As many of you know, Glenn Frey was not my favorite Eagle, as that title goes to Don Henley. Nevertheless his voice was part of the soundtrack of my youth and his death two weeks ago left me with a certain melancholy. And some of the online tributes to him left me both frustrated and incredulous.  Well meaning folks posted "RIP Glenn Frey" and link to Take It To The Limit  . . .  a song on which Randy Meisner does an incomparable job on lead vocals.  Or they'd link to Hotel California . . . which of course features Don Henley on the lead.   So what are my top five Frey-flavored tracks?  Here goes:   5.  New Kid In Town.  I used to hate this one.  Now I know it's terrific -- a biting, sarcastic lyric hidden inside an easy listening melody.  They will never forget you til somebody new comes along no doubt applies to rock stars and Methodist preachers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60bzbfHP1Hs   4.  Tequila Sunrise.  Here's why I won "Third Most Innocent" (which was really just code for "Third Biggest Loser") in high school:  I had no idea the song was about a drink until I was 22.  Asbury Seminary-inspired alcohol abstinence or not, it's a great tune with a lovely acoustic guitar driving it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws-YqUcD0LY 3.  Take It Easy.  The first single and the opening song on Eagles Greatest Hits 1971-1975 which was the first album I ever bought.  I listened to Take It Easy this week and was stunned by the banjo in the background. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI3F687SsoU   2.  Peaceful Easy Feeling.  I really hope that if the Frey family held a public memorial, someone sang this feel-good sing-along. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n00g71TySS4   1.  Part Of Me, Part Of You. From the Thelma & Louise soundtrack and surely the finest work of Frey's solo career. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA6kodF73qg  

So we had a healing service on a Sunday morning. Shorter sermon, less music up front, more music on the back end, and instructions to our Healing Prayer Team to pray sentence prayers over those who came forward. And boy did they come forward.  Streams of people at 8:30, 10, and 11:30. The two dominant things I got to pray for were emotional anxiety and lower back issues (which will make a bit of sense when you read the sermon.) But the most rewarding prayer request I received was the final one: from a woman who listened closely to the sermon and asked for prayer because she had the self-awareness to see that she might just be one of those who chooses sickness over health and illness over equilibrium. Because Jesus' haunting question to the paralyzed man in John 5 is a question for us all:   Do you want to get well?   ------------------------------------------------------ OK, this is great. I get to tell you about the most inconsiderate, rude, sign-this-guy-up-for-mandatory-sensitivity-training thing that Jesus ever said. He just presses all the wrong buttons, ranging from a lack of compassion to special needs, and ultimately to religious purity and his own power and your own potential. Here’s what’s going on. We’re in John 5, which means that Jesus is in the middle of one of his several trips to Jerusalem he takes in the Gospel of John. That was a big deal from someone who was from the backwaters of Galilee . . . it’s almost like Jesus was raised in and lived in Wadesboro and in John he takes all these high profile trips into the big city of Charlotte. And at the festival in John 5, look what Jesus encounters in vv. 1-3:  5 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. ² Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda^[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. ³ Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.     Then look further at 5:5:    ^{4] [b] 5} One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.   