We’ve had several people associated with our church infected, but they were wise and avoided the church both before they were diagnosed and after. Call them up and ask them for their testimonies of how bad this virus is. And pray for them to recover.
I’ve also talked with people who don’t seem to understand one thing about the virus. Perhaps they were notified that they had been exposed – and they went to get tested. And then, there are people who seem to think that they aren’t contagious until they get that positive report back. NO! If you have been exposed, you need to assume that you are contagious until you get that negative report, so you can protect others that you love from danger. A key reason the virus is spreading is that people assume they can’t spread the virus until they get that positive result. No, you can start spreading the virus the day after you get exposed. And because people are waiting until they test positive, the number of cases continues to increase day after day.
Folks, it is not safe to go out. Go online and order your groceries be delivered. Sam’s will deliver groceries and medicines. Stay away from crowded stores. Sanitize your hands after you get back in the car, even if you just filled up your car with gas.
Our plan right now is to continue holding Sunday services just as we are because you have been so good to wear your masks, to not hug, to sit apart. But if you don’t feel comfortable, please stay home and watch on Facebook or listen to the 9 AM service on V96.9. One day we will be able to hug each other again without fear. But that day, according to the most optimistic estimates, is sometime around May or June. We’ve waited 2000 years for the return of Christ – surely we can wait 6 months for the return of normal church. Until then, our tech and worship teams will continue to bring you the best services we can. Until then, call those people in the directory and pray with them.
Well, the election appears to be over. I realize that most of you were disappointed with the outcome of the presidential election – but recognize that some of your friends are happy about the outcome. Most of you are happy with the outcome of the elections in West Virginia – but some are not happy. Regardless of which way you are feeling, the important thing is this: In general, the overwhelming number of people were able to express their opinion on each of the candidates, and, despite the accusations, the slander, the possibility of outright fraud – all of which we hear every election – those smart people who were elected to their offices know the truth about what and who the voters preferred, and that, combined with the knowledge that there will be another election in two years – that is what keeps our governments from going too far, year after year. It is the sure knowledge that the voters must be faced that keeps our government officials in line.
Some pastors will portray a given election as a fight between the godly and the ungodly; I’ve grown up in a political family and I know better. For there are godly men and women on both sides – and scoundrels on both sides. There are always men and women who are out for their own ambitions – and there are always those men and women who are truly sacrificing their time because they feel they are doing good.
And just like in all walks of life, in all businesses, in all professions – some of the politicians are honest and competent – and others are stupid and liars. The problem we voters always face, of course, is that sometimes the liars are the smart ones while the honest ones are the stupid, incompetent ones. Telling the difference is our job, it is where our God-given wisdom must come in.
The Apostle Paul, who lived at the time of the Emperor’s Nero and Caligula says in Romans 13 that “the authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.” Paul, who lived during the times of some of the harshest, most corrupt leaders ever seen, is telling Christians to obey the rulers. What should we do, when even the most suspicious of believe that this election was essentially a tie, when the arguments over the votes are over who won three or four states by 1% or less?
We need to accept that half the nation voted one way and half voted the other way and accept the results – and vote again in two years. Our leaders need to accept this also, and govern accordingly. This is not a situation where two-thirds of the people preferred one candidate over the other. No, this was essentially a tie – just like the results were essentially a tie four years ago. We will vote again in two years. Election power only holds for two years, four years at most, for even senators with six year terms can quickly find that they are in the minority if they overstep what they promised the voters.
But Jesus never dealt with the short-term issues of government. Jesus worried about thousand year periods and eternity. He never called for the Roman Empire to be destroyed – He called for individual people in the Empire to follow His teachings and put their primary allegiance to Him and His Father. And so, after 200 years, an Emperor conquered the Empire with the cross as his banner – Constantine the Great – and founded a great city, Constantinople, which eventually became even more important than Rome and became the capital of the Empire.
And after Constantine, the Roman Empire remained Christian for the next 1200 years until the great capital of Constantinople was defeated by the Moslem Turks in 1453. The city was renamed Istanbul. But by that time, Christianity was spreading across the remainder of the world. Jesus always looked at the long term, never worrying about the short-term, for He knew that He would win in the long term.
