Time Loves a Hero

Looking for Jesus

2009-12-27T15:14:00.003-06:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday December 27, 2009, the 1st Sunday After Christmas.

1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26
Psalm 148
Colossians 3:12-17
Luke 2:41-52

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

For me, it has become impossible to read today’s gospel reading without thinking about the movie “Home Alone,” the 1990 comedy starring Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister, an eight-year-old who is mistakenly left behind when his family flies to France for Christmas vacation. This notion is seemingly inspired by this tale from Luke’s gospel.

In the movie, as the McCallister family hurries into a shuttle waiting to take them to the airport, an annoying neighbor child piles in with the McCallister’s spouting on about his family’s vacation plans.[1] When it comes time for mom, Kate McCallister, to count heads in the van, she mistakenly counts the neighbor child as one of her own. On the plane the parents are sitting in first class and the kids in coach, so this mistake is not caught until well after the family is in the air.

Whoops, Kevin is home alone in Chicago and the family is on the way to Paris.

Jesus shares a similar situation as his family leaves Jerusalem to return home after the festival ended. As the clan leaves, while there is apparently no head count, presumably each parent thinks the young Jesus is with the other. While there is no annoying neighbor child in a knit cap being mistaken for Jesus, I can imagine the scene of the family setting up camp after a full day of travel when Mary and Joseph look at each other and say, “I thought he was with you!”

Whoops, Jesus is alone in Jerusalem and the family is on the way home to Nazareth.

If you are going to lift plot lines, you ought to take from the best.

In the movie, Mom’s trip from Paris to Chicago takes several days. Mary and Joseph return to Jerusalem taking two travel days, one out and one back, before they are in the same zip code as their son. Then they spend three days in Jerusalem before finding Jesus. This is a total of five days on the road and in town looking for a twelve year old who his parents fear is all alone in a major city after a major festival. Imagine losing a twelve year old at Times Square on New Years Eve or worse, in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, that would be close to the level of terror Mary and Joseph experienced every moment they were looking for Jesus.

They finally find him in the temple. And when Mary and Joseph arrive, they were in shock. He is not alone; he is with the teachers of the law where all who heard him were amazed at his understanding; his questions and his answers. When his parents find him, is Jesus received with relief? Well, of a sort. “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” Does this sound familiar to any parents here this morning? He is received with relief overwhelmed by a scolding.

If I am not mistaken, Kevin got the same reaction from his Mom when she finally found him home alone and safe.

While the differences are many, there is one very significant difference between little Kevin McAllister and Jesus of Nazareth that I want to make clear. Kevin was at home at the family manse in Chicago. Scripture doesn’t place Jesus’ residence at the homestead in Nazareth. No, according to verse 49 Jesus is at home in the Jerusalem temple.

Being found after three days of searching, and two more days of travel, Jesus asks “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Jesus asks this question as if there should be no question about where he would be or where he should be. He was at home in the temple, of course. It is as if he asks Mary and Joseph and the world “Where else would you expect to find me?”

Where do we expect to find Jesus? Looking for Jesus, looking for God; is our holy journey. Jesus is found in body and in spirit, in praise and in worship, in word and in work; and as is obvious by our reading, Jesus is found in the temple. Jesus is found where He is worshipped. For us, for Christians, the church is where we look to find the Lord Jesus.

Jesus is found in the Word written and proclaimed. Jesus who inhabits all scripture is found in our Call to Worship. Jesus is found as we “Praise the Lord from the earth… young men and women, old and young together. Let us praise the name of the Lord.”[2]

Jesus is found in our proclamation. We say that Jesus is Lord, he is sovereign. In words more familiar to us, Jesus is in charge; all power and authority are his now and forevermore.

We say that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. We say that he is fully divine and we say that we are not. We say that he is fully human and we say that in the fullness of his perfection he is more human than we will ever be.

We say that he is God and he is the Son of God. He sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty from where he will come to judge the living and the dead.

We look for Jesus in the visible signs of God’s invisible Grace. We look for Jesus in the mystery of the sacraments.

In the waters of our baptism, we are covered in the newness of life. The world of our old life is washed away. When washed, we are fully reconciled to Christ. We are free to fully trust that we belong to God. Dressed in the robe of Christ, we are to free our minds and hearts, bodies and souls to be truly free in this world, free to be ministers of His reconciliation. Only in this sacramental relationship can this happen, otherwise we fall back into our self doubt and self rejection.[3]

Nourished by the Lord’s Supper, we are fed the bread of life and the cup of salvation. We rest in the promise that it is Christ who comes to the door and knocks. He calls us and if we hear and invite him in then we will eat with him, and he with us. We invite no one to this table; we give thanks that Jesus invites us to come, taste, and see that the Lord is good. We remember that in these gracious acts of Jesus Christ, we take the bread and the cup and joyfully celebrate his dying and rising as we await the day of his coming in victory.[4]

As much as we are called to look for Christ in the church, by the Word and sacraments we are called to take Christ into the world. It is important to remember that the world looks at us while looking for Jesus. It is in wearing the clothes of Christ that we become the body of the Lord in the world.

Colossians provides us with the most excellent way to wear the clothes of Christ, to become the body of Christ in the world. We are to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. We are to bear with one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, we are to forgive one other; just as the Lord has forgiven us we too must forgive.

Above all, we are to clothe ourselves with love that binds everything together in perfect harmony. Letting the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, we are called in the one body. And we must be thankful letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly; teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom. With gratitude in our hearts, we are called to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever we do, in word or deed, we do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

This is the time when we begin to make New Year’s Resolutions. We must resolve to improve our relationship with one another and with the Lord God Almighty. We begin with remembering our baptism into the body of Christ. We are to be clothed as Samuel was in this robe of white, this robe representing our membership with the baptized wearing this robe as Jesus wore his; as Jesus wears his faith in the water of his baptism.

We are nourished in his faith by the bread and cup of the Lord’s Supper. By this meal we become empowered through the Spirit of the Lord to be Christ’s presence in the world. Nourished in this sacrament, as Jesus is God with us, we are called to be the hands and feet of God with the world.

I am not saying that we will become Jesus, but our call, our vocation, is to become more Christ-like. And this is a noble and worthy goal. It is truly the only one that matters. It is how we participate in Christ’s work of reconciliation.

Let us look for Jesus here in the church, and then go taking Jesus out of the sanctuary and into the world for those who also seek him.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Alone, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099785/ accessed December 31, 2006.
[2] From the 148th Psalm, paraphrased from the Presbyterian Book of Worship.
[3] Nouwen, Henri, Bread for the Journey, A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith, December 26 entry.
[4] Christmas Communion Setting, paraphrased from the Presbyterian Book of Worship.

Mary Treasured All These Things

2009-12-24T12:49:00.002-06:00

This sermon would have been heard on Christmas Eve, December 24th, 2009 had it not been for inclement weather.

Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

I have found it difficult to find an appropriate message for this evening. By itself, that’s no different than any other message. Often I wrestle with the sermon, and occasionally I lose the struggle. But Christmas Eve should be different—it’s one of our highest, holiest days. This is an important service. This is such a visually rich passage that I ought to have lots to say. We ought to have lots to say about this evening, the eve of our dear Savior’s birth.

We are met first with the people of power, the people who can tell others what to do. These are the folks who say “jump” while the rest of the world cries back “how high?” Roman Emperor Augustus and Syrian Governor Quirinius tell the world to jump. Joseph and his fiancée Mary jump to Nazareth. Just to make matters worse for their journey, the babe in her womb was responding to the call to jump in his own way; he was making his own commotion from within Mary.

Then we reach the seventh verse of this chapter, the verse that begins with Mary giving birth. Now, you can tell here that scripture was written and edited by men because this event is described with one word in the Greek New Testament and three in most English versions. She gave birth. You who have given birth can tell me with authority that this deserves more than just three words.

Then she swaddles the infant Jesus, placing him in the cold stone manger. We are used to thinking of the stable and manger in the way we think of western livestock, but this is not true of that time and place. The stable was most likely a cave, and the manger a carved out hollow in the rock. No matter how uncomfortable we might think our common manger scene is; being swaddled and laid on cold stone raises the ante significantly.

We begin our reading with Augustus, imagining his fine palace in Rome, with a whim causing the world to be counted. Now we have a newborn resting in a bed of stone, hewn out of the wall of a cave. These are the extremes we live in this evening.

