Help Me 211 Community Resources
Prayer Ministry
If you have a prayer request, please send it to pastordelawareheadwatersparish
SERMONS:
Pastor Peg posts her two most recent sermons on this page. If you are interested in reading more of her sermons you can go to pastorpeg.wordpress.com. Our Easter Season sermon series is: Called to More. Enjoy.
You are Not Your Sin
May 18 2025 4th Sunday of Easter
Psalm 32:1-5 John 8:1-11
We can't help it; our experiences define us, whether we want them to or not. And unfortunately, our bad experiences can overwhelm our good experiences. When I took relational psychology, I learned that one action of mistrust has to be countered by three actions of trust in order to get you to feel neutral about someone. It actually can take up to five actions of trust for you to start trusting someone again.
The psalmist really knew what he was talking about when he says that deceit and guilt mess up your heart and your brain. Remember that in ancient civilizations you didn't separate the two. They really understood that the heart and brain work together, and this has actually been confirmed by modern medicine. We know that a reaction goes through the emotional part of the brain first, before it gets to the logical part of the brain. But sometimes it gets stuck in the emotional part, then our reaction is a whiplash based in emotion without any reason.
The psalmist starts out by saying people whose sin and transgressions are forgiven are happy. Likewise, those people who are honest and avoid deceit are also happy because they don't have a problem with themselves.
The psalmist isn't one of those. Because he keeps silent about his sin, because he’s in denial that he's done anything wrong, he feels like his body is wasting away. He's groaning all day long, which I think means that he's constantly thinking about what he did wrong. He's so preoccupied with his sin that he doesn't have the strength to do anything else. But then the psalmist goes to God and he admits the wrong that he did. He doesn't hide anything and comes clean with the whole story. You know how sometimes we admit that we did something wrong, but we leave out little details, kind of to make it look like it's not really as bad as we think? He doesn't do that; he goes for full-on confession. And then what happens is: God forgives him.
Now that might seem like a little bit simplistic. For a long time I thought: That doesn't work; that’s not good enough. If you do something wrong you've hurt somebody and caused them grief. Sin is an infliction of negativity. Whether you do it by accident; or you get back at someone because you're mad at them; or you don't allow somebody to participate in something because, well, that's how we've always done it; you are hurting someone. And it seemed to me that just knowing that you're forgiven doesn't get you off the hook for the pain that you've caused.
So what good is knowing that God forgives you if we've still got a bunch of hurt out there that needs to be addressed? And how do we address it?
Well, healing from sin, making right whatever wrong we've done, is a process. Read any self-help book, whether it's about psychology, business management, or organization, and what comes up first is: You've got to admit that the problem is there and identify it. It’s the first step to fixing things. (Like that really messy closet!) When you've done something wrong, the first thing you have to do is to recognize and admit that you did something wrong, otherwise you are never going to be able to make it right. And it's not going to do any good for you to admit to half of the problem, you've got to admit to all of the problem.
Bloomville has a beautiful new kitchen because when they removed the countertop, they found problems with the walls and the cabinets. They didn't deny the problems; they didn't say: Oh, we'll put a countertop down and deal with the other stuff later. They said: We have to fix all of this. They found and faced the entire scope of the problem. Yes, it was a big mess, but everybody came together to fix it, and now they have a beautiful new kitchen to enjoy.
Now it's easier to fix something out in the physical world than it is to fix something that’s connected to your head and heart. When we admit we did something wrong to God we take all that emotion and all the thoughts that we've been wrestling with, and we set them out on a metaphorical altar in front of God and say: God look at this. I recognize and admit to the infliction of negativity, and please forgive me. And when you feel that forgiveness, and know that God still loves you even though you messed up, all that stuff that has been playing havoc inside your heart and your brain is calmed down and you can now start to take the next step to healing.
You see, if you know that God has forgiven you, then you know that God is on your side and will help you to heal the hurt that you’ve created. So, confession, and then forgiveness, gives you a sense of peace and a connection with God. Once you have that sense of assurance and connection you can move forward, working with God into solution, resolution, and absolution.
One of my favorite sayings is: In the word Absolution is the word Solution. Find the solution to the problem and the absolution takes care of itself. If you look at the hurt that you've caused by your infliction of negativity and you figure out what you can do to make the problem right, then you’ve found a solution to move forward into. Sometimes it's as simple as an apology, and other times you might have to do some work to repair the damage you've done. And maybe that work is not going to feel very comfortable or will seem to be hard to do. But that uncomfortable and difficult work of making something right and better is actually penance. Penance comes from the word repent which means to turn the other way. By turning away from inflictions of negativity to positive actions of generosity, renewal, and compassion we heal what is wrong with the world.
