“Don’t Invite Jesus to Dinner”

It begins in grade school, carries over with increased importance in junior high school, and then it became vital in high school. Even as an adult it is still of social significance. Who you eat with tell a lot about your character, reputation, and your status in the community. Preachers like to focus on the fact that Jesus dined frequently with sinners, prostitutes, and tax collectors. Those individual who would be classifies as the outcast of society. The marginalized and forgotten to be included in a meal of honor with Jesus was not an insignificant occurrence. It teaches us inclusion as well as gives us a peek inside the heart of Jesus as well.  What some ministers glance over is the fact that Jesus also dined with the Pharisees. Jesus is invited not because he is considered an equal but because he is a curiosity who has been in the news. The esteemed guests are watching closely to see how Jesus fits in. Then Jesus decides to offend the guests. This scene becomes a lesson in how to lose friends and alienate people. Jesus has noticed how the Pharisees look for ways to move up the social ladder—or up the table, on this occasion. He has seen how they try to sit at the places of honor.

We have been in those awkward situations when we are a guest in someone’s home, standing before the dinner table, not sure where to sit. Most would not take a place at the end of the table, the seat of honor, unless, of course, the host invites us to do so. This kind of common sense would seem to be what Jesus is suggesting, but it is more than that. Jesus criticizes the guests for striving for status. “When someone invites you to dinner, you take the place of honor. Then when somebody more important than you shows up, you’re red-faced as you make your way to the last table and the only place left. You might as well go and sit at the last place in the first place. Then the host might say, ‘Come, sit with me.’ If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face. Be content to be yourself.”

We still live in a classed society. Ethnic groups, immigrants, the poor, the homeless, the addicted, and the mentally ill face uphill battles. Lower class, middle class, upper class—we know the class in which we reside. When Jesus finishes insulting the guests, he begins to insult the host for who was included and who did not make the list: “The next time you put on a dinner, don’t just invite your friends, family, and those you’re trying to impress, the kind of people who will return the favor. Invite people who don’t have similar interests, who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks, the least of our sisters and brothers, the poorest of the poor. They won’t be able to return the favor, but God will know.” The disciples want to pull Jesus to the side and say, “You might want to back off a little. First you went after the seating protocol, and as if that wasn’t rude enough, now you’ve gone after the guest list. Our host is an influential person. He could do good things for us. All you have to do is act friendly and keep your elbows off the table. We won’t have any more dinner invitations if you can’t get through the appetizers without infuriating the person who invited us.”

Why does Jesus have to stir up trouble? Why does he criticize people who invite him into their homes? Why can’t Jesus leave a pleasant enough dinner party well enough alone? It is because Jesus understands what is at stake. We have to learn that at God’s table there is no need to jockey for position, because all are equally welcome. There are no throwaways when it comes to human beings. Christians are to honor the least among us—the poor and marginalized. While the Pharisees were striving to move toward the head of a rectangular table, Jesus’ table is a round one where no person is better than another. The character of our guest list—who is on it and who is not—has everything to do with whether or not we are being Christ’s church. The followers of Christ have to learn that any table where Jesus is present is a table where everyone is welcome, a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, a foreshadowing of the kingdom where God cares for all and all we can do is give thanks.

Hope to see you in service & worship too

Tommy 

Burnout: Finding Strength

We all have or will experience burnout at some time in some area of our life. Burnout occurs in our careers, our relationships, and even in our faith. Life causes us to become tired, weary, frustrated, and hopeless. Sometimes we need a good night or a good week of rest. We shouldn’t make life altering decisions when we are tired and worn out. We need to get away and rest physically, mentally, and spiritually. We also need to take care of our physical bodies, our mind and our spirit. But others times we need more. One of the deceptions of burnout is we think we can handle it all on our own. For some of us the hardest thing to ever do is to ask someone else for help. Burnout convinces us that if we just work harder, buckle down, and press on we will be just fine. Nothing could be farther from the truth. If we are in the middle of a season of burnout, more work or more pressure only aspirates the problem. The truth is regardless of how strong we think we are, none of us are self-sufficient. We all need spiritual resources to live our lives. However for many of us, when burnout occurs we shy away from where we know the presences of God might reside. We try to distance ourselves for the spiritual resources we need to find the strength to move forward through this tough season of burnout. We need strength.  The strength we don’t have but we need comes from overcoming our vulnerability, overcoming our weakness, and overcoming our fear.  I have witnessed a lot of lives ruined, bad decisions made, and destruction when people reacted out of fear, desperation, and frailty. The natural thing to do is to run and hide from the one true God that can provide for us the strength we need. We can immerse ourselves into a faith community and find strength in the fellowship, comfort and sanctuary that only a faith community can provide. We must be willing to be open to listening and learning of all the diverse ways God works in our midst. It is in community we find unity in numbers and shared experiences. It is in faith community we witness God work in both miraculous heroic ways and in that still small voice of love and comfort. If you are going through a season of burnout in your relationships, your career, or in your faith journey, you will find strength in a faith community that is listening and open to God’s presences. May you find the peace, hope and strength you need to move forward through your season of burnout.

