Audio is here.

Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost – September 23, 2018
Galatians 5:1, 13-25

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

On Monday afternoon, I was in my office meeting with our United Methodist Richmond District lay leader when my assistant Cheryl Arrington opened my door and said, “I am so sorry to interrupt you, but there is a tornado in the area, and the staff is evacuating Reveille House and going to the basement of the sanctuary.” So, we went.
What I thought would take about twenty minutes took over two hours, two hours of waiting, checking the news, checking the weather, calling loved ones, receiving calls from schools, seeing how things looked out the windows, going back to the basement, waiting, waiting, waiting.
Reveille’s Finance Committee chairperson Ted Cox was there; he had chosen either the best or the worst time to stop by the church, and as we waited for the storm to end, Ted, Terri Edwards, our church’s director of administration, and I passed the time by telling stories of life on September 11, 2001 and the chaos of the days immediately thereafter. Ted, it turns out, was working in midtown Manhattan on that day. He told us of walking with the crowds to the shores of the Hudson River, of taking one of the commuter boats that volunteered their services that day to New Jersey. He told us of trying to get home on a day in which he had four dollars in his pocket and had forgotten his cell phone, as fighter jets circled overhead.
As we talked about the days that followed, he told us what surprised him over the course of the next several days: everyone, it seemed, had suddenly become so kind. New Yorkers, with their sharp elbows, people who ordinarily would have fought over the next available taxi cab were generously offering it to strangers: “No, really, you go ahead. I’ll take the next one.”
In the midst of such fear, anger, grief, hatred, and violence, people responded almost instinctually with kindness, a kindness that would, in the days to come manifest itself again and again, mercy upon mercy, in story after story.

Continue reading →

Thanks to the wonderful Rachel Sanders, the Reveille Director of Communications, our sermon audio page is up-to-date. You can check it out here, or in the iTunes store. Of course, sermon manuscripts will always be available at this site.

Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost — September 9, 2018 (Reveille Day)
Galatians 3:27-29

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

There was once a little girl, about four years old, who had been very quiet for some time, perhaps a bit too quiet, so her mother went to check on her, to see what she was doing. Her mother approached and found her lying on the floor, very intently drawing on a sheet of paper with her crayons. “What are you doing, honey?” her mother asked.
Without looking up, the little girl responded “Drawing.”
“Well, what are you drawing?”
“A picture of God.” said the girl.
Her mother chuckled, “But dear, no one knows what God looks like.”
While continuing to draw, again without looking up, the little girl said “They will when I’m done.”

Continue reading →

God Unbound: Wisdom From Galatians for the Anxious Church
Week 1: Human Approval or God’s Approval
Douglas Forrester
Reveille United Methodist Church
Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost – September 2, 2018
Galatians 1:1-12

Paul an apostle—sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— and all the members of God’s family who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed! As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed!
Am I now seeking human approval, or God’s approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ. For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

Who remembers Taboo? In 1989, the Hasbro company released a parlor game called Taboo. The way Taboo is played is that each player has a partner. You draw a card and attempt to get your partner to say the word on the card by giving a series of hints. The challenge is that there are five other words on the card that you are not allowed to say, words that happen to be the five best hints. Say one of them, and you lose a point, and your opponent sounds a buzzer. Remember this, because I am going to come back to it.
My wife Tracy is a third grade teacher in the Henrico County Public Schools, teaching at a school in Short Pump. A couple of years ago, they decided to have a career day where they would ask professionals in the community to come and talk to groups of students about their work. “You should offer to be a speaker,” she said.

“I am a pastor, Tracy. This is a public school. They will never invite me to come.”

Continue reading →