I Corinthians 13:3b: No one can say, “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit

First Presbyterian Church

Marianna, Florida

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Sermon by Huw Christopher, Pastor

Scripture Readings: Hosea 11:1-11

Colossians 3:1-11

Sermon Title: "Living as the Children of God: Where is Our Focus?"

Sermon Text: Hosea 11:8b-9: My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.

We appreciate all of those who prepared the bountiful breakfast that was enjoyed in our fellowship hall this morning. Let me assure that I did not eat because I did not like what had been prepared but because I knew that if I had I would not be able to preach here now. As I was fixing my bowl of cereal earlier this morning at home I saw a newsclip on CNN which showed President Bush standing on the collapsed bridge in Minneapolis. He said he had been talking to someone who had been on the bridge at the time it collapsed last Wednesday evening and who once he had stopped his own car had gone immediately to help the children on the school bus that was also on the bridge. I do not remember his exact words but President Bush said, but it was something like, "How great it is to live in a country where people reach out to help in this way."

When I turned on my computer this morning to check e-mail the words that caught my attention on the Embarq home page said, "Helicopters drop food to two million villagers on Saturday." The report went on to talk about the help being given to those marooned in Indian villages following the recent monsoons.

When I arrived at the church I this morning at the back door of the office was the Jackson County Floridan. When I opened it I read the headline on the front page, "Women’s death treated as homicide." I was immediately brought down to the reality by which we are so often faced in the news media. I do not think that Jackson County is so unique in our nation or the world. Indeed unfortunately it is such headings or killings in the war in Iraq or cases of abuse and violence or car jackings or theft against other people rather than that of reaching out to help that so often make the news, and become the focus of our attention through the news media.

In our Old Testament lesson we heard God saying through the prophet Hosea, "I am God and no mortal." God’s reason for speaking these words is to remind the people of Israel that unlike mortals would do he is refusing to focus completely and entirely on their rebellion, and their turning away from God’s ways for them. God sees that unlike mortals who so often want to focus their attention only on revenge and on getting even God is going to focus his attention not on them and what they might deserve of his punishment and condemnation, but on his deep and abiding love for them. When God sets his focus in this direction then forgiveness and the possibility of new beginnings becomes a reality.

Today as we gather here in this place on this first Sunday of the month we see that the focus of our attention is centered in a different place from that of other Sundays of the month as we see before us the meal through which Jesus invites us to remember him. As we share in this meal we are reminded that God’s focus on love, mercy, grace and forgiveness ultimately became centered in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If God had wanted to treat human beings only as fellow mortals may want to treat one another we would never have known his gift of Jesus. As we celebrate God’s love in Jesus Christ we are reminded that we are the children of God not because we deserve to be but because God has chosen to show God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. As we celebrate this love that has made us the children of God our anthem has reminded us that this love of God is a love that will not let us go. As Paul reminded the Christians in the Church in Colossae this love is not just for each one of us, but is for all people. In God’s focus there are no longer the barriers that human beings erect to separate and to divide which so often cause so much of the hatred and violence in our world. God does not see Greek and Jews, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free, but God see human beings all of whom are loved with the same love that God has shown in Jesus Christ. This is the love we are invited to come and to remember and to celebrate through this meal. As we come and remember and celebrate God’s love seen in Jesus Christ here at this Lord’s Table Paul would remind us as he reminded the Christians in Colossae of our need to focus on the new vision of human life that is ours as we focus our attention on God’s love as seen in Jesus Christ. Such a focus means that our attention should not be on the things that divide and separate and hurt and destroy other people like fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language. As we hear his words we have to wonder how different would be the focus of the news by which we are faced each and every day if everyone across this world refused to focus on these negative things that tear apart and divide families, communities, nations and the entire world. In the midst of a broken and divided world God invites us to come to this Table to focus our attention again on the fact that the negative realities of life are not the only realities, and that getting even and punishment and condemnation do not need to be the only ways of dealing with one another. It is our privilege as the children of God to come to this table not because of what we have done but because of all that in love God has done for us. As we celebrate the privilege that is ours as the children of God we remember that God has also given to us the privilege of helping other people to get a new focus for their lives as through our words and through our deeds we seek to share God’s great love with them. God’s desire is for that love to be known and to be shown forth in our world so that acts of caring and concern for other people might not become the exception and the surprising things that only occasionally get reported but should be the focus of every new media story and article. We are children of God because God said, and continues to say, "I am God and no mortal." As we prepare to come to this table to celebrate again all that God in love has done for us in Jesus Christ to assure us that we are the children of God let us affirm our faith in all that God has done for us using the familiar words with which Christian men and women have given new focus to their lives for many generations, the words of the Apostles’ Creed: I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,

and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church; the communion

of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the

life everlasting. Amen.