Peace, Love and Happiness

Tommy 

Just Another’s Response to Orlando

As an ordained minister, father, husband, and a guy who lives in America, I feel a painful needed to write a brilliant response to the tragedy that occurred Saturday night in Orlando. I wish I had great words of wisdom that I could pen that would give everyone great comfort, hope, and a renewed since of peace. But I have no words. What we witnessed was unspeakable incomprehensible evil.

 I ask that we as a society for a moment turn down the volume of rhetoric that is increased by the media, politicians, and religious leaders. We must realize everyone has an agenda and it is not necessarily to comfort those who are hurting and whose lives have been devastated. We can all cast blame when we cannot conceptualize such an act of terrorism. If we are courageous enough to silence our own agenda we will find many families that are devastated, hurting, confused, and in a state of shock. We will find a community of liked individuals that were singled out as a target in a state of fear. If we have the bravery to turn down the rhetoric, we will hear a nation that is fearful of the stranger and a trust that has been destroyed. I concede that there are many questions that need to be answered and action taken. But now is not that time.

So let us only look at the facts without any agendas. A disturbed individual filled with hate systematically planned, orchestrated and maliciously murdered and injured a group of innocent people.  That is pure evil. Evil is evil no matter the weapon used or its availability, no matter the religious affiliation, no matter the lifestyle of the victims, no matter the nationality of those murdered, and no matter our government’s effectiveness to protect us. Evil has no empathy for the victims but we as a society should. We should turn down the volume of rhetoric and listen to those hurting, confused, devastated, and in shock in losing a loved one to a senseless act. We should comfort the families that will have to bury their loved one due this repulsive act. Any act of terrorism has two vital components. First is to cause death and destruction with the greatest of impact and causalities. The other is to incite fear, mistrust and divide. The first has happened and we have no control over. The second as a community we have total control over. So let us pray for those who are burying the innocent. Let us support, encourage, and uplift a community that was singled out as a target. Let us stop the rhetoric, finger pointing, and grandstanding because people’s lives have been forever destroyed.  There will be a season to reevaluate, dissect, and analyze if this could have been prevented but now is not that time. We must realize that hate was the catalyst that ignited this massacre. So let’s try to love more, pray more, empathize more, trust more, and listen more. Let us be open not to rhetoric but to the spirit of God and the spirit of humanity. There will be a time we can get back on personal crusades, agendas and debate the issues but now is not the time. Let us as a nation mourn for those that evil took away from us. Let us listen less to the social media and pray more for comfort. We might never know the why but for now remember those who are hurting, confused, scared, and devastated. They are the only thing that matters.  

What can we do? As a community, let us cry with those who are mourning and with those who are hurting.  Let us have the have courage and unity exclaiming to all who will listen exactly what this act is: evil. Evil: unadulterated, pure, and simple.

You can be the light in our dark world.

Tommy 

What Makes You Happy? Pleasure & Happiness

For the past several weeks we have been spending a lot of time talking about what makes us happy. Many have wondered why so long about one topic. For me it’s personal. The one single thing that totally breaks my heart as a pastor, a family member, or a friend is to witness someone I care about undermining their own happiness. I watch from the sideline as they make decisions that will eventually undermine their own happiness. Maybe you have experienced this as well. You see it coming, it’s not a sixth sense or physic powers, but you witness people constantly doing things that undermine their own happiness. It is tragic to watch. We dare not say anything. The truth is there are enough unavoidable things in this life that causes us pain. It is truly heartbreaking when something that is 100% avoidable but somehow people don’t avoid it. There is one thing in this life that is consistent and that Jesus even speaks about. Jesus says in this life everyone will have trouble. So with all the unavoidable trouble why would anyone create more trouble? So it breaks my heart to witness people make decisions or do things that I know will cause them pain and trouble which all is totally avoidable. These people are not immediately but eventually undermining their own happiness.