Now, when things go wrong, we often can’t put them back together the way they were before. It isn’t the nature of time to go back to the past; it’s the nature of time to move forward into something new. What we look for in our work with God it's not reconstruction, but a continuous working resolution to the problem. And when you hit that point when you know that you have created something new and positive, from the negative that was, then you know you have your absolution.
The story of the Pharisees bringing to Jesus the woman caught in adultery shows us that resolutions to sin are not always what we think they should be. Jesus is challenged by the Pharisees who want to know what he thinks should be done to this woman. The law of Moses calls for her to be stoned. And Jesus as a good Jew and a good prophet should adhered to the law. But Jesus has been preaching compassion and forgiveness of sin. The Pharisees think that they've put him in an uncompromising position. How can he be a good Jew and prophet if he rejects the judgment of Moses? How can he be a man who preaches compassion if he condemns this woman to death by stoning?
Jesus does something very interesting: He un-confronts the crowd. Instead of answering he kneels down and starts to write in the sand in front of them. The scripture doesn't tell us what he wrote in the sand. It could be a well-known biblical passage, or it could be a nursery rhyme that he learned from his mother. Whatever it was, it stopped the momentum of what was happening. Everyone is standing around waiting for an answer and this guy is writing something in the sand. And when everyone was refocused on Jesus’ writing and not focused on the woman, he stands up and challenges them: Whoever is without sin may cast the first stone.
And now everyone has to stop and think – UMMMM! And each person comes to the conclusion that they are not without sin. So the only thing for them to do is to walk away. Situation defused. And then, seeing that the woman is alright, Jesus doesn’t berate her but tells her: Go and sin no more.
Now of course this woman, just like us, was going to keep on making mistakes. But we don’t have to define ourselves as our mistakes. That’s what sin does: It tries to make you believe that your mistakes are all you are. But when you take your mistakes to God, he lifts them off of you so that you don’t have to live inside them be ruled by them. Instead, you can become a person who heals your mistakes, and in turn helps to heal the world.
You are not your sins – so don’t let them define you. Live in the Grace of God by living in the process of confession, forgiveness, connecting with God, solution through healing, working towards a resolution, and finally you will come to the absolute-knowing that you are God’s child who is loved by Him. What did Jesus say to everyone: You are forgiven for your sins. Live to heal your sins, and you will be living into God’s love and His kingdom.
Facing Darkness to Reach Light
May 4, 2025 2nd Sunday of Easter Communion
Psalm 107:10-14 1 John 1:5-10
About 20 years ago I was working as a teacher at Marymount college in Westchester County. I got to know the teachers in the psychology department and sometimes I would have lunch with them. One of the teachers Bob had been raised Jewish, but he was rather undecided about where he stood in his faith. One day he said that he didn't find the Bible to be very interesting. I looked at him and said: How can you not find the Bible interesting? He replied that it didn’t really speak to him or have any relevance for him. And I said: Wait a minute you're a psychologist and the Bible doesn't speak to you? How can it not have relevance for you? The Bible is the original psychology book. It's about different types of people trying to figure out how they exist in the world; how they wrestle with their needs and desires; and how they relate to the divine, or, if you want to, you can just call it the universe.
He froze for a moment and then said: Oh my gosh. I've never thought of the Bible in that way.
Think about what it means to be human. We all have needs and desires. We all have doubt and confusion, along with moments of clarity. We have experiences that lead us into sorrow, and experiences that give us joy. We have obstacles that are sometimes annoyances and others that we think we will never get around, through, or past. We have times when the path is clearly laid out for us, and we feel like we’re walking on it rightly. Life is an incredible combination of knowing what we want and not knowing what we want; having things go our way and having things mess up. And it can be exhausting.
Another aspect of being human is that we are not singular creatures; we do not live alone well. Yes, there are those people who go off into the woods and become hermits and don't want to deal with the rest of humanity. But you have to be an adult to do that. Babies and children cannot make their way into the world alone. We are born pretty helpless and need to be taken care of as we grow and taught how to survive in our environment.
To make things easier for ourselves, from the dawn of human time, we have always tried to figure out a system whereby we can work together. And to that end we try to create a society and a culture that will enable us to live well. I'm not saying that we would live without struggle, but the point of any social system is to make the struggle doable.
