This is the sermon I preached Tuesday night of Jr High Mission Trip.
Mark 12:28-31
At lunch our scripture was from Deuteronomy. We read the commandment that God gave to his people; to Love him with all of their heart, all of their mind, all of their soul, and all of their strength. After hearing tonight’s scripture from Mark, what are some similarities that we notice? Is it the same commandment? But what is different about the verse in Mark? Jesus gives another commandment. He adds Love your neighbor as yourself.
In both of these commandments we hear the word Love. How do we Love? Well if we look back and see in the book of Genesis that when God created Adam, he created him in His image. And we know that God definitely Loves us, he sent His Son, Jesus, to die for the forgiveness of our sins. So, I think that it is safe to say that God is Love; therefore, that means we are Love also. Now how can we tap into who we are? How can we live as Disciples of Jesus Christ as Love? We do it by caring for God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and caring for our neighbor just as we would our self.
At lunch we discussed Loving God with our heart, mind, soul, and strength. In your discussions, I bet you all agreed that this is a really hard thing to do. We are often faced with everyday obstacles that prevent us from being in a constant relationship with him. You made bracelets with two beads on them. You were told that one bead was to remind us to Love God, and you have probably figured out by now that the other is to remind us to Love our neighbor as our self. Do you remember in the instructions to make your bracelets that you weren’t supposed to make your own, but instead, the person to the right of you? Do you see now why that was? It was a way of practicing Loving your neighbor as you would yourself. As you were making your bracelet, I’m sure you tied the string exactly perfect for the wrist of the person beside you, just as if you were making the bracelet for yourself.
I bet as you are sitting there in the pew, thinking to yourselves, “Ethan, I’m a United Methodist, our theology, the way we interpret scripture, is Wesleyan in nature, where is John Wesley in all of this, how do I love God and how do I love my neighbor as myself in a way that reflects these beliefs? Because I’m obviously not going to be on Mission Trip everyday, and I’m obviously not going to make bracelets out of string and red beads for the person who eats lunch next to me everyday. What do I do?” I am so glad that all of you are thinking this because I have an answer, tonight we get to discuss perhaps my most favorite thing about being Methodist, The General Rules, Wesley’s rules for living as disciples of Jesus.
The first is Do No Harm. This one sounds pretty easy, but is often one of the most difficult. When I hear the words do no harm, my mind jumps to awful and terrible things that might put me on the 10:00 news and in jail, but often doing no harm can be as simple as not talking about that person you don’t really care for behind their back or deciding not to sit with the kid by himself at lunch. Or even yet, avoiding the new kid that visits your youth group on a Wednesday or Sunday night.
I remember back a few years ago, I was at Annual Conference, which is the annual gathering of all the clergy and a few lay members from every church in our conference. These General Rules had just been revamped and put into a short book called Three Simple Rules by Bishop Rueben P. Job This rule was being presented to us in a time we called Holy Conferencing. We were seated at tables of 8-10 people and a rule was presented then we discussed it in context with our local churches. The presenter told a story about how they had been studying the book in her local church. After they finished rule one, they always found themselves thinking about it during casual conversation. She said that it is habitual for us to talk about people behind their backs, even at church, so when they found themselves starting to do so, they would put their hand over their mouth and say, “Remember, Do No Harm.” How often do we find ourselves in situations like this? Even at church we lose sight over Loving our neighbor as we would love our self.
The Second Rule is Do Good. You might be thinking, well these rules are a little repetitive, but I think the two are absolutely essential to one another. Yes it could be inferred from one to do the other, but I think we need reminding to Do No Harm and to Do Good. Otherwise I think we would find ourselves being complacent or only halfway loving God and our Neighbor as our self. When I think of Do Good, I think of big things, like fighting hunger in Africa, or saving a child from danger. But again we must realize that sometimes its little everyday things that show our love to our neighbor.
I was on Senior High mission trip about a month ago. My group was in Mangum, Oklahoma. I can remember getting settled into my room and a man from one of the churches we were staying with came in and introduced himself. He called himself, Brother Love, and his catch phrase was, “Too Blessed to Be Stressed.” Every time the group was gathered he would yell out, “If no one has told you today that Jesus Loves You, he does, and so do I.” Brother Love’s phrases caused something pretty awesome to occur on Wednesday of that week. As I was getting my breakfast that morning, I went thru the line, the set up group served and they handed us our utensils all wrapped up in a napkin, and as they handed me mine, they said, “Jesus Loves You!” Now, as much as I would have liked to think that I was the only special one in the line, I soon found out that I wasn’t, I realized that they were saying this to everyone. The phrase, “Jesus Loves You” was being told every morning to every person at our living center. That my friends, is an example of Doing Good. A simple act of making someone smile and acknowledge that they are loved. How easy is that? What if instead of to every person you saw everyday, you just picked one person and said, “Jesus Loves You?” That is 365 smiles a year caused by one person, and there are approximately 80 of us in this room right now, that’s almost 30, 000 smiles a year, caused by us in this room, isn’t that amazing? How awesome is it to know that you can show your neighbor you love them with three words?
The third and final rule is Attend to the Ordinances of God. Does anyone 15 and under know what that means? I didn’t think so. Let’s break it up a little bit. The word, attend means to go or to be present at, and the word ordinances means commands or orders of God. So, Attend to the Ordinances of God means to be present at or to go to God’s commands. Now this is still not very helpful, so I will rephrase it, Love God by listening to what he is calling you to do.
I remember my first Sr Hi mission trip. My living center was in Fort Collins, Colorado. The week was amazing. Fort Collins was a pretty wealthy town, so the mission work we did was not very significant and didn’t really affect me at all, but the worship we had every night was so powerful that when mission trip was over I was still energized, that warm feeling that you get inside never really left me. Over that year I began to mull over that feeling, and by the time I was a sophomore in high school, I knew that God was calling me to the ministry of an Ordained Elder in the United Methodist Church. My High School years proved that. This past June I completed my term as a member of and President of the Central Texas Conference Student Leadership Team. Through SLT I explored and developed my gifts of leadership and being able to stand here and preach tonight. In these experiences I have learned that if you listen to God, and respond to what he has in store for you then you are Loving him, you are attending to his ordinances. Even as Junior High students, ask yourselves, “How is God calling me to serve Him?” I realize that you have all answered a call to serve him on this trip, this week, but how is God calling you to serve Him with your everyday lives?
By following Wesley’s General Rules of Doing No Harm, Doing Good, and Attending to the Ordinances of God we are able to be Love. We are able to Love God with all of our heart, all of our mind, and all of our strength and we are able to Love our Neighbor as our self. And we must know that when we Love in this way, we are Loved in return, the Love we get in return is a special kind of Love, we call it Grace. The unconditional Love that God pours out for each and every one of us. This love is always constant and will never go away. It was proven by Jesus who died on the Cross out of Love for each and every one of us. Grace is so amazing that we cannot even begin to fathom it, it is Beyond our understanding. The theme of our week is Beyond Me, God’s Love is not Beyond you, it is all around you. But comprehending Love is Beyond all of us.
Amen.
