A sermon preached at Capitol Hill United Methodist Church on November 11, 2018. It was part of a series for a stewardship campaign called “Spending Ourselves.”
We are people of time and place. To a great extent, these can control our lives – in bad ways and good ways. In a world in which we so often focus on the bad, I invite you to focus on the good.
What are the times of your life that you find to be life-giving? Hopefully this is not just a time in the past that you reminisce about but something recurring. Why are those times life-giving? What makes them nourishing?
Let’s think about place. Is there a place that you can go where you find peace, hope, empowerment? How can place provide that? What is it about your special place that inspires you?
To all of these questions, we will find differences, and that is okay, but time and place are important parts of the Church. How can our special times and places inform our understanding of Church, and how can our special times and places support the Church?
These are questions I hope you’ll bring to this sermon as we consider together our blessings and holy currencies of time and place in our current sermon series, Spending Ourselves. I hope you’ll take the time to read over the Scriptures for this sermon before listening so you can bring your own insights into these passages.
Right-mouse-click here to download the audio.
This sermon was inspired by Scriptures such as:
1 John 4:16-19
16So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.
17Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19We love because he first loved us. (NRSV)
John 1:38-39
38When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ 39He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. (NRSV)
