Tag: Kingdom of God

God’s Call Upon the YMCA & the Church: “Hope, Holiness, and Love For All God’s People”

An encouraging reflection upon the growing presence of Christ in our world, in the YMCA, in the Church, even when it seems that things are on the way down…

What can we learn from Christians who have been living in a town that’s been on its way down for 500 years?

What can we learn from a church that is legendary for its hoping, holiness, and love for all God’s people while also enduring hardships of poverty, minority status, Imperial brutality, and religious cynicism?

What can we learn from a YMCA that invented basketball as a way to build up hope, holiness and a love for all God’s people?

What can we learn about joining Jesus in answering his prayer for unity while at the same time experiencing the spreading darkness of despair, decadence, and destruction?

I’d like to think we can still learn so much more!

Enjoy this encouraging sermon, rooted in trust that “the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world.”

Waynedale UM Church / 8.21.2022 / Colossians 1:1-8 :: “Hope, Holiness and Love For All God’s People” / Click here to view sermon – Start 27:00 End 54:00 /

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father.

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you.

In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.

You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.”

‭‭St. Paul to the Colossians,‬ ‭1:1-8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Christianity, Christians and Christ in the YMCA: The Flourishing & Withering of Human Solidarity

In these days where the “idea of human solidarity” is withering at its roots, may the YMCA be energized to act upon the call that God has been placed upon it to live out our full mission, fueled by convictions that matter, to participate in the answer of the Lord’s prayer “that they all may be one.”

Christians started the YMCA in 1844, primarily influenced by the British Christianity of their century, but also unequivocally inspired by Christ Jesus.

Out of all the miraculous accomplishments of the YMCA in the almost 18 decades since it was founded by Sir George Williams and 11 fellow Christian businessmen, one of the most enduring and crucial is its bringing together diverse Christians from across the globe to love, care and serve together in their communities.

You could say that the Y is at its best when it participates in the transformation of a community where once there was the withering of human solidarity and together with Christians and fellow citizens they worked diligently towards flourishing for all.

To do this requires very different kinds of Christians who were nourished by a variety of Christianities to not just get along, but to humble themselves in response to the prayer of Jesus in John 17, to repent of the ways they misrepresent Christ Jesus, and renew their spirits towards union with the Son of God, a communion which is empowered by the oneness of Father and Son.

It would take a miracle for Christians from different countries and cultures, different languages and customs, different dimensions of diversity to experience unity, it would take the Spirit of Christ himself to not only change our hearts and minds, but cast a vision in our spirit for working together as his Body in the world.

Thank God for all the times this has actually occurred in our past!

But when Christians in the Church and the YMCA forget their history, when they disparage their past, when they neglect the events that precipitated their current circumstances, they undermine their ability to fully discern what is actually happening in their midst, they get foggy about why it’s happening, and then get unclear about where it might all be headed.

Renowned philosopher Terry Eagleton, in his review of the life and influence of American-British playwright and poet T.S. Eliot, puts it like this:


“For his part, Eliot understands that the past is what we are mostly made of, and that to nullify it in the name of progress is to annihilate much that is precious. It is thus that he can write that by abandoning tradition, we loosen our grip on the present.”

Terry Eagleton: “The Pope of Russell Square” Commonweal magazine

When Christians in the Y know little about George Williams and his eleven friends, when they know barely anything about the marine-missionary Thomas Sullivan or the former slave turned preacher and YMCA leader Anthony Bowen, when they barely recognize the name of Luther Wishard or John Mott, what wisdom do we have to work with to navigate the choppy pluralistic waters we sail through today?

When Christians in the Y barely know our history, our victories and failures, our cultural successes and blunders, our social impact and detriments, we fail then to learn from our past, we cut off our ability to do better as Christians in society, and either end up repeating similar mistakes, or make worse ones unknowingly.

A brief analysis of the YMCA in the USA reveals an organization that is both fully shaped by our American culture, but also one that has profoundly shaped it as well.

Amongst all the cultural realities that are in tumult, one of them is the health of the family, thus also the vitality of neighborhoods, the commonwealth of a community, the nurturing of an inclusive social order.

The YMCA is an association, amongst other realities, and is always navigating the dynamics between individuals and groups, branches and associations, CEO’s and boards – and in an effort to appeal as widely as possible in an inclusive way, it struggles to say something definititively about itself as a Christian-rooted non-profit organization while trying not to turn anyone away.

It can get stuck between the philosophy that “everyone may believe more or less what they want” – which can lead to a kind of moral nihilism, or it can get stuck against the values of majority status quo without fully caring what it means or how it can negatively affect the minority.

Christianity in the YMCA has an internal source of critique when it overidentifies with individual aspirations or with groupthink, a well of criticisms for when Christians get out of hand with their bigotry towards anything different or apathy towards injustice: it’s Jesus Christ, who claims to be the way, the truth and the life.