So: whether this man is 38 or is older and has been placed there for 38 years (most likely), we don’t know, but we do know some things about his situation. Because as much difficulty as people with special needs have today, those challenges were exponentially more difficult in ancient times. There were no wheelchairs, no specialized hygiene systems, not physical therapy to battle further deterioration. None of that. In fact, the surrounding culture regarded persons with this kind of disability, to a much larger degree than today, as fundamentally disposable. Not created in the image of God; not able to have access to the throne of grace. Discarded, disposable. So this guy of all people is in need of the Jesus we all know and love – the kind & compassionate Jesus who populated the flannel graph (AV) boards of our Sunday School classes. That’s what he needs – the kindest, gentlest Jesus he can. What he gets the Jesus who appears to have gone to a Charm School run by Donald . . . . . . !. Look at what this Jesus says to him in 5:6; a question he utters without even being asked in the first place:   ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”   Oh yuck. Cringe. Look away. Write him up a warning for his personnel file. Stage a protest. Send him to mandatory sensitivity training. It’s the most insensitive thing Jesus ever said. Unless it’s the most brilliant. Because we’re talking about healing prayers today and I can’t help but wonder if Jesus’ insensitivity is really just genius in disguise. Because I think of that preacher who showed up two hours late for dinner and his wife was furious. Fuming. And she asked, “How dare you! Where have you been? WHAT HAPPENED?!” And he answered sheepishly, “I met Mrs. Brown on the street and asked how she was feeling.” Doh! I know Mrs. Brown! A lot of Mrs. Browns! A few Mr. Browns, too! People who for a whole slew of reasons, when you get right down to it, prefer sickness to health. Illness to equilibrium. They hear Jesus’ do you want to get well? And if they are honest with themselves the answer is “well, not really.” See a lot of folks are content in their sickness. It’s almost a badge of honor. The sickness or the condition comes with a lot of attention – attention that they wouldn’t get otherwise – and so all in all the benefit of the care is worth the pain of the illness. People are happy being unhappy because that puts them square in the middle of the attention. Other folks are comfortable being sick. It’s almost an old blanket. The thought of discarding is kind of terrifying. You know what happens? Sickness/condition/addiction becomes the identity of the person. They are no longer Name but now they are their condition first, name second. It’s why I love that treatment center in NJ which follows the 12 Steps except for the self-introductions: I am , a blood-bought child of the king. Bit more staying power than My name is Talbot and I’m an alcoholic. And then other folks I have found have a small, manageable god. A god completely bound by human logic and understanding. A god who of course doesn’t intervene and bring about suddenly dramatic healing. A god who’d never offend because he’s really not involved! And then still others have a fast God . . . oh they’ll pray and want to be made well – sort of – but if he doesn’t heal like THAT, then faith wavers and commitment wanes. And since the answer isn’t forthcoming immediately, it’s easier to lower expectations and go back to the comfort of sickness. My goodness, there are even times when being sick or injured is almost easier. About 15 years ago I hurt my back and it made it impossible to move chairs around here (we did more of that back in the day). Well, a couple of years later, my back got better – way better, responding to prayer! – but it was awfully easy when the chair moving started NOT to correct people when they said, “Oh, no Talbot, we don’t want you to hurt your back!” I’d be like, “oh, if you insist!” Wanna get well? Not right now, no! Yeah, what appears to be cruel out of the mouth of Jesus is actually kind of brilliant because when we think about it, we all know people who by their attitudes and actions, answer, “no, not really. I’m fine just as I am.” But I guess I’m really not interested in people out there as I am interested in you. How do you answer the do you wanna get well question? Are you like Oh, I want to heal this relationship but I don’t want to give up this grudge. It’s kind of delicious. Are you Oh, I want to stop drinking but I need it to happen NOW because I have time for ONE step, not TWELVE. Are you Sure, I want to get over my diabetes . . . can you pass me the pie, please? I suspect that for all our finger pointing we’re overlooking the fact that the one most vulnerable to Jesus’ question is the person in the mirror. We’ve tried on our victim suit and it fits quite well, thank you. And all that may be why the guy in John 5 – remember him? Disposable in a culture that valued him as less than human? – doesn’t even give Jesus a straight answer in John 5:7: ⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”   Maybe that’s like you – chronic injury, relational breakdown, acute illness – aren’t able to answer Jesus straightforwardly or truthfully either. Which is why 5:8-9 is just perfect:   ⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.    