Since Easter we’ve spent the last few weeks using the books of Acts and Galatians to remind us of the very foundations of our faith, and how the early community of believers came to be known as the church.  Next week, June 4th is Pentecost, in which we celebrate the birthday of the church, when God's people were given the Holy Spirit.  
Two weeks ago we were reminded that there is tension inherent in living out a faithful life.  We should not be afraid of tension or disagreement that might happen in a community of faith, because it is natural and innate in the life of a faith community.  It is the very life of faith that is both spiritual and human, a tension that we all experience; so to have tension within a faith community is not something of which we should be afraid. (I also want to be clear that I’m not insinuating there is tension or disagreement in our church, rather, this is a lesson we can learn from the early church about what it means to be the church together.)
Last week we talked about grace.  We reminded ourselves that there's nothing you can do to earn God's grace, it is a gift. There is absolutely no rule or law, or path in which you can follow in order to earn God's grace, so we need to avoid being bogged down with a legalistic way of approaching God's grace, because it causes us to miss the point.  
This week we continue to talk about God's grace and it's presence in the creation of the early church.  Galatians 3 reminds us that God's grace is not just for a certain few.  God's grace was present in the very beginning, when God promised Abraham and Sarah, and God continues to share that grace without respect of gender, ethnicity, status in society or the like.
As we remember that Jesus sent us out into the world to share God's love and make disciples of all nations, we have much to learn from the early days of the early church.  We can learn from their mistakes, from their growing pains, and from their successes.  Above all, we come together to learn how we can more faithfully love and serve the God of love who's presence and grace is with us through it all.
Won't you join us on Sunday morning at 10:30am for worship?  We look forward to welcoming ALL as God has welcomed ALL to this table of grace and love - you are welcome here!

Grace must find its expression in life, otherwise it's not grace.          
                                                           -Karl Barth

Reading:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. After he agreed with the workers to pay them a denarion, he sent them into his vineyard.

“Then he went out around nine in the morning and saw others standing around the marketplace doing nothing. He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I’ll pay you whatever is right.’ And they went.

“Again around noon and then at three in the afternoon, he did the same thing. Around five in the afternoon he went and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you just standing around here doing nothing all day long?’

“‘Because nobody has hired us,’ they replied.

“He responded, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the workers and give them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and moving on finally to the first.’ When those who were hired at five in the afternoon came, each one received a denarion. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more. But each of them also received a denarion. When they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, ‘These who were hired last worked one hour, and they received the same pay as we did even though we had to work the whole day in the hot sun.’

“But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I did you no wrong. Didn’t I agree to pay you a denarion? Take what belongs to you and go. I want to give to this one who was hired last the same as I give to you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or are you resentful because I’m generous?’ So those who are last will be first. And those who are first will be last.”
                                                      -Matthew 20:1-16 (CEB)

Refection:
It is difficult not to focus on the vineyard workers and apply our economic system to the situation in this parable. Every one of the workers in this parable ends up earning the exact same pay regardless of how long they worked. Those who worked the full day were paid a denarion and they were happy to make this money. That is, until those who were hired later in the day and even those who only worked a very short time ended up being paid the exact same wage. Most of us would have grumbled in this situation because from our view point it just isn't fair!

But what happens when we change our focus? What happens if we look at this parable from the viewpoint of the landowner? The landowner gave those hired early in the day what he had promised. The landowner valued all of the workers the same, regardless of when they were called to work. They were all worthy of the denarion in the landowner's eyes. 

Let's change the word "denarion" now into the word "grace". 

At the end of the day, do we still want to argue about fairness? Or will we accept God's generous gift? It's difficult to change our focus from the way our society works but Jesus asks us time and again to see it all differently. He asks us to open our eyes and see from the viewpoint of the Kingdom of God. Might it be time to change our focus?

