question – not so much about eternal life but about what we must do to know the path. I often wonder if the one thing we lack is a sense of deep community – if our rugged, stubborn individualism is the one thing for us today.

    In this chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans, his message hinges on seeing ourselves not as lone rangers but as members of the Body of Christ. And it is within that Body that we present ourselves and where our minds are transformed. For that is where we are shaped together, where we learn what the scriptures mean, where we are gently guided by the saints, where the community, the Body of Christ, is called and empowered and guided by the activity of the Holy Spirit.

    Be honest now. How is your mind shaped when you are not in worship at least frequently – when you don’t examine your biblical interpretations in company with other disciples in Bible study and devotion? What is doing the shaping? TV? My favorite bedtime reading – mysteries? Talk shows? Video games? Sports? How do those things help you to shape your mind – to transform and renew it so that you may discern the will of God?

    Immediately after Paul says that as our minds are transformed and that is how we will be able to discern the will of God and what is good and acceptable and perfect, he launches into his analogy of the Body as having what it needs to be Christ’s body – and that it takes us ALL.

    So first, our knowing Jesus’ path for us means being part of the Body – it means learning together and worshiping together and fellowshipping together and growing together – together.

    A second clue also comes from this same passage.
    …In Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.

    Each of us has gifts – and it is those gifts that can be used to the glory of God. I believe that is a huge clue as to how we know the faithful path. How are we each using our gifts? Are we only using them to benefit ourselves – to take us to a bigger job, a better-paying job, to make us better known in the community, to secure a position of influence or wealth? Or are we offering our gifts, as Paul says, as a sacrifice – a living, holy sacrifice – living that sacrifice every day as worship? That, beloved, is that path to which you are called.

    At least from the time of Abraham, the people of God have remembered together. We tell the same stories – our stories – so that we will never forget what God has done for us. Our second scripture is Micah 6:2-4, 6-8.

    The Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel.  "O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam…

    "With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?  Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

    God has a controversy with his people. In other words, they weren’t getting it. They weren’t living on the path. And friends, I would submit to you that they knew they had walked away! Thank God for the prophets – but my guess is that they already knew. Life wasn’t going the way it should. They had strayed, and they were headed toward destruction. We often blame it on God, saying that the God of the Old Testament is a God of vengeance, but how often is it that when we walk off the path we wind up in trouble? God sent a servant with a message to save them!

    Micah is speaking for God: I brought you up from the land of Egypt. I redeemed you. I sent you not one but three leaders. Remember? The People of God have known from time immemorial that it is in the Body where we learn the path. Again and again the scriptures rehearse how God has redeemed them – how God has acted on their behalf. Again and again the scriptures remind us to tell the stories over and over again.

    In this passage, Micah says, I’ve shown you! You know what you need to do and to be: God has told you what is good. The Lord requires you to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. It’s really simple – just as Jesus told us later: Love God. Love your neighbor.

    Simple. Yet it’s likely the hardest thing we have to do.

    • Justice. See that everyone is treated the same – they are all my people. All.
    • Kindness. Assume the best of all my people and give your heart away.
    • Humility. Beloved, we are all the same in the eyes of God. Just because I live in beautiful, quaint Old Reisterstown or the rolling, forested hills of Howard County doesn’t make me any more favored in God’s eyes than anyone else.
    • Beloved, that is the path that Jesus has set before you – before us. I am sorely tempted to say, “just do it!” If we are expecting God to give us personalized instructions, I’m not sure it’s that easy. And I actually think it’s because God trusts us to take in the teaching in such a way that we become schooled in – better said, we become so shaped by, what it means to be God’s disciples and attuned to God’s voice, that we will know the direction we should take.

    And better yet, it has been my experience that as I am immersed in the Body, I have numerous times heard God speak to me through other people. Would I have chosen to speak on this topic today were it not for one of you? Probably not. Would I have stepped out from the route that I thought God was calling me to pursue in lay ministry to the path of ordained, pastoral ministry, had it not been for 2 people who sat me down and encouraged me to explore that call? Not on your life!

    So, here’s the plan:

    • Stay actively connected to the Body.
    • Make an offering of your gifts.
    • Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God. OR, more simply, love God, love your neighbor.
    • Listen.

    God will work in you and through you.  I promise.