Grant
Memorial United Methodist Church
Presque
Isle, ME
Sermon
series on book
Christianity's Family
Tree: What Other Christians Believe and Why
Chapter
8: “Methodism: The Extreme Center”
March
2, 2014
“So
What Makes Us Methodist?”
by
Raymond A. Foss, Certified Lay Servant
(Stetson
Memorial United Methodist Church
Patten,
ME)
Scripture:
-
Matthew 17:1-9 (Transfiguration)
-
Ephesians 2:1-10 (Saved by Grace)
Today is
Transfiguration Sunday, when we rejoice at the moment when Christ was burning
with fire from the presence of God descended upon him. He was “strangely warmed” by the fire of God on
the mountaintop (Matthew 17:1-9) just as Moses was so long before on Mt. Sinai
receiving the Ten Commandments from God (Exodus 24:12-18) and as John Wesley was
at Aldersgate Street on May 24, 1738 (but more on that in a few minutes).
Our scripture today is
from the Revised Common Lectionary (Matthew 17) and from the bedrock of our
faith as Methodists (Ephesians 2).
We’ve come full circle
in looking at Christianity’s family tree, in starting with the one church, the
Way, where all were simply Christians, and looking at the many branches of our
Christian Family Tree: Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Lutheranism, Presbyterianism,
Anglicanism, Baptists, Pentecostalism, and today Methodism.
We will finish as
members of the United Methodist faith, looking at Chapter 8 of Reverend
Hamilton’s book. Chapter 8 is entitled, “Methodism: The Extreme Center”, based
on the statement by Bishop Scott Jones.
“In the Christian faith, there are people who are
extreme right and people who are extreme left. But whether it's clergy clothing
or how our services of worship are conducted or how we read the Bible, we tend
to be people of the extreme center. The extreme center means that The United Methodist
Church at its best is conservative in some areas and liberal in other areas. We
don't fit a stereotype very well. […] We
see the value of both sides and try to carve out a position, whether it
involves theology or social justice, that embraces the whole gospel.”
I laughed when I read
that, because I can relate. Sometimes it is hard to know what we believe in,
because we truly are a big-tent church. We have some very different political
stripes. Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Vice
President Dick Cheney and former President George Bush are all Methodists.
They certainly don’t
see eye to eye on many things. But that is what makes us stronger, more
faithful servants, what makes us better Christians. We have learned the art of
compromise, when compromise wasn’t a dirty word. We have learned to work
together. That is how we can live out our call to live out the Great Commission
of Matthew 28:18-20 in the world, for a purpose, to transform the world. We
aren’t just in the pews or in small groups, but they too define us.
At our small group Spirit Study last Wednesday I
mentioned that I would be preaching here this morning. Some of the members of
the group remember when Reverend Herman Grant, was the pastor in Patten (from
1957 to 1961) after he was here for many years. They told the story of how he
was true to our faith, being actively against changing Patten from being a dry
town to serving alcohol.
Reverend Adam Hamilton included this Notable
quote on page 93 of Leader’s Guide to this study
“We are at our best when we are listening to
other people and learning from them. . . and asking the question, “What does it
mean to be a follower of Jesus Christ here and now in this place?” We do not
necessarily think we have it all figured out. We look to other denominations as
places where good ideas can come from.
And Reverend Adam Hamilton stated on page 122 of
the book,
“What I value most about Methodism is its attempt
at holding together so many seemingly disparate ideas and practices:
1. the
emphasis on both the social and evangelical gospels;
2. the
linking of God's grace with a call to holiness and good works;
3. the
coupling of personal, passionate experience with a serious intellect;
4. the
love of both liturgy and simplicity in worship; and
5. Wesley's
firm belief that God is sovereign and yet has given human beings free will,
inviting all to receive God's grace.
6. These
beliefs are not necessarily unique to Methodists; many of the families of faith
we have studied share them. But for United Methodists these polarities tend to
be one of the defining characteristics of their faith.”
So
what makes us Methodist?
We are in that tension
between the poles of the many other branches of Christianity’s family tree. We
believe in personal holiness and social holiness.