We are then given the story of the young boys keeping watch over their flocks. These boys were the lowliest of their families. They were the youngest and given the most dangerous job in the field. They were to protect the herds and flocks from the wilds that surround them in the dark. It was just like any other cold desert night for the shepherds, until the angel of the Lord appeared with the glory of the Lord shining around them. Scripture tells us “They were terrified,” of course they were terrified!

And then, then they hear those famous words, “Fear not!” Just hearing those words from the heavenly host would frighten me even more. Then they receive the good news, the gospel of the Lord. Born this day in the City of David is the Messiah, the Lord. Then the host pipes up again singing “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

So the shepherds go to see the Messiah. Scripture does not say whether they took their herds and flocks or not. I imagine they did. It would have been wrong for them to leave their flocks, their families’ livelihood, to the elements and the wild. So they went with haste, flocks in tow, and descended upon the manger scene.

Imagine the noise. Dozens of boys and hundreds of sheep coming into town like a circus train to see the Christ child. They shared the gift they had received from the angel, the good news of the Lord with Mary and Joseph with anyone who would listen. The story must have been told dozens of times, each time sharing the glory of the Lord found in a manger in a tiny Judean backwater.

This is our story, this is the first story we tell. This is the story of how God Almighty came to earth, not in power and glory and in victory; but as a helpless newborn child.

This is our story, not of God who comes to the seat of power, not to Augustus and Quirinius, but to shepherd boys and livestock.

The one who is fully human and fully divine, so like us and so completely different than us, God came to earth as a helpless babe.

God meets creation right where we are, meeting us just as we meet one another.

And one thing about this story sticks out for me from verse 19; Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. Mary treasured these things holding them in her heart, keeping the moment as it was, and as it would be, forever.

She treasured the words of the young shepherds, the shepherds who told her what the angel said about her son. She treasured the sight of her infant son, swaddled in bands of cloth, lying in a feed trough. She treasured these things from a cave in the trappings of abject poverty, not as a guest of the inn, nor as a privileged citizen of Rome.

She pondered these things too. She knew her son was the Savior, the Messiah, the Christ, but to be told these things again by the shepherds must have been wonderful, and glorious, and frightening. She was told who her son is, and would be, and had no idea what shape these things would take. And she did this, looking at a fresh, new life.

Mary treasured these things. This strikes me because I feel the joy and the wonder of treasuring these things, and I hope you do too.

Ah, the things worth treasuring…

I treasure the moment.

I treasure this service this evening, with wonderful song, glorious lights, and wonderful friends.

I treasure the infant who lies in the stone manger, with the buzz of the shepherds, and the bleating of the sheep around us.

I treasure them here in rural Arkansas, not in the mansions of our world. I treasure these things, and ponder them in my heart.

I hope you have taken some time tonight to think about the things you treasure too. I hope you ponder them in your heart. We receive many wonderful gifts from the Lord our God and these gifts need to be treasured and pondered; especially the gift of a young infant, swaddled in bands of cloth, lying in a stone manger. Let us treasure these things and ponder them in our hearts, just like a young girl did once in the Nazareth.

Go

2009-12-20T13:58:00.005-06:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday December 20, 2009, the 4th Sunday of Advent. This sermon completes the series "Ready, Set, Go."

Micah 5:2-5a
Psalm 80:1-7
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-46

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

As a boy of the suburbs, I have had very little experience with milk straight from the farm. I remember having farm fresh milk once or twice, but it has been a long, long time. What I remember is that there were a flood of flavors that I just can’t get from a half-gallon of 2% from Price Cutter. The farm fresh was just so rich; its flavors so distinct and so full I can imagine that I remember, even if most of that memory was created.

But, in a day and time when dairy farms are huge operations shipping milk off to plants for processing and distribution, it is impossible to keep that farm fresh flavor. In fact, it’s impossible because milk straight off of the farm will turn a lot faster than milk that has been pasteurized. Pasteurization slows microbial growth[1] keeping milk fresher longer.

Still, what is lost is that straight off of the farm freshness. Well, given a choice between pasteurized milk and a game of Russian roulette every time eat cereal, I’ll take pasteurized milk. It is a pity though; pasteurization makes everything so consistent that for me the taste of farm fresh milk is lost to a vague memory.

There is a tendency in our lives to look at scripture through pasteurized eyes too. We are so used to reading the gospel and hearing it interpreted that it tends to become pasteurized. This loss isn’t exclusive to church members; it is a tremendous danger for ministers too. We see the gospel through academic eyes, historical eyes, denominational eyes, and theological eyes; it can get to the point that the farm fresh nature of the Word of God becomes as lost to us as the taste of milk straight from the cow.

For example, this passage is utterly absurd. Through the way 2,000 years of interpretation has pasteurized this scene, we lose how scandalous it was then and still is. We are used to thinking of it as a wonderfully somber candle lit meeting between two women whose sons will change the world, but when we look at it with unpasteurized eyes; it’s absurd.

In the movie, Elizabeth and Mary should be played by members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus! I imagine Graham Chapman as Elizabeth and Eric Idle as Mary. I can also see a place for a Terry Gilliam cartoon depicting the extra-super utero conversation between Jesus and John.

Let’s take this absurdity even further using names from the news. Imagine if you will Elizabeth and Mary’s conversation in this setting: Imagine a couple of months before her due date, the oldest woman ever to give birth sitting down for coffee with her pregnant cousin, a seventh grader. That’s what’s going on in our gospel reading.

Looking to a modern equivalent, in 2007 Maria del Carmen Bousada became the oldest woman ever to give birth at the age of 66.[2] When her true age was revealed, and it was discovered that she lied to a California fertility clinic taking ten years off of her age so she would be eligible for invitro-fertilization, the firestorm rang in the news for a week. Given the modern American news cycle, a week is an eternity.

Consider the younger end of this equation, whether Sarah Palin’s daughter or Brittney Spears’ sister, these high school aged girls giving birth was fodder for pundits for weeks. Even though teen pregnancy no longer carries the stigma it once did, the press, both liberal and conservative, was making hay with these young women. Whether a family values issue or an issue of whose family, these scandals were the talk of the airwaves for ages.

Consider now that these girls are about five years older than Mary and I can imagine Bill O’Reilly having a seizure talking about this meeting between two women who should not be first time mothers.

We’re all used to seeing the visit of Elizabeth and Mary as a meeting of peers, and nothing could be further from the truth. We have become so used to this story that we now fail to appreciate how absurd it really is until we look at it in a setting that’s closer to home for us.

So now in the name of absurdity, I have invoked Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Fox News, Pepper-Pots and Bill O’Reilly. Yes, I want us to get a firm grip on just how absurd this meeting really is.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “No priest, no theologian stood at the manger of Bethlehem. And yet all Christian theology has its origin in the wonder of wonders: that God became human. Holy Theology arises from knees bent before the mystery of the divine child in the stable. Without the holy night, there is no theology.”[3] What is wonderful and glorious about our reading from Luke is that it gives us a preview of Bonhoeffer’s theology.

In our reading, when these absurdly pregnant women come together, their children recognize one another before their birth. These cousins come together to celebrate, or perhaps at their respective ages commiserate, their pregnancies only to discover that their unborn children are all ready partners in the greatest of all scriptural prophecies.

Elizabeth cries, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Elizabeth knows what is happening, her son knows what is happening; they are able to see the glory of the Lord being fulfilled through this absurd situation.

Mary sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” Mary and her son too know what is happening and are able to see the glory of the Lord being fulfilled through this absurd situation.

These women come together, glorifying God and testifying the faith, in Bonhoeffer’s words the theology. They testify to the persons and work of the Baptizer and the Christ at the dawn of their birth. Their testimony is bold and dynamic; it’s filled with life in the midst of scandal. It is nothing like the pasteurized readings I have heard, and on occasion have given.

This is a problem with our lives and our faith in the eyes of Bonhoeffer’s theology. So often our knees fail to bend before the mystery of the divine child in the stable; our faith becoming pasteurized so it won’t spoil. We must resist this.

We testify God was born of a woman. We testify God lived the life of a Palestinian Jew. We testify he performed miracles. We testify he was crucified, dead, and buried; and on the third day he rose again from the dead. We testify he ascended into heaven without a second death all so that we may have eternal life. This is scandalous, this is controversial, and this is absurd; and we believe-we have faith that this is true. We have faith this is the truth.

