It has been quite a week at Lake Woebegone.  If you are not familiar with Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keeler, it’s one of my favorite shows.  He’s one of the greatest story tellers of modern times.  Let me re-phrase it for you today, it has not been a quiet week at Lake Woebegone.  Not the Lake Woebegone I live in!  It’s not been a quiet six months in Lake Woebegone.  When the announcement was made on Monday of the arrest of the theft that Nancy’s already mentioned, it became important for me to look at, “Do I continue on with the theme and the Scripture for this Sunday because it is graduation Sunday or do I change?  We’re keeping on with the theme and the Scripture but it is being changed.  I hope that what is said today is not so narrow that it misses some of you, particularly an appreciation to Jeff Hamilton from New Zealand who knows nothing of most of what is going on here.  But I believe that as we offer any message in truth, God helps to open the door for us to understand, that orders our lives by God’s Word.  So listen for that which God will help you to hear today.  Not because I put it together but because that’s the trust of any message. 

            You see, the “Movin’ on Up” theme was the name of the sitcom in the 70’s, if you are old enough to remember that.  It was sort of a funny one.  It was based upon a couple who were moving on up to the east side in the community in which they lived.  They were moving on up racially, socially, and economically.  It was an interesting balance between Sherman Hensley (George) and Isabell Sanford.  And those two were the balance of opposites in a marriage. She was graceful and understanding and he was insulting and coarse.  That was the truth of the matter.  But they were “improving” their lives.  They had a plan.  Financially they were moving on up—socially, culturally, racially.  It had some good points, but that’s as far as I want to take it with you today because its premise is “they” moved on up.  In fact, it is a little bit like the “American” message that “we” can do it.  If we just think positively enough, we’ll overcome everything and move on.  Such as comedian, Yakof Smirnoff, who said, “What a Country” and then he tells some story about buying pabulum in the grocery store or something.  And he goes on.  He’s a humorous guy. 

            But what I want to share with you is something based upon what Jesus said.  Yeah, avoid the comedians, avoid Garrison Keeler, avoid the Jefferson’s, and fall back to Jesus.  It’s a good observation.  In the Scripture for today, what I believe He is offering is a way for us to move on up.  And it is very simple.  I’m not going to read all the Scripture that is printed, focusing on only the first two versus of the 17^th Chapter of the Gospel of John.  Jesus says to God his prayer is, “My prayer is not for them alone,” (“them” are the disciples) “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.  May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”   

            That’s the powerful statement and that includes all of us who believe.  That we might believe because of their message carried forward over 2,000 years.  Every church hopes to do that.  It’s the basis of who we are.  But I also have the image and feeling, in the last six months to be honest with you, that we were moving on up and then we got knocked down.  Sort of like Charlie Brown, you know, with his kite.  He keeps trying to fly that kite and either the tree eats it or something else happens to it.  Just when he thinks he is being successful, something knocks it down.  Let me speak to the overall life of this church in the last year and a half.  And let me follow closely the words that I have put down on paper, which is not normally my style, and I do so in a sense so all three services will hear the same.   

            In the last year and a half, this church has gone through much change.  Previously Reverend Mike Beck had to choose disability after struggling for several years with mounting physical problems.  In the midst of a major fundraising and building program, this leadership transition was experienced.  With the leaving of Reverend Dan Sinkhorn and the coming of myself and Nancy Blevins, both pastoral positions have been changed.  The Schrader Youth Center was temporarily put on hold due to the lack of funds.  We have had to reorganize almost all of our financial records.  The theft by a long-time member and staff member of the church was discovered with all the emotional and mental and spiritual responses possible.  Although the theft annually had a very small impact on the finances of the church, less than two and a half percent of monies received were stolen, the greater toll has been broken trust and a loss of direction the church was taking.  It was like being in a somewhat weakened state and then someone hits you with a sucker punch and it knocks you down. 

            Just before the announcement of the theft, we were having small groups that were meeting and Pastor Nancy and I were trying to help people to see and hear a vision for Grace United Methodist Church in its present and its future.  And I have to admit, it was difficult and painful to put it all on hold; and in some sense, we have slipped backwards. 

            Now that the theft is public and charges have been brought by the prosecutor, not the church, we can openly pray for Donna and her family in a more personal way.  Let me say this to you, as serious as it was, it was only a theft.  Maybe I’ll explain more and you’ll understand.  Because in the scope and the course of human events, it was a major, painful one for Donna and her family; but ultimately it is a short-term challenge and has momentarily knocked down Grace United Methodist from its God given purpose and future.  It is our choice before us as to whether we gather ourselves up, stand back up, climb back on board God’s train, or we stay down nursing and rehearsing and allowing ourselves to keep blaming and excusing our situation before us. 

