The Missing Masses!

Crowds are a big deal today.  If there is a crowd, something amazing is usually happening. If you’re looking for a party at someone’s home, we know to just “look for the cars.”  Where there are cars, there’s undoubtedly a crowd!  And, crowds create curiously.  We used to play a trick of getting a group of people together and then start pointing up toward the sky and then chattering among ourselves.  Point, and chatter, point and chatter.  Every time we did this in public, people would stop, move our way and a crowd would gather and start looking up too.    

 

Some crowds are good and some are bad.  Crowds at your local surfing spot – bad.  A crowd at Disney means long lines - bad.  But, crowds at church, that’s good.  Last Sunday in every Christian church around the world, there were unusually big crowds.  Sanctuaries and sunrise waterfronts were filled with masses of people.      
 

Why do they show up in mass?  You know, Christ-mass, Easter-mass.  Traditionally in all churches the two “masses” are always the most highly mass-attended worship services of the year.  Then the next week, it’s on to the other tradition within the church: “low Sunday.” 

 

If it was crowded last week it must have meant something really good must have been happening within.  Maybe some just saw the cars and turned into the church parking lot to check it all out.  But the following Sunday, we’re missing the masses.  What happened?  Did Elvis, I mean Jesus, leave the building?

 

What should the church do?  Offer discounts for membership on mass-less Sunday’s?  O darn, I forgot, we don’t charge for that!  Maybe the church could bring in a top celebrity for a book signing?  The Holy Spirit always needs a little exposure.  I know there are always crowds when the lottery gets really big.  Maybe we hold a lottery for an all expense paid trip to the Holy land or the pastor’s back yard pool?  I guess the church could try the chatter and look up tick to see if people might crowd around to see “it” for themselves!  There must be some way to get the crowds back?

 

Jesus had crowds, giant life-hungry crowds. And, they kept coming back even when there wasn’t a live band, good parking, or hot food.  Maybe we are missing something?  If you want to know the secret to having masses of crowds who engage an authentic life through Jesus, join us this Sunday when we explore The Missing Masses!

 

The Most Famous Person to Ever Live?

If there were a world-wide poll held today, who do you believe would be voted the most famous person on the planet?  The Pope? Barack Obama? Vladimir Putin?  Once you answer that question, here is an even better one: who is the most famous person to ever live?  Socrates, Buddha, Leonardo Da Vinci, Einstein?

Today, fame and notoriety have become the “call of the wild” on a global scale.  Maybe it’s always been that way, but with Instagram, selfies, Twitter and 24 hour electronic connections, you can be known in a millisecond for good, for bad and for very ugly stuff.

However, historically you didn’t need 21^st century technology to become famous.  You just did something amazingly-spectacular which most often had world-wide affects or ramifications.  Believe it or not, in reports about the recent “God” and “Jesus” themed movies now being released, I have heard several well-known (famous) TV personalities, in reasoning out Hollywood’s new found fascination with Jesus say, “Why not? He’s the most famous person who ever lived.”  And, it’s true; Jesus tops every list as the most famous person who ever lived.

At this time of year it seems more okay or reasonable or acceptable to talk about Jesus.  We get the same treatment at Christmas.  It’s like the secular world gives us a “pass” during these season.  And this is true, but why?  At this time of year it seems to be centered on his passion and death.  That’s what most of the movies focus on.  And that seems right too.

Often, the most famous people become even more elevated in history because of the mysterious, extraordinary, or bizarre circumstances connected with their death.  Although profoundly famous for what they were doing during their life, they receive “elite status” and become even more famous for the way they died.

 Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy did wonderful and historic things, but we seem even more drawn to their story – at least what keeps their stories alive – by the sensational and very mysterious way they died.  Princess Diana's funeral on 6 September 1997 was broadcast and watched by an estimated 3.5 billion people worldwide.

Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger could all fall into this category.  But I wonder if we would see them the same - if history would look upon in with the same level of renown - if they had grown to a ripe old, wrinkles and grey haired age and then simply died quietly in their sleep?

