Category: Just a Thought

Sermon excerpts

Snowflakes from Heaven

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Just a ThoughtLeave a comment

snow-covered-road

J.B. Priestley once wrote: “The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?”

Yesterday, Stantonsburg Road was littered with empty Natural Light cans, leftover trash from Bojangles and McDonalds, and the carcass of a possum or two. This morning it is a majestic, untarnished pathway through a winter wonderland.

Yesterday, my lawn was brown, covered with ugly winter weeds and strewn with fallen tree limbs and dog droppings that I have been too lazy to pick up.  This morning it is glistening white, void of a single blemish.

Yesterday, the flaws and faults of this fragmented world were all too apparent. This morning everything seems to be forgiven, blanketed by grace. And although this world is still a very dangerous place to drive and to even walk; this morning, the hopeful wonder and potential beauty of this world is obvious.

Yesterday, my excited facebook friends posted prayers for snowflakes to fall, believing that they somehow come from heaven. This morning there is no doubt that heaven is exactly where they come from.

Why Should I Join a Church?

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Just a Thought1 Comment

why-join-a-church

To entice people to join the church, I once heard a minister tell a group of prospects that members of the church enjoy special member “benefits.” For example, he said: “You have the benefit of a pastor to visit you or pray for you when you are sick or hospitalized.  You have the benefit of programs that are designed to meet the needs of you and your family. And you have the privilege to use the church’s facilities for weddings or funerals without a fee.”

However, I do not believe this is what Jesus ever intended the church to be. Church membership is not like an American Express Card membership, a Sam’s Club, a country club or gym membership where membership has its privileges. The gospel truth is that it is quite the opposite.

Church is not some place to come and receive, but is a dynamic opportunity to go and to give. Church is a chance to fulfill the greatest commandment of Jesus to love God and our neighbors as ourselves.  Church is an occasion to deny and lose one’s self in sacrificial service to others. The purpose of church is not to meet your needs, but to transform your needs.

And the gospel truth is that church membership will not eliminate fees. On the contrary, church membership, if it is about following Jesus, will cost you dearly.

When Life Kicks You, Let It Kick You Forward

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Just a ThoughtLeave a comment
Mary Scott (right)
Mary Scott (right) with Julie Warren

Former North Carolina State Women’s Basketball Coach, Kay Yow, who passed away on January 24, 2009 after a courageous battle with breast cancer once said, “I felt like I had zero control over getting cancer, but I have 100% control of how I will respond to getting cancer.” She then said something that was absolutely inspiring: “When life kicks you, let it kick you forward!”

These words became even more magnificent to me this morning after running with my dear friend, and breast-cancer survivor, Mary Scott. Today, January 23, 2014, marked the two-year anniversary of her last radiation treatment. We ran five miles at 5:30 am before she put on her US Army fatigues and combat boots and drove to her National Guard post in Raleigh. It was 14 degrees. Mary has run every day since Thanksgiving, including a day that she had a surgical procedure to remove a suspicious lump that, thankfully, turned out to be benign. That is fifty-seven days straight totaling 200.5 miles.

In Mary’s determination and perseverance, I can hear the voice of Kay Yow: “When life kicks you, let it kick you forward!”

Old Testament professor, Walter Brueggemann, once put it this way, “In life, we can never go back to the ‘good-old days,’ but with faith in Christ we can go forward with God into ‘good-new days.’”  The Apostle Paul said it like this: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God.”

Five years ago, Kay Yow died. However, the way she courageously lived out her life, and the way people like Mary Scott continue to press forward today, rekindles a great hope within our souls. A hope burns eternally, as we begin to know that we can and will always go forward, even when our very life is one day kicked out of us.

As I think about running with Mary, I am reminded of something Bernice Chambers once said about cancer:

Cancer is so limited.

It cannot cripple love.

It cannot shatter hope.

It cannot corrode faith.

It cannot eat away peace.

It cannot destroy confidence.

It cannot kill friendship.

It cannot shut out memories.

It cannot silence courage.

It cannot invade the soul.

t cannot reduce eternal life.

It cannot quench the Spirit.

It cannot lessen the power of the resurrection. Amen.

When life kicks you, let it kick you forward.” With faith in the God who makes all things new, it might be easier than you think.

