Faithful and Wise Stewards

Northwest Yearly Meeting Keynote Address 2015

Becky Ankeny, General Superintendent

Luke 12:35-38, 41-44:

“Keep your pants on and your flashlights handy, like servants who wait for their employer to return from his honeymoon trip, so that when he comes and knocks, they will open the door immediately.  Blessed are those servants whom the employer finds prepared and watching when he arrives. This is the truth: he will put on his own apron, make them sit down to the table, and come and serve them dinner himself.  And if he comes in the middle of the night or at dawn and finds them watchful, those servants will be happy.” … Peter asked, “Lord, are you speaking this just to us disciples, or to everyone?” And the Lord said, “Who is the faithful and wise steward whom his employer shall put in charge over his household to feed everyone in the house at the appropriate times?  That steward will be happy if he or she is fulfilling that responsibility when the employer comes back.  This is the truth: the employer will make that steward boss of everything” (paraphrased).

There are so many parables about us and God as servants and master. This relationship helps us understand that we are not the ones who call the shots, not the ones who own the house. We are caretakers, we are stewards, we are trustees, we are servants. God has given us responsibilities, and key in that word is the idea of response. Our work is in response to God as our master. This parable helps us ask what is important to God. As the Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends, what have we been trusted with by God?  What have we been given to care for? How do we fit into this parable and the various other parables where God leaves people in charge of some aspect of God’s world? 

It helps us answer these queries to look to the Bible to find what God loves and treasures and takes joy in. From there we can infer our own calling in this world and among the human beings God so obviously loves.

Creation

God loves creation and creating.  Genesis tells us of light gathered out of dark (Gen. 1:4), land gathered out of sea (1:9); plants, trees (1:11): sun, moon, stars, universe (1:16); sea monsters, fish, whales, birds (1:21); creepy-crawlies, livestock, wild animals (1:24); procreation itself (1;22); all living creatures, especially including human beings in God’s own image, to whom God entrusted the care of the living earth (1:26). Both male and female human beings, charged with filling and organizing and ruling over the earth (1:27), caring for plants particularly (1:29).  God also gave humans time, marking it off by Sabbaths—time to work, time to rest (Gen. 2:3, Ex. 20:11). And God gave humans choice—the choice to trust and obey God, the possibility of love—both human to human and human to Creator (Gen. 2:16,17; 2:23-25).

We are thus caretakers of God’s creation and creating.  We care for the oceans, the wilderness, the farmland, the gardens, the villages and cities where people live together.  We care for living things—we learn about them and from them, we find their usefulness in God’s grand scheme, we respect their natures and we help life to prosper. We hold the earth in trust for God. This is a human responsibility, not uniquely given to the NWYM Friends, but the widespread concern among us for the earth recognizes a God-given responsibility.

Traditions and Relationship

God loves being in relationship with humans (Ex. 20:6). When God led Israel out of Egypt, using Moses’s gifts and passion as the instrument, God gave the people clear instructions.  Don’t ever forget that I did this for you.  Steward this history, steward the Sabbath rest I require, steward all the feasts I’ve prescribed.  Let everyone see the uniqueness of our relationship.  Embody yourselves the universal pattern I, God, follow: setting slaves free (Ex. 20:2; 21:2; 22:21,22; Lev. 26:13), placing them in a way of life that has a gentle, restorative pace (Ex. 20:11; 23:11-12) and built in moments of festivity and joy (Ex. 23:14-17; Lev. 23), teaching them to remember their source—God—and their deliverer—God—and their shepherd—God—every day.  Treasure this relationship.  It is your inheritance, your heritage.  And remember this also. I have relationships with other peoples as well (Deut. 2; Amos 9:7; John 10:16; 11:52). I am not without a witness throughout the world’s peoples (Acts 17; John 1:9; Romans 1:19; Psalm 19:1-3).

