Grace and peace to you from God, our creator and sustainer, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit that abides in each of us.

I have a question for all the husbands that are here:  How many of you have had a version of the following situation happen to you?  You’re having a nice, relaxing dinner with your wife, and everything is going great.  You tell her about this great plan you have for a trip that the two of you should take to the California Coast.  She loves it, and she thinks you are awesome.  She begins to tell you about the little B&B’s she has read about in California and some of the incredible sites she hopes you will be able to visit.  Then you tell her that you have already booked your lodging at a certain resort near Pebble Beach because you will be golfing every day with some buddies that will be going, as well.  Instantly, the mood of the dinner changes, you know you have said the wrong thing, and you find yourself ducking butter pads and plates of food as you run out of the restaurant.
 
Now, I know this is a light-hearted way of looking at the situation Jesus found himself in, but I have to wonder, after everyone in the synagogue became filled with rage and they were trying to kill him, do you think he thought to himself as he was “walking through the midst of them” to go on his way, “I probably shouldn’t have said that?”

In our text today, which began exactly where we left off last week in Chapter 4 of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ initial words made the people very happy.  When Jesus read those words of the prophet Isaiah and then announced that they had been fulfilled, the people thought about their own situations, and their own needs, and their own dreams.  But Jesus was talking about God’s dream.  God’s dream does not include boundaries of nations, boundaries of religions, boundaries of cultures, or boundaries neighborhoods.  God’s dream knows no boundaries.  God is a God filled with grace that is offered to all people.  We love it when God’s grace is offered to us, but we get down right mad when someone speaks of God offering His grace to a criminal, or a terrorist, or anyone that we don’t like.  But think about it, would you really want God to be selective with his grace? 

So often we want to limit God and His activities to those things that we want or that we are interested in doing.  But the problem is we do not exist for our own mission; no, our very lives are to be about God’s mission.  Now, this is easy to say, but as most of you know, when you set out to really do God’s work, many times, as good as it sounds to begin with, you end up making people mad.  Why?  Because so often God’s work means offering grace to people that some do not think deserve it.  Why should I give up my hard-earned money to share with all those people on welfare?  They should get their own jobs!  Why should I care about that kid in the gang who robbed or, worse yet, killed someone?  Why should I worry about the people in Haiti; they practice Voodoo!  Why should we care?  Why should we sacrifice?  Why?  Because God cares!  We are called to care about what God cares about.  We are called to make God’s dream our dream.

Today, at our annual meeting, we will be making some huge decisions.  We will be voting on a deficit budget.  We will be voting to approve the purchase of the property across the street, along with several other things.  The challenge for us as we do all of this will be to remember that whatever we do we do for God’s purposes, and not ours.  As excited as we are about buying those two lots across the street, we still must discern what God’s dream is for those two lots.  Whatever we decide today, means we will have a lot of work to do starting tomorrow.

Two years ago, we voted to have our congregation participate in the Partnership for Missional Church (PMC) process.  The people here who have been involved in that process have worked hard and learned much over the past two years and now will be coming to us to invite all of us to look at everything we do differently.  Soon they will challenge us to be willing to change our culture and be willing to let go of things that may be preventing us from accomplishing God’s mission.  This will be hard.  Some of us will be challenged because the things we love or we want may need to change or go away.  Some of us might even get down right angry about it.  But as we move forward as a community, we will be called by God to follow His will, and not ours. 

You know, in some ways, we might be a lot like those people in Nazareth that Sabbath day when Jesus announced, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).  We are a people who are thrilled with what we are hearing in our community.  As a faith community, we have struggled much in the recent past, and right now things are looking pretty good.  God seems to be doing just what we asked.  But if things are looking good right now, I would argue that it is not because God is doing what we want; it is because we have been willing to dream God’s dream.  As a faith community, we have been willing to take risks, step outside our boundaries, and go where God is instead of staying here in this safe sanctuary and waiting for the world to come to us.  God has been busy in the world, and He has been waiting for us to join Him.

As we move forward, God will expect us to respond to His grace and his mercy with servant hearts filled with love.  He will call upon us to sacrifice much by way of our time, our talents, and our wealth.  The Holy Sprit will call us into places that seem unholy, unsafe, and even terrifying.  At times, we will get angry because it will seem like we are not focused enough on our own needs.  At other times, we will probably get upset because it will seem like we are doing more than we are capable of doing.  But when the difficult times come, I pray we remember not only this Gospel text today, but also the words of the prophet Jeremiah that we heard today.  Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations."(Jeremiah 1:4-5)

When Jeremiah heard this call, he attempted to reject God by saying, Lord I can’t do this, I am only a boy.  But remember what God said then, Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD." (Jeremiah 1:10)

Like Jeremiah, we, too, will say, “We can’t, Lord, we are not able.  The world will reject us if we do what you ask.”  But God has been forming us for 125 years.  He knew us before we were born.  He is sending us now to “pluck things up and to pull things down,” as the prophet said.  He is calling us to destroy some of our old ways. And when we do these things, he is also promising us that we will be building and planting His dream for us and for all his creation.

Brothers and sisters, we are truly blessed, and God’s dream is being fulfilled through us today.  As we were reminded in Paul’s words to the Corinthians, through the Holy Spirit, God has blessed us with many gifts, but their purpose is to share God’s love.  May we be a people who always seek God’s will, a people who always seek to fulfill God’s word, and a people who always seek to share our gifts with the world.  Amen.