Not sure if you wanna get well? GET UP ANYWAY. Don’t just borrow the healing I offer; own it. Listen: Jesus longs for you and for me to take some ownership of our own healing. We’re going to have healing prayers in a bit, but God is so much more willing to do the miraculous WITH you than he is FOR you. So own it. Get up. Because I am convinced that an authentic YES to the question opens up all kinds of miraculous possibilities. Maybe our YES works something like this: Perhaps it works like this: DEMO OF POURING WATER AND CUP W/ LID. See?! Faith removes the lid but God is still the one doing the pouring. My prayer is that as the people of this church pray and get prayed for their faith will do exactly that thing of removing the lid to allow the healing to pour. The great, great move in people’s life it to move from GOD HEALS to GOD HEALS ME to I WANT THAT. Makes all the difference. Now: having said that the fact remains that we all live in some ambiguity. The ambiguity of why God sometimes says “yes” to healing and other times says “no” to it. I’ve lived through it as a patient and as a pray-er. So have you. I have seen people pray with unending faith, bolder faith than I have, for healing in their family and death was the result. You know what helps me come to grips with all of it? Our immediate healing is not guaranteed. Our ultimate healing, in the next life, is a guarantee. That’s not a cliché, it’s not an escape, it’s the core of the Xn life. Whenever god doesn’t heal, it’s in part because the kingdom has yet to come in its final form. But get this: whenever he does it’s a sneak preview of what is to come! Remember: the bible is more about the rez of the body than the immortality of the soul; it’s emphasis is that one day we’re getting new, glorified bodies. Any healing now is like the movie trailer for the big even then when we’ll have resurrection bodies that won’t ever need a healing prayer! Awesome! You can only see that through faith. And let me tell you one other thing. That kind of faith stretches you. Stretches me. Some of you know that several years ago I had some pretty severe back problems. Degenerated disc. It hurt to preach, much less run or play tennis. Anyway after trying a lot of different remedies, I went one night to a ministry known for its healing emphasis. But get this: the ministry has almost every one of those things that I mentioned earlier I don’t like. A celebrity healer. A focus on money. A weirdness. But I went. I even went up, against my better judgment, and the leader touch me on my forehead – I realized people gathered behind me because I was supposed to fall down. Well I’m way too proud to fall! So I didn’t. I left the service shortly thereafter, a little disgusted, no warm fuzzies, bothered by the spectacle of the whole thing. But you know what? I don’t have back troubles anymore. Isn’t that crazy? My back got better that night! God is that sovereign. I believe he was saying to me, “Talbot I’m going to use a ministry that you disagree w/ and are uncomf with to heal you to show you I’m the one healing and not you or your GS method.” That’s the sovereignty of God. I can only respond in faith. Because one other thing goes on when we say YES to the most insensitive question ever. It’s in 5:15:   ¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.   5:15 is really the answer to 5:6. Jesus wants to move this guy from helpless to healer. From discarded to instrument. Yeah, I believe that a lot of you, when the answer is YES to 5:6, you will not only receive the gift of being healed, but the gift of healing as well. Yeah you! It’s the one gift that I know from experience is conveyed in the receiving of it. What you’ve been given, you then give. Because instead of a church full of people very comfortable in their infirmities, I long for a community of healed healers at GSUMC. Then we’d know what a living, healing relationship with Jesus Christ is all about.   Healing Service on Sunday!  

