It’s all about me, me, me.

Good morning, my name is Ray Huff and I am here because Pastor Elkin is enjoying heaven on earth as he sees his grandson for the first time. Pastor and I decided earlier in the year that Lou Kolb would deliver the sermon this week and Pastor Shipman would cover next week. I love to listen to Lou and I’m sure that you do as well. So, if you came for Pastor Elkin, I’m sorry to disappoint you. If you came to listen to the one person who surely has a voice from God, you’re really in for a disappointment because Lou is ill, but getting slowly better. Bottom line, I found out on Thursday that I would be the sub for the sub.

So I did all of the appropriate things. I looked through all of Pastor’s sermons concerning John 17: 6-19 and found that they were very personal ones involving his various experiences in other congregations and his trips to the Holy Land. I then did a lot of surfing on the internet and found stuff, including the sermon enclosed on the blue paper. I brought it home and Cindy read it and thought it was long and not very clear. She’s was absolutely right on that one. Plus, it was really looong.

In the past I would usually spend a lot of time writing a speech and then toss it and just make a new one up as I would go along. That’s what I’m going to do again today. So, if you want to read a very good sermon by a really smart person at your leisure, the sermon in blue is just for you.

What I get out of the scripture lesson is that Jesus is praying for his disciples because they, like Jesus, do not belong to the world. They had previously belonged to the world with all of its sin and rebellion against God. But the Father chose them to bring glory to the Son through their sharing in all that Jesus is and has achieved. And Jesus prays for them and for their safety. Not just any safety as we would pray for our children, but for protection from all that Satan will throw at them, and us, to take us off of our divine path. And thus we are sanctified because we are set apart for God, and alienated from the world.

Does alienated from the world mean that we are aliens? No, but let’s look at the idea of being a resident alien. Abraham spent a lot of time on the move. So did the Hebrews in Egypt. Ruth went to Moab to escape famine. Scripture shows over and over that we at times are visitors rather than those belonging to a particular place. So, perhaps we as Christians don’t exactly own things here; because our “here on Earth” is temporary. We are stewards and tenants of the things that God has given us.

The world (and Satan is happily playing accompaniment on this song) tells us to Do what we want…grab as much as we can…if it feels good, do it. It’s all about me, me, me.

The church, our church, our world, tells us that we are in the world, but not of it. It is all about the praise of God and the care of our neighbor. One of my favorite movies is Witness. It has Harrison Ford starring as a police officer living with the Amish in Lancaster. Talk about people helping their neighbors in all that they do. How long would it take us to build a barn and all of the relationships with their neighbors and their God? Great movie, great theme.

Okay, we like electricity, cars and the good stuff that we have and don’t want to go as far as the Amish do. We can still go far. Carl Hieber has assisted in dental missions in Africa. He has been honoring God and helping people in great need. On behalf of the congregation, I’d like to thank Carl for this.

But we may not be able to or want to go to Africa. We don’t have to! We can do things much closer to home. Family Promise gives us a chance to give some Christian care to those who are perhaps ignored by the world. Committees in the church give us an opportunity to care for each other and those outside the walls of the church.

Our families are a gift from God. We always worry about our children, and then when that’s over, we get to worry all over again about our grandchildren. We hope that what we’ve done to raise them in the faith will arm them against all that the world and Satan will throw against them. Satan has lots of new enticements these days…cable TV, the internet, growing acceptance of the idea that anything goes. I’m glad that I’m old, but I pray for our children and grandchildren. God chose them for us and I think that they are out of this world. I hope that they stay that way. That’s my prayer and I’ll bet it’s yours too. Feel free to say amen with me. Amen!

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.