​The primary role of a prophet in Israel was to know God and to communicate that knowledge in ways that would help the people of Israel flourish, to return to God and stay in love with God. The primary role of a prophet was to announce this knowledge so that people would also know God and love God (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). The problems came when the people would forsake this knowledge of God and forget God and God’s ways.

And that is what made the prophets so upset. Not that God had changed God’s ways, but that the people had changed their ways and left God!    

This is what makes the prophet Jonah so unique: the role seems to be reversed. Jonah is the one who doesn’t want to change; he is the one whose heart is far from God, angry with God because God is doing what God does – act righteously – and angry with God for who God is – merciful! 

It is a role reversal. Not to mention the fact that Jonah is preaching to a foreign country, to Israel’s enemy: the Assyrians in Nineveh. 

Now, a word we sometimes use to describe this anger or resentment in Jonah is a good German word (perhaps you have heard it). It is the word Schnadenfreude. Jonah reeks of Schnadenfreude. His whole demeanor is dripping with it. And what that means is that Jonah has this attitude problem, this kind of outlook upon others, wanting to see them ruined or destroyed or wanting them to get what he thinks they deserve.

Indeed, it is a deeply spiritual problem, and it is a problem that can corrode the soul, as does Jonah’s.

How may we allow our resentments and angers to get the best of us? How may bitterness poison our relationships with God and each other? How may there be a Jonah in us all? 
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Pastor Andy Kinsey

It is a story we have all been a part of.  We have all said no, not yet, or “I will never” and whether we knew it at the time or not, it was something God was working into the story of our lives and in turn the story of God’s restoring love for humanity.

Jonah was unlike any other prophet and his story is told unlike any other story.  One of the twelve prophets, Jonah is atypical in the book of prophets. More reluctant than Amos, more fearful than Jeremiah, less confident than Hosea or Isaiah, Jonah was a prophet all to himself. 

While others tell history and contain much biographical material, and stand firmly on Israelite soil proclaiming God’s Word to God’s chosen people, God had to chase Jonah a bit first.  Then God told Jonah to speak God’s Word in a foreign land to sworn enemies of God. It is a wild tale, with only a small portion being prophetic word and a large portion being a lesson in how God both pursues and persuades; never giving up and always using opportunities, moments and experiences in our lives to reveal God’s presence and purpose...to reveal that place where worth and purpose reside.  Our worth - God’s purpose. 

If you knew anything about Nineveh, you would run too.  Nineveh was a long-time capital of the Assyrian empire - the largest empire ever to rule the Middle East in ancient times.  At its largest, it stretched from Iran to Egypt and as far north as the Caucasus Mountains. It took three days just to walk across this massive powerhouse city.  

Nineveh and its king were the most powerful political and military force in the known world of the time.  As such it represented to Jews the cruelty of Assyrian warfare and iron rule. They were an evil, ruthless people.  If you are Jonah - you might be thinking it's one thing to give my own people bad news of their behavior and God’s expectations, but it's another to speak such truth to the enemy.  Not the first place I would want to go. 

Jonah gets a bad rap but if we are honest, I am certain, not many of us would have done any different than he did.  That is why I think there is a Jonah in all of us, and we too run in the opposite direction sometimes.

Why do we say no to God?  Perhaps we are afraid of what God is asking us to do or be?  Maybe we fear failure, judgement, or criticism? We tell ourselves we don’t have time, we aren’t trained enough, we don’t know enough.  We tell others we are busy, it someone else’s job, or its just not our thing. We may not run away to timbuktu Tarshish like Jonah and we may not physically run, but we run in other ways - emotionally, spiritually and even mentally turning our mental focus and energy elsewhere.  
We say no for all kinds of reasons but mostly I think we say no because we are afraid to say yes.  We are afraid to do what we know is good, true and beautiful in the eyes of God. We have been conditioned by culture, social norms, governments, institutions or even long standing good intentioned traditions - if they say no, we say no.  We are afraid of how we might be perceived, treated, left out or labeled. We are afraid we might have it all wrong. We are afraid of being vulnerable with others and with ourselves. We are afraid of pressure and expectations. And so we say no.  

No is easier.  Yes is hard. No is safe.  Yes is risky. No puts us in control.  Yes puts God in control. No is small and manageable.  Yes is big and colors outside the lines. 

