Presence Requested

Have you ever been summons to appear in court or called to jury duty? Maybe you have received a wedding invitation that requested your presence at a wedding. It always makes me wonder if my presence will really make difference. I really wonder if they really even want me there or was I asked just because of my position or name?

One of the vows that we took when we became members of the United Methodist Church was to surround the church with our presence. But the question is what does this really mean? Does it meant that we should just show up or that we are in attendance? This week we come to "All Saints Day". A day when we honor those who have went before us. The ones that laid the foundation for our faith and our foundation. But these saints are present with us and all the way to the end. We are not quick to forget these who make a difference in our lives. I was once asked to name the top ten people that had a made a difference in my life. All of these people have made me who I am. Some of them were dead and others were alive but they had all been a presence in my life. Who are 5 people in your life that have made a difference in your life? If you make that list, you will definitely see that "you are who you" are because of those who have poured in your life. I think that this is what "presence" it means being a constant not only in the church but also in people's life. When we put on the the person of Christ, we actually become a presence of Christ in someones life. When you read of the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles you see someone who had a presence in everyones life. They became God's presence here on earth. By us being a presence in other people's life we are up holding our vow to present. To be present in good times, in trying times, and in times were it requires us to put all aside and just be there. Be present this Sunday so that you can be present in someones life. That may just make you a "Saint".

This week we started our Stewardship series entitled "Renewing Your Vows". How serious do we take our vows? You know God gave us his vows; but they were called "Covenants". These were promises that God made, that he was incapable of breaking. If "I Am Who I Am" is the case then "My Word Is, Is My Word" rings true as well. God has made us promises so I wander why it is so easy for us to renig on our promises and vows to him? I think that this is attributed to the society that we live in. I had a recent retired business man tell me that he had to get out of the business world because business had changed so much. He said, that when someone used to give you their word it meant that they would follow through. He said that now days no one keeps a promise. I think the same could be said as to why the divorce rate is so high. We took vows for richer or poorer, for better are worse, through sickness and in health, but we really only meant the for richer, for better, and through health aspects. The amazing thing about Wedding Vows is that they are taken in front of God and they are not just something that is part of a ceremony. The vow is a promise with a twist, the twist being that we will do it with Gods help. That is why they are taken in front of God and the whole congregation so that the congregation can also step in and intervene with martial problems.
So if we can not live up to our marital vows then how do we expect to keep the vows we made to uphold our church vows. We are living in a tight economy but it is tight mostly because we have failed to give God our "first fruits". We are always giving God what is left over. This means that we have filled our lives with Idols that are above God. But it is not only our money that we are short changing it is our prayers. We only pray when we need something. We pray like we are writing Santa a wish list. Our prayers surround things that we want and need. the next is our presence. I am amazed at the excuses that I hear when I bump into someone that I have not seen at church for a while. I recently, bumped into someone and asked them about their irregular attendance at church. They gave me a laundry list of excuses. I thought to myself I am glad that God did make excuses. Once again our excuses are no more than "Idols" to God. The thought is why bother with church when there are other options that seem more fun. In essence we are giving God second fruits with our presence. Then there are gifts given to make a living and earn for our family but are rarely given back to God to further the kingdom. That is why they are called God given talents. The same can be said of our service. We may do it out of guilt but rarely if it interferes with any of our scheduled events. We spend our lives scheduling around all the things that we want to do. I can only imagine how fulfilled we would be if we lived out our vows. I hope that through this series we will come to understand how we can take our vows more seriously. In doing so we will strenght not only our realtionship with God but with our family.

Revisiting our Vows

At some point when you joined a congregation you took vows to uphold the church. Not just the congregation that you joined but the holy catholic (which means universal) church that is mentioned in the apostle's creed. In the United Methodist Church when one joins, they promise to uphold the church through their prayer, presence, gifts and service. But what happens over time is that we forget to take these vows seriously. The next 4 weeks we will talk about how we can reengage or engage for the first time to uphold our responsibilities of being a Christian. We will look at how stewardship is more than just giving of your money. When we take stewardship seriously we make it an act of worship and not just an obligation that we are tied too. Christ gave all that he had for us and then in turn he only asked for 10% of our money. But what about our time and what about the prayer, the presence, and service. Have we made stewardship a priority in our life? If we were to take these vows seriously we would understand just what God can do with us. You know that we take the requirements to join a country club or civic organization more serious than we do the vows that we have taken before God. I think that part of this is the lack of education to what upholding our vows entails. Let's make stewardship a total life commitment that reached into every aspect of our beings.

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Matthew 22:1-14
1Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2"The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. 4"Then he sent some more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.' 5"But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. 6The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. 8"Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.' 10So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11"But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless. 13"Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' 14"For many are invited, but few are chosen."
Have you ever been invited to a party that you did not want to go to? You look at the invitation and you begin to come up with every excuse you could possibly come up with in order to not go. Today, we have the story of a great wedding invitation. God has given us an invitation to come to his banquet and yet we continue to refuse. We spend a lot of time in our life making excuses for not attending the things that God has invited us too. I have often wondered why we spend all our time running from God when he has spent his life running toward us. He sent the greatest invitation of all he sent his only son. We make every excuse that we can in order to push God to the side. Why do we constantly turn down God's invitations, because we are scared that the things that we are holding so tightly too will be taken away. What we do not understand is when we say yes to God's invitation, we learn what we have been missing.
But the catch to this whole parable is that one is thrown out for not wearing the right clothing. So often we hear the statement come as you are but in this parable: God lets us know that there is a dress code. But these are not garments that you shop for in a department store. These are the garments of salvation and the righteousness of Christ. We cannot expect to attend God's Kingdom bash with the rags we have in our closets. These are the rags of self-importance, self-righteousness, self-conceit, and if we attend with this dress code violation we'll get bounced out of the event on our cans. God has sent you an invitation and my advice is that you RSVP today. You will be glad you attended.