In fact, Jesus specifically told parables about the kingdom of heaven, and what people in the kingdom should do while awaiting His return. After talking about the destruction of Jerusalem, which was almost 40 years in the future, Jesus told a series of parables, like the one last week about the ten virgins who fell asleep.
This week, He tells us another parable, a teaching story.
The kingdom is like a man who, going on a journey, called three servants to him. To one, he gave 5 talents of gold, five bags worth about $2.5 million. Another he gave two bags or a million dollars to. The third, he gave just a half-million dollars worth of gold to. Jesus says he gave to each according to his ability.
And so, the first two put the money to work and doubled their investments. But the third dug a whole in the ground and hid the owner’s money.
Then, “after a long time”, the owner returned and settled accounts. The first two were commended for their excellent work and were put in charge of even more things.
But the third man when he returned his single bag of gold, sad that he was afraid of losing the gold, so he had buried it. And the owner scolded him for not at least putting it in the bank where it would have earned interest. He called him “wicked and lazy.”
And he took the bag of gold from him and gave it to the first man who had doubled his gold from 5 to ten bags so he now had eleven bags. And Jesus uses this phrasing: “For whoever has will be given more and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
So what does this mean?
Jesus is the owner. He has given each of us gifts – talents and treasure and time. And He expects that we will put those gifts to work for His purposes, like any good servant should. In fact, the word translated as “servant” is more properly translated as “slave”. We are to take Jesus’ gifts and immediately put them to work for the kingdom, spreading the Good News of Jesus’ sacrifice and His promises for us to everyone we encounter.
What has Jesus given us? Perhaps you understand office work, perhaps you are a whiz at marketing, at advertising, at public relations. Maybe you can write, maybe you can speak or produce a video. Maybe you absolutely love to talk on the telephone or write letters to people to cheer them up. Perhaps you can teach our older members how to find our Facebook Livestream on their phones or computers. Maybe you can cook or bake and can take food to people who have trouble cooking or baking on their own. Maybe you can fix cars or build handicap ramps. Maybe you can repair furnaces or maybe you just have been blessed with an abundance of money that you could donate to cover our expenses or buy the new set of microphones we need. Maybe you can pray daily for me for doors to be opened and for my protection and the protection of others. Perhaps you are able to come in to the church once a week and fold bulletins or straighten up the sanctuary. Maybe you can help the video and sound booth guys so they have a backup person. Maybe you can deliver Bibles to people who need them. Maybe you can play a guitar.
You see, we are working hard to accomplish Jesus’ mission, to grow His investment in us – those bags of gold are worth far more than gold, for those bags of gold are souls that will live forever. Our task as the church is to lead more people into the kingdom of heaven. Those who do so will be rewarded in the next life. They will be put in charge of many things.
But there are always some people who are like the third servant. There are always people who choose to set aside the gifts Jesus has given them, burying them out of fear they will lose them. They are misers, perhaps of money, but perhaps of their talents. And that is sad, for Jesus makes it clear that He does not want us to simply sit on the gifts He has given us. We are to do something with the gifts Jesus has given us.
You know, in farm country, particularly up north where it gets very cold in the winters, cattle are often kept in a large barn during the winter. And farmers have to bring them hay and remove the results of the cattle’s digestion from the farm. They often pile those results into a large pile, a pile of manure.
Then, in the spring, that winter’s pile is spread on the fields because that will make the fields more productive. For some reason, none of the farmers like to keep that pile of manure year-after-year. Because, kept in a pile, manure is worthless, like gold buried in the ground. It is only when it is spread around that it is worth something. Have you been keeping your gifts from Jesus buried in the ground, piled up like a pile of manure? Or have you been spreading your gifts around so they can grow something, like the kingdom of heaven?
Perhaps all we can do is make phone calls to other church members – then we should be making phone calls, checking up on our friends, cheering them up, reminding them that Jesus is still there even in this time of COVID. Perhaps you can see a family down the street from you. Can you call them once a week and lead the conversation toward prayer and God and Christ? It could make an eternal difference in their lives. Remember that we are running a marathon and not a sprint. Jesus doesn’t expect overnight success – He always plans for the long term.