I invite you to think about what you are saying no to and by saying no what are you actually saying yes to.  When we say no to God are we not saying yes to our selfishness, our limited understanding, and our narrow sighted perceptions?  When we say no to the ways we are to treat others, those the bible calls our “neighbors;” the least, the last, the lost; the widows, orphans and children.  When we say no to them, are we not saying yes to fear? Our fear of the other? Of what is different or unknown? When we say no to peace, forgiveness, and unity, are we not saying yes to division, hate, and shame? When we say no to surrendering all that we are to God, are we not saying yes to that which takes us farther and farther away from God?

I don’t know what God is asking you to do with what you have, who you are, or where you are in your life.  I don’t know where God is asking you to go with your relationships, your vocation, your decisions, retirement, future, investments of time, money, and skills.  I don’t know where God is asking you to go with your heart, mind and soul.  I don’t know how God is calling for your attention, or asking for you to say yes, but I do know God did not give up on the prophet Jonah, nor does God  give up on the Jonah residing in each one of us.  

Wherever you are beloved, working on your yes or searching through your no, God will chase you - pursue and persuade you.  Not as a threat or punishment, but because you have something valuable to offer. God has something to say through you and your life.  God has a promise that is bigger than you but that needs you in order for it to be told. 

It is time the Jonah in us stops running. 

Pastor Jenothy Irvine

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​As a pastor, I often receive questions about God when tragedies happen, or when accidents take place, or when tyrants and bullies try to force their plans on others and seek to crush the opposition and no one seems to be held accountable. Sensitive persons will ask, time and again, why is God silent? Why doesn’t God do something? Is God really just? Is God really concerned?

We need to understand the Parable of the Wheat and Weeds in light of these questions. Indeed, there are several parables in Chapter 13 of Matthew’s Gospel that are not direct answers to these questions but are indirect ways that speak to how God rules over this world and seeks to rescue it.

For example, in the Parable of the Sower, we hear about the way a farmer scatters the seed on all kinds of ground. The farmer scatters the seed, but it does not always take root. Nevertheless, the farmer (i.e., God) plants the seed deep within those who will respond. The promise is that the seed will someday bear fruit, but that it will take time (13:18-23).

The Parable of the Mustard Seed is also part of this section. The mustard seed, of course, is one of the smallest of seeds in the world, but it also takes time to grow, becoming one of the biggest of shrubs, providing shelter for birds Again, such growth does not happen overnight, but when it happens it is full and beautiful (13;31-32). A similar thing happens when a woman bakes bread: it takes time for the leaven to rise (13:33-34).

And the Parable of the Wheat and Weeds? Well, if these other parables are about waiting, then this parable is also about waiting: it is about servants who want to act quickly, especially in the face of wrongdoing; but it is also about a farmer whose patience wins the day; i.e., it is about a farmer who is willing to let God have the final say, even when the temptation to rush to judgment is so present. For who wouldn’t want to go after the enemy who sowed weeds among good seed? Who wouldn’t want to settle the score right then and there (Matthew 13:25)? After all, isn’t it tempting to want to get out the Roundup or Weed-B-Gon and simply spray the weeds and get rid of the problem once and for all? 

The problem is, as the farmer says, when we do so we can kill the good stuff too (Matthew 13:30). This is nothow God works. We can do more damage by pulling up the weeds too soon than by letting the weeds and wheat grow together until the harvest (Matthew 13:29). Yes, it will take more time, but the wait is worth it. 

That’s what Jesus is teaching. How may we not rush to judgment and thus do more harm? How may we trust God in God’s judgement? How may we live with the confidence that God is working for our good?
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Pastor Andy Kinsey

Not making good is why we typically call the younger son “prodigal,” or “wayward” in the parable of the prodigal son. The problem is that this is really not what prodigal means: To be prodigal means that you spend and spend until you have nothing left; it actually means extravagant recklessness (Tim Keller). 

It is why there is really more than one prodigal in this story. In fact, we may want to consider how extravagantly reckless the father’s love truly is. For what is more prodigal, more reckless, than the father’s preemptive forgiveness, than the father’s all-embracing, extravagant love toward both his sons?
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Typically, when we read this story, we read it through the lens of American individualism, which means that when we read this story, we read it as a story of individual repentance: it becomes a story about how “I” as an individual can no longer find “my” way. “I” am lost. And then one day, when “I” come to my senses, when “I” decide to go back home. “I” say “I” am sorry. “I” then return home, receive a banquet in “my” honor, and “my” family’s love exceeds all human reason.