A Personal Thought on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Just a ThoughtLeave a comment

martin-luther-king-on-pulpit-robert-casillaWhen I moved to southern Louisiana to preach the gospel, my church had a policy to close the church office on Fat Tuesday (the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday), but not on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I immediately changed the holiday policy stating: “I believe that churches should especially honor the MLK holiday. After all, he was a preacher who was martyred for preaching the gospel of Jesus!”

So, for me, today is a day to remember not only the sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr., but to also reexamine my own preaching, or lack thereof.

I have always believed that there is a lot of correlation between what happened in Memphis in 1968 and what happened in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. I truly believe that if you love all people, and live your life trying to convince others to love all people, then there will always be some people, probably religious, who will want to kill you.

Today, I am reminded that if my preaching does not take grave risks by offending and outraging those who do not believe that God’s love expands past the lines of race, class, religion, nationality and sexual orientation, then I am not preaching the gospel of Jesus.

Crown of Thorns

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Just a ThoughtLeave a comment

crown of thorns

Many people will not worship in a church during Holy Week because someone in the church, without thinking, offered them an easy answer in the face of evil. “God does not make mistakes,” they said. “God is in control. God knows what God is doing,” they said. “God is the ruler of the universe,” they said.

The reason I believe people are tempted to give up on faith in God is because they are unaware that God does not reign from some heavenly throne in some blissful castle, but from an old rugged cross, on a hill outside of Jerusalem, between sinners like you and me. I believe people become despairing and cynical about God, because they fail to understand that our God does not rule like the rulers of this world.

The rulers of this world rule with violence and coercion and force. Earthly rulers rule with an iron fist: militarily and legislatively and with executive orders. The kings of the world rule with raw power: controlling, dominating, taking, and imposing.

But Christ is a King who rules through suffering, self-giving, self-expending, sacrificial love. Christ the King rules, not from a distance at the capital city, not from the halls of power and prestige, but from ordinary places like Bethlehem and Nazareth, and Van Buren and Fort Smith.

Christ the King doesn’t rule with an iron fist. This King rules with outstretched arms.

Christ the King doesn’t cause human suffering from a far, but is right here beside us sharing in our suffering.

God’s power is not a power that takes. It is a power that gives.

God’s power is not a power that rules. It is a power that serves.

God’s power is not a power that imposes. It is a power that loves.

God’s power is not a power that dominates. It is a power that dies.

This, says the late theologian Arthur McGill, is the reason that it is “no accident that Jesus undertakes his mission to the poor and to the weak and not to the strong, to the dying and not to those full of life. For with these vessels of need God most decisively vindicates his peculiar kind of power, [a] power of service whereby the poor are fed, the sinful are forgiven, the weak are strengthened, and the dying are made alive.”

God did not cause the tumor. The day the doctor said the word “cancer” was a day of anguish for God as it was for us.

God did not create the layoff.

The day you were told that your job was ending, God stayed up with you and worried with you all night long.

And God did not take your loved one.  When they died, something inside of God died too.

What we all need to learn are very different definitions of “king,” “rule,” “reign” and “power”—very different because they define the ways of the only true and living God rather than defining our false gods and their ways.

So when life gets us down, we need to remember the great truth of Holy Week—Christ is the King. And this King is reigning, suffering, sacrificing and giving all that God has to give from the cross.

God does not make mistakes. God knows what God is doing. God is in control. But God’s throne is not made of silver and gold. God’s throne is made of wood and nails. God wears not a crown of jewels but a crown of thorns.

Faith in the God of the Living

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Just a ThoughtLeave a comment

obx_sunriseExcerpt from We Cannot Imagine

Luke 20:27-38 NRSV

What does having faith in the God of the living mean for you?

When he lost his job, he thought it was the end of the world. But a year later, working a new job, he now knows that losing that job was the very best thing that could have happened to him.

When her marriage fell apart, she thought that her life was over. But a few months later, she is beginning realize that although she cannot go back to the good old days, she has plenty of good new days ahead.

When the doctor gave him the grim diagnosis, he thought he had received a death sentence. But a short time later, he is beginning to understand that being alive and whole has very little to do with physical well-being.

