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Welcome to Alachua First Presbyterian Church!
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We're glad you found us online!
Please join us for worship, Sundays at 10:30 a.m.
Click here for directions.
First Presbyterian Church of Alachua
14623 NW 140th Street
Alachua, Florida Food 4 Kids - click here
(386) 462-1549
presfirst@hometc.com
Rev. Virginia McDaniel, Pastor
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It's Not All About You!
June 21, 2009
First Presbyterian Church of Alachua
A sermon preached by the Rev. Virginia Ann McDaniel
READ: Romans 12:1-10 and Luke 14:7-11
In the 1920s an American named Bruce Barton wrote a book about Jesus entitled, The Man Nobody Knows. Barton, who was an advertising executive, portrayed Jesus as the founder of a successful modern corporation. According to Barton’s (imaginative) view, Jesus was a regular go-getter. Jesus had picked up twelve quite ordinary men from the bottom ranks of business and forged them into an organization that conquered the world! Barton’s Jesus was virile, youthful, successful… a back-slapping man about town. It was Jesus the businessman.
Bruce Barton’s book is now more than 80 years old, but his Jesus seems very contemporary. Many North American Christians behave as if they were following that Jesus. Success and the pursuit of happiness is the first thing on our minds. Many of us are… or have been… in hot pursuit of success. We pursue success through education. Late nights, coffee and No-Doz, all in hot pursuit of the happiness than good grades and a good education can bring. Later we pursue success through our careers and professions. We pour in our time and energy, still in hot pursuit of the wealth, financial security, and status that successful people expect as their reward. And so we like the Bruce Barton type of Jesus, go-getter Jesus, who looks our direction and nods his head with approval. Go for it!
If that picture sounds laughably out of date, consider that a more recent author, Laurie Beth Jones, offered her own version of Jesus the successful entrepreneur about 10 years ago in a book called Jesus, CEO. Don’t laugh—it was on the bestseller list for months when it was first published. Here’s how the author interprets John 10:10, where Jesus says, “I came that they might have life and have it abundantly.”
Many times leaders and managers expect their employees to leap through the flames for them but do not define what the purpose or reward might be. Then [those same managers] wonder why nobody is leaping. As Harry Pickens, a marketing seminar leader, said, “People are tuned in to one station: WIFM. And those letters stand for “What’s in it for me.”
Jesus isn’t like those managers. Jesus, Jones writes, clearly defined his staff’s work-related benefits.
But in Mark 9, Jesus isn’t talking success. Jesus was not demonstrating some principle about year-end bonuses, stock options, or 401(k) matching. Jesus has just shocked his disciples with the news that he is going to die. Jesus does indeed answer their “What’s in it for me?” questions… those who follow him will share in his betrayal, suffering and death.
Now how is a success-oriented person supposed to square suffering with the idea of kicking out the Romans and ruling as one of Jesus’ chief deputies? What kind of career path is that? For Jesus’ disciples, suffering didn’t fit with the way they envisioned the future. There is a fundamental incompatibility between dusty sandals and polished wingtips, between a crown of thorns and designer clothes, between a cross and a Cross pen. I can easily imagine their discomfort. They decide, I guess, that it’s better not even to ask Jesus what he’s talking about.
So, instead, Jesus’ disciples launch into a heated discussion about which of them is the greatest… a perfect topic for people who want to find out how they are doing in the race for success and the pursuit of happiness. Today a “who’s the greatest” discussion might begin with such seemingly innocent questions as:
• “So where are you going for vacation this summer?”
• “Where do you work?”
• “Where did you get your degree?”
• “Are you still on your diet?”
• “How old was your precious Calvin when he was finally potty trained?”
• “What’s your cell phone plan?”
• “You don’t use a computer?!?!”
If you haven’t asked one of those questions, you’ve probably been asked! Contemporary disciples are as accomplished as the first twelve in avoiding the topic of what self-sacrifice has to do with following Jesus. We, too, would rather argue over who is the greatest.