There is nothing wrong with this understanding of the parable of the prodigal son. As individuals, we do lose our way; it is part of the human journey, no matter the age!

My wife Peggy and I got lost hiking last week in Brown County. Take wrong turn and oops! We are not in Brown County State Park in anymore! Even with GPS, we can get lost! In fact, I heard on the radio the other day that we all are getting worse at finding our way because of GPS! That is, we all are losing a sense of direction – both internally and externally.

What are way we are lost today, or cut off from community, from family? How we may return home and be reconciled? What are the ways we may read this story as a story of reunion and come to our senses?

Pastor Andy Kinsey

Go and do likewise. That’s what Jesus tells the lawyer after sharing the parable of the Good Samaritan.. It is a simple commandment, but it comes with a twist: How can Samaritan’s be good? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?
 
In our day, when we typically use the term “Good Samaritan,” we use it to describe anyone who puts time and effort into helping another person in need. And that is certainly commendable. But let’s go deeper: A truly Good Samaritan is not only someone who does good, but someone of a different cultural or political or religious caste who helps a person outside of that caste. In our current climate, it would be like a Republican helping a Democrat, depending on where you live. Or a Democrat helping a Republican. Or a liberal helping a conservative, or a conservative helping a liberal. Or a Muslim helping a Jew, or a Jew helping a Muslim. Name the different tribes in our society.
 
Simply helping or loving people of our own kind is not what Jesus is teaching here. Instead, he is saying that truly good love is about acting in ways that cross the lines of difference, of boundaries. Hence, the shock of the parable.
 
My question is, how does such love, such kindness, such compassion rub off? How does it spread?
 
Perhaps the mission of the church is just that: to act in ways that build up and offer the kind of good love the Samaritan showed, to spread it to others.
 
Pastor Andy Kinsey

Our lives are full of stories.  They mold and shape who we are. Even before we are born we are a part of them.  Some have the power to define us. Some can nearly destroy us. Some inspire us to new heights.  Some are loud, rambunctious and full of chaos, crisis, and conflict, while others are quiet, tender and more subtle and calm.  Some of them we can control while others are an animal all their own. Stories that remind us of what matters most and to make the most of what matters.  Stories that become the threads that make up, as the commercial says, “the fabric of our lives.”

Stories help us understand and give us context and vocabulary to make meaning out of what we experience in life.  That is why stories are so powerful and captivate our attention. Because they help us make sense out of all kinds of emotions, situations, and circumstances.  How we relate, connect and find ourselves in a story helps explain how and why we feel what we feel, do what we do, and react the way we react. For this reason, stories are one of if not the most powerful way of learning, connecting, and understanding.  

Jesus knew this and used the power of story to preach, teach, challenge, encourage, and transform the lives of all those who would have ears to hear.  

In Luke 14, we read a fascinating text because in part one, the scene is a wedding party and in Jesus’ day that was the kind of occasion people would vie for a place of honor.  It was their chance to be seen by the who's who of the day. And so we find ourselves either as the one throwing the party or the one attending the party. If we are the host of the party, we are challenged to seek out and recognize those who come with humility and graciousness and give them a place of honor rather than the ones who come with hidden agendas and are only there to rub elbows with the elite. If we are the guest attending the party we are challenged to set aside our desire for personal gain and recognition of our status and put other guests before ourselves.   The lesson being that honor comes through humility and blessing through service.

Luke 14 is an invitation to participate in the very kingdom of God.  This is the moment the Jewish people had been waiting for - the moment God says to them, “I am here, you waiting is over, come and join me, your God, and feast in the long awaited kingdom of God.”

If you haven’t figured it out yet, this story is not about food!  It is a metaphor of what Jesus was and is inviting us to participate in.  The party to which the original guests were invited was Jesus’ kingdom movement, the living breathing Kingdom of God.  It is his remarkable welcome to all people. It is not about food and festivities. It is not about rules and long standing boundaries.  It is not about being at the right table with the right people at the right time or on the right side of the issue.