Over the past four Sundays, we have come along the path of the Advent, the coming of the Lord. Over these last three, we have been going through the “Ready, Set, Go” of preparing for Christmas. We have made straight the ways for the Lord. We have repented at the behest of John the Baptist. And today as we go, we need to go knowing that what we testify, what we are all called to share with the world is wonderful and glorious and scandalous and absurd.

Thomas Heagle testifies, “In the human experience of Jesus, God became available to us as the depth of human life. Thus, a Christian believes that the experience of ultimate meaning comes not from a leap out of the human condition, but a journey through its dark waters.”[4]

God comes to us in the depths of where we are. Too often, we have added layers of piety that bind the Holy Spirit into a straight jacket that takes God out of those dark waters. I become party to this straight jacket when worship becomes more pious than God’s own self. More than once, I have left inadequate the wonder and the glory that is two unlikely mothers bearing their even more unlikely children.

Let us go into those dark waters with the story we hear year round, the story of the fully human-fully divine God of all creation. Let us share his grace, his peace, and his mercy so that all of God’s children will be able to see our Lord at work in us and even more importantly beyond us. The Lord will not be contained by what we consider to be absurd or common sense. Let us take the unpasteurized God into the world, sharing God’s life with God’s creation.

[1] Pasteurization, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization, retrieved December 13, 2009
[2] Woolls, Daniel, “Oldest Woman to Give Birth Dies at 69.” boston.com, http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2009/07/16/oldest_woman_to_give_birth_dies_at_69/, retrieved December 13, 2009.
[3] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, “I Want to Live These Days with You. A Year of Daily Devotions.” Louisville, KY: Westminster-John Knox Press, 2005, page 363.
[4] Heagle, Thomas, “A Contemporary Meditation on Hope.” Chicago: Thomas Moore Press.

Set

2009-12-13T13:10:00.002-06:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday December 13, 2009, the 3rd Sunday in Advent.

Zephaniah 3:14-20
Isaiah 12:2-6
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

A couple of weeks ago[1] I lamented the way that preparations for Christmas are getting earlier and earlier each year. On Tuesday, I read a posting on one of my favorite websites by a Mr. Mike Kowalski of Rancho Cucamonga, California. He writes, “[I] Went to Disneyland on November 24, in search of, among other things, Disney-themed Christmas ornaments for 2009. Alas, none could be found. But there were plenty of Christmas ornaments with the date 2010.”[2]

In that sermon two weeks ago, I said that before Labor Day seemed excessive to begin preparing for Christmas, but compared to over 13 months in advance of the next Christmas August seems downright reserved.

Disney, in a kind of a sick way, is calling us along side toward the celebration of our dear Savior’s birth. Of course I think they’ve gotten ahead of themselves and that’s what I love about the liturgical calendar as opposed to the marketing plan of a major multi-national corporation and their mouse.

The joy of the liturgical calendar is that at this time of year it prepares us for the coming of the Lord and the coming of Christmas. The discipline of the liturgical calendar also exhorts us not to get ahead of ourselves. We get ready; we get set for the season that is to come. This exhortation is where we start this morning, leading us into John’s exhortations to the crowd.

But first, what is exhortation? According to the dictionary,[3] exhorting is like urging, advising, or cautioning earnestly. It also means admonishing urgently. It can also mean giving urgent advice, recommendations, or warnings. According to my big biblical dictionary,[4] the goal of exhortation is to persuade someone or some ones to act, or think in a particular way. Going back to the Greek roots of the scripture, exhortations came in two ways,[5] as comfort and as admonition. So in by whatever measure you use, exhortations contain elements of discipline and of soothing. There is not necessarily reprimand, but neither is there molly coddling.

Just as important, the Greek version of this word also involves calling the people to the exhorter’s side.[6] The one who exhorts calls the one who receives the word to come together and walk together. This becomes no more evident than when we discover that the Greek root of this word is later used by theologians to describe the Holy Spirit, Paraclete.

Our passage contains four very specific exhortations. I want to start with the last three before returning to the first.

In the first of the set of three exhortations, the crowd asks John “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”

John’s exhortation calls the people to share. But there is an important condition he places on this giving, a qualification which makes a great difference. John calls for those who have two coats to share and those with food to do likewise. John calls those who have more than enough to share with those who do not have enough.

What John advocates is radical. In a way, it is a privately supported welfare system which provides that those who have enough share with those who do not. It requires people who have enough coming forward to share, and it also requires those in need to come forward and receive what they need that they may survive.

This is truly a tightrope of love. While many people with more than enough are more than willing to share, there are others who are not. While many people with need seek help and assistance, there are others who are ashamed to ask. There too are those with surplus and those with need who manipulate the system, causing skepticism among all. Still, when this tightrope is walked with love, when those with more than enough walk alongside those with need; there is enough for everybody.

The next exhortation is directed at the tax collectors that came to be baptized who ask John “Teacher, what should we do?” John tells them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.”

As the old Revolutionary War saying goes, “Taxation without representation is unfair.” As the old Mad Magazine corollary goes, “Taxation with representation isn’t all that great either.” John exhorts these men to be honest, and more than being honest is the exhortation to be fair in assessing taxes.

Lurking just below the surface of this exhortation is a little known fact. Being a tax collector wasn’t always the job of “robbing from the poor” we think of when we think of tax collectors. The tax collector’s job is to pay tribute to Rome through the proper middle men. It didn’t matter if the people didn’t pay the tax collector; the tax collector still had to pay the state. So if an individual failed to pay their taxes, the collector was left in a lurch with the Roman overseers. Since this position was also often inherited much in the same way as a family farm, the problem became multi-generational.

In short, some tax collectors were as poor as the people they were collecting taxes from. Some of the tax collectors were in as big a pinch as those they were collecting taxes from. In a way, the only way a tax collector could be assured that they would have no need to over-collect from those who had more assets is for everyone to pay their prescribed taxes. How’s that for an odd exhortation, while directed at the tax collectors to collect no more than the prescribed amount, it also exhorts the people to pay the prescribed amount so that the tax collectors wouldn’t be tempted to take more than was due.

Again, this is a call to be fair in dealings, even paying taxes in love. Again, there were those who manipulated the system. The gospel story of Jesus dining with the tax collector is a fine example. When the tax collector promises to repay those he has cheated three times what he cheated them, we learn both that there’s a lot of tax cheating going on and it can be profitable, but this is not always the case. John exhorts us to respond in love, even in paying taxes.

The third exhortation was in response to the soldiers who asked “What should we do?” John tells them do not “extort money from anyone by threats or false accusations, and be satisfied with [your] wages.”

John tells those with direct and immediate authority to act justly. I can’t speak to the wages of what were probably local men serving as soldiers protecting the tax collectors. But John made their call to the general well being, protecting all manner of people from all manner of evil.

At least one scholar posits that the soldiers were paid poorly and expected to shake down the people to make ends meet[7] making manipulation a part of the system. So this is more than just a call to the soldiers to do their jobs and be satisfied with their wages, it is a call to the government to pay soldiers enough so that they won’t need to shake down the people to make ends meet. It is a call to the people to pay workers equitably so that they not be tempted to steal.

In all three of these cases, John illustrates the “fruits worthy of repentance.” John calls for radical and sweeping reform of the way business is handled in first century Palestine. He calls for the people to take care of each other and the government to take care of the things individual people cannot. People are to refrain from exploiting their positions for their personal gain at the expense of others. People who have wealth, power, and authority are to care for those who are less powerful.

But before we leave the specific exhortations, let us look at the first exhortation. John cried out to the crowd, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” I see this as more the discipline element of exhortation than the soothing.

He sees many of those who came out to be dead trees unable to bear fruits worthy of repentance. He sees the unrepentant as ax fodder, kindling for the fire which burns hot the chaff. Still, this is the same crowd he addresses with the exhortation on sharing. John knows that as God can raise children for Abraham out of these stones, the people can repent. John also knows that the people have come, and that is their start.

The crowd comes out to see John. Last week he tells the crowd to get ready. He tells them to prepare the way of the Lord, making his ways straight. This week he tells them to get set. He shows the crowd different ways that they can make straight the ways bearing the good fruit of repentance through a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He also warns that those who do not follow will face horror of unquenchable fire.

The last verse in our gospel this morning reads, “So with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” John walks beside us, providing examples to prepare us for the one who will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire. Comfort and admonition are how we get ready and set for the Advent of the Christ child. Next week, we complete the set.