Jesus could have been devastated by their crassness in response to his announcement that his death was imminent, by the fact that they seemed only to care about “what’s in it for me.” But he wasn’t. Jesus recognized that selfishness and self-interest dominate most human relationships and had moved well beyond their failure long before they had. In fact, nothing seemed to bother Jesus much about his friends… not when Martha thought kitchen chores were more important than conversing with him, not when Peter denied him at trial, not when Thomas doubted his resurrection.
What we might learn from Jesus is not that he is a model CEO but that he didn’t lace his relationships with expectations, and he refused to be trapped by the expectations that others had of him. He didn’t tell people all they wanted to know. He didn’t heal people just to prove how powerful he was. Many misunderstood Jesus, and others got angry with him when he refused to meet their expectations. But Jesus just kept loving them as they were, gently pointing them to the truth and letting them decide whether to come along with him or not. He refused to manipulate or coerce people, even for their own good.
Have you heard the expression, “Expectations are disappointments waiting to happen”? We sabotage our relationships when we impose expectations on others or when we vainly attempt to meet others’ expectations of us. The problem with living that way is that it’s impossible. It can’t be done. People who live with expectations will never be satisfied. Feeling disappointed is the surest clue that you are a captive to expectations. Have you ever heard your little inner voice say something like, “If he really loved me, he wouldn’t have…” Or, “After all I’ve done for them, you’d think they’d show a little more appreciation!” instead of letting our disappointments rage at whoever has not done what you think they should, Jesus suggests another way, another way of loving one another.
We’ve been looking at the “one anothers” of the New Testament. Today our word is “Honor one another.”If we want to model our relationships on those that Jesus had with his closest followers, the apostle Paul suggests that we should “not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think,” and instead “outdo one another in showing honor.”
Honoring others simply means to watch out for their well-being and being willing to put their needs ahead of our own. Paul tells us that the stronger we are in faith, the freer we will be to defer to the needs of the weaker. Now, you might ask, that’s a noble ideal, but how well can it really work in an institution like the church? All our procedures are set up to make sure that the stronger lead us in the right way, so those who are weaker can’t ruin it. Any other way would result in chaos, right?
While that might appear to be true in the corporate world, the Christian church, happily, is not a modern corporation. Jesus was more concerned with building healthy relationships than creating a successful business. Entering a room and not insisting on what we want but being ready to help others get what they need is the essence of genuine Christian love.
Can you imagine what life in the church would look like if everyone sought to outdo each other in showing honor? That’d be a different kind of competition than we usually see! It would revolutionize the world. The sad truth that Jesus recognized hundreds of years before the birth of capitalism and a consumer-oriented culture is that as long as we focus on meeting our own needs, we will miss the freedom of preferring others. The self-centered will never know the joy of taking the last place in line at a potluck, helping to make sure every mess is cleaned up before they leave, caring more about how someone heart it than how they said it, nor sacrificing a personal want for someone else’s need.
***
A few years ago heavy rains caused widespread flooding in the Dakotas and Minnesota. When the good folks from the Congregational Church of Norwell, Massachusetts, sought to help a sister church in Granite Falls, Minnesota, they got an unexpected response. “We’ll be all right,” replied their pastor, “but the little Presbyterian church on the Dakota Sioux Indian reservation across the river needs help.”
So eleven members from the Norwell church spent three days over Labor Day weekend cleaning and repairing the little Pejuhitazizi Presbyterian Church, and then gave the church a check to help with further repairs and replacement of the furnishings.
On their way home, the group from Massachusetts finally visited the Granite Falls Congregational Church—and were astonished at what they found! More than two feet of water still stood in the building. The Sunday School rooms and church kitchen were ruined. Yet the folks from the Granite Falls church had sent the work group elsewhere. Why? Because, they explained, the need across the river was greater than their own need.
***
Can you imagine how people who honor others above themselves would make God’s love known in a self-centered world? It can happen so simply. When God has so satisfied you that you can trust God completely to fulfill every hunger in your life, you are ready to experience the depths of this kind of one-anothering. As you get set this morning to go back into the work-a-day world of the coming week, we all know how easy it is to get caught up in the quest to fill our own needs. We know how easily we are sucked into discussions about who has the highest definition, the most megabytes, the newest toy. Don’t be afraid, Jesus assures us. I’m not going to cut you from my team of disciples. But focus your attention on helping those with little status and great need. I will be there. I will be so pleased to accept your love.