            Now, you may have asked this question, but I’m going to ask it for you.  Why do people steal?  But specifically, I won’t answer Donna’s motivation, but why do people steal or for that matter, why do people break any of God’s laws?  Why would someone that you trust break that trust?  Although each personal situation is unique, a large portion of the explanation rests in our ability as human beings to separate our private and our public lives.  We can find ourselves declaring some wrong in the public, but doing just the opposite in our private life.  Remember the minister out in Colorado who spoke strongly against homosexual relations and then was found to be in one?  Now before you quickly jump to conclusions, the next time I preach on strongly about some particular sin…, you get the point.  I just don’t tell you which one.  Jesus clearly said that one without sin can chuck that first rock.  Remember this bent to breaking of God’s law is true for all of us since it is the tangle of good versus evil, right versus wrong, the very freedom of choice that puts us in contention and competition with God.  Yes, with God.   

It is our human nature to break moral laws.  And I believe that we break God’s laws, not because we are child-like, which is what Christ calls us to be to enter the Kingdom, but because we are childish.  A personal experience helps me to understand the meaning of “childish” and “child-like” and, therefore, helps me to understand how I might enter the kingdom of heaven here on earth.  The time I remember was with my Dad in a hardware store.  I was just being a normal kid having a good time with my Dad.  Then this fire truck—a big, shiny, red, beautiful fire truck—put right on the shelf at my eye level was calling my name.  “You want me don’t you?”  Well, that changed my whole countenance for I simply, first of all, asked Dad for the fire truck.  Nothing wrong with that; but, he said “no”.  And I think he said, “We can’t afford it.”  I turned up the heat and my request became a demand.  And then tears, and then crying and I’m sure it was not a pretty scene.  Finally Dad responded, “I was going to get it as a surprise for you for your birthday next week, but if you want it now you can have it now but not for your birthday.”  I don’t remember ever enjoying that truck after that.  I had gone from asking my dad in a natural child-like way, to responding in a childish way.  God tells us that we may pray for our hearts desires—but it does not mean that we always get our way. 

You see, there is a sharp distinction between “childlike” and “childish”.  God declares for us to enter the kingdom of God, we must be as a child or childlike.  Children at their best approach parents and God with a great trust and faith.  The most important lessen I ever learned was to believe in someone more than myself.  And that’s an important step toward emotional and spiritual maturity.  Yet I am constantly, even at the age of 61, struggling with not being childlike but being childish. My desire is to put myself at the center to make things work out for my own good.  When a child offers you their pure love and reaches out with no strings or attachments or control, it is a beautiful gift.   

We always have God’s gift of freedom of choice when it comes to that way, as to whether or not we will be childlike in God’s presence or childish.  It is our choice. Such is the nature in our almost split personalities as human beings.  When we say and we might say in this situation, “There but for the grace of God go I,” we recognize that without God’s mercy and ever loving kindness we all have our childish nature.  If we don’t learn anything else from the last six months, we should learn what it means to be a Grace-filled community in recognizing all of our childish shortcomings. 

So, I mentioned more than six months ago that there was a plan or a vision that Pastor Nancy and I were trying to cast for the congregation.  The question is, “What is God’s plan for this congregation of Grace United Methodist Church at this time and at this place and this circumstance?”  NPR has brought back a series that I believe started back in the 50’s or 60’s called, “This I Believe”.  So I want to read to you what at this moment in time is my belief statement. 

I believe that the Church is of Jesus Christ and will be preserved to the end of time.  Ultimately God’s plan will be fulfilled.  The particular detail and timing of God’s plan is not always available to we who are God’s personal creation—created in the image of God.  This means we are challenged to be in a constant state of faith and trust.  We have faith that god is ultimately in control and trust God for the details.  And yet God strangely has given us what I consider at times a questionable yet marvelous gift.  We know it as free will or freedom of choice.  This is the unique stamp that God has placed on us as we are created in the Holy Spirit’s image.  Whether it is for our individual lives or the corporate life, this is true. 

When you have heard it said, “God has a plan for your life,” it is true with the following escape clause:  See, God gives us more freedom then we recognize.  For I have the freedom of choice to be a part of God’s plan for me or not.  You have the freedom of choice to be a part of God’s plan for you or not.  As Grace United Methodist Church, we always have the opportunity to choose to be a part of God’s plan and purpose for this church or not.  And I do believe that God has a plan for this church at this time, for us as individuals and as a congregation. 