Weather-wise, it was the worst of all weekends. The storm was bad enough to impact church attendance but not so bad we had to cancel altogether. (When the latter happens, a preacher can give a silent fist pump because he just bought a week of sermon prep!) Nevertheless, we really had a terrific day yesterday.  We cancelled 8:30, 10:00 was full with people who braved the elements, and 11:30 was pretty strong as well, full of people who one assumes stopped at church before heading to BOA stadium for Panthers tailgating. But more than that was the content of what we did.  The sermon was not the center of our experience; the shared life of the people of God was.  I love that.  The people ministered to one another, culminated by a communion celebration. As far as the sermon goes, I was quite pleased to put Matthew 18:19 back into its context, thereby removing it from the realm of magic and restoring it to the place of relationship.  To see what I mean, read below: -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Today, we get to look at a verse in the bible (duh) that people have long used as . . . ready for this? . . . magic. Yes! Like Harry Houdini (AV), like Genie In A Bottle (AV, Barbara Eden), like a Phil Dunphy magic show (AV) magic on demand! Ready for it? Here it is: ¹⁹ “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. Man, how many times has that verse been used with me? On me? By me! Always with the best of intentions and the worst of interpretations. Get people to pray, to agree, preferably with verbal “yes!” and BAM! God’s obligated to do what you asked! It’s like it works even better than Janis Joplin singing “Oh Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz!” Sing that song as a duet instead of a solo and you will be riding in style in no time!   Except . . . guess where that fails? Epically so? Ah, the bible is a library, the words are connected, the whole notion of chapters and verses and reader prompts comes much, much later, all of which leading to the absolute necessity of context. Because look what comes before our magic verse in Mt. 18:15-17: ¹⁵ “If your brother or sister^[a] sins,^[b] go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. ¹⁶ But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’^{[c] 17} If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.   Oh boy. The messy, icky, shouldn’t be there at all notion of church fighting. It’s the living reality of the saying, “Church is like Noah’s ark: if not for the storm outside, you couldn’t stand the smell inside” hitting you square in the face. And apparently, church fighting has been occurring from the beginning . . . in Matthew’s time for sure & no doubt in Jesus’ as well.   Because this Jesus in Matthew’s hands outlines a challenging process whereby you seek restoration and reconciliation of broken church relationships. And then, after this detour about the power of forgiveness residing in the church in 18:18 – READ – Jesus lands back at our pivotal verse of the day in 18:19: READ. You know what means? In context? The TWO people mentioned in 18:19 are very likely the same two that’s been fussin’ and fightin’ in 18:15-17!!! There’s nothing magic about it! If those two, in prayer, work on the relationship then the relationship will work through them. Contextually, it’s like the “agreement prayer” is both the fuel for and the result of that difficult, even tedious work of reconciling the relationship. And the cool thing is that when you take Matthew 18:19 out of the realm of magic and put it back in the context of relationship, it’s not less powerful; it is MORESO!   Praying together is no longer like casting a spell; it’s like preparing to serve. Prayer that’s rooted not in superstition but in the supremacy of Jesus’ name AND his grand design for the oddball community known as the church. Because here’s where we are going in Week 4 of PrayFast: Praying together doesn’t work magic; it mobilizes work.   All the heavy lifting we’re going to do in this season of the church’s life as we launch into Zoar’s waters is going to be birthed in, surrounded by, and focused on praying over it TOGETHER. We want the Zoar effort to be based on sound strategy, excellent execution, but none of that matters if it’s is not first steeped in our collective prayers together. Praying together is a hell-stopping, Satan-stomping, Spirit-filling moment that doesn’t work magic beyond us. It mobilizes the work within us.   When we pray together, we’re not singing kum-ba-yah. We’re stomping Satan’s  . . .  . . Praying together doesn’t work magic; it mobilizes work.   It’s so funny. It can be so frustrating. I have been in gropus that prayed things together that haven’t happened: the salvation of family members, the restoration of marriages, the destruction of the terrorists. And then, just when I am about to give up hope in the power of praying together, I think of this: (AV of Zoar Team). Here’s why: I have a Personal Prayer Team. A lot of us on staff do. They get periodic email prayer requests and updates. Anyway, for about a year, I kept asking them to pray for Zoar Staff. Pray we’ll get a pastor. Pray we’ll get music. Pray we’ll get kids. And for the longest time, none of it was answered.   And yet those prayers lined up with working and interviewing and idea-sharing, and now we have assembled this team that I have to believe is answered prayer. The people in the case of my prayer team weren’t in the same room praying at the same time (like we’re gonna be, shortly!), but they were nevertheless praying together. And prayers got answered, not like magic, but in the sense they empowered others in this body to do what we need to do.  