When Jesus came into the world as a Jew, he showed what it means to hold a tradition in trust for God (Matt. 5:17). He reminded everyone continually that the primary purpose of a human being is to enjoy a personal interactive relationship with God (Matt. 6:25-34; 7:11; 10:19-20; 12:50; 18:14; 22:37; 25:40; John 14:23, and so much more). He argued most heatedly with those curators of Judaism who cared most about the tradition—I think he loved the Pharisees so dearly for their commitment—but he saw that they missed the point. They focused on externals (Matt. 23:23-32; Luke 6:6-9). They made slaves to the tradition; they themselves were enslaved (Matt. 23:2-4,13-15). And they curated God instead of living with God in gentle, restorative, festive relationship (Matt. 15:3-6; 22:37-38).

Jesus shocked them—so obviously a teacher, a holy man, a prophet (Luke 7:16)—because he ignored externals and went straight for heart issues, their genuine life before and with God (Luke 7:36-50; Mark 7:1-23)).  He told one curator of tradition, Nicodemus, you’ll never understand unless you are willing to start over, like a newborn infant—without preconceptions of what God wants and instead always a child in relation to God.  God’s spirit, like the wind, goes wherever it pleases, despite your efforts to contain and control it (John 3:1-8).  Don’t make the lethal mistake of attributing the work of God’s free spirit to the devil.  You cannot yourself leave your slavery if you do this (Mark 3:20-29).

Each Other and Our Neighbors

So besides the creation and a relationship with God that our traditions point to, what has God given us to care for as NWYM Friends? God has given us each other and our neighbors (Gen. 4:10; Deut. 15:7-11; 24:14-15, 17-22; Matt. 22:39; 25:34-40; Luke 10:25-37).

We are trustees of our children, holding them in trust for God, trying to keep them alive and making it normal to live honestly and openly before God (Deut. 11:18-19; Matt. 19:13-15; Luke 17:1-3).  We learn about and from the children God has sent us, we help those children find the gifts God has graced them with, we make space for them to take the place God made for them in God’s grand scheme (Luke 2:40-52). We are caretakers of our young people. NWYM Friends established Greenleaf Friends Academy and George Fox University as partial fulfillment of this care for our children. We need to welcome young people onto our YM boards and listen to what God is saying to them.

We care for others by clearing out the debris that prevents them from knowing God personally—knowing God experimentally.  God does not give us the right to control and limit how other people know God (John 4:23-24; 15:16-17; 21:22). God does not ask us to be in charge of who gets to be part of God’s family (John 5:19-30; 6:44-45).  Instead, God asks us to tell everyone everywhere the good news that Jesus is present to teach all of us (John 14:16-17, 26), that we have something in us that yearns toward God and that recognizes good (John 1:4, 12-13), and that God is also yearning toward us and eager to meet us more than halfway (Luke 15).  Friends have traveled the world, beginning in the first generation with the Valiant Sixty, to point people toward God.  NWYM Friends have traveled the whole world to embody and preach the good news—to Alaska, Bolivia, Peru, Palestine, Russia, China. NWYM Friends are also opening their hearts and church buildings to AA, Celebrate Recovery, neighbors from the street, children from around the world.

We are thus caretakers of each other. We listen to and learn from other people, we enrich others’ lives rather than impoverishing them; we make space for others to be in authentic personal relationship with God where God is making them whole and holy, where they can take joy in loving God and other humans. Friends’ heroes such as John Woolman and Elizabeth Gurney Fry, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, Lucretia Mott, Hannah Whitall Smith, Herbert Hoover are excellent examples of living well into this kind of caretaking. 

Sadly, Friends’ record of fulfilling our call to care for each other has not been spotless.  Friends held slaves and trafficked in them for over 100 years before coming to recognize that slavery is inherently wrong.  Friends enforced conformity to external standards of dress and forbade marriage to non-Friends with fundamentalist rigidity. Friends disowned young men who fought for the Union against slavery for violating the testimony of non-violence.  Friends who adopted the practice of paying pastors soon fell away from the testimony of equality in ministry for both men and women. Friends are not immune to the currents and prejudices of their social contexts, not above racism or sexism or other prejudices, nor are they immune to the temptation to prefer economic stability to standing against social ills and the temptation to substitute form for living reality. We must acknowledge the truth that each of us has potential for blindness as well as sight, for evil as well as good, for error as well as truth. We need humility and repentance, and sometimes we need to change our minds, not in pursuit of some superficial relevance, but because sometimes we are wrong. And persisting in blindness, evil, and error alienates people from the Jesus we embody. We need to be born again, to start new in every generation and in every day of our individual and communal lives. We need to be born again to care for each other and our neighbors, all of whom God is trusting to our care.