The great banquet is about a kingdom movement that God, through Jesus was and is leading and calling all people to be a part of.  The point of such an elaborate story, I believe, is to describe, illustrate and make tangible what Jesus was about; what God was offering to all people, and the idea that If people wanted to be included in Jesus’ movement, this is the sort of thing they were joining - a movement in which ALL are welcome to feast on the goodness, mercy, and grace of God through Jesus.

There are a lot of people in churches, denominations and religious organizations struggling to understand who is invited and who is not to the kingdom table of Jesus.  There are a lot of good people on both sides of multiple issues being challenged, ridiculed, ostracized, targeted, pitted against each other, and emotionally torn up over who gets to participate in the kingdom banquet / kingdom movement that Jesus has set in motion and who does not.  

Nowhere in this parable does Jesus say to weed out the guest list; prioritize by gender, financial status, ethnicity, and educational level; measure their value by what they drive, where they live, and who they know; weight their worth by who they love, what party lines they vote, or where they work, if they work.

Jesus tells this story to help us understand that if we want to follow Jesus - if we want to be the believer and church Jesus calls us to be - if we accept his invitation to this great banquet, this kingdom movement, than we better be prepared to dine, to serve, live and learn alongside people who are different than what we expect.  We better recognize God is a God of surprises and the unexpected.

What gives this banquet life are the lives of all those who come - those who respond and have the courage to say, “we may not agree, we may not fully understand, we may have different ideas and explanations BUT Jesus is at the center of all that we are.   

So what would it mean to celebrate God’s kingdom so that the people at the bottom of the pile, at the end of the line, or on the other side of the wall, would find it to be a story of good news and NOT a harsh word of judgement or divisive criticism?  A story of loving our neighbor and not hating or destroying them before ever knowing them?

Can such a story be told?  Will our lives be the ones to tell it?  Will our story here at Grace church be the kind of banquet giving kingdom moving story that Jesus wants us to tell?

With all my heart, I pray it so.  Amen.
Pastor Jenothy Irvine

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Why is that you can hear the words someone says and yet have no idea what they are telling you?  There are times I feel as if I need a vocabulary lesson from our youth director to understand what my teenage boys are saying.  Other times it is as if I am the one talking but by the expressions on their faces, nothing is computing. Does that happen in anyone else's house?  Have you had that experience? Every week when you hear a sermon? Someone shared with me what he calls the, “Do as I mean not as I say” syndrome. Communication is tough.  Even when you know the words it can be difficult to understand. But what if you don’t speak the same language?

Long before any gadget, app, translator's guide, or device was available, something  happened with the small gathering of believers as recorded in Acts 2:1-21. The apostles of Jesus and a gathering of believers had a most amazing experience and encounter, which came to be known as the birthday of the church.  How did those gathered understand what was being said? What did they have in their ears?

It wasn’t so much what was in their ears, as it was what was in their hearts and infused throughout their souls.   It was the apostles filled with the Holy Spirit who on that day launched what is now known as Pentecost. Happy birthday church!

Interesting however that the word church isn’t used in this passage that becomes the mark for the beginning of the church? The word used is ekklesia.  In the Greek the word for church is ekklesia but at the time it had no religious connotation. It only meant an assembly of people. The word did not refer to an institution.  It did not denote an organization. It was not descriptive of a building dedicated to religious ceremonies. An ekklesia was simply a gathering of people. The church then is simply that, people.

Our text says that they were “gathered together.”  This was the first meeting of the ekklesia, the church.  Notice there was no pastor, no elder board, no trustees or finance committee, no board of ordained ministry, no building, no pew, no book of discipline, no hymnals.  Just 120 (if you go back and read chapter one of Acts) people filled with the Spirit.

This is where it gets good!  Ordinary people gathered together.  The founding members of this ekklesia - this gathering - this church - were not the best and the brightest.  They were not high-powered tech wizards or tenured professors at leading universities, or big time power players at roundtable discussions in conference rooms of multinational, multi-billion dollar corporations.
It is imperative for all believers to remember the church is people.  I know we know this and you may be thinking, “ok Pastor, tell me something we don’t know.”  We know it, we pray it, we sing about it, and every week we gather as it, AND YET, so often when we get outside these walls we forget we are still the church!  We are still a gathering of people following the teachings of Jesus. So I say again, the church is people - It is not liturgy or sacraments or great sermons. It is not doctrine of sanctification or theology of holy atonement.  It is not institutions of higher education or even mainline denominations. That all has its place, and it all helps us define who we are, what we do, and what we believe. Those are all ways we practice, grow, remember, organize, keep track of and celebrate being church, but it is not church.  When we forget that, we forget what Jesus was all about in the first place...people.