If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; but when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.
    - Proverbs 29.18 (The Message)

This is what God says, “Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?
                                  - Isaiah 43.14a, 18-19 (The Message)


READING: 
When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force—no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them. There were many Jews staying in Jerusalem just then, devout pilgrims from all over the world. When they heard the sound, they came on the run. Then when they heard, one after another, their own mother tongues being spoken, they were thunderstruck. They couldn’t for the life of them figure out what was going on, and kept saying, “Aren’t these all Galileans? How come we’re hearing them talk in our various mother tongues? Their heads were spinning; they couldn’t make head or tail of any of it. They talked back and forth, confused: “What’s going on here?” That’s when Peter stood up and, backed by the other eleven, spoke out with bold urgency: “Fellow Jews, all of you who are visiting Jerusalem, listen carefully and get this story straight. These people aren’t drunk as some of you suspect. They haven’t had time to get drunk—it’s only nine o’clock in the morning. This is what the prophet Joel announced would happen: “In the Last Days,” God says, “I will pour out my Spirit on every kind of people: Your sons will prophesy, also your daughters; Your young men will see visions, your old men dream dreams. And whoever calls out for help
 to me, God, will be saved.”
                           - Acts 2.1-21 (Selections; The Message)


REFLECTION:
To hear Isaiah report God’s intention to do something brand-new, you’d think God would be the source for the old saying “Out with the old and in with the new.” Somehow, I doubt this. It doesn’t sound like God’s style of expression. And besides, God never throws anything out; not babies with bath water, not old-stuff to make room for the new, and certainly not you or me. God doesn’t discard and replace things… God re-creates them. Paul understood this, and was able to pronounce with confidence that in Christ, all things have become new.

This is important to remember as our faith community concludes and affirms its discernment of God’s vision of what OPCC can and should be; God’s mission for us that will not be impossible if we choose to accept it. God is waiting and yearning to re-create our faith community, to re-invent our vision, illumine our understanding, and in so doing show us the WAY from here (of course, taking the babies with us!).

Our vision discernment retreats have been wonderful experiences in which the movement of Spirit has been obvious. This group, which included some 50 folk at one meeting or another, began by discerning the core values that guide, inspire, and empower our faith community; values that can and should be identified and intentionally woven into our walk in faith. From this foundation, the groups attempted to envision what a faith community based on these values would look like in the future; to discern what our faith community would look like when re-created from the insideOUT! The results of these retreats have provisionally issued in a Future Story; a fictive narrative that recounts the growth of our faith community. The story has two chapters. The first recounts the ways we will reach out into the larger community to assist folk in need, partner with others of good will to work for the common good, and stand for issues of justice and fairness. Chapter two recounts the attention we will give to our spiritual nurture and development, our efforts to be an intentionally welcoming community, and thus, to successfully welcome new folk into a dynamic faith journey with Christ, and the fellowship of our faith community.

This Future Story will be distributed to those in worship on Pentecost Sunday, and will be available as well on the web site and in the reception office on campus. We will read, pray, clarify, question, discuss, and revise if necessary the vision that inspires this story of a church that reinvents itself. As we discern consensus around the vision; as each of us recognizes the willingness to embrace this vision, we will celebrate it as the road map to the future. We will express it in summary form as a statement of vision and mission, and begin work on a strategic plan to prioritize goals, and give arms and legs to the vision. I have been amazed at the quality of the discernment process to this point (and the great work of our visioning team), and am excited to expand this discernment and prepare for something brand-new that is even now bursting out among us.

In case you missed it this morning, we focused on the ascension of Jesus; that day not too long after Jesus had appeared to the disciples for the first time, when he would bless them, pray for them, and then rise up to be with God.

Among many other things, in the ascension we are reminded that we are called to continue this story of God's love and saving acts.  As Jesus rises to be with God, so too are we called to rise up - and to share God's story and grace with the world!

We hope you enjoy this short video shared this morning, of Maya Angelou reading portions of her poem, "And Still I Rise."