We love God with our
whole beings,
1.
with our Minds, our Intellects, with Reason
2.
with our lives, our Experience
3.
with our liturgy, our order of worship,
our Traditions, and above all,
4.
we look to Scripture, to the divine word of God to guide our lives
We study the Word, we
come together in accountability groups, we pray, we fast; but we also come
together to serve, to go out into the world, to be Christ’s hands and feet, to
build schools and hospitals, to run soup kitchens and food pantries, and all
the other active ministries of the church.
Sometimes we are a
little more conservative in our worship than some would like, lacking
“Enthusiasm” or passion in our worship but we do burn with the fire of
Pentecost. We too can glow as Moses did on Mt. Sinai (from Exodus 24) or as
Christ did on the Transfiguration (from Matthew 17:1-9).
I once was asked by one
of the members of the Trustees at one of our former churches about how he could
do one of the Stewardship Minutes, as he had never left the church, was never a
Prodigal Son, his family had always been Methodist.
He was sort of like the
older brother of the Prodigal Son story. He was so blessed, never to have been
in that far off country, never envying the pigs eating the pods while he was
starving. He didn’t have the epiphany moment of the Prodigal, of that born
again moment. In some ways, it is like the story of John Wesley himself.
John Wesley, the
founder of our faith, was an Anglican Minister all his life. He, like Martin
Luther (as was discussed in the Chapter on Lutheranism), was seeking a
different relationship with God. He knew in his head about God, about being
saved, about God’s mercy and grace, but it hadn’t traveled down to his heart
yet. He even tried a stint in the America’s as a missionary in Georgia.
Then, everything
changed on May 24, 1738. Let me read from John Wesley’s journal for that
day.
“In the evening I went very
unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s
preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he
was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ,
I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone,
for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins,
even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
From then on, he was a
changed man. He now knew Jesus in his heart, not just his head. Soon, in the
Spring of 1739, he would begin preaching outdoors primarily, not bound by the
walls of the Anglican church. He is said to have ridden by horseback over
250,000 miles all across the British Isles. He was the Billy Graham of his day.
John Wesley was asked why people came to hear him
preach. Wesley said, “I set myself on
fire and people come to watch me burn.”
Wesley taught, and we
still do today that we are saved not by our works but faith and the grace of
our Lord. We are healed of our brokenness by the free unmerited gift of God as
our scripture from Ephesians 2 states. But, once we are saved, we are to live
out of faith.
Wesley broke down grace into three concepts, of
Prevenient Grace, the grace of God that surrounds us and woos us before we
believe; Justifying Grace, that grace which falls upon us when we are born
again (just as Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:1-7), when we are saved; and
Sanctifying Grace, the grace of God that goes with us as we walk in faith,
seeking to live out our days ever more faithful to God. Wesley called that
“moving on to perfection”.
Wesley, and we to this day, seek to bring others
to the saving grace of Christ, to transform the world by service activities,
and to revitalize the church by challenging each of us to walk more closely
with God.
Reverend Hamilton closed the section on Methodism
with the following:
“United Methodists invite other Christians to
listen to and learn from one another; to recognize that truth is often found
most fully not on the extremes, but in the center; and to pursue the life of
faith by maintaining a balance between grace and holiness, intellect and
emotion, evangelism and social justice.”
I end with this prayer for all of us, as
Methodists and as Christians first and foremost. Let us pray:
May
we all burn like the Transfigured Christ, the strangely warmed John Wesley; may
we seek to move from grace to grace to grace drawing every closer to the way of
Christ, the way of the cross, the path to our living God; may we seek to bring
others to Christ, to share the message of our risen Lord; and may we strive to
use all of our gifts and talents to be the hands and feet of Christ here upon
the earth, sharing love to our neighbors as we are called to do.
Amen.
March
2, 2014
Transfiguration
Sunday
Ephesians
2:1-10
Saved
by grace not by works
Matthew
17:1-9
Transfiguration
John
Wesley conversion – May 24, 1738
Sermon
series on book
Christianity's Family
Tree: What Other Christians Believe and Why
Chapter
8: “Methodism: The Extreme Center”
and
sermon “So
What Makes Us Methodist?”
by
Raymond A. Foss
Grant Memorial United Methodist Church
Presque Isle, ME
March 2, 2014
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