Umhlali Methodist Church

07/08/2023

The first two weeks of any term are an incredibly busy time. This term has not been any different. No matter how much I seem to prepare in the holidays, the return to school always feels like the equivalent of trying to drink out of a fire hydrant. I move from one task to the next from morning until home time and I often get to the end of the day only having finished one of the five tasks I was supposed to. It is exhausting trying to operate at this pace for more than a few days.

I struggle to find time to rest and recharge during times like these, which is when we need it the most. My default recharge activity has been to lie down on the couch and watch a movie or a series or YouTube. But consuming more content is not restorative. Our brain is still in processing mode and uses tons of energy, it does not restore energy. An alternative that has been working for me recently has been to take long walks on the beach with my dogs. These walks have given my subconscious mind the time of day to the difficult things that I am going through, to untangle my soul, to restore my energy. It has allowed me to reconnect with myself and with God.

We are not machines. We are made up of mind, body and spirit. No one can operate in turbo-mode for extended periods of time. Our biological bodies need refuelling and rest, our minds need idle time and our spirits need space.

I am really trying to reign in the "busy" feeling and get back to "slow-living". When I think of the simple life, I think of a slow life. Slowness involves space. It does not involve rushing and packing as much as we can into the day. Slowness is where we can hear God speak the most.

How are you including slow-living in your days?

07/08/2023

Umhlali Methodist Church sermon from 2023-08-06 (Readings: Matthew 14: 13-21). Preacher: Mark Wiemers

UMC Sermon preached by Mark Wiemers on 06 August 2023. Readings: Matthew 14: 13-21

31/07/2023

One of the great gifts of Christianity is that it invites us to enter holy in-between places, places of life-giving ambiguity and paradox. We want simple, black-and-white clarity in our lives, and we try to pummel Christianity into giving it to us. But God will not be pummelled. He gifts us with rich contradiction:

God is One, and God is Three.

Jesus is God and Jesus is human.

The Bible is inspired by the Spirit but authored by flawed humans.

Creation is good, and Creation is broken.

To give is to receive.

To die is to live.

To be weak is to be strong.

We are in the world but we are not of the world.

The kingdom of God is coming, and it is within us.

Paradox is woven into the fabric of Christianity, calling us beyond the parameters of human wisdom; calling us to hold together truths that seem bizarre, nonsensical, counter-intuitive, and irreconcilable.

And yet these seeming contradictions are what give the religion weight and credibility. If we serve a God who is beyond human comprehension, we need a religion that reflects his sacred mystery.

If we live in a world that's chock full of contradiction, then we need a religion robust enough and complex enough to bear the weight of that messy world. We need a religion that empowers us: that enables us to gaze at uncertainty without flinching, and teaches our souls to love the "both-and," the in-between, the mystery.

24/07/2023

We are in the sixth and final week of a journey through the Apostles Creed, a declaration of our faith, and are looking at what it is that we believe when we say the lines:

[I believe in ...] the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen.

The Apostles Creed ends with a glorious bang. Eternity. But what is it? And who gets in?

These have been difficult questions for me to answer in my life. Do good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell? But, then who is good? Am I good? I struggle to believe in a God (who we believe is Love itself) that would cast His children into eternal torment for decisions made in such a short life on earth. A jarring thought to be pondered: Do babies that die go to heaven? If so, why do we let them grow up and risk going to hell? Though this may be an oversimplification in the extreme.

I wonder what your beliefs about eternity are?

What is clear in this passage is the following:

1. Eternity includes our bodies. This reiterates the Jewish belief that body, mind and spirit are one. Our spirit is not the only eternal part of us, our whole being is eternal. This again counters the spirit-body dichotomy of the Gnostics discussed in part 1.

2. Eternity is relationship, now. In John 17:3, Jesus says "Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Life ever-lasting begins when you know Christ, not one day in the clouds.

The Apostles Creed ends by reminding us that we are eternal beings (mind, body and spirit) who are built to be in relationship with God. That is all that matters.

17/07/2023

Umhlali Methodist Church sermon from 2023-07-16 (Readings: Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23). Preacher: Mark Wiemers

UMC Sermon preached by Mark Wiemers on 16 July 2023. Readings: Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23

17/07/2023

We are in the fifth week of a journey through the Apostles Creed, a declaration of our faith, and are looking at what it is that we believe when we say the lines:

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

The first half of the closing paragraph of the Apostles Creed outlines a strong belief in an active body of Christ that is a "catholic, community of saints who forgive". Here is what each of these phrases means:

1. The catholic nature of the church: The word catholic (with a small 'c') is actually an English adjective that means "all-embracing". So a belief in a catholic church argues that even though there are many denominations around the globe, with different practices and interpretations, there is one, all-embracing church.

2. The communion of saints: This is similar to the traditional Zulu belief that our ancestors are not gone, but walk with us and in us, cheering us on. It is a belief that we are inexplicably bound to those who have gone before us and that we are all running the great race together.

3. The forgiveness of sins: Sin keeps us in the past, bound to a specific person, event, or guilt-ridden deed. This aspect of the body of Christ allows for forward movement. The letting go of (which is different from forgetting or agreeing with) something which chains us and poisons us.

