Sermon Tone Analysis

“New Normal”

Life as a series of changes

Births, deaths, weddings, illnesses, new jobs, job losses, moving, growing, graduating...

Getting used to “new normal”s

Parochial

Never by our schedule...

There is a final change that we will all face someday - leaving our world behind and joining Jesus in Heaven.

Preparing for Heaven

What would we pack to go on a trip to heaven?

Shorts and t-shirts or sweaters and thermal underwear?

Or maybe all your best dress clothes?

Lots of colors or black and whites?

What kind of hairstyles will be encouraged?

Will we wear jewelry?

Will we need to act differently in heaven than the way we act here today?

How do we prepare for heaven?

Hope in a Stranger

Parochial

Parokeos - where we get the word parochial - meaning, related to the church or church parish, and often connoting a kind of narrow-mindedness that is sometimes attributed to small town people.

Merlyn and the man on the phone outside the shop on Main Street.

Policing the area outside the shop he came for gossip and free coffee and never bought anything.

Aliens, foreigners, pilgrims, immigrants... strangers

Christ

reference - The Sheep and the Goats

Parokeos original meaning - from a neighboring country

People of the Way.

(The Way, the Life, the Truth)

No nation would accept them for almost 300 years!

They all gave up homes, lands, families, and traveled - looking for their own Promised Land to call home, and most never found it in this life on earth.

Jesus didn't, and if the world treats the master that way, how can the servants expect better treatment?

Resurrection Rumors

Jesus died and some say He was resurrected from the dead.

Even if that is true, what do we do now?

Teaching Moment

Jesus opened up the scriptures to them.

They had no bibles, no scrolls… they may not have been able to read.

What scriptures did Jesus use to explain the work of the Messiah to them?

No one knows.

It is futile to attempt to identify specific passages.

The pattern of life emerging from death is, in fact, a fundamental pattern of the entire biblical saga.

From the original chaos God creates life.

From the slavery of Egypt come freedom and homeland.

From the destruction of exile comes a renewed people.

Jesus’ interpretation of the Scriptures for the disciples gives them true understanding of the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection; now their hearts “burn” within them (v.

32).

Here is a key point of Luke’s account: the risen Christ present within the community enables them gradually to understand the full meaning of the paschal mystery.

- Senior, D. (2010).

Exegetical Perspective on .

In D. L. Bartlett & B. B. Taylor (Eds.),

Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year A (Vol. 2, pp.

421–423).

Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.

- Senior, D. (2010).

Exegetical Perspective on .

In D. L. Bartlett & B. B. Taylor (Eds.),

Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year A (Vol. 2, pp.

421–423).

Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.

So he went in to stay with them.

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.

Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.

(Luke 24:30-31)

Did they too finally see the nail marks on His hands as He handed them their pieces of broken bread?

Something happened that changed their minds and hearts and made them dare to believe.

That was all Jesus needed from them in that moment.

It was enough to help them get turned around and begin a new journey, where they would be the strangers in a strange land, just as He had been.

It fills them with hope, making their hearts burn within them…

But it also fills them with one overwhelming question: What do we do now?

Peter would later tell these folks that they needed to repent and be baptized if they had not already done so.

The Baptism they were looking for was not just water - it was the Holy Spirit, and they expected to see miracles often accompany that baptism.

They were not always the healing or speaking other languages, sometimes they were miracles of provision.

Taking just a snapshot, you might see that divine power being made manifest in a moment - but if you took a video and captured entire days of those first Christians, you would see a bigger miracle taking place:

6,000 people would give their lives to Christ in the first week.

They would be baptized (by water and the Spirit) and then they would pack their absolute necessities, sell everything else they owned, and lay the money before Peter and the Apostles.

The biggest miracle of the early church was that, in a town that had just killed the Son of God, 6,000 strangers now trusted each other enough to pool all their material possessions together and become family together.

The Apostle’s held them together by sharing everything that Jesus had taught them, raising up new leaders and disciples themselves, and making sure to keep everyone together.

They knew all too well, you cannot follow Jesus by yourself.

You need the fellowship of believers to support and encourage you and to reveal your own purpose in supporting and encouraging them.

They ate together.

They prayed together.

They were becoming one big family under their heavenly Father.

In the years to come, Peter would write to them:

There is more in these few sentences than we have time to cover today, so I just want to focus on the last two statements.

You have purified your souls - by obeying the truth - which gives you genuine, mutual love for one another (deep love from the heart)(Peter’s extra emphasis).

There’s no faking anything here.

When the Church loves, it loves truly and deeply and without pretense - and they do it because God asks them to, and that is reason enough for them.

They are able to do this because they have died to their old culture, their old countries, their old families, and their old ways.

They sold all that years ago - like the Rich Young Ruler was asked to do, and now they follow Jesus.

They have been born into a new culture, a new life, a new family, and that has happened through the “word of God”.

This word of God is not the Bible, because they didn’t have the Bible back then, nor is it even the Old Testament, although the Old Testament and New Testament are both a sort of record of the word of God.

No I think it is much simpler.

They heard from and saw God at work every day.

God’s word was not dead letters or magic books, it was what He spoke to them every day.

I think they all had experiences like the disciples walking to Emmaus, where two or three of them gathered together, and lo and behold, the presence of Jesus was with them, and as they ate together, prayed together, studied and talked about the teachings of Jesus and the scripture from the Old Testament they had been raised on together, suddenly they would recognize Jesus and hear the counsel and instruction they needed for that day… and as soon as they had received what they needed - He would disappear again.

He would tell them, just exactly what to do next.

Next Steps for Strangers on the Way

So how do we live like that here in our own fallen culture today?

It is going to take a leap of faith.

Chances are, there is something God has already been speaking to you about and you just haven’t mustered up the courage to do it.

Leap of Faith - No matter how much you know, it always takes a leap of faith to live out God’s will for your life.

Grandpa Schreckengast - WWII paratrooper - the first jump is always the hardest.

It only gets easier with practice, not just reading or hearing about jumps.

You have to actually do it yourself.