Today I say to you, let’s do this church.  Let’s accept the mission that sometimes seems impossible in our world today with all its conflict, division, and cynicism, and watch as God makes it possible.  Let’s invite the Spirit to teach us a new language like the day of Pentecost - a new way to speak (and listen) to one another AND to those that others want to silence or ignore.  Let’s take prayerful risks and find new ways to grow and care together even when our fracturing culture and power hungry society tells us to take care of only ourselves. Let’s invite the Spirit to translate the needs of those inside and outside these walls, within and without our denomination and show us what our next steps to be the people God wants us to be.  Let’s do this.

Let’s ask the hard questions and have the tough conversations and live into the answers with love, respect, and kindness.  Let’s trust God with our money, our skills, our relationships, our future as individuals and families, let’s trust God not just with what we know, but what we don’t know.  Let’s be brave AND vulnerable. Let’s be courageous AND compassionate. Let’s be convicted AND kind. Let’s be a gathering of ordinary people and see what extraordinary things God will do with what we give and when we follow.  

Let’s do this Church!  This is our mission, should we choose to accept it. Amen.

Pastor Jenothy Irvine

At the end of John’s First Letter, we see how all the parts come together, focusing more intensely on what the whole Letter is about, or focusing, if you will, on the one color that stands out the brightest, or on the one color that brings clarity to the whole: the color red.

The reason the color red is so important is because it reveals the price of God’s love in conquering sin and death on the cross. (1 John 5:4-5). Jesus’ crucifixion brings victory, but at a cost, the shedding of blood (1 John 5:4). Indeed, at Jesus’ crucifixion, this very victory comes by water, blood, and Spirit: when Jesus dies on the cross, both water and blood come from Jesus’ side (1 John 5:7, John 19:34). But the Spirit also bears witness to these facts. The Spirit testifies to God’s great love for us, and not only for us, but for the whole world (1 John 4:16, John 3:16).

In short, God’s great love is written in red, but it is also drenched in water and soaked in the Spirit (1 John 5:9). The victory we have in Christ is the victory we have received by the One who overcomes sin through death. If we take this piece out of the picture, then the picture doesn’t make sense.

Jesus’ death defeats death. This is the testimony we share. Hopefully, this is the testimony on our hearts (1 John 5:10). God’s love-blood for the world is written in red. Not as show, not as a spectacle, but as a witness, as a reminder, of our own sinfulness and God’s power to forgive it. It comes as way to identify with others, especially those who suffer. It is a love that will not let go.
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Pastor Andy Kinsey

The language of bonding is important. The reason such language is important is because the life of faith is one of perpetual binding or weaving together: we are woven into a covenant community where true love (unselfish and sacrificial love) is what binds us or ties together. It is the kind of love Christ gave us, the kind of love that we find in true friendship, true community, true relationship.

Indeed, that’s how a popular praise song goes: “Bind us together with chords that cannot be broken.” Of course, there is also the old hymn “Blest Be the Tie that Binds, our hearts in Christian love…” Such language of bonding may resonate with us.

I say this because over the last few years I have observed how the bonds that have kept us together – at least as a society – are unraveling. So many things seem to be coming apart. I don’t think I am the only one saying this. More and more, we see the bonds of love and trust broken in government, in the church, in corporate life, even in family life. The ties that bind us together seem to be coming apart, especially when we see that the highest rate of suicide in the Western hemisphere is now in the United States, a symptom if there ever was one of a lack of understanding and compassion, or of broken bonds in our common life together. We also see it in the opioid epidemic. Such breakdowns remind that God created us for relationships, but that such relationships always need to be cultivated.

And so, when we read in First John that God is love we can hopefully realize again that our relationship with God and with each other is about holy and sacrificial love – trusting, believing, “abiding” love. That’s the word John uses – abiding.

“Abiding love” is about a “hanging together” kind of love, or a “learning how to go down the same road together” kind of love, even when the road is difficult. We learn to abide with each other or stay with each other. It is not easy to do, but it is something we are called to do.

How may we continue to abide with each other? If God is love, how may we show such love to others?
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Pastor Andy Kinsey