God has also entrusted us with the good news, the Gospel. And we have this entrusted to us not so we can protect it but so we can share it. The dominance of Christianity in the U.S. is waning; we have seekers next door who need the Good News. NWYM has great opportunity to share our relationship with God with spiritual seekers outside the church, and we need to remember how far back to start. Like Paul among the Gentiles, we need to begin with the basics, namely the Creator God who gave humans freedom, is good, and uses human messengers (Acts 14).  Like Paul, Quakers tend to focus on the good God intends toward us.

The heart of the Gospel is Jesus.  We need to teach the history of the Incarnation.   The essentials are in Peter’s sermon to Cornelius (Acts 10):

1)   God anointed Jesus on earth with the Holy Spirit;

2)   Jesus came to bless, heal, and free human beings.

3)   Jesus was killed in Jerusalem;

4)   God raised Jesus from the dead.

5)   Many saw the risen Jesus, even eating and drinking with him.

6)   Jesus is the judge of the living and the dead;

7)   Whoever places his or her confidence and trust in Jesus will receive the remission of sins, release from slavery to error, dishonor, wrong-doing, disobedience

NWYM’s commitment to this Good News positions us well to speak to people who know little about Christianity.

When we care well for our neighbors, we may find that sometimes they bring alien ways into our congregations, creating tension.

Thus Peter’s sermon to insiders (Acts 11) reminds them that no human is common or unclean; that God shows no partiality, accepting any reverent and obedient person; and that God poured out the Holy Spirit on Gentiles, even before any ritual of baptism.

The story of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) represents the continual conflict between established expectations and new membership.

Believers need to learn to be as welcoming as God and to recognize that God’s gift of the Holy Spirit transcends ritual.  We NWYM Friends understand that Jesus has come to teach us himself and that within each person is the potential to respond to that teaching with obedience. We can invite our neighbors to “live up to the light you have.”

James’s response in the council of Jerusalem shows how an established group can welcome outsiders.  “We should not trouble these who are turning to God with our whole religious history.”  They asked new believers to commit to worshiping only God, to having sexual ethics, and to caring for the convictions of others in the fellowship. The Gospel is good news to all.

So let us consider together that we NWYM Friends hold the creation, our relationship with God, and each other and our neighbors in trust for God.  Let’s consider what the limits of our trusteeship are. Let’s be as simply authentic as we can with God, knowing that God will help us move toward wholeness as individuals and as a small part of the church universal, the bride of Christ whom Christ purifies. And let us care for our neighbors who have not yet heard that they can be in a personal authentic relationship with God by sharing the good news and helping them feel welcome among us. Then when our boss, Jesus, shows up, he will find us doing a good job of caring for the other servants and he will put on his apron, sit us down at the table, and serve us dinner. May it be so.

How Prison Simplifies Things: Philippians 1:19-26

In 1965, Bob Dylan wrote these lyrics:  “When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose; you’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.  How does it feel, how does it feel to be on your own, with no direction home like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone?”  Today we will see that Christians need to embrace the truth that following Jesus is living like a rolling stone, but instead of anxiety, sorrow, and lostness, it means a personal daily dynamic relationship with Almighty God, the Father of Jesus and our Father as well. We know what God is like because we saw his Son Jesus live as a human being in that exact kind of relationship with his Father—Whoever has seen me has seen the Father, Jesus said—and we are holy homes for the Spirit Jesus sends us to strengthen us and lead us into all truth.

Context:

Paul has been thanking God for the Philippians and praying for them with joy.