Jesus is at the top of the list of  sensational, famous-making, deaths.  But that is not what made him the most famous person to ever live.  Maybe it was his teaching?  Maybe it was his radical social reforms?  Maybe it was all the miracles?  He turned water into wine, calmed hurricane-force winds, he fed thousands with a sandwich, and he raised people from the dead!  We haven’t seen that one on Instragram! 

So, it has to be his death, right?  You can’t get more sensational than the archetypal image of being crucified. Surely the cross is the most famous symbol the world has ever known.   But, that is not what garners Jesus' top position even by secular standards, as the most famous person to ever live.  If you’d like to know the answer, join us in our Sunday worship at MWPC.

 

“Phantom Wisdom That’s Never Right!”

It happens to everyone’s parents.  Soon or later, they start to lose it intellectually.  One day we awoke only to find them, well, dumb!  Don’t misunderstand, I am not talking about dementia or Alzheimer’s at all.  The funny thing is that it’s not related to their age at all, but ours. 

Can you remember when you started thinking that your parent(s) were just a little behind the times -- that you clearly knew more and understood more than they did?  Somewhere between the age of 12 and 18 we discovered the secret - that in this short amount of time, our brains had developed far beyond that of the parents who birthed us.  This secret “phantom knowledge” is almost miraculous.  We didn’t have to go to school for it, and we have no degree as proof of our accomplishment.  But, somewhere, somehow it became abundantly clear that we were smarted and knew more about how to live life than they did. 

Time has a way of turning life on its head.  It’s funny that as some of us are getting older, we see our own IQ diminishing while that of our parents has increased – even though they may have already died.  Could it be that we may not have been as smart as we once thought?  And it all has to do with one particular aspect of sin called pride, because the sin associated with pride is what produces phantom wisdom!

Five weeks ago we began our current series “If God is so good why we feel so bad.”  And we began with some FAQ’s like: Why are we like we are?  Why do we do the very things that seem to hurt ourselves, our relationship with our neighbors and our relationship with God?  And I said then, if we are willing to dig into that question, all the questions about God make more sense.  In doing so we discovered we are not the way we are supposed to be.  This Sunday, we will see how the sin of pride has produced in us phantom wisdom which renders us unteachable, dumbing us down and trapping us in continual error and folly.

  

Here's the problem. Pride is an aspect of sin which invites us to supplant God’s wisdom for our own.  Like the prodigal son in Jesus’ parable, we are more than happy to oblige because we are pretty sure we know what’s best for us, and we would very much like to make those important choices ourselves. 

Unfortunately, this gives us the illusion of knowledge or “phantom wisdom” which we employ in all our life decisions.  Milton, in Paradise Lost, wrote that “A proud person tires to reinvent reality.  He tries to redraw the borders of human behavior to suit himself, displacing God as the Lord and boundary keeper of Life.”  In John 8:34  Jesus says,  “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin” so now through sin - we have become a slave to phantom wisdom - bound by its mastery over our thinking which then directs our life.  Worst of all, by believing our own phantom wisdom, we find we are know-it-alls which render us unteachable even to God.  

Phantom wisdom actually dumbs us down, and when we find we have messed up, we keep on pushing forward.  But, we would build on folly would we?

  

We have all heard of the Hubble telescope that was launched in 1990.  It is known for producing the best imagery of the universe ever known, but not at first. Huston had a small problem at the beginning of Hubble's creation.  They worked 12 hours a day for five years to grind the reflective mirrors, key to the clarity of the device.  

 They ground the mirrors to perfection within one millionth of an inch.   But in the process, a minute micro chip of paint flecked off a measure rod. That error, which was 25 times smaller the width of the human hair, rendered the Hubble telescope a useless failure.  They had to start over and make repairs.  Pride keeps us from the very repair we need.  It may seem minute to us, but from God's view we are way out of focus. 

We can’t improve on wrong! We can’t improve our way out of sin, but there is reason for great hope.   This Sunday, we will hear this way of hope as we conclude our series.  You may gather with us or hear the message from our web site www.mwpcusa.org.