[1] Coming. http://timelovesahero.blogspot.com/2009/11/coming.html
[2] Easterbrook, Gregg, Tuesday Morning Quarterback. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/091208&sportCat=nfl, retrieved December 8, 2009.
[3] Exhort, dictionary.com. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exhort, retrieved December 12, 2009.
[4] Exhortation, The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 2.Nashville, TN: Abingdon Publishing, page 366.
[5] parakale,w, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Volume V. Gerhard Kittel, Editor. Grand Rapids, MI, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, pages 779-780.
[6] parakale,w, Bauer, Walter, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition. Frederick William Danker, Editor. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
[7] The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. IX. Leander E. Keck, Senior Editor. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 84.

Ready

2009-12-06T08:59:00.002-06:00

Malachi 3:1-4
Luke 1:68-79
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

I have been a fan of “Godspell” for years. I first found out about the musical at First Presbyterian in Overland Park, Kansas in 1974, just a couple of years after the movie release. The Reverend Doctor Donald Evans did a Sunday youth study of the musical and connected it more directly to the gospel. I remember him commenting that the church organist, a woman this twelve-year-old thought of as an old lady, would have loved playing “Turn Back, Old Man.” But as was the case with so much of my teen-age theological development, it really didn’t stick.

Godspell really began to mean something to me just twelve years ago, after meeting Marie. So compared to many, I am a Johnny-come-lately of “Godspell” love, but that’s fine with me, it became important to me when it was right for me. So of course when I read today’s gospel passage, this voice of John the Baptist singing “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord” thunders in my head. Then I let it thunder in my ears.

The next song asks the musical question, “When will God save the people?”

John takes this on in our reading from Luke’s gospel, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” John echoes the words of the prophet Isaiah, the words of preparation for all of Israel. John tells a people who have always sought their messiah that he was coming to save the people. It is time to prepare. John tells a people who have been waiting for a prophetic voice since the words of Malachi over 400 years earlier that their messiah was coming to save the people. It is time to prepare.

Make his paths straight. It’s not as if we have to take a scythe and cut back the long grasses, so how do we make his paths straight? What do we do to prepare the way of the Lord? The Reverend Jeff Parker asks three questions to help congregations make straight his paths. He asks:

What are we; what is the Church living for?
What are we willing to die for?
What excites you?

When we answer these questions, both as individuals and as a congregation, we tell the Lord how we prepare the way. When we answer these questions, we tell the world how we will prepare the way. When we execute the preparations, we actually do the work of making his paths straight.

William Sloane Coffin[1] quotes Teilhard de Chardin saying, “The world will belong tomorrow to those who brought it the greatest hope.” Coffin follows this asking “What can we [the Church] bring the world if not hope?”

Coffin continues, “I want to irrigate the community with hope, because without hope we are all literally hopeless, creatures of despair. If we cannot feel something more, we will become something less, just as if we cannot look to something above us, we will surely sink to something below us.”

So here are the questions again:

What are we; what is the Church living for?
What are we willing to die for?
What excites you?

By Coffin’s reckoning, the church lives to give hope. The church lives to give hope. As the Body of Christ on earth, it is our place; it is our mission to bring hope to the world. This is what we are to live for. How’s that for almost answering the question. We live to give hope. We live to bring hope to the hopeless lest we become less than what the Lord has called us to be. This answer is almost as vague as a beauty contestant saying that she hopes for world peace. Still, it is undeniably what we are here for.

This quest, this vocation may seem overly vague, then again to others it may seem overly specific. I have had trouble with both extremes lately. But as ethereal and other-worldly or as dead solid perfect as it may seem; the passage from our Gospel reading begins with something very, very specific.

When we read the first verses from chapter three, we learn about the powerful people of the day. Tiberius was the emperor in Rome, Pilate was Governor of Judea, and Herod ruled Galilee. In the Temple, Annas and Caiphas were the high priests. John, the son of Zechariah was in the wilderness. Jesus wasn’t even in this part of the picture.

There are a good many things we can take from this part of the reading. We can talk about the political climate of the time. There are many things known about Tiberius from history that are not from scripture. The chronicles of history are also filled with facts and stories about the Judean contingent from this reading too. We can also pick apart the economics of the era and the face of the church.

If we wanted to, we could rip apart every detail, every fact, and try to discern what is accurate, what is exaggeration, and what is pure fiction. We could get a full cable news show, or even series about the history found in these very verses. What am I saying? Dozens of these shows have been produced and reproduced since the golden age of television. But there is one thing all of the history will never quite say to us, one thing that is important to us today.

What these verses show is that there is a context, a specific time and place to the ministry of John the Baptist in Galilee. There was a political climate. There was an economic climate. There was a religious climate. Luke’s gospel puts a great big pin into the timeline of history and says this happened here and then.

In this time and place, this is what happened. It is always within a specific time and place that ministry happens. Ministry and faith, evangelism and justice are more than just things studied in Sunday School or in seminary. They are more than just words put into the Sunday morning sermon. They are more than discussion points for some author’s new book. They are things we are called to be and to have and to do here and now. They are things the prophets displayed long ago. They are the things the apostles and the disciples took to the countryside and to their crosses.

Ministry is always done in the context of God’s creation to expand God’s glory. Ministry like the missions that take the Word of God to places where it is unknown in tongues and ways the people understand, this is ministry done in context. Ministry like the Loaves and Fishes Food Bank, ministry like the back pack project, ministry like visiting the sick and imprisoned; these are all set to a specific time and place.

The song asks, “When will God save the people?” John answers “Get ready, because here he comes.” In this time and place we answer, “He has come, he has saved the people, and he continues to save the people.”

So we respond as John calls all of the children of the wilderness to respond. He proclaims a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He calls us to turn from the lives we lead now and be anointed in the waters of the baptism he proclaims. John calls us to come to the water to join together as a people turning from the political intrigue of the day and turn to forgiveness of sins.

How do we respond to our own words “He has come, he has saved the people, and he continues to save the people?” When we figure out the answer to that question we will be well on our way to answering Rev. Parker’s questions about what we are willing to live and die for. We will be ready to answer Rev. Parker’s question about what excites us.

These may seem like rhetorical questions, questions that don’t expect answers, but they are not. The answers to these questions take us from receiving a baptism for repentance for forgiveness of sins and actual repentance. It is how the church brings hope to the world. It is the difference between having hope for the future and in the words of de Chardin bringing hope to the world; and being a place to kill an hour on a Sunday. It is the reason we go to church, not just to hear the word, but to participate in bringing the word to life.

Let us prepare the way of the Lord. Let us become a part of the answer to the question, “When will God save the people?” And it is in this motion, going from hearing the word to participating in the word that we make the turn from getting ready, but that is for next week’s sermon.

[1] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years.” Vol. 1. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, page 480.

Coming

2009-11-29T14:05:00.002-06:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday November 29, 2009, the 1st Sunday in Advent.

Jeremiah 33:14-16
Psalm 25:1-10
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-36

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

I don’t know if you heard the starter’s pistol on Friday morning, but it went off signaling the official beginning of the Christmas shopping season. The square is buzzing with activity. Wal-Mart is flooded with shoppers. The highways to Springfield and Branson; to Fayetteville, Springdale, and Rogers are burning up with drivers on their way to the malls.

If you missed this activity, I commend you and the rock you were living under. The sheet metal nativity is up on the square. The Christmas lights on the highway have been up for quite a while. Andy Williams is gracing the television calling this the “Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Maybe the worst part of all of this is that the Christmas advertising season began before the football season this year.[1] It’s one thing to start getting ready for Christmas before Thanksgiving; it’s quite another thing to start getting ready for it before Labor Day.

So as we prepare for the coming of the Christmas season we are met with one of the most Christmassy images in Holy Writ, the people fainting from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world followed by the Son of Man coming in a great cloud with power and glory. Yep, nothing says “Christmas” like the gory and the glory.

During this season of Advent we celebrate the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. A tremendous amount of our economy is tied around the litany of things holy and human wrapped into this season. So it just seems unusual that we begin this Advent season with the images of Second Coming, this isn’t the usual path to the first Christmas. But really, that, as much as any other, may be the point of selecting this reading to start the season.

We are accustomed to the coming of a little baby like the one in the sheet metal crèche on the square. This time, this expectation is turned on its ear. We read instead about what all Christians anticipate, the next coming of this same Christ with power and glory. We expect a baby; we get something we don’t expect.