A sermon preached at the First Presbyterian Church of Alachua
by the Rev. Virginia Ann McDaniel
Who we are...
We nourish spirits:
In addition to inspiring services every Sunday we offer several special services throughout the year… Thanksgiving eve, candlelight Christmas Eve, Maundy Thursday supper, Good Friday and others. Adult education takes place on Sundays before worship and Thursdays at noon.
We nourish our local community:
Following in the small town tradition of the church as community center, our buildings are used for Girl Scout meetings, support groups for Alzheimers Caregivers, Alcoholics Anonymous, and others. More importantly, we have been the catalyst for bringing together the community to help children in need through our Food4Kids program.
We nourish our wider community:
Whether through special offerings or as part of our annual budget, we support disaster relief and development projects around the world as well as providing food and clothing for needy families right here in Alachua.
We nourish bodies:
Of course, we could be the most loving and food-oriented community of faith you’ll find. In addition to delicious Fellowship Hour repasts each Sunday, we enjoy frequent luncheons and covered dish suppers, picnics, pie socials…and let’s not overlook the annual Easter egg toss!
Food 4 Kids of Alachua
Hunger and under-nutrition contribute to a number of negative health issues and can seriously impact a child's ability to learn.
Food 4 Kids of Alachua is a pilot program during 2008-2009, in partnership with Alachua Elementary School, to provide hungry children with food each weekend during the school year.
Every Friday, children who participate in the program will take a home a backpack on wheels with food for the children in that family. Every Monday they return the backpack to the school empty.
Contact Rev. McDaniel to learn how you can help.
Remember...
- You can sponsor one child for $6 a week
- You can sponsor a family for a contribution of $20 a week
What goes into a backpack:
- canned meat (tuna, chicken, etc.)
- canned pasta
- canned soup
- canned vegetables or beans
- milk (shelf-stable)
- juice boxes
- macaroni and cheese (boxed)
- pudding cups
- fruit cups
- peanut butter
- cereal (single-serving boxes)
- snack bars
- cheese or peanut butter crackers
Newsletter
MARCH 2009
“Did you ever look inside yourself and see what you are not?” the crippled daughter in one of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories shouts at her spiritually crippled mother.
Ouch! Hurtful words! But sometimes it takes the insight of someone close to us to help us see the truth about ourselves… the plain unvarnished truth. Our lack of self-honesty is the same problem that Jesus identified when he asked, “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own?”
Lent is the season for spring cleaning, for a thorough scouring of the soul. Our self-indulgent culture looks upon this path as unattractive, unnecessary and certainly inconvenient. But the spirit of truth does not seek comfort. The purpose of Lent is to create a healthy hatred for what is evil and a passionately felt need for God’s grace.
Robert Herrick, a 17th century poet, wrote these striking lines in “To Keep a True Lent.”
Is this a Fast, to keep
the larder lean?
And clean
From fat of veal and sheep?
Is it to quit the dish
of flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with fish?
Is it to fast an hour,
Or ragg’d to go,
Or show
A down-cast look and sour?
No: ‘tis a Fast to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat
And meat
With the hungry soul.
It is to fast from strife
And old debate,
And hate;
To circumcise thy life.
To show a heart grief-rent;
To starve thy sin,
Not bin;
And that’s to keep thy Lent.
Herrick was certainly right in moving the direction of Lent away from the medieval idea of “mortifications of the flesh” — fasting, hair shirts, dour faces, and all tha,. But he stopped short of what I see as the true reason to keep “a true Lent,” which is not to starve one’s sin, but to get rid of it! Then, with faces shiny clean and eyes full of hope, we may face the cross and truly see God.
God knows how hard this journey is and that is why our theme for Lent will be “bread for the journey.”
May the love of God, which gives life to the world, sustain you.
May the bread of life, Jesus Christ, feed you with the food that endures.
May the power of God’s spirit nourish you and strengthen you in faith.
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