And one day, when you face your final hours, you will become aware that, with faith in the God of the living, there is nothing “final” at all about them.

How God Always Responds to Death

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Just a ThoughtLeave a comment

Sermon Excerpt from Death at a Funeral

Luke 7:11-15

840-casket-before-burial

This is how I believe our God always responds to death: God does not will death. God does not ordain death. God is not sitting on a throne pushing buttons calling people home. Luke teaches us that when someone dies, God is moved very deeply.  It is a visceral reaction.  God is flooded with compassion for both the deceased and the living. God does not ignore death or accept death as a natural part of life, but on the contrary, God confronts death, recognizes the harsh reality of it, the sheer evil of it, and God is moved from the very depths of who God is.

Therefore, it is very inaccurate to ever say that in death: “God takes people home.” I have said many times that God is a giver not a taker. It is the very nature of who our loving God is. It is far more accurate to say that when any death occurs, no matter the age, no matter the circumstance, God confronts it. God is moved with compassion. And God doesn’t take, but gives God’s self completely, fully and finally to the one who dies and his or her grieving family.

God does not ignore death, or demean death, or simplify death saying, “This is all part of my purpose driven plan.”  Through Jesus, God does not let any death at a funeral simply pass by like it is somehow meant to be.  Through Christ, God is moved with compassion and sees death as a force contrary to God’s will and acts to overcome it. God always acts to transform death at a funeral into life at a funeral.

Halloween Masks and the Church

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Farmville Enterprise, Just a Thought1 Comment

mc2

As a child, I had my share of nightmares.  The wicked witch from the “Wizard of Oz” would fly through my bedroom window to get me. Ronald McDonald and a gang of clowns, including Bozo and the Town Clown from Captain Kangaroo, would chase me down the road as I ran for my life. Even today, clowns still sort of freak me out. It might be why I prefer Wendy’s over McDonald’s.

However, the most frightening dream I ever had was the one where I was standing in the school cafeteria line. As I was on my way to the cash register to pay my 10 cents for my lunch and a carton of milk, I looked down to discover that I had somehow forgotten to dress myself that morning. I was as naked as I could be.

Now, I am not a psychiatrist, and I do not presume to know how to interpret dreams. I do not even know if dreams can be interpreted. But maybe those boyhood nudist dreams reveal something profound about human fear.

Maybe one of things we perhaps fear is to stand completely exposed before our peers. Maybe we are all somewhat afraid of revealing who we really are—warts and all.

On some Sunday mornings, someone who doesn’t know me very well might look at me and say: “The Reverend certainly has it all together. He is well-dressed, well-groomed, well-fixed.”

But under the façade and behind the smile, I know that there is little about me that should be revered. I am oftentimes selfish, proud, and I am flawed.

Maybe that is why Halloween still intrigues us today. On Halloween, we have permission to cover it all up, to pretend to be someone else. On Halloween, we can wear our masks shrouding the pain and the sin.

And if we are honest, we would admit that the masks rarely ever come off.

Perhaps we need to hear the truth of the gospel again: God loves us—warts and all. God loves us just as we are. And of all of the places in this world, the church should be a place where we can take off our masks, expose our flaws, reveal our pain, and know we will be accepted and loved.

How to Get Something Out of Worship

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Just a Thought1 Comment

worshipExcerpt from Why Worship Seems Like a Waste of Time

There is simply something inalienable about our God that loves to forgive sinners. Our God always surprises us by embracing those, who, because of their sin, seem to be outside the boundaries of God’s love. Our God always surprises us by accepting and loving those people that the world, especially the religious people in the world, despises.

Do you want to get something out of worship?  Then we must understand that every aspect of what we do in the service on Sunday morning is an acknowledgement that we are all, every one of us, fallen, broken, sinful human beings in desperate need of God’s grace. Not one of us is any better than any other.

Another Brick in the Wall

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Just a Thought3 Comments

The-parable-of-LazarusFrom We’re Able, but Are We Willing? 

Luke 16:19-31

Through the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, Jesus says that our wealth and our health and our nice teeth are not signs that we are God’s favorites. In fact, those things may be some of the bricks in the wall that separates us from those who are poor, sick and have never seen a dentist. And according to Jesus, if we don’t do something about it, that wall will eternally separate us from God.