A theologian once wrote:

Our time is a time of waiting; waiting is its special destiny. And every time is a time of waiting, waiting for the breaking in of eternity. All time runs forward. All time, both history and in personal life, is expectation. Time itself is waiting, waiting not for another time, but for that which is eternal.[2]

We wait. We wait for what has all ready come. We wait for what is coming. Especially during this time of year, our waiting and anticipating are of his joyful and glorious arrival. We will sing songs of great joy celebrating our Lord’s birth and the promise of his life. But here, in this text, while we anticipate the wondrous joy of a season still coming, we are confronted with a more shocking image.

A couple of weeks ago, we read from the beginning of this chapter of Luke. Today, we read from nearly the end. Remembering the beginning of Luke 21, we are warned of wars and rumors of wars. We are warned that nation will rise against nation. We read of famines and plagues. We read of earthquakes then of dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

Before this happens, yes before this happens we read that we will be arrested and persecuted; handed over to religious and civil authorities. We will be betrayed by our friends and our families; and some of us will be put to death for what we believe in and for whom we believe in. We will be accursed, hated for proclaiming the name of Jesus the Christ.

Returning to the horrors of our passage, there is one thing missing that I imagine we would like to hear. As for me, I would love to hear Jesus say, “Just kidding, phew! This is the stuff that will happen to unbelievers. You get a free pass on all of this horrible stuff. Yes I said you will be hated by all because of my name, but that’s just me pulling your leg.” I would really like to hear that.

Marie is so cute, when someone pulls her leg she often says “Pull the other one, it has bells on it.”

Good Lord in heaven, I would love it if Jesus promised that from the moment I first believed that these fears would be a part of my past and not of my future. I would love the “and they all lived happily ever after” ending, but that is not the promise Jesus makes for us in this world.

Instead, we are warned and we are encouraged. We are not told this will not go away, on the contrary, we are told to be on guard that our hearts are not weighted down “with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life.” FYI—We have a handle on drunkenness and the worries of this life, but dissipation may be a new word for us. It means, “The nausea that follows a debauch.”[3] The passage is a warning not to worry so much about this life that we get so drunk so we become physically ill. Sage advice for any situation.

We are then told “Lift up your heads and be alert at all times praying that you may have the strength.” We are told to prepare. A hard rain’s gonna fall and there won’t be time to get an umbrella once it starts. Get prepared. Be alert and pray for strength.

There is a darkness which has, is and does come upon creation. But even the darkness, even the horror of a sin sick creation broken far beyond any intentions of our loving God, even this darkness has a value. Catholic theologian John Navone writes:

Darkness provides us with a therapeutic limit-experience, illuminating the meagerness of human resources for experiencing, understanding and communicating the divine. It reminds us that God alone has an adequate idea of who God is and that even our most successful efforts at understanding God are inadequate. When darkness induces modesty, humility, faith and trust, it leads to a communion with God as God really is; it frees us from the self-deception of worshiping Gods of our own making. Only the real God saves; not the illusion. The true Israelite is the wise person who makes a home ‘in the shadow of the Shaddai’[4] (the Almighty).

We are not promised the end of trials. We are not promised that our earthly tomorrows will be filled with peace and joy. On the contrary, this passage seems to promise that even after the day of our dear Savior’s birth there will be what I call “days like this.” The world will be filled with pain and strife. The world will continue to be a very scary place. As with every day since the first coming of the baby Jesus upon his creation, for better or for worse, people will continue to act like people. For better is the prayer, for worse is the expectation.

There is a darkness in our lives that is terrible, but can in Navone’s words be therapeutic. We are not to delude ourselves into believing that Jesus is a magic potion. Jesus is Lord, and it is when our darkness induces faith and trust that we are freed to be with and serve our Lord.

Our call is to not get tied into knots. Our vocation is to be watchful and pray for strength. We are to do this so that we may escape all of the things that are about to happen. We are not promised that the terror of life on earth ceases.

Instead we are promised that by the strength of Jesus, we may be able to escape these things and may be able to stand before him. We are to lift up our heads, be alert, and pray for strength so that we may escape the terror and stand before the Son of Man. This is how we live, and this is how we are to live, making our home in the shadow of the Shaddai.

There is terror in this world. We don’t have to look beyond these very walls to see the ravages of war and sickness, of natural disasters and economic calamity. There is uncertainty in this sanctuary over one and many matters. We all come with our individual worries and we come with our corporate worries.

And we come to the throne of grace. We come to the throne of peace. We come in the darkness created by the sin of generations before us and continuing in the sin of our own. We come seeking strength to escape the terror of life.

Now and forever, let us remember that the wolf is at the door, but it is by Christ’s power and glory—the glory that is coming and continues to come until he comes again in power—by Christ we may stand in his strength and not be laid low by the world.

[1] Easterbrook, Gregg, Tuesday Morning Quarterback, ESPN.com Page 2, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/090818&sportCat=nfl, retrieved November 29, 2009.
[2] Tillich, Paul, “The Shaking of the Foundations.” Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948.
[3] A. T. Robertson, “Word Pictures in the New Testament.” Vol. 2. The Gospel According to Luke. New York: Richard R. Smith, 1930, page 262.
[4] Navone, John, “The Jesus Story, Our Life as Story in Christ. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Order of St. Benedict, Inc., The Liturgical Press, 1979.

What Have You Done?

2009-11-22T13:36:00.004-06:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday November 22, 2009, the 34th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Christ the King Sunday.

2 Samuel 23:1-7
Psalm 132:1-12
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37

May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

I love the written word. I love the Word of God written, I love good theology written, and I love a good novel. I love little messages on facebook and Twitter. I love sharing wisdom through email. I even love composing and sending the pastoral letter every month for “The Epistle.” There is one thing that is difficult though, things that are obvious in the spoken word get lost in the written word.

In some forms of writing, there is often a presumption of shared experience. The shared experience allows the writer to tell the reader something in fewer words because there is a presumption that the set-up is known to the reader. After reading the first James Bond novel, we know who Bond is, so we don’t have to go through a detailed introduction in each novel. Because of shared experience, a few words is all it takes.

But this presumption is not always valid. One of the places where it is least valid is in social networking websites, tools like facebook, Twitter, and email; and in these settings, misunderstandings can quickly make their way around the world between breakfast and lunch. In the church it is true, with implications in the work of the Kingdom of God.

It is with this that I restate Pilate’s question to Jesus, “What have you done?”

The way we often read this, the way I have always read it, is that Pilate stands as judge and asks Jesus for a recitation of the charges. Pilate is asking a question the way a judge asks an accused. There is no reason to think this is a misinterpretation of Pilate’s question. After all, Pilate is the Prefect of Judea. Jesus was brought to Pilate for judgment by the Sanhedrin. This tone, this way that Pilate asks this question is valid, but I want us to consider something else.

Consider this, consider this little bit of the historical and cultural setting as well as the passage’s setting. First, let’s remember that Pilate was a politician. As any good politician, he knew what was going on in his district. He knew who the players were. He knew who had power, both formal and informal power. He knew the movers and shakers, and he knew the blowhards and stuffed shirts. He would have his finger on the pulse of the countryside, especially right before the Passover.

Pilate would have gotten the news that there was a prophet in the Judean hills performing great and miraculous signs and wonders. He would have been told about the healings. He would have heard that this prophet had bested the Scribes and Pharisees in several battles of wits.

Pilate would have heard about the crowds that had gathered around him, and were continuing to grow around him. He absolutely would have heard of this prophet entering Jerusalem on the back of a colt. Even if Pilate had no idea about the prophetic implications[1] of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, he would have known something big was happening because of the crowds and the shouts of “Hosanna.”

As the Prefect, Pilate was appointed by the Emperor to oversee Judea. The first thing he did was push the Judean leaders so that they would push back in one of those lovely “big dog” moments. The Judeans got a good look at how hard Pilate would push and Pilate saw how Judeans would push back.[2] It became known quickly that Pilate was a firm, but not a brutal ruler. The first dance soon ended and the administration of Judea by Pilate had begun. As with any occupying force, Pilate was not loved by those whose homeland was occupied.