Lastly, the Holy Spirit, the power behind all of this, is the thread that is running through the whole body of Christ. Binding us, guiding us, empowering us, uniting us. Do you realise that you are a part of this global, eternal, forward-moving, empowering, body?

Ever growing and never diminishing.

10/07/2023

Umhlali Methodist Church sermon from 2023-07-09 (Readings: Romans 7:15-25 & Matthew 11: 25-30). Preacher: Clifton Bartholomew

UMC Sermon preached by Clifton Bartholomew on 09 July 2023. Readings: Romans 7:15-25 & Matthew 11: 25-30

10/07/2023

Many Christians mistrust the word ‘sin’. We associate it with guilt, shame, punishment, and hellfire. We find it too harsh, too unsophisticated, and too Puritanical for the complexities of our modern lives.

Christianity’s conception of sin is so liberating, we dismiss it at our peril. As theologian Barbara Brown Taylor puts it: “Abandoning the language of sin will not make sin go away. Human beings will continue to experience alienation, deformation, damnation and death no matter what we call them. Abandoning the language will simply increase our denial of their presence in our lives. Ironically, it will also weaken the language of grace, since the full impact of forgiveness cannot be felt apart from the full impact of what has been forgiven.”

The truth is that we are both beautiful and broken, made in God's divine image, but enslaved to something that actively wars against our efforts to be good and do good. To use the word "sin" is to insist on something more profound and more clarifying than, "I make mistakes," or "I have issues." To use the word sin is to understand that we need Jesus to be more than a good role model, life coach, or mentor. We need Jesus to save us — to break an ancient and malevolent power we cannot break by ourselves.

1 John 1:9 “But if we confess our sins to God, he will keep his promise and do what is right: he will forgive us our sins and purify us from all our wrongdoing.”

1 John 4:10 “This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven.”

(Debie Thomas)

03/07/2023

Umhlali Methodist Church sermon from 2023-07-02 (Readings: Job 38: 1-11). Preacher: Mark Wiemers

UMC Sermon preached by Mark Wiemers on 02 July 2023. Readings: Job 38: 1-11

03/07/2023

During Covid lockdowns, many people asked Google: “Are the birds getting louder?” Due to the lockdown, there was less noise – no planes overhead, fewer vehicles on the road… And so, the birds sounded louder! In fact, it was one of the things that kept me sane during that time. I loved listening to the birdsong in the tree just outside the bedroom window!

It is a wonderful metaphor for pondering what kind of “noise” gets in the way of us enjoying life and hearing the Lord. Much of that “noise”, is self-created… is in our own head…

Neuroscientist, Judson Brewer, has a theory about two networks in the brain.

(1) The Narrative Network: While it helps us plan, we usually default into an occupation with the self – past events and future anxieties – which rarely results in peace. When all of this swirls through our brain on an endless loop, it can take something away = awareness of every good thing happening in our life right now.

(2) The Direct-Experiential Network: When this part of the brain is active, ruminations cease and we engage with what is happening in the present moment. Such mindfulness can be as simple as listening for birds. The birds are singing whether we notice it or not. Hearing them is a pleasure we can ignore or indulge in. But it is difficult to tune in if we’re wondering and worrying about all sorts of not-yet’s and maybe’s… There is a cost to worrying.

In Matthew 6:24-34 Jesus implies that the birds are better at trusting him than we are. No need to worry so much about the past or the future, when we realise in the present: his eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.

Mark

26/06/2023

Umhlali Methodist Church sermon from 2023-06-25 (Readings: Matthew 9:24 - 10: 39). Preacher: Mark Wiemers

UMC Sermon preached by Mark Wiemers on 25 June 2023. Readings: Matthew 9:24 - 10: 39

26/06/2023

We are in the fourth week of a journey through the Apostles Creed, a declaration of our faith, and are looking at what it is that we believe when we say the lines:

He suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died, and was buried;

he descended to hell.

The third day he rose again from the dead.

These lines are not only central to the Creed but to our faith. There are two major things that they address:

Firstly, mentioning Pontius Pilate places Jesus and the resurrection firmly in history as an event that actually happened. It is a specific moment in history. Pontius Pilate was real. Jesus was real. These events are not only recorded in the Bible, but in other non-Christian historical accounts as well.

Secondly, the more elaborate Nicene states that Jesus' crucifixion was "... for us and for our salvation". In the Old Testament, blood was the thing that carried life force. It was a common religious practice to cast one's sins and guilt onto an animal that was then sacrificed and its blood was spilled. This was symbolic of their sins dying with the animal. Blood spilled meant justice or restitution had been made for the wrong doings and they could move forward with a clear conscience. This is salvation. The untangling of ourselves with sin and the damage it causes around us and moving toward Holy living. Jesus embodies this entire sacrificial structure, not just individual sacrifices. Jesus IS salvation.

We believe that Jesus was an actual person in human history. That in his crucifixion there was something mystical that happened. That it embodied the sacrificial system that brought about salvation and that we can freely participate in relating to Jesus.