The reason we undermine our own happiness is confusion about two ideals: pleasure and happiness. And the relationship between these two words: pleasure and happiness. The biggest part is because of the dynamics between pleasure and happiness. God created us with the capacity for pleasure and happiness. God wants us to experience pleasure and happiness. Pleasure is a word that has gotten a bad overtone especially in religious circles. God is not against pleasure. It’s not an either or. The problem is our priority. When we place pleasure a higher priority over happiness, we have a problem.  When we choose pleasure over happiness you get neither. Truth is one leads to the other but the other ultimately undermines the one. Happiness can lead to pleasure but if you only pursue pleasure and forget the principles that lead to happiness and the end of the day you have neither. If you are an adult,  you will know already that pleasure will eventually lose its pleasure and instead becomes a prison. Over time pleasure loses to pleasure. A pastime becomes a pathway to a habit, to an addiction. These are not things that are necessarily illegal, immoral, or dangerous. Pleasure eventually loses to pleasure. The Apostle Paul when writing to the church in Rome about this says when you continually say yes to pleasure over and over again you eventually become a slave to it. It begins to own you. We may say “I’m not a slave I have control over this.” But if we keep saying yes over and over again to our pleasure we are no longer choosing. We have given up control. We become a slave when it becomes something we have to do not something we want to do. Paul’s says you can be a slave to sin, what every separates us, or obedient to the Good shepherd. Happy people already know this. Jesus says sow happiness, sow and sow some more and you will eventually reap happiness. But it’s not immediately but it reaps better. Our trouble is when we are unhappy we want to do something that will immediately make us happy. We go straight to the pleasure to feel good. We feel like we need to do something now to quickly change our status from unhappy to happy but Jesus says is takes time and we got to sow happiness not pleasure.

 Is there any pleasure that is undermining your happiness? Again it doesn’t have to be anything illegal or immoral. You might not want to admit it, even to our self, because you may feel you may have to do anything about it. You don’t have to do anything but you might want to start by being honest with yourself. Is there a pleasure that you have given into that undermines your happiness or undermines the happiness of those you love? Have you ever had a child ask you: "why do you always buy shoes, be on your phone, buy a new car, drink and act that way?" Is pleasure undermining your happiness? If you say yes to your pleasure you are rejecting Jesus’ offer for an extraordinary life. I’m not implying anything was intentional. Without meaning to, have you placed a pleasure over your pursuit of happiness? Only you know the answer. You never ever have to share it with anyone else. But if you continue the path you are on, you will one day look back and wished you would have tried something different. If that’s you, you’re not a bad person, just a sheep that needs a good shepherd and a life that doesn’t drain you but gives you more life. That exchange is one you will never ever regret.

Peace, Love and Happiness

Tommy 

What Makes You Happy?

This week we begin a new exciting sermon series on what makes you happy. What makes you happy can either be a question or a statement.  Some of us already know and have a clear picture of exactly what makes us happy.  We are content, joyful, and at peace with our daily lives. However for most of us we are not too clear on exactly what makes us happy.  We might not be totally miserable but there just seems to be something missing from our lives.  Over the next six weeks we are going to try to inform you of exactly what will make you happy. Please do not take offense to this outlandish statement as what right does someone else has to advise you what will make up your happiness. But for some of us, many of us, we don’t really know what makes us happy. It’s sort of a hit or miss kind of thing. But here is the litmus test: if you keep trying different things to make yourself happy and you’re not happy. If you haven’t reached your goal of happiness then it is possible you are missing the mark. Everywhere we look, TV, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, companies are spending trillions of dollars to tell us or sell us something that they guarantee will make us happy. We have all fallen for it. If we are honest we have all said or thought  if only I had, I drove, I wore, I looked like, I achieved, then and only then will I be happy. Most of the time when we get there we find out what we thought was going to make us happy failed to fulfill us. Even when we have acquired the thing we put of hope of happiness in, we still might not be happy. We might feel accomplished and proud of our achievement but not happy.  Many of us have forgotten either temporary or chronically, what makes us happy. True happiness cannot be marketed or sold. So in the consumer driven world in which we live, you will not hear advertiser tell you this simple fact. You will not hear them talk about what truly, honestly, unequivocally will make us happy. We have all heard the truth that happiness cannot be bought. So if happiness can’t be bought how do we obtain it? Join us for this exciting six week adventure as we look at what makes us happy. Happiness just might be closer and easier to acquire than you think.

Peace, Love and Happiness:

Tommy 

“How Do We Forgive Someone Who Hurt Us?”

We believe in a Messiah that tells us to turn the other cheek but we live in a world that tells us to hit back harder on their cheek. Our society wants us to turn to revenge and retaliation. Make them pay for what they did to us. The problem is that even if we do seek revenge or strike back, the pain of what they did to us is still there. The emotional scars of what happened to us are still there. Even after vengeance, it’s not over, there is still lost we have to work through. So what if there was another way of dealing with those who have hurt us? It brings us to our big question for today: How can I forgive those who have hurt me? In many ways forgiveness is at the core of Christianity. If there was no forgiveness then none of us would be here nor would we be worthy enough to call ourselves followers of Jesus. It is one thing to receive forgiveness but it is another to give forgiveness. The disciples asked Jesus that question how many times should we forgive someone? This indicates that forgiveness has traditionally been at the center point of our religion.