So let’s reset the scene. Pilate is Prefect. He is a firm foreign ruler over a proud nation. He is not despised, but he is not loved by those he rules. In the verses just prior to this scene, the Sanhedrin had come to Pilate asking him to crucify Jesus. When Pilate asks them why, they say, “We wouldn’t bring him to you if he didn’t deserve it.” It’s like the old expression that only the guilty get arrested.

The story goes that the Sanhedrin turned Jesus over to Pilate because the Jewish leaders could not execute prisoners, but this may not be true. At least one source says that the Sanhedrin may have had the authority to execute prisoners for breaking religious law.[3] If this is true, they would have been able to execute Jesus for (by their account) his blasphemy. If they tried to do this, there surely would have been rioting in the streets; the disciples of Jesus taking on the religious rulers. This would have been no good at all for any of them. Any civil unrest, especially at the Passover would have forced Pilate’s firm hand against the entire nation.

So yes, they could have executed Jesus for breaking religious law, but they were so nervous over the fallout that they were willing to go to the ruler they did not like asking him to do what they themselves would not do.

As a politician shrewd enough to gain this post, Pilate was able to put one and one together and come up with two. In this case, it meant that he knew what Jesus was doing; and even if Pilate didn’t know the theological and prophetic ramifications of what he was doing, he knew that it was making the Jewish ruling elite very, very nervous.

So here’s how I choose to rephrase this question, Pilate asks Jesus, What have you done? What have you done to make these guys so upset that they come to me? What did you do to turn the entire countryside on its ear? What did you do to earn this level of spite from your own people? What have you done to make these people think I was less of an enemy than you?
That’s the question. What did Jesus do?

The glorious images that make up the answers to this question have been with us since we began reading the Gospels of Mark and John at Advent last year. The images of the Baptism of the Lord, the miracles, the healings; these things help answer the question, “What did you do.” But more than all of these things, more than these wonderful and glorious things, we are given an image from John the Revelator about who Jesus is and what he did and about what he continues to do.

He is the faithful witness. Jesus is the Christ, the select, the anointed; he is the one who was elected to come and bring the Word of the Lord to life in the world. He is the one who does only what he sees his Father doing. He is the one who in eternal relationship with the other persons of the Holy Trinity has seen and participated in the works of God since before the beginning. He is the one who came to earth, fully human and fully divine, teaching us through his words and actions.

He is the firstborn of the dead. He is the one who died and rose again. As we testify in the Apostles’ Creed, he descended into hell and rose again from the dead. As the firstborn of the dead, He is the Son who leads his brothers and sisters who too have died and will too die. He is the one who conquered death so that we will no longer know the sting of the cold hard hand of mortality.

He has freed us from the power of sin by his own blood. As the Lamb of God, there is no other sacrifice that can be made that will be able to do what God has done now and forever through His Holy Son Jesus. There is no other priest that can make a sacrifice like the one the high priest of God makes of his own body, his own blood, his own life. By the power of his blood, we are freed. This we celebrate today and as often as we share the plate and the cup.

He is the ruler over the kings of the earth and has made us to be a kingdom of priests to serve him now and forever. Amen.

The question is not just what did Jesus do, it is what does Jesus continue to do. Pilate’s question is almost rhetorical. The answer he wants isn’t about the charges; the politician in him knows all he needs from the Pharisees who bring Jesus. The question Pilate wants answered is much deeper than just a recitation of the charges; Pilate wants to know the truth about Jesus. The truth Pilate wants to hear is the truth we testify to on this Christ the King Sunday is that the Lord is King and for this he was born. In this we rejoice in God’s triumph on behalf of all creation.[4]

The King of Kings lives and breathes and remains with us. We are to share this glorious hope not as people in pews, not as a fat man in the pulpit, not as mere mortal beings, but in the words of the Revelation, “as priests serving his God and father.”

[1] Zechariah 9:9
[2] Pilate, Pontius entry, The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 4. Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, General Editor. Nashville: TN, Abingdon Press, 2009, page 526.
[3] Ibid.
[4] This is a nod to “Rejoice, the Lord Is King” (Lyric by Charles Wesley, Music by John Darwall). This was sung as the Hymn of Response following the sermon.

If I Had a Hammer...

2009-11-15T12:26:00.004-06:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday November 15, 2009, the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

1 Samuel 1:4-20
1 Samuel 2:1-10
Hebrews 10:11-14; 19-25
Mark 13:1-8

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

I read the news today. What an amazingly depraved world we live in. In a little less than a year, our Mayor was cited twice and served jail time twice for driving while impaired and possession of marijuana. A noted local attorney was arrested on so many drug related charges that her bond was set at $50,000.00; and the only reason it wasn’t $100,000.00 was because she agreed to immediately enter a drug rehabilitation program. Chris Helmlinger was found in a shallow grave because someone wanted to steal his identity. All they wanted his identity, his name and his numbers, so they took his life.

It was less than ten days ago that Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan killed thirteen people at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, the largest mass murder ever on a domestic military base.[1] This happened just eleven days shy of the anniversary of another notorious mass murder, this too in Killeen.

Eighteen years ago tomorrow, George Jo Hennard drove his pickup through the front window of the Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen. Then after shooting and killing twenty-three and wounding twenty others he turned his weapon on himself. This was the deadliest shooting spree in America, until the Virginia Tech shootings not eighteen months ago.

Last night CNN showed a special on the survivors of the Jonestown massacre. Nearly a thousand died and barely thirty survived the horrific mass murder/suicide which introduced into the American conscience the expression “drink the Kool-Aid.”

As for me, I don’t think the question “what kind of sick, twisted world is this?” should ever be asked. It always seems to me that just as soon as it’s asked, the answer rears its ugly head getting more and more grotesque.

In my opinion, and your mileage may vary, I don’t think the world is really any worse than it was in biblical times. Some of the things we read about in scripture’s historical books are just as sick and twisted as anything I have just described. The one thing that makes us really different is that we are bigger, stronger, and faster than our biblical counterparts. We’ve become the “Six-Million-Dollar-Man” of sin. Add to this the ready access to information which has increased exponentially since Guttenberg invented the printing press, and we may not be worse. But if it seems that way to you, I won’t press the point.

Jesus told his disciples that the temple will fall, not one stone will be left upon another, all will be thrown down. Later, when asked in private, Jesus warned the brothers, James and John, Peter and Andrew, that they will hear of wars and rumors of wars. They were warned that nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. They were warned of earthquakes and famine.

The signs are there, the signs are alive and well. A Google search with the terms “end times” returns over 262,000,000 hits in under one-eighth of a second. Yes, Jesus warns that end times are coming and there are a whole lot of people who are trying to guess when that will be.

Many use Christian prophecy to say that the end is just around the corner. Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins created a cottage industry doing this with the “Left Behind” books, movies, and other products based on one interpretation of Christian end times.

Recently there has been even more attention paid to the Mayan calendar which ends with the winter solstice of 2012. Between the History Channel, the Learning Channel, the Discovery Channel, and a major movie depicting human struggle against natural disasters of terrifying proportion; the attention paid to what happens when it happens in this prophetic scenario is very fashionable, and very profitable.

So Jesus teaches that there are end times, and they will be ushered in tragically. The disciples were warned that this was just the beginning; this agony was simply the pangs of a mother preparing to give birth. This is the Braxton Hicks of prophecy fulfillment. This is the false labor, just the pangs. This isn’t even the real thing. This agony is just how creation prepares itself for the coming birth of the new age. But there is something very interesting about this prophecy, very interesting indeed.

Remember if you will from our reading, Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple. The devastation of this temple would be so great that not one stone would be left upon another. We’re not talking about cinder blocks here either; we’re talking about great vast dressed stones. To destroy the temple would take a tremendous effort. The destruction of the temple would take considerable time and effort.

Not only would it take great physical effort to tear down the temple, it would take great political, military, and general human power to tear it down. The Romans had a very “live and let live” attitude toward other cultures and religious faiths in the empire; as long as there was civil rest and as long as the tribute was paid. When those bridges got crossed, whether by political upheaval or taxes not making their way across the Mediterranean, the army moved. It moved swiftly, or as swiftly as it could given the information and travel technologies of the day; and it moved brutally. Again, these folks didn’t invent crucifixion, but they took it to a place no one could have imagined.

So for this prophecy to come about, there would be years of minor insurrections. There would be little pockets of resistance. There would be some warnings before the whip came down, and when the whip came, it would take a little longer to get there than it would take for a B-1 bomber to leave Fort Leonard Wood and get to the Middle East, and it came with a vengeance.
Ultimately, the utter destruction of the temple and the nation of Israel, this destruction prophesied by Jesus in our reading today, came to fruition in 70 AD in a series of horrible and dramatic battles ending with the siege at Masada.

