You Decide.

13 “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.
~Matthew 5:13 (The Message Version)

I know many of you do not want to be on a journey of intercultural competency. I have heard many of you say that you do not understand why we are talking about this, that you don’t understand why there is a problem in the world with things like race and culture at all. But as I mentioned last week, it’s important because we have committed to doing this work of loving God, and loving others.

I am so grateful for Rev. Monahan and the wisdom she brought to the start of our Discovery Journey because this conversation is more about us than it is about others. It’s about stepping outside our comfort zone and learning about ourselves. She says,

We all have a perspective on the world; it’s shaped by our own personal experiences and that perspective, we know, is not necessarily shared by everyone… Sometimes the effort to open ourselves up to new people and new perspectives is more than we are prepared to give. So, it’s tempting to remain focused inward, especially today, to people that we know, and places where we feel most comfortable, especially if our own well has run dry. [1]

I don’t know about you, but I am feeling especially dry right now as my family and I walk through a season of grief. This work to examine our own perspective is hard on a good day, let alone on a day where it is cloudy, and cold, and just plan exhausting. We have to be willing to step into the place that makes us uncomfortable so that we can stretch and grow in love. But that requires finding out what makes us uncomfortable…

For me, my most uncomfortable place is with people I don’t know. I do not feel “at home” or myself when I am among “strangers.” Which means the work I need to do with myself is to walk into places and meet someone new. I know it won’t be easy but it’s important because every interaction we have with people, or interactions we don’t have with people, make a difference.

So when we question the chaos that is happening in the world and how we might be able to make it better, we have to remember that it is us who shape the world… and we are called to be people who bring out the “God-flavorings” in the world.

We, like the people of Isaiah cry out, ‘What is it that we need to do God in order for you to come into our lives to make this better?’... Here is how God replied, ‘sometimes you serve your own interests in worship, you ignore the needs of the stranger, the hungry, the homeless, all of the people suffering around you whose suffering is not your suffering. You knowingly and unknowingly treat them unfairly. Your worship, sometimes it turns into fighting and finger pointing and lifting yourselves up while striking others down. That’s not the worship I prefer. The worship I want is filled with humility. It is a turning outward that lifts up others, especially those who are hurting, and the ones who are not like you. The worship that I prefer is one where you turn outward and you choose to discover how your life can be an agent of change for good. As Jesus said to bring out the salt flavorings, the God-flavorings, in other people’s lives… if you do that, you will thirst no more. But if you do not do that, you will also shape this world and your own lives towards ruin.’[2]

What choice will you make today? Because every moment of every day we have the choice to turn outward and to shape the world in God’s love, or to turn inward and continue an unjust system in the world. It starts with us.

So, it’s up to you. You decide.  

Blessings friends,
Pastor Nicole

[1] Rev. Kate Monahan, Facebook Live Recording of worship from February 5, 2023, at St. Paul’s Bay Head, NJ (31:10 - 32:00)

[2] Rev. Kate Monahan, Facebook Live Recording of worship from February 5, 2023, at St. Paul’s Bay Head, NJ (34:19 – 36:19)

Watch the whole sermon here: https://fb.watch/iAQxvxy7DF/