Ten thousand years ago, that meant that the tribe had to teach the child how to hunt together, how to build a fire, and how to find shelter and make clothes. The tribes that worked the most effectively together ended up becoming stronger and more populous. Later on, the tribes that were able to effectively create agriculture became cultures that expanded into cities and then nations of their own. In the Bible the Jewish nation moves from a nomadic tribe of herders, to a to a group of farmers, and then becomes a nation of cities, and then a central government which relates with other nations.
But all tribes or nations are made up of individuals looking for their own identities, and trying to figure out how to make their identifies work within the society. We are all of us looking for a way out of the darkness of uncertainty of what to do, and into the light of clear decision. And we are looking for the path forward that will meet our needs physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. The Bible is a tested handbook of attitudes, ways of thinking, and actions that can lead us to a good and healthy life.
Let’s look at Psalm 107 which gives the image, at first. of prisoners in chains in a jail. They are presented as a metaphor of people who have done something against society's norms and laws. But right away the Psalmist says that they are in this situation not because they stole something, or they beat someone up in a bar fight, but because they rejected the commandments of God. And that initial rejection was what led them to commit the acts that got them in prison. Their attitude was that they didn’t need God. That led to the thinking that they didn’t have to follow God’s Commandments and respect their neighbors. Which led to the actions that got them into prison. Attitude – Thought – Action.
But when they turn their attitude around, and they realize that they do need God, this leads to thinking about connecting with God, and the action that results is that God will help them and lift them out of the prison that they have gotten themselves into.
I want to expand this a little and talk about the image of a prison. A prison in ancient times was a very dark, dirty, and unhealthy place. It’s also a very restrictive place; you have a limited space to move around and exist in. Plus, you don’t have self-determination and your every action is ruled over by the people who are managing the system you’re in.
Think about the dark, difficult times in your life. When our circumstances become limited; when we don’t have any self-agency; when we are being controlled by other people or the situation we are in, and we can’t see a way out – those are very dark times.
There are a lot of reasons why we could feel this way. Addiction takes away your self-agency and your health; you live for the substance; and your world becomes increasingly narrow and dark. Economic hardships can also bring you to a dark, restrictive space. Being preyed on in a scam. Losing your home in a natural disaster. Grief can also bring you there. My point is that you don’t have to necessarily do something illegal – you can be a good person, and the world can shift out from under you, and you suddenly find yourself in a place of uncertainty and no clear path forward. And that puts us in a dark place.
But the Psalmist says that even if you’re physically in a dark place you don’t have to be there mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. We can use the free will that God gives to us to embrace the attitude that God is with us. In times of crisis and trouble we can turn to God and work on keeping His Commandments by staying the course of being his people who love our neighbors as ourselves. We can use our faith to call on God to help us out of our problems and get us back on the right track. It’s not going to be easy, but with God all things are possible, which means that they are all endurable and workable. Part of being a Christian is our belief that we are working with God, on a daily basis, to get what we need to get done.
The disciple John reinforces this idea by proclaiming that God is pure light and will shine His light into our darkness. John knows that we aren’t always walking on the right path, and anyone who might try to convince you that they’ve found the secret formula to live perfectly is lying to you. We are all stumbling around at one time or another. We all make mistakes. We inflict negativity on ourselves and on each other. Hopefully most of the time our mistakes are unintentional, but sometimes they’re not.
John’s answer to this is that God and Christ understand that we have this problem with making mistakes. That’s not the issue – God has already forgiven us for having this this human condition. The problem is when we don’t acknowledge our mistakes and our wrong-doings; when we pretend to be perfect. That’s something that gets us into dark spaces and moves us away from God’s light. God and Christ would rather that we try to be good, not pretend to be perfect.
If we have the attitude that God loves us and is willing to forgive our sins, then we will think: I can confess what I’ve done wrong and ask God to help me make things right. And then if your heart and mind are open to God’s light, then the Holy Spirit will give you strength, inspiration and wisdom to help you find a solution to the problem. Attitude – Thought – Action.
I’d like to end with a joke: There was a minister who was invited to breakfast at a farmhouse. And the grandfather gave the blessing. He said: Lord, you know that I’m not fond of white flour. And you know Lord, I’m not really fond of Lard. And you also know that I’m not so fond of milk either. But when you stir them all together and mix them up and bake them, they become biscuits, and I am very fond of biscuits, especially with the butter and honey that are a part of your bounty. So please, Dear Lord, give the patience to go through the stuff we don’t want to go through, while you mix up our lives into something that’s good and tasty. Amen.
May we all have the attitude that no matter what, God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are mixing up the dark in our lives, and making it into something light that we can walk and live in, with Their love and Grace