Now, what makes this prophecy interesting is that according to biblical scholars the book of Mark, the first of the recorded gospels, was written sometime between 65 and 75 AD. What I’m saying is that this prophecy was written as the events of the day were unfolding toward the destruction of the temple. They might even have been written after they unfolded. I guess the point I’m making here is that it’s pretty easy to write accurate prophecy while they are unfolding. It’s even easier to do afterward.

It’s easy to prophesy something that has all ready happened, and I say to you today that these events continue to happen. Prophesy, and this prophesy in particular is being fulfilled everyday. The local examples I listed earlier point toward this prophesy. The items from twenty to thirty years ago point to this prophesy. We can count natural disasters; earthquakes, tsunami, hurricanes, tornadoes and the like. We can include the terror of the World Trade Center and the rest of the 9/11 attacks. When we do this, we can imagine that this is how some peoples live everyday in the shadow of their enemies.

This knowledge about the history of this reading can give us a feeling like the whole thing is anticlimactic. What’s prophecy if the events have all ready happened? What good is a warning of events that have all ready come to pass? What’s so important about Jesus sharing knowledge that was all ready known? The answer is this: What is important is not the prophecy, what is important is first how Jesus responded to the prophecy and then how we respond to Jesus.

In verses four and five, the brothers ask the Lord, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished.” Again, the disciples are not so unlike us and we are not so unlike them. When offered the news of prophecy, they wanted to be able to identify when the signs would be fulfilled.

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about the “now, but not yet” view of our holy lives. How we live in the light of the kingdom of God, but because of the very nature of sin, the kingdom is not come, at least not yet. This “now, but not yet” is another way to express the fulfillment of this end times prophecy. Surely, by any estimation of this prophecy, based on the signs Jesus shared with his disciples, we live in end times. But this fact, this knowledge cannot lead us to say that tomorrow will not come, not yet.

As true as it is to say these prophecies were coming true in the day of the Lord, it is as true today. The signs are all around, so how did Jesus answer their question about the signs of the times? Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray.”

Did you notice what Jesus did there? He doesn’t answer their question. They want to know when, he offers something else; he gives them something even more useful than the signs of the end times. He warns them not to be led astray. And in this “now, but not yet” of end times, there are opportunities aplenty to be led astray.

Jesus doesn’t seem to care if we know the day when there will be no more tomorrows. If that mattered most, surely he would have shared that with his disciples. There are more important fish to fry. So instead, Jesus shares something more important, the dire warning that in a world that is so ripe with sin that it can’t seem to get worse, until it does, we must beware that we are not mislead.

You see, Jesus is the sign. Many will come to lead us astray, they will say, “I am he,” and they are not “He.” The glory of how this is written in the ancient Greek texts is that there is a better way to translate this phrase, this “I am he.” The simpler translation would read, “Many will come in my name and say “I AM.” The way Jesus said this little phrase; he invoked the Greek version of the holiest of Hebrew words, the name of God.

In a world where the kingdom of God is here and now, but not here and not yet; in a world where by the signs of sin the end is here and now, but not here and not yet, we are not called to interpret the signs. We are called to live in the light. We are called to move from the alienation of this world to the divine community ruled by Christ. We are called to move from the dark to the light. We are called to move from slavery to freedom. We are called to move from fear to liberty and assurance of eternal life. For Christians, it is Jesus and his message of salvation by grace through faith which is the sign of all times.

Pete Seeger and Lee Hays wrote the song “If I Had a Hammer.”[2] It ends with this refrain:

Well, I’ve got a hammer,
And I’ve got a bell,
And I’ve got a song to sing,
All over this land.
It’s the hammer of justice,
It’s the bell of freedom,
It’s the song about love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

Thanks be to God for the hammer and the bell and the song which we are to hammer and ring and sing. It is when we hammer, ring, and sing the songs of God’s love and freedom and salvation by grace through faith that the word and the kingdom reach further into this world, this world which is so sin sick. When we do this, the tide of these unholy signs is stemmed that no one will be led astray.

[1] CNN.com, Fort Hood suspect charged with murder, http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/12/fort.hood.investigation/index.html, retrieved November 14, 2009.
[2] Seeger, Pete and Hays, Lee, “If I Had a Hammer.” Warner Bros. Records, 1962.

Two Stories About Discipleship

2009-11-08T20:33:00.001-06:00

This sermon was heard at the Trinity Presbyterian Church in Columbia, Missouri on Sunday November 8, 2009, the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17
Psalm 127
Hebrews 9:24-28
Mark 12:38-44

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

One of Stanley Kubrick’s last movies was 1987’s “Full Metal Jacket.” The film follows a squad of Marines through basic training at Parris Island and depicts the experiences of two of these men in Vietnam, including the Tet Offensive and the Battle of Huế. What I find interesting about Kubrick’s treatment is the way he connected two such disjointed stories. Yes, the movement from training to combat is nothing unusual, but the disconnect between South Carolina and Southeast Asia in one pivotal scene doesn’t move the story from one phase to the next, it takes it from one world to another.

In a way, we have the same thing with our reading from the Gospel, “The Warning About the Scribes” and “The Widow’s Offering”[1] Yes, the people in both stories are largely the same, yes we are in the same place, and even in the same time, but there is a disconnect between them which show us completely different worlds.

“Beware the scribes,” teaches Jesus, “who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!” This sounds like an indictment against all of the scribes, but just a few verses earlier Jesus tells one scribe that he is not far from the Kingdom of God.[2] A better expression of this passage would be, “Beware the scribes, particularly the scribes who like to walk around in long robes…” and so on.

The good news in this statement is that Jesus does not indict all of the scribes as greedy and evil. He specifically separates the ones who walk around like they are someone more special than we are and more important than they are. They are the ones who like to eat the upper crust,[3] especially when someone else is buying dinner. Beware of the scribes who are attracted to the things they do not deserve.

Beware them because they will take you for all you are worth. Sure, they will do what they are supposed to do; they will recite their prayers and even recite them in public. After all, it’s impossible to attract attention for doing good works if they are done in private. And beware the Scribes who eat well because they eat like a plague of locusts. “They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers.”

This part of today’s reading could not be more straight forward. Jesus is speaking plainly. Jesus shows us how revoltingly the greedy Scribes behave, pointing out their absurdity. To see one of these Scribes walking around the marketplace in long robes would be exactly like seeing me walking down Providence or Broadway in my robe and stole. How presumptuous.

Told in the introduction to one of my favorite books from one of my favorite professors, this story shows us another way to see these scribes:

In a recent class discussion, a student mentioned a workshop she had attended in which an “image consultant” spoke to the gathered ministers (or church professionals as they referred to themselves). The consultant pointed up to the need for clergy to project a positive professional image. She told them that, because they are made in the image of God, they should buy only the best clothes, jewelry and accessories, and should make every effort to look as chic and smart as possible. After the student related her (all too true) story, I paused for a very long time. I was frankly appalled and, momentarily at a loss for words.

The students sat as the silence hung heavy around us. Finally, I said: “I guess what I’m trying to picture in my mind is this: how should we look if we are supposed to reflect the image of the God who has revealed himself to us in the tormented shape of a Jewish man named Jesus, crucified on a city dump and discarded by the powers of his world?”[4]

I am sure that this image consultant had the best interests of church professionals in mind when she gave this advice to those who paid good money to hear it. Unfortunately, one way to interpret her advice is that church professionals are to behave like the Scribes; wearing $2,000.00 suits, walking around the marketplace, and being greeted with adoration by the little people.

We do not pass from the temple without another story, the tale of the widow’s offering. Where the first part of our reading was offered at the temple for all who were there with ears to hear, this one is told specifically and directly to his disciples.

Many rich people were putting large sums of money into the treasury. The way the treasury was set up there were large horn shaped funnels that led to metal boxes where the worshipper placed their offering.

When someone put a large offering into the horn, it caused a great racket. To our ears it would sound more like a slot machine paying off a big jackpot at the casino in Boonville than the offering. But with a flourish, everyone within earshot would be able to discern who the rich folks are, and how extravagant their gift is. So when the widow placed two small copper coins in the treasury, hardly anyone took notice at all. Jesus took notice though.