We once lived in New Jersey in an apartment complex. This was many years before we were pastors, back in the early 90’s. We met the woman who lived upstairs, an older, single woman, about ten years older than we were. She had never married, she had a dog, and few friends. When she was a girl, she had attended a Catholic church, but she had not attended church in thirty years, since she was in college. We talked with her; Saundra and her became close friends. We moved to Georgia, but continued to talk with her over the phone. She developed diabetes, the diabetes gradually destroyed her kidneys. We prayed with her; she visited a couple times. We moved to Ohio. She made quilts for our children. We continued to talk over the phone; she asked us for prayers when her dog died. We gave her a new puppy a few months later. She ended up in a nursing home; we prayed with her and we were there the day she walked out of the nursing home. Notice I don’t say we prayed for her – we prayed WITH her. She went on dialysis; We prayed. She finally got a transplant. She talked a lot about God with Saundra. She lived another few years, but one night she died in her sleep, but she was on good terms with God again. All this over a period of 25 years. For the gifts Jesus gives us are for a long term investment, a marathon we run beside others. If it weren’t for this long-developed friendship, it is doubtful that this woman would ever have come back to God.
That’s how we use the bags of gold that Jesus gave us. We invest our gifts in other people and their lives and we gradually lead them to God.
A few months ago I asked you to make a list of a dozen people you know who probably don’t have a good relationship with God or Jesus. I asked you to pray for them regularly and I asked you to try to talk with them weekly or at least monthly and mention God or Jesus or a sermon in the conversation. Are you still doing that? That is investing in the kingdom for Jesus, and it is something anyone can do, it doesn’t take a special skill or any money. Yet it can make a great difference as we invest in friendships that lead people to Christ.
Did you notice what happened to the servant who buried his talent? The master had him thrown in the darkness, many translations say, into the “outer darkness”.
Remember last week when I described how dark it was in ancient Israel, with no streetlights, no electricity, only fire, the stars, the moon, and simply olive oil lamps to light the night? When there is a wedding, everyone brings their lamps to the center of town for the festivities – and if someone is acting in an unacceptable way, they are thrown into the outer darkness, the darkness outside the town where it is dark, dark, dark. Jesus says those who bury their talents and don’t invest in the kingdom will be tossed into the outer darkness, away from the great marriage feast of Jesus and His church. They will be in the dark, all alone, away from God and all the good people, out where the jackals and wolves roam, where bandits slink around, where trouble lurks. Don’t be one of these people who focus solely upon your own needs – invest in the kingdom. Stay in the light.
Folks, take what Jesus has given you, whether a simple skill, a fancy talent, or simply some cash, and use it to grow the kingdom of God. Christianity is not a spectator sport – it is a time for “all hands on deck”, for the storms of the dark time are coming, it is time to spread the Gospel to a new generation of people who have not heard that Gospel. As long as we are working to tell the Gospel story to new people, we will be in the light, living a life of joy, for it is remarkable and wonderful when a soul that has been walking in darkness sees the light that you are carrying! It is time to make new friends and tell them of the love of Jesus!
It is time to tell them that Jesus claimed to be God walking on the earth, that He was crucified for this claim, and that he arose from the dead three days later and then was seen by over 500 people in at least eleven appearances, he talked, he walked, people touched Him, they ate with Him and He even prepared breakfast for a group of friends. And so, through His resurrection, God proved that Jesus’ claims to be God were true and therefore, everything He said was of immense value, underlined and in bold. Jesus’ words are mostly recorded in the first four books of the New Testament, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
If you want to know more about this, contact us through our Facebook page at Cedar Grove United Methodist Church or join us any Sunday at our live service at 10:30 AM, just across from WVU Parkersburg. Remember to wear a mask.
In the meanwhile, invest your time and your talents and your money to grow the Kingdom of Heaven. And one day, you too may hear, as the first two servants did, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You were faithful over a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Share your master’s joy!’”
Amen?
Father God,
I pray for the people of this church and all those watching and listening online and on the FM radio. I pray especially for those who have been feeling isolated or left behind. Let them feel Your presence beside them every day. Help them learn to listen to Your Holy Spirit and read Your Holy Scriptures, so they will recognize You have been with them every day and are ready to refill their lamps of faith every evening to allow them to travel through the long night, with bright lamps even at the end!
This we pray in the name of Jesus the Christ, Your Son. Amen
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