Wesley and the Workers (2)

Sermon Series Intro on Methodism

This weekend history of Labor Day

Where we do theology matters who we do theology with matters, and when we do theology matters.

This weekend is known as labor day weekend

labor day

The industrial revolution modernized consumer goods

Unions were illegal in canada until hundreds of workers marcher to prime minister John Macdonalds home

The march became an annual tradition

Tues Sept. 5ht 1882 1000’s of laborers in New York gathered and marched central labor unio

Oregon in 1887 legalized labor day

1894 railroad strike, Grover Cleaveland sent 1000s of troops to break it up and were forced to make it a federal holiday

But long before the conversation even began surrounding the holiday the precurser to the labor movement in the U.S. and Canada was the labor movement in England

Wesley and the workers

Bristol was a major area for Mining

The city of nearly fifty thousand people, about one-tenth the size of London and the site of a magnificent cathedral, was surrounded by coal mines

Being a place of menial work it was also an area built on slave labor

Wesley stood with and for the workers

Wesley advocated for fair pay and better work conditions

John Wesley’s Methodism in Bristol England was known as the “Religion of the Poor”

Wesley cared too about the things that effected the poor: the conditions of the mines, access to public lands, drunkenness and addiction, and equal and public education.

It wasn’t long before Wesley’s message that God loved and cherished them that the workers began to wonder why it was that their employers did not love and cherish them.

John Wesley found himself dissatisfied with the church not because it did not worship well, but because it did not resonate with those that were on the margins.

The early worshiping communities of the Methodist Movement were not on Sunday mornings in the fancy church buildings; they were in field and work yards. The reason was to proclaim that worship was something that everyone needed very desperately. At the time there were some that were no physically able/available to worship God in the church setting, and were often excluded.

Some trees were shaped so as to amplify the sound coming from under the branches, and mine pits were at times nearly custom-made to accommodate an audience. On one occasion, Charles reports preaching at Evesham from “Whitefield’s pulpit, the wall.”

Wesley proclaimed good news to people right where they were just as they were

Foundry

Wesley started outside

The winter came and they needed an indoor place

artillery foundry of King Charles

Could hold 1,500 people

larger than any of our sanctuaries

Pharmasuedicals were distributed

a surgeon

A school

An almshouse - a homeless shelter basically

Re-imagining what it is that is good news

Wesley reminds us that God's good news meets us right where we are just as we are

Passage today

The sending of the 70

The numbers here matter. Seventy names in the Hebrew text and those names correspond to households. What it is trying to say is that the Gospel is for the whole world. It is not just for the people that are in the synagog.

hey go outnumbered and to embark on an uphill battle

And on top of that they are unequipped or under equipped

salute no one on the road because eastern salutations can be long and time consuming - don’t small talk with anyone don’t stop anyware just go

like the midwestern goodbye

A message that the kingdom of God has come near to you

I am going to ask you to turn to your neighbor and say the kingdom of God has come near to you

Eating the food that was given was about meeting people where they were just as they were. For these Jews that were likely thinking about ritual purity they were often awefully concerned about what they were eating and how it would sit with them.

How do we speak words that invite people to see their own sacredness in their own setting?

How do we shed what the good news meant to a different generation or a different people and imagine it for ourselves?

How is it that we can practice theological creativity in where God can be found?

Because THAT is our mission

The mission of the church comes from this passage in Luke

Often we think about the mission of God is to know, follow, and share Jesus

To be disciples and to make disciples

What does it mean to find good news with someone else?

It is like in Math class where you one of the best ways to learn something is to teach someone else

To make disciples (teachers know this) you have to enter into the world and the imagination of the student, and find the right language that resonates with them

John Wesley said “the world is my parrish”

John Wesley was dissatisfied with the amount of life-change that he saw in the church

This is the solution to people who are burnt out on religion but still love Jesus

Our mission is for the people that might be skeptical about the church, or who have maybe even been harmed by the church in the past

We need to meet people where they are and love them just as they are for God does the same for us

And if the good news is not good to you perhaps it needs to be shared in a new way or in a new place

Perhaps we ought to use different language or practice a bit of theological creativity

That the kingdom of God is not one-size-fits all

But the Kingdom of God has come for a person like you, for a time like this, and for a place like here.

Pastoral Prayer

Lord God - we give you thanks for all your gifts to us – for daily food - for health - for each breath we take - for freedom to choose - and for the gifts of your word, your power, and your love. Our hearts are truly overwhelmed, O God, when we consider all that you are and how you have entrusted so much to us. May we be worthy of that trust - may we be a people who are unafraid to live as fully and as richly as you want us to live. Help us O God, as followers of Jesus, to multiply all that you given us, to risk spreading your word and perhaps see it misunderstood, to take chances by loving those whom others think worthy only of hate, to take chances by doing good to those who have not done good to us. We pray for those who are poor in body or in spirit... for those who are oppressed and heavy laden.... for those who are sick or in despair... Minister O God by your Spirit, and by us, to all those for whom we have prayedLord, help us walk faithfully in the path of our Lord Jesus Christ - he who taught us to pray together as one family, praying the prayer that your son taught us either within the silence of our own minds or out loud with one another saying.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

Amen.

Announcing Offertory

One of the multitude of ways that we can respond is through our financial generosity. There are ways to do that through our churches website, through the offering plates in the room as well as through mail. May our whole being all that we do, our time, our talent, and our treasure be a celebration of the fact that we are seen, known, and loved by God.

Benediction

As Jesus stood before the 70 and told them. To Go. To go far and wide to the end of the earth to let people know that God’s love is for them. So I tell you as you prepare to leave to go from this place to make disciples. But Christ also said to know that God will be with you. So go, knowing that the pressence of God goes with you, that the peace of God surrounds you so go in peace to love and to serve.