Rev. George
Miller
June 20, 2021
3 John 1:1-8
It is such a joy every
Sunday to come together and worship God. No matter what we have been through during the
week, no matter what we face in the days ahead,
to know we have this time,
this space to offer our prayers, to give our praise, and to learn together what
it means to live as a Citizen of Heaven.
One of the joys is the
diversity in which we have here in rural Florida.
A gay Yankee from New York.
A Spanish speaking fiddle player from Cuba.
A high heeled songstress from a sparkling island in the sea.
A Jersey Girl and a corn-fed
Iowan in the sound booth. A female moderator when right down the street is a
church that forbids women from teaching men.
Thanks to God, it works. We continue to grow in Jesus, we are
constantly surprised by the Spirit.
An example is our music
program.
We can’t tell you how often Ari
and Carnide select a song that fits so perfectly into the service that you’d
think we purposely planned it that way.
2 weeks ago, we started our
sermon series with 1 John. The inspiration
came to use sweet potatoes and soil as a way to talk about faith.
Ari felt inspired to have “I
Come To The Garden Alone” as the 1st hymn we collectively sang in a
post-COVID world.
Ari had no idea I was going
to preach about gardening. I had no idea
Ari would have us sing about walking in a garden.
Yet, it worked out more
perfectly than if we had planned it; music and message, scripture and song
tying so perfectly together.
Add to this, something else
so wonderful occurred it can only be Spirit-
the main image that’s used
in 2 and 3rd John is to walk.
The author of today’s and
last week’s brief letters makes the spiritual claim that Jesus is the truth,
and the author goes on to state that we walk in truth.
In other words- we walk with
Christ.
So, when Ari and Carnide had
us joyfully sing “And he walks with me and he talks with me, and he tells me I
am his own”,
they had no idea how
musically prophetic they were,
and they were establishing a
new vocabulary and theology to our expanding collection of words, like tope,
Left Shark, and nahalah.
But Spirit knew.
To walk in truth.
To walk in Christ.
To walk in God.
Perhaps we should not be so surprised,
after all, walking with God appears in the very beginning.
In Genesis 3 we have Eve and
Adam hearing the sound of God walking in the Garden during the afternoon breeze,
an indication that this was a routine that God had done from the start.
To walk with.
In Genesis 17, God appears
to Abraham and says “Walk with me.”
While on that walk God
renews the covenant of land, children, and blessing.
Noah walked with God; Enoch
walked with God.
As Elijah cowered with fear
in a cave, he witnessed the majesty of the still-speaking God walking before
him.
Then we have the prophet Micah. In chapter 4, Micah says “For all the peoples
walk…but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.”
Then in chapter 6, when
wondering what God wants- burnt offerings, rivers of cologne, the answer is-
“To do justice, to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God.”
What does God want?
For us to walk humbly.
But what exactly does that
mean?
As modern-day Americans
forever shaped by people like Freud, we think to walk humbly means to walk
without ego, to walk with a gentle way about ourselves.
But in the Old Testament, to
walk humbly actually mean something else- it means to live ethically.
To walk humbly is to live an
ethical existence.
To walk humbly with the Lord
means to travel through life in a way that is most ethical and most beneficial
for all.
Isn’t that fascinating?
That according to Micah,
what God wants, what God really wants is to for us to be fair, to be nice, and
to be ethical.
God could have said anything.
God could have said “I want
your 1st born.” God could have said “I want all your money.”
God could have said “I want
you to go out into the world and beat everyone into submission, to shame them,
exploit them, and force them to worship me.”
Instead, what God wants is to
have us walk with God; to walk ethically; to live in a way that is fair for
all.
So, it should be no surprise
that in 1 and 2nd John, the author composes these love letters in
which he lifts up and celebrates how people walk in truth; how people walk in
Christ; how people walk with God.
The author of 2nd
and 3rd John is literally
going back to the basics, showing what a life lived post- resurrection is to
look like.
That like Eve and Adam, like
Sarah and Abraham, like Enoch and Elijah, we are to walk with God; we are to
live in a way that is ethical and full of love.
Love for our neighbor. Love for the vulnerable.
And yes, as hard as it is to
say and to hear, even love for our enemy.
No wonder when God came to
us as Emmanuel, God did not come as a soldier in a chariot, God did not come to
us as a royal with access to a horse-drawn carriage.
When God came to us, it was
as a man who walked.
Jesus walked to John to be baptized. He walked with women like Joanna and Susanna
who supported his ministry.
He walked through crowds on
his way to heal daughters, where women touched his cloak to be made whole.
He walked into graveyards
where he restored sons into community, past pools where lame men were empowered
to stand up on their own.
He walked on water; he
walked to Jerusalem, even when he knew it would mean his own death.
When resurrected, Christ
walked with the heartbroken and scared as they made their way to Emmaus.
Jesus walked, and through
his walking, we witnessed what it means to walk in truth; what it means to walk
with ethics.
To encounter the sick, to
look upon the hungry, to reach out to the outcast, to be in the presence of
diversity.
To walk as Jesus walked
means to literally be present to everything and all who are around, and to live
in such a way that one sees the God within you.
The song says “I come to the
Garden alone.” But the truth is, we are
not alone. We are never alone.
For Christ is always right beside
us.
And with Christ beside us,
we are empowered to be beside others in their own journey,
in their own valleys, in
their own wildernesses, in their own gardens.
What a privilege to worship
God together.
What a joy to be on this journey
with you all.
What a fellowship to walk in
truth,
walk with Christ,
to walk in a way that
celebrates life.
For that, let us say Amen.
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