But I want to form a question that maybe some of you asked, “But where does the theft enter in to God’s plan?”  My simple, direct answer is, “It is not a part of God’s plan!”  No sin b y anyone is a part of God’s plan.  But God can and does in a miraculous way use theft and many other experiences.  As an example of how God might use this theft, it’s not the specifics yet.  But the image that I saw of an artist who literally takes the junk that is thrown along the roadside and in the garbage dump, picks out particular items and has the vision to see something new and better out of that old, throw-a-way junk.  With a creative eye, he fashions it into reasonable, beautiful art forms then, interestingly enough, does most of them in a garden setting.  A unique combination of a creative human and the creation of God.  Like one who sits at a loom and takes leftover yarn--different colors, different sizes, different conditions, and different makeup’s—takes all of those pieces that normally would just be thrown away and probably burned, with a visionary eye can create something out of nothing.   

Such is God’s way as the Holy Spirit works even with our brokenness and creates something good out of chaos, nothingness even out of our sinfulness.  When we can’t see the end, we trust God to see the way and the where of our direction.  Jesus said when he prayed for His disciples that He would physically leave them but would not leave them orphaned.  And that is the Advocate, the Holy Spirit which we are given to be with us no matter what we experience.  After what we have gone through as a church, we now must in prayer and preparation call on the Holy Spirit to show us the way to get back on our feet, even to move on up. 

So how do we allow the Holy Spirit to work in our lives as a church or for any of us at any age?  We must move forward claiming some of the following things, both the right and the responsibility of personal and public worship of God.  In the total stewardship of what we have and who we are, we could choose the opportunities in which we will become more evident in the tithing of our time, and talent, and gifts.  You see, some plans are already in place.  We don’t have to create new ones, they just need to be picked back up, revitalized and fulfilled.  These include the Schrader Center, preschool, senior ministry center, the overall support of missions and ministries budget including the financial support of our current and future facilities cost.  They are there.  God is saying, “I gave it to you before, it’s time to pick them up again.”   

But even though I know some of you still are having honest feelings of anger, hurt and disappointment, and I respect that, we all, in our own way, must move through this and heal through this so that we can move on up individually and together.  This last week, if you didn’t see them, there was a newsletter, a newspaper article (I guess. I haven’t seen it in the Star yet).  I was on Channel 13 and on Fox 59 and thank you for the compliments that I looked good on TV.  I’ll look for other opportunities the next time, a little bit more positive.  But I was asked off camera, or at least I think it was recorded but got cut, directly, “Is Donna a member of this church?”  I said, “Yes”.  “Did Donna come back, does she attend here?”  I said, “No”.  “If Donna came back, would she be welcomed?”  My immediate answer was, “Yes”.  But then I hesitated and said, “Well, maybe not everyone, but as a whole I guess I hope that we would be forgiving.  Jesus shows us we are to be in the business of forgiving and healing as the Holy Spirit enables.”   

You see, it’s comforting to know that the prayer that Jesus had for His disciples 2,000 years ago is exactly what Jesus is praying for us now.  It is that Spirit that is continuing and has been with us whether we’ve recognized it or not.  And will continue to guide us through this.  It will help us with the message of forgiveness because, as I did say and I think it was quoted on one, “If the church can’t forgive, how can we ask the world to do so?”  Now, forgiving and forgetting?  Those are two different actions and I recognize that.  But forgetting is also important too because we can not live in the past whether it is glorious or painful.  May we, as an example as a congregation to our graduates that we recognize today, to our children, our youth, as a congregation, that we will be so bold to follow Christ’s way in how to handle sin, failure and disappointment and to be open to the Holy Spirit’s vision of God’s plan, purpose, and direction for Grace United Methodist Church.   

May we choose God’s way as we “move on up” following God, not seeking our own desires only.  It’s always, as with the red fire truck, open for us to express our desires to God but then we ultimately must say who is God and not compete.  We all definitely need the Lord.  

Now, as a statement of opportunity, communion will be served by Pastor Nancy in the Wesley Room following this service.  Whether you choose to participate in that today is not a statement of your spiritual life or not.  But I want to read to you again the very Scripture that we started with and let it be a foundational statement for how we are never alone through all of this.  That it is the creative power of God that will take even the mistakes and the disappointments and reshape them in God’s way, in God’s time to something good.  And that’s what we look forward to tomorrow.  For when Jesus said, “My prayer is not for them,” (the disciples around that table that night alone, that He is praying for us).  He says to His Father, “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.  May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”   

May we live that daily for each of our lives and as Grace United Methodist Church.  Amen and Amen.

E-mail Comments to: Pastor Bob Coleman

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