The more that Christians in the Y pay attention to Christ, they will have access to both nurtuing truth and wisdom on how to lead and serve in a withering set of circumstances, critical practices for building up peace amidst conflict and thus capacity for adding resources that build up a flourishing life for all.

Eagleton remarks again, via Eliot, in this regard:

“A belief in social order need not be authoritarian; it may rather be an alternative to the anarchy of the marketplace. It may also be preferable to a liberal civilization in which everyone may believe more or less what they want—but only because convictions don’t matter much in any case, and because the idea of human solidarity has withered at the root.”

Terry Eagleton: “The Pope of Russell Square” Commonweal magazine

When Christ is made central to Christians in the Y, they can easily join in the critiques of all that is witheringly wrong with Christianity in the YMCA and America.

But, as we all know, it is all to easy to generate criticism – so the real task is: can we join Christ in telling the truth with grace, can we constructively criticize ourselves, not in self-loathing but in a spirit of love that begins to reconcile, make amends, and build anew a healthy spirit mind and body for all.

Jesus says in the Beatitudes: blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Another way to translate it: blessed are those who hunger for equity, for justice, for what is good and beautiful and true.

To hunger for it means there is an absence of it, which means there is much to critique; but, in Christ we also have a source, a set of prayers, a way of life to imitate for responding to the criticism with humility, wisdom from the past, and traditions to draw on to do better.

Out of all the actions the YMCA can take to re-position itself for the future in this post-pandemic world, one of them that I consider vital is to take stock of its Christian roots, to re-remember it’s Christian heros, to start telling a truer origin story, to let it’s rich vibrant imperfect history be a source of brilliant wisdom on what not to do anymore, what to keep doing, what to adapt, and what to start.

Is there anything else like the YMCA in our nation? No.

Is there anything else like the YMCA in the kingdom of God? No.

We who are blessed to be members of the YMCA in these days are part of a movement that is unique, is powerful, is audacious, is a walking miracle.

In these days where the “idea of human solidarity” is withering at its roots, may the YMCA be energized to act upon the call that God has been placed upon it to live out our full mission in every city where we are present, fueled by convictions that matter, to participate in the answer of the Lord’s prayer “that they all may be one.”

Photo by Zach Vessels on Unsplash

Our God Is Able: the YMCA, Martin Luther King Jr. and The Strength to Love

“When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a great benign Power in the universe whose name is God, and he is able to make a way out of no way, and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.”

– Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, from his sermon “Our God Is Able”

War. Tyranny. Disease. Famine. Fires. Drought. Hate. Bigotry. Terror. Death. Grief. Sorrow. Hopelessness. Heartache. Despair.

The YMCA continues to love, care and serve all across the world amidst every kind of disaster, tragedy, and conflict. What keeps us going?

This sermon by MLK speaks for many of us as we strive to humbly lead and work as Christians in the Y during the darkest days and longest nights.

May it be a source of strength for you in these times, these struggles, these sorrows, these tears.

(On a very personal note: in 2014 I discovered this sermon by MLK, it became deeply formative to my spirit as I struggled to make sense of the untimely deaths of my brothers years earlier and of my father more recently. And like any Christian leader, struggling to resist the ways of the world, and tend to the condition and health of my own soul. This sermon is still relevant to me….

As I continually reflect on the writings of those who also strive to follow in the ways of Christ Jesus, and suffered more than me, and still chose to trust and serve the Lord, they are an inspiration to me to keep going, in faith, hope and love, by the strength of the Spirit.)

“Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling.”

New Testament, Letter from Jude, verse 24

At the center of the Christian faith is the conviction that in the universe there is a God of power who is able to do exceedingly abundant things in nature and in history. This conviction is stressed over and over in the Old and the New Testaments.

Theologically, this affirmation is expressed in the doctrine of the omnipotence of God. The God whom we worship is not a weak and incompetent God. He is able to beat back gigantic waves of opposition and to bring low prodigious mountains of evil. 

The ringing testimony of the Christian faith is that God is able.

The devotees of the new man-centered religion point to the spectacular advances of modern science as justification for their faith.

But alas! something has shaken the faith of those who have made the laboratory “the new cathedral of men’s hopes.”

The instruments which yesterday were worshipped today contain cosmic death, threatening to plunge all of us into the abyss of annihilation.

Man is not able to save himself or the world.

Unless he is guided by God’s spirit, his new-found scientific power will become a devastating Frankenstein monster that will bring to ashes his earthly life.

At times other forces cause us to question the ableness of God.

The stark and colossal reality of evil in the world – what Keats calls “the giant agony of the world”; ruthless floods and tornadoes that wipe away people as though they were weeds in an open field; ills like insanity plaguing some individuals from birth and reducing their days to tragic cycles of meaninglessness; the madness of war and the barbarity of man’s inhumanity to man – why, we ask, do these things occur if God is able to prevent them?

This problem, namely, the problem of evil, has always plagued the mind of man.