They have shared in the gospel, the good news, with him

He has confidence in Jesus who began a good work among them and will continue it to completion

He knows they hold him in their hearts

They share in God’s grace with him

He longs for them with the compassion of Christ Jesus

He prays for their love to overflow with knowledge and insight into what is best

He prays that they will be pure and blameless in the day when they meet Christ face to face

He prays they will produce the harvest of righteousness, right living, that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God

You all know I am imprisoned, he says, and this has helped spread the gospel because everyone knows I am imprisoned for Christ.  And because of this, most of the other Christians have been made confident in the Lord and dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear.  Some are trying to outdo each other and me, proclaiming Christ out of selfish ambition, intending to increase my suffering in prison; but others are acting out of good will, proclaiming Christ out of love for my sake since I can’t do it.  What does it matter whether their motivation is false or true? Christ is proclaimed in every way and I rejoice.

Presently he is in prison—Paul had been in prison on his first visit to Philippi, an earthquake set them free, and the jailer converted with his family,

This is such a great picture of the freeing force of the Gospel; literally, it is an earthquake and a jail, but symbolically, it is Paul’s and Silas’s obedience to God and rejoicing in hard circumstances broke open the whole system of spiritual imprisonment. This experience explains Paul’s confidence about being in prison now—that it will work to spread the Gospel, just as it did before when he was in Philippi.

Presently he sees that some preach the gospel from bad motives—on his first visit Paul cast a spirit out of girl who kept shouting the truth about Paul and Silas. “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.”  She followed them, shouting, for many days.  Paul got annoyed, and he ordered her spirit of divination out of her in the name of Jesus Christ.  This got him imprisoned.

But now, he cannot stop those preaching the gospel out of competitive motives, trying to take Paul’s place or make him feel worse in his prison.  And he rejoices that they are preaching the gospel.  Even if the messenger is messed up, the message is still true.

All these are in-references that the Philippian church would get.  After Paul reminds them of being in prison back when he first visited, he points out he is in a literal prison in Rome guarded by centurions; and he says he is in a figurative prison, guarded by two desires:  the desire to be with Jesus and the desire to be with the Philippians. We would term this “being in a bind”—impossible to choose between the options. 

And now for the passage for today: Philippians 1:19-26

And I will continue to rejoice because I know that because you are praying (petitionary prayer, an expression of personal need) and the Spirit of Jesus Christ is supplying me, this imprisonment will turn out for my deliverance.  I eagerly expect and anticipate that I will not be put to shame in any way, but that by my speaking with all boldness, Christ will be shown to be great now as always in my physical body, whether by my life or my death. Truly therefore to me, living is Christ and dying is gain, advantage. Living in this body means work with results, and I do not know which I prefer.  I am a prisoner of these two desires: I want to be unloosed and be with Christ, because that is more useful for me, but I am torn because I know that my staying alive is necessary for you.  Since I am convinced you need me, I know I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in your fidelity and conviction, so that I may share abundantly in your glorying in Christ Jesus when I come to you again.

Being in prison has simplified Paul’s world down to essentials.  Life, Death, and the Gospel.

I want us to focus on boldness as an answer to the Philippians’ prayers for Paul:  I eagerly expect and anticipate that I will not be put to shame or dishonored in any way, but that by my speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my physical body whether by my life or my death. Truly therefore to me, living is Christ and dying is gain, advantage.

Boldness means:

freedom to speak unreservedly,

openly, frankly

unambiguously

without rhetorical flourishes, plainly.

Boldness means:

free and fearless confidence, cheerful courage, assurance.

Paul’s boldness derives from his cheerful conviction that he has nothing to lose.

Nothing to lose can seem pretty low down and desperate, but for Paul, it is really that every outcome is good for someone.  It’s a recognition that he actually cannot lose, regardless of how things turn out.

Christians need to recognize two truths. First, the Kingdom of God comes first in priority.  Second, when that is true, there is no way to lose.

Here’s what Jesus said about putting the Kingdom first:

Count the cost, don’t bite off more than you can chew; if you can’t put God first, don’t bother; Seek first the kingdom of God.  In Romans 14: 17, Paul says that the kingdom of God is righteousness—right living and integrity; peace—harmony and concord with God and with others; and joy—gladness in the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said there are some things you may want to put first but Jesus won’t let you if you want to be in God’s kingdom. The gate is too narrow to squeeze through with all the things you think you need.  Pack lightly.