Forgiveness is one of those topics that it is easy to talk about but hard to put into practice. We all can preach forgiveness and agree that forgiveness is essential to our relationship with God and others until we are hurt. When we or a love one is hurt we want revenge. We want the person or persons to pay. There is a huge difference between wanting or demanding justice and wanting revenge. Wanting justice is fine and normal but if we are honest we want more. We have an instinct for justice. That is who we are as humans and God promises justice. Without a system of consequences for wrongful acts then chaos and anarchy rules and peace and security evaporates. We live in a world where there are some messed up things and messed up people who mess with our minds, our security, and our safety which makes it very hard to forgive. Especially when there is physical and sexual abuse it multiplies and when children are abused it goes off the scale. Forgiveness does not mean the perpetrator should not have legal consequences, relationships boundaries and consequences, or letting people off the hook for their actions. Forgiveness is not letting any one get away with something. It is just the opposite. Forgiveness is the hardest thing to do as a Christian. Seriously, feeding people, serving people, clothing people, that is all easy compared to forgiving people. Anger and resentment feels right at the moment but eventually it eats away to you. We feel we reserve the right to be mad. True. But anger reveals a flaw in our understanding of what forgiveness is. It is not letting people off the hook but it is letting people know that their actions or inaction's resulted in pain and hurt. It is letting them know that what they did to you will no longer define who you are or hinder your love or trust for someone else. When it comes to forgiveness, we cannot do this by ourselves. We need help from God, from professionals and the power of the Holy Spirit. We need the encouragement of others. We need to fully understand that forgiveness cannot happen overnight. It is a long process with many stages. Join us for this last part of our sermon series as we lay out the steps and stages of forgiveness so we may all experience the peace in life we all deserve.

Peace, Love & Happiness:

Tommy 

Can American Christianity Stand Up to Persecution?

One of the questions asked by Christians can American Christianity stand up to persecution? If you are a believer and follower of Jesus in American culture it may seem you are under attack. Social media paints Christianity as extremist, judgmental, racists that are only self-serving and closed minded. We are portrayed as agenda pushing radicals. Some in our society view the church as a money hungry financial machine that prey on the weak and vulnerable.  Others view Christianity as talk and no action. Movies have reduced the Christian to sad stereotype. There once was a time in America when attempting to follow Jesus was honorable, noble, respectable, and a good thing. Today Christianity in our nation has been reduced to a bad label. Who is responsible for our current condition? Both sides: while mocked, made fun of, our abilities questioned, and having to stand in the face of opposition, we haven’t really helped our cause out much. Any opposition or attack on our abilities or character can be seen as persecution. The true meaning of persecution is more than an unpopular view or negative post on social media.

Today in 2016 Christians globally are being truly persecuted in a variety of settings. The onslaught of ISIS it is happening daily. ISIS has been around for many years and no stranger to the American government. But in the last year they have gone to a higher level. ISIS has taken over Syria. They have destroyed all Christian artifacts from the city of Nineveh. They have destroyed every Christian tombs, church, ancient artifacts that have been preserved for thousands of years.  On Easter Sunday 69 people were killed and 341 Christian were injured in bombing at a neighborhood park in Islamabad, Pakistan as children and families gathers to celebrate the Easter holiday. Christians and Jews are being systematically raped, burned, drowned, and killed on the spot for their belief in Jesus Christ. This is not 1000’s but 2016. Is it coming to America? Why wouldn’t it? The fear of intolerance has opened the front door. This is not about spreading fear or hate. It is not about Islam as a whole. This is not some type of outlandish psycho prophecies saying there will be beheadings in American streets. Nor is this a political statement about the US leadership. However it is not out of the possibility that Christians will be ouster sized, ridicule, and loss of finances, censorship of our voice.  In Houston a judge ordered a pastor to turn over his sermons. So why should we be shocked to see a pastor arrested and imprisoned over a sermon they have preached in the near future.

Brings us back to our question which has not been answered? Can American Christianity stand up to persecution? Simply No! Not in its’ present state. Persecution can’t stop the gospel from spreading, but it can discourage God’s people if we are not prepared to face it. Join us Sunday as we attempt to address our current predicament in relevant ways. We will uncover things we as followers of Jesus can do to lovingly endure in the face of persecution, not fold under fear and intimidation, and stand graciously in the face of opposition, and not embarrass God in the process.  Real answers to tough questions is the only way we can grow, learn, and share the gospel of love, grace and hope.

Peace, Love and Happiness:

Tommy