I would limit my response to an assertion that much of the evil which we experience is caused by man’s folly and ignorance and also by the misuse of his freedom.

Beyond this, I can say only that there is and always will be a penumbra of mystery surrounding God.

What appears at the moment to be evil may have a purpose that our infinite minds are incapable of comprehending. So in spite of the presence of evil and the doubts that lurk in our minds, we shall wish not to surrender the conviction that God is able.

Let us notice that God is able to subdue all the powers of evil.

In affirming that God is able to conquer evil we admit the reality of evil.

Christianity has never dismissed evil as illusory, or an error of the mortal mind. It reckons with evil as a force that has objective reality.

But Christianity contends that evil contains the seeds of its own destruction.

History is the story of evil forces that advance with seemingly irresistible power only to be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice.

There is a law in the moral world – a silent, invisible imperative, akin to the always in the physical world – which reminds us that life will work only in a certain way.

In our own nation another unjust and evil system, known as segregation, for nearly one hundred years inflicted the Negro with a sense of inferiority, deprived him of his personhood, and denied him his birthright of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Segregation has been the Negroe’s burden and America’s shame.

But as on the world scale, so in our nation, the wind of change began to blow. One event has followed another to bring a gradual end to the system of segregation.

Today we know with certainty that segregation is dead. The only question remaining is how costly will be the funeral.

These great changes are not mere political and sociological shifts. They represent the passing of systems that were born in injustice, nurtured in inequality, and reared in exploitation.

They represent the inevitable decay of any system based on principles that are not in harmony with the moral laws of the universe.

When in future generations men look back upon these turbulent, tension packed days through which we are passing, they will see God working through history for the salvation of man.

They will know that God was working through those men who had the vision to perceive that no nation could survive half slave and half free.

God is able to conquer the evils of history. His control is never usurped.

If at times we despair because of the relatively slow progress being made in ending racial discrimination and if we become disappointed because of the undue cautiousness of the federal government, let us gain new heart in the fact that God is able.

In our sometimes difficult and often lonesome walk up freedom’s road, we do not walk alone. God walks with us. 

He has placed within the very structure of this universe certain absolute moral laws. We can neither defy nor break them.

If we disobey them, they will break us. The forces of evil may temporarily conquer truth, but truth will ultimately conquer its conqueror. Our God is able.

Let us notice, finally, that God is able to give us interior resources to confront the trials and difficulties of life.

Each of us faces circumstances in life which compel us to carry heavy burdens of sorrow.

Adversity assails us with hurricane force. Glowing sunrises are transformed into darkest nights. Our highest hopes are blasted and our noblest dreams are shattered.

Christianity has never overlooked these experiences. They come inevitably.

Like the rhythmic alternation in the natural order, life has the glittering sunlight of its summers and the piercing chill of its winters.

Days of unutterable joy are followed by days of overwhelming sorrow. Life brings periods of flooding and periods of drought.

Admitting the weighty problems and staggering disappointments, Christianity affirms that God is able to give us the power to meet them.

He is able to give us the inner equilibrium to stand tall amid the trials and burdens of life.

He is able to provide inner peace amid the outer storms.

The inner stability of the man of faith is Christ’s chief legacy to his disciples.

He offers neither material resources nor a magical formula that exempts us from suffering and persecution, but he brings an imperishable gift: “Peace I leave with you.”

This is the peace that passeth all understanding.

At times we may feel that we do not need God, but on the day when the storms of disappointment rage, the winds of disaster blow, and the tidal waves of grief beat against our lives, if we do not have a deep and patient faith our emotional lives will be ripped to shreds.

There is so much frustration in the world because we have relied on gods rather than God.

We have genuflected before the god of science only to find that it has given us the atomic bomb, producing fears and anxieties that science can never mitigate.

We have worshipped the god of pleasure only to discover that thrills play out and sensations are short-lived.

We have bowed before the god of money only to learn that there are such things as love and friendship that money cannot buy and that in a world of possible depressions, stock market crashes, and bad business investments, money is a rather uncertain deity.

These transitory gods are not able to save us or bring happiness to the human heart.

Only God is able.

It is faith in him that we must rediscover.

With this faith we can transform bleak and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of joy and bring new light into the dark caverns of pessimism.

Is someone here moving toward the twilight of life and fearful of that which we call death? Why be afraid? God is able.

Is someone here on the brink of despair because of the death of a loved one, the breaking of a marriage, or the waywardness of a child? Why despair? God is able to give you the power to endure that which cannot be changed.

Come what may, God is able.

Let this affirmation be our ringing cry.

It will give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future.

It will give our feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom.

When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a great benign Power in the universe whose name is God, and he is able to make a way out of no way, and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.

[selections taken from pages 107-114, Strength to Love; MLK was part of the Y as a young boy, and is still a dynamic influence upon the YMCA as a preacher and Civil Rights leader]