• Perhaps you have to have a place to call home, to sleep at night:  Jesus says, The Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.
• You want to fulfill your obligations to social expectations: Jesus says, Let the dead bury the dead.
• You put relationships and family first: Jesus says, Hate family for my sake.
• You need a certain level of wealth: Jesus says, sell all you have and give it to the poor.
• You expect sexual fulfillment: Jesus says, some are eunuchs for the kingdom of God.
• You are counting on good deeds, piety: Jesus says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, scouring the earth for one convert. 
• You rely on status and/or intelligence: Jesus says, be born again, be like a child. 

The Kingdom of God is for those with nothing to lose—the poor, the beggar in spirit, destitute of wealth, no influence, no power, no position, helpless, needy.

The Kingdom of God is for those who are persecuted, bullied, harassed, pursued, mistreated for living right.

The Kingdom of God is for those who come like children.

The Kingdom of God is for those who do the will of our Father in heaven.

Jesus lived every day by listening to our Father in heaven and doing what the Father told him to do, and that’s the example we are following. One clear part of the will of our Father in heaven is to get more people into the Kingdom of God.

Tell people the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news. Paul summarized it in 1 Cor. 15:

Christ died for our sins

He was buried

He was raised on the third day

He appeared to disciples and many others

He appeared to me

He will conquer death and we will live again

He rules over everything

Note that Paul has personal experience of this gospel.  We also need to experience it personally.  As George Fox put it, we need to possess what we profess.  Fox wrote about his own prison experience:  “While I was in prison, [other religious groups] prophesied that this year Christ should come and reign for 1000 years.  And they looked upon this reign to be outward: when he was come inwardly in the hearts of his people to reign and rule; where these professors would not receive him.  So they failed in their prophecy and expectation and had not the possession of him.  But Christ is come and doth dwell and reign in the hearts of his people.  Thousands at the door of whose hearts he has been knocking have opened to him and he is come in and doth sup with them and they with him; the heavenly supper with the heavenly and spiritual man.”

Christians need to recognize two truths. One, the Kingdom of God comes first in priority.  Two, when that is true, we have nothing to lose. God knows what we need and will care for us.  When we know we have nothing to lose, we are remarkably free to speak the truth. Whatever happens can be for God’s glory and our joy.  The door of death leads directly to God, and continued life gives additional opportunity to see good results from our work.  With a nod of apology to Bob Dylan, we are NOT on our own, but we are holy rolling stones, pushing everything else aside or leaving it behind so that we can embrace God—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—welcoming the kind of invisibility that makes God visible, being unknown so that God is known, giving up our secrets, listening every day for our direction home.

As always, credit to Strong’s Concordance for help with the words.  And blessings to Bob Dylan.

God Calls; We Obey

George Fox University Chapel Oct 19 2011

As I was thinking and praying about chapel today, I heard that there are students who are so opposed to a woman speaking from this podium that they will not attend, and that on occasion, students will walk out if someone says they believe God calls women to do just what I’m doing today—preaching. I wanted to be able to construct the chapel address that would convince everyone once and for all that this belief limits God’s sovereignty and hurts the church. Then I realized that these folks are probably not even here today, and even if they are, one chapel address by a woman will not be convincing.

This realization clarified my understanding of God’s purpose for me today. I want to speak to those who have a sense that God may be calling them to publicly witness to who Jesus Christ is, and what he came to do for human beings and the entire planet. I want to speak to the group that is unsure of how to answer God’s call. You may be unsure because you are shy, because you are into math, because you don’t feel particularly charismatic, because you’re afraid, or because you’re a woman. I also want to speak to the group that feels so sure of a call that the possibility you will not be allowed to fulfill it is a slow poison in your relationship with God and the church.

The good news, the Gospel, is this: we are all called to share what we have witnessed about who Jesus is and what Jesus came to do, and the sure sign we are set free to share in public is that the spirit of God, the spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit lives in us and we live, as Jesus did, in obedience to God every day.

Humans are in love with status. We cannot get over wanting to be singled out to have a higher status than other people. It is hard for us to disentangle our need to be obedient to the Holy Spirit’s call from a desire to be recognized by other human beings as called. We want some calls to be more special than the ordinary person’s call. And if there’s an in-group, we want to be in it and wear its sign of specialness.