Praying together doesn’t work magic; it mobilizes work.   But there are many other times when praying together is at the same time and in the same place. It’s why I love praying with our Healing Team. If you’ve never been, we set up little quads of chairs here at the front, and assign healing pray-ers by two. Very rarely do we have folks pray solo. And then we give the reminder to people receiving prayer not to wait for a certain station to open up, thinking you gotta have the right pray-er, and we conclude all that by saying, We don’t have celebrity pray-ers at Good Shepherd. The Holy Spirit is all the celebrity we need. So folks come and at my station at least, I gain strength from those who pray alongside me. How cool that we have ppl at this church who are not intimidated to pray with the preacher. And often for me! Praying together doesn’t work magic; it mobilizes work.   My goodness, all of us have “work” that needs to be mobilized. We, together, as a community, are harnessing so many of our resources and our will power towards the Zoar launch. But I can’t think that’s the only “work” that would go so much better if saturated in prayer. So … LifeGroup leaders: when is the last time you had your LifeGroup pray together for specific people who are currently far from Christ? How long since you prayed together, as a group, that those same wandering people would be loved into a living relationship with Jesus? Praying together doesn’t work magic; it mobilizes work.   Married couples who are parents, wondering how in the world to raise kids who love Jesus: when is the last time you agreed in prayer – which, HELLO!, leads to greater agreement in parenting strategies – that your children would grow up and love Jesus? That teenage rebellion NOT be inevitable in your household. That your sons and your daughters would protect and preserve their sexual purity until marriage! You pray that, together, and I guarantee that you will teach it and model it much more effectively. Praying together doesn’t work magic; it mobilizes work.   Singles . . . when is the last time you located someone who would be praying the same thing at the same time with you? Even that your singleness be a source of strength and not frustration? You can write prayers to each other via email. That’s praying together.   All of us . . . when is the last time you decided to agree in prayer for an end to terrorism and even in those lands where Jesus originally walked but his name is now reviled . . . that his gospel would re-gain a foothold there? Or: when is the last time you were moved enough by our Christian friends in India who are beaten & arrested for believing that Jesus and not Krishna is Lord of the Subcontinent, that you decided to pray with someone else for revival in that land. You pray that and I promise you you’re motivated to go there, to give there, or both. Praying together doesn’t work magic; it mobilizes work.   Because, ultimately, as you know, this series is less about the telling and more about the doing. So instead of talking about praying together, we’re going to do some.   Let’s start with the sort-of-easy, OK? We’re going to pray together the Lord’s Prayer. Because while we may be a high-tech, modern church, all that is so that we can convey the old through the new. We love the ancient and unchanging. And today, as we pray words we inherit and not those we invent, there will be a slight twist. If you know the words, pray it by looking at people around you. It’s OK. It will feel kind of weird and then it will feel really cool. So let’s do that . . . DO IT     And now, to keep on praying together, but this time with some of our own words and needs, we’re going to do it in a way we haven’t done in a long, long time. Praises: God is good. Needs: Lord hear our prayer. And now, one more. Are you ready for some weird? Some of you may know that in 1900 there were virtually no Christians in what is today South Korea. But Meth & Pres & other missionaries came in, the people were receptive, and today the % of Xn people in SK is higher than in the US. The largest churches in the world are in Seoul. And one hallmark of Korean churches is the way they pray; in fact, when Americans come to them to learn about strategy for growing they’re like: just pray more. Together! What they do is this: people pray out loud. Their own prayers. At the same time. We’re going to give you a couple of prompts on the screen, focusing on people around Zoar who might have died inside . . . praying they’d come to life when that opens. But we’re going to ask you to pray out loud, in your own words, at the same time. It may be distracting at first, but think of it this way: it takes away from any public embarrassment of praying out loud; the audible prayers of others remind us we’re praying out loud, and more than anything, it’s a tangible expression of how God can listen to every prayer at every moment from thousands & millions of people. Do Korean prayer Finally, communion, the ultimate in “together”

This Sunday we get to take a bible verse OUT of the realm of magic and return it to its proper realm of Spirit-filled truth. How will we do that? By looking at the context, of course. Along the way, we'll share in collective praying, we'll take communion, and we'll be empowered to pray and pray well for the upcoming launch of our Zoar Campus. Together Prayer. Sunday. 8:30.  10.  11:30.