Think about the first time that you went back to church. There are many reasons. For some of you, it may have been because of a life crisis, and you needed a place where you could heal, and so you went, and you found a place where you had the space and support to heal.
Some of you were just new to San Diego, and you figured, “This is a great place to meet some people. Church is part of my life; let me go to The Met, find a church where I can get involved.”
Our purpose in everything is to equip you and to motivate you and to prepare you to go out into your world and be a light and love. That is what we’re all about. Touching lives – one person at a time.
We’re beginning 2012 by reviewing our mission and focusing in on our calling to reach out. Seeing the world through God’s eyes, and then joining God’s heart – because our purpose as a church begins and ends with the heart of God.
We’re going to go all the way back to the time of Moses. The people of Israel, the Hebrews, at the time of Moses had a strong identity. They were slaves in the land of Egypt, living a harsh and hopeless life. Then God uses Moses to deliver Israel from Egypt.
And so they leave, but the Pharaoh has second thoughts about it, and so even as they leave Egypt and begin to taste their freedom, the armies of the Pharaoh start to chase them and finally the people of Israel find themselves backed up against the Red Sea, the armies of Pharaoh coming at them. And it seems hopeless again when God does another miracle. God parts the waters of the Red Sea and the people of Israel go through safely, and then those same waters come over the armies of the Pharaoh. At that point, fully and finally, the danger of Egypt is behind them. They no longer have to fear that power that held them in bondage.
And so they go into the desert with God, and in the desert, God makes a covenant with them. God establishes a relationship saying, “This is the kind of God I’m going to be to you, and this is what I expect from you in our relationship.” This covenant is expressed in a lot of different ways.
Psalm 86, verse 15, “But you, O God, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”
Our purpose as the Church universal and as The Metropolitan Community Church of San Diego in particular, is defined and determined by this very message about God, this very reality about the character of God. Like God, we are to be compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, forgiving and loving all people.
What’s our purpose? What are we all about? That is who we are. That is who you are because that is who God is. When we have those characteristics we can’t help but bring people closer to God and then the result will be people being closer to one another. Amen.
Rev. Dan Koeshall is the Senior Pastor at The Metropolitan Community Church (The Met) in San Diego, California, themetchurch.org.