In our story for today, this special sign was male circumcision, the sign God gave the patriarchs. The question being debated was this: Would it be necessary for Gentile men to cut themselves and obey the Jewish law in order to be completely “in”? The answer the Jerusalem church came up with, after a long time of talking and listening and being silent was this: NO.

Peter says, we Jews ourselves have been unable to keep the Law. Besides this, God showed me in a special vision that Gentiles are no longer unclean, and then God gave the signs of the Holy Spirit to Gentiles without any such induction into Judaism. So it is pretty clear that we will anger God if we set up extra barriers before we acknowledge that Gentiles are equally acceptable to God.


James, the brother of Jesus, agreed with Peter: the Jewish did not apply to Gentile believers, so he and the Jerusalem church asked instead that Gentiles refrain from the behaviors that would most sicken and alienate Jewish Christians: eating blood, and scandalous sexual misconduct, and being involved with worship of idols, including the sexual rituals. Avoid these things.

Today the rule about eating blood has disappeared from Christian worries, as we eat gravy, rare steaks, and, in some parts of the Christian world, blood pudding and blood sausage. We still are trying to conduct our sexuality in obedience to God and to avoid scandal, and we don’t pay enough attention to how idolatry pervades the surrounding culture and infiltrates our own lives.


But back to the story; I want to direct your attention to one verse that describes how important this was to the Gentiles. Verse 31: When the Gentiles read this and heard the message, they were consoled.

What this means is that the debate had hurt them, had made them question the universal love of God for humanity, had made them feel like second-class Christians. They didn’t become Christians in order to become Jews but because of their convincement that Jesus made a way for all human beings to know God directly and hear from God directly. By becoming Christians, they had already signaled their intention of obeying the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus did. They were humble enough to wait for the older part of the church to come to a decision, but their hearts were sore as they waited.

Women’s hearts are sometimes sore. On the one hand, we read that we are God’s children, just like our brothers, and that the Holy Spirit dwells in us, just like our brothers, and our hearts rise to the challenge and joy of bearing public witness to the love of God, and then we find that we are not allowed by the traditions of the church. We suffer in between the “yes” of God and the “no” of our religious culture.

Women have coped with this for centuries, following God’s call as they can within the culture. Some have entered convents, some have written books, some have written hymns, some have become teachers, some have gone to other countries as missionaries, some have taught children’s Sunday School or Women’s Bible Study. Some have been stealth leaders, governing the church from behind the scenes. Some have been so hurt they have left the church., even though they still love Jesus.

When we look at the life of Jesus, we do not find anywhere that he limited women’s role. Women were among his followers and the Gospels tell us some of their names. Jesus commissioned women to carry the gospel to others. He affirmed women’s faith, and he held them accountable for their actions.

We believers customarily take the words of Jesus as applying to all of us. If one wants to argue that Jesus said these things only to his first named male disciples, all of us are outside. Probably the most important thing he said that turns upside down his own religious culture and ours is this: Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother (Mark 3:31).

As I read you what Jesus said, I will ask you, “Is Jesus talking to you?” If you are comfortable participating, say this: “Jesus is talking to me.”

Hear the words of Jesus. No one can come to me unless the Father permits it. You did not choose me, but I chose you, and I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness because I am the light of the world.

Is Jesus talking to you?

Repent, and believe the good news. I forgive your sins. I choose to make you clean. Do not fear, only believe. Be reborn in the Spirit. You do not know where the wind comes from, nor where it goes; it blows where it chooses; so it is with those born of the Spirit.

Is Jesus talking to you?

Take up your cross and follow me. Give everything you have to God. It’s not enough to avoid actively harming others, you must take steps to do active good to others also. Go tell your friends how much the Lord has done for you and what mercy he has shown you. I give more to those who share the good news, but those who hoard the good news will lose it. Go into the world and proclaim the good news to the whole world. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do and in fact will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.

Is Jesus talking to you?

Do not be afraid; take heart. Set your mind on divine things, not human things. All things can be done for the one who believes. Whoever wants to be first must be last of all. Whoever wishes to be great must be the servant of all. Whoever welcomes a child in my name welcomes me and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Let the children come to me—in fact you yourselves must receive God’s kingdom as a little child. When you pray, do not doubt God.

Is Jesus talking to you?

God loved the world and gave his only son to make it possible for those who believe to have eternal life. God sent his son not to condemn, but to save the world. The greatest command is to love God wholly, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. Also, when you pray, forgive whatever you have against anyone else. Whoever receives one whom I send receives me; and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. I give you a new commandment, that you love one another Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Let God do the refining work and be at peace with each other. Trust what I say; it is eternal. I am giving my body and my blood to seal this new covenant with you. Stay awake and watch for me.

Is Jesus talking to you?

The Father seeks people who will worship in spirit and truth. If you continue to obey me, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. If the Son makes you free, you are free indeed.

Is Jesus talking to you?

I will ask my Father and he will give you the Spirit of truth, who will abide with you and be in you. The Holy Spirit will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you.

Is Jesus talking to you?

Jesus left warnings, too.
Don’t be led astray by people who play on your fears. Don’t let politics distract you from God. Don’t waste your time with people who refuse to hear you. Don’t copy those who like lots of attention for being religious. Remember that your enemies may be family. If you entice another to sin or make it hard for someone to trust me, you would be better off drowned. If you have parts of yourself that cause you to sin or mistrust me, cut them off, hand, foot, eye or whatever. Nothing you eat defiles you, but the evil you think and do defiles you. How can you tell what is right and wrong when you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? Whoever attributes the work of the Holy Spirit to the devil is a blasphemer. God chooses the stone that the builders rejected to be the cornerstone. Do not reject the commandment of God in order to preserve tradition.

Is Jesus talking to you?

Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother (Mark 3:31).

Peter, who stood up for the Gentiles in this meeting, also stood up for women at Pentecost. When God’s Holy Spirit rushed over believers and entered their hearts, they were moved and empowered to speak in the languages of those around them. These believers included both men and women.

Peter said, this is exactly what the prophet Joel foresaw: a day when men and women would be filled with God’s spirit and prophesy: I will pour out my spirit even upon slaves, both men and women, in those days; and they shall prophesy (Acts 2: 17-18). (In the Old Testament, women were prophets: Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, Isaiah’s wife.) The word prophesy means to speak what God inspires; to declare something which God has revealed; to speak praise of God; to teach, refute, reprove, admonish, comfort others (Strong’s Concordance).

Women have been carrying the Gospel, the good news, to others since Anna prophesied over the baby Jesus. Paul himself identified women as co-builders of the church.
[SLIDE] So when we read what Paul wrote restricting women’s actions in some 1st century congregations, we have to ask— are these words equivalent to the prohibition against “eating blood”; are these words to help prevent us from scandalous sexual behavior? Or are they to help us avoid idolatry in our times? Are we substituting law for the grace of God, for justification by faith, for the presence of the guiding Holy Spirit in the hearts of committed believers?

Today, if you accept that God sent Jesus to save the world, that the price was Jesus’s death and the seal of victory his resurrection, and you have given your whole self to following Jesus, Jesus promises to give you the Spirit of truth, the Spirit that guides you into truth. Trust the massively inclusive love of God. Obey what the Spirit tells you in everyday things and in life-changing things. Be Jesus’s brother or sister.

Lord, speak to me that I may speak In living echoes of Thy tone;
As Thou hast sought, so let me seek Thy erring children lost and lone.
O lead me, Lord, that I may lead The wandering and the wavering feet;
O feed me, Lord, that I may feed The hungering ones with manna sweet.
O teach me, Lord, that I may teach The precious things Thou dost impart;
And wing my words that they may reach The hidden depths of many a heart.
O fill me with Thy fullness, Lord, Until my very heart o'erflow
In kindling thought and glowing word, Thy love to tell, Thy praise to show.
O use me, Lord, use even me, Just as Thou wilt, and when, and where,
Until Thy blessed face I see--Thy rest, Thy joy, Thy glory share.

Frances Ridley Havergal, 1836-1879.