She did not give much; she was not able to give much. Scripture tells us though that she gave all she had to live on. Another way to translate this passage is to say “She gave her whole life.” She gave her whole being and all of her existence, not just all of her cash.

She gave her whole life…so was Jesus praising her for her faith or was Jesus condemning a system which demanded every last thing from the poorest, weakest members of the community?

It would be consistent with the first half of the reading for Jesus to condemn the system. Jesus lambastes the Scribes for being holier than thou. He warns the people about how some of them flaunt their roles in society; taking advantage of their status for personal gain. I would not be surprised if Jesus was pointing there while praising the widow who gave her whole life. Jesus had a habit of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

The Christian Century magazine recently ran the story of an elderly woman who was a client of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago.[5] She needed just a little more money than her social security and house cleaning job provided. Between her niece and a shady sub-prime lender, she and her house went from the frying pan into the fire.

The vulnerable and overly trusting homeowner sitting on a ton of equity, the nice mortgage broker worming into the homeowner’s life, the greedy family member helping things along, the high up-front fees, the cash payment to cushion the deal, the risky mortgage products and the broker schooled by a lender’s rep on how to push them.

The lender knew the elderly woman wouldn’t be able to handle the new level of debt, especially since she owed back taxes and back water bills on the house. There were also a couple of judgments against the property so the broker knew that this new level of debt would soon become impossible to repay.

This paragraph is found near the end of the article:

The chief culprits in the subprime lending crisis are the brokers, lenders, ratings agencies and investment banks that set up the system and pushed it beyond its breaking point, together with the policy makers and regulators who ignored warning signs and failed to apply the brakes.

A system pushed beyond its breaking point becomes the scourge of the poor and widowed. People swiftly move from the margin of society completely off the page. Jesus warns this happens and will continue to happen. He also warns “they who devour widows’ houses will receive the greater condemnation.”

If you are able to give out of abundance, then by all means, give generously. Remember the Lord who has blessed you and return that blessing so that it may do God’s work through the church. And yes, hold the church accountable. For all of us, give in humility; don’t sound a ruckus with the treasury. Give whether it is from your wealth or your poverty. Jesus cherishes the widow’s offering, surely he does. It’s surely just as true that he detests the way the rich and powerful take advantage of the poor and widowed.

An example of how these interpretations meet is found in the Paramount Pictures release “Leap of Faith”[6] starring Steve Martin as the Reverend Jonas Nightengale, an “evangelist” who is far more con man than man of God. When one of the Kenworth trucks in his caravan breaks down in Rustwater, Kansas, he makes the choice to turn lemons into lemonade by holding his revival there, instead of in Topeka as scheduled.

Like any good con man, he finds the greatest need in town and exploits it. Rustwater is in a five year drought and if it doesn’t rain this weekend, the crop will be ruined again this year. On the first day of the revival, before the meeting, Jonas walks around town inviting everyone, promising miracles and wonders.

At the end of the movie, the sick are healed and the lame walk in Rustwater. Everyone praises God and says halleluiah. They have seen the signs and wonders and they give glory to God. But these healings are not the miracles.

As Jonas leaves the revival tent for the last time, he is met with the vision of a tent city on the revival grounds. People are camping, and sharing food. In their poverty, they share the abundance of God. A community founded in Christ rises out of the ash of Jonas’ deception. This is a miracle.

As Jonas hitchhikes out of town leaving his old life behind, it begins to rain. The people of Rustwater declare it a miracle, rain heaven sent. But this is not the miracle either.

The miracle is the redemption of a man in Jesus Christ. The miracle is in the relationship God initiates with creation and humanity. The miracle is Jonas’ response to the Almighty God.

Jonas Nightengale comes to town as the Scribe demanding every last coin from everybody in Rustwater, Kansas. He leaves Rustwater seeing the wonders of the Lord at work in the fellowship of God’s people. He leaves the spoils of a greedy scribe behind. He leaves a believer. This is a miracle.

As this movie ends, there are no more victims, only those who have experienced and responded to the grace of God.

These two stories from our gospel reading are about more than giving, more than about what we call stewardship. To view stewardship as the “business of the church” is too narrow; a better word is discipleship. Discipleship is how we respond to the grace of God. The primary concern of discipleship is to translate legitimate Christian speech into vital Christian action. We must respond to the gifts of the sovereign God as their trustee, not their creator. Discipleship extends beyond our relationship with wealth to our relationship with God, the Word, and one another.

As the children of God and the body of Christ, our vocation, our call is not to be like the wicked Scribes who seek the best seats in town. We are to give our time, talent and treasure in the service of God and to the people of God. We are to give in humility. We are warned; regardless of the era to beware the Scribes. The Lord does not call us to create victims or to be victims in God’s name. We are to be humble, and live like the widow; willing to give our lives for the body of Christ.

[1] Heading titles in the New Interpreter’s Study Bible, Mark 12:38-40 and 12:41-44 respectively.
[2] Mark 12:34
[3] The first draft said “high on the hog,” but even living in the “Home of the Razorbacks that just wasn’t kosher.
[4] Jinkins, Michael, Transformational Ministry, Church Leadership and the Way of the Cross. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2002, page xi.
[5] Lindsey, Daniel P. “Foreclosing on Mabel.” The Christian Century, August 11, 2009, pages 30-33.
[6] Paramount Pictures presents a Michael Manheim/David V. Picker production of a Richard Pearce film, Leap of Faith, 1992.

Jesus Weeps

2009-11-01T07:35:00.003-06:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday November 1, 2009, All Saints' Day.

Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

Last week, our gospel reading was the glorious story of Blind Bartimaeus, a man who was shunned by the people because of his blindness. Bartimaeus was a beggar on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem. He made a living being a nuisance to travelers. He lived a dirty life in a dangerous place on the margins of society.

Jesus called him, beckoned Bartimaeus to come to him. Leaving his old life behind with his cloak, Bartimaeus sprang up and came to Jesus. Bartimaeus receives two gifts, the first is his sight. The second gift he receives is the unconditional presence of the Lord. Bartimaeus is now and forever in the presence of the Lord. Every time we tell this story it is true. Every time we tell this story Bartimaeus is with Jesus. Every time we tell this story it is as true in the eternal sense, now as much as then, Bartimaeus is with Jesus.

This is an example of what we are promised in the words of the prophet. Isaiah prophesies, Isaiah promises:

Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the LORD has spoken.
It will be said on that day,
Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
This is the LORD for whom we have waited;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

This is an example of what we are promised in the words of John the Revelator.

And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”

These promises are wonderful, and they are glorious. They are lived by Bartimaeus who lives in the words of Isaiah, walking beside Jesus, his tears wiped from his face. His disgrace nothing but a distant memory the moment that Jesus gives him the two greatest gifts he can receive, sight in his eyes and God’s own presence in his life now and forever.

The sorrow and mourning Bartimaeus knew were wiped from his eyes with the coming promise of the Revelation that the first things have passed away. It is the next thing, life in the presence of the Lord that is now his by the grace of Christ Jesus.

The lesson of Bartimaeus is revealed in the promises made in prophecy. They remind us that God is in this world, the Lord is with us.

We know, we have faith, it has been revealed that there will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain. The entire old order of things has passed away. The things that cause us to feel grief and pain released like dust in the wind.

This is where we can run into some trouble. It’s not that this isn’t true, it is. But just as it is true that the victory of Christ was won on the cross through his blood; there is still pain and grief and sorrow in this world.

Eugene Peterson wrote this for the introduction to Michael Card’s book, “A Sacred Sorrow, Reaching Out to God in the Lost Language of Lament.”

A number of years ago my mother died in Montana. My brother and sister, our spouses and children, gathered and prepared for the service of worship in which we would place our grief for her death and gratitude for her life before God. As the first-born I was appointed to conduct the funeral…I began reading Scriptures—several psalms, Isaiah’s strong words of comfort, Jesus’ parting words to His disciples, Paul’s archi-tec-tonic Romans 8, John’s final vision of heaven. I had done this scores of times over many years and have always loved doing it, saying again these powerful, honest words that give such enormous dignity to death and our tears. While reading, the air now thin between time and eternity, without warning lament surged within me. I tried to keep my composure and then just let it go…

The benediction pronounced, I ducked quickly into a small room just off the chancel. I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. My twenty-two-year-old daughter slipped in beside me. We sat together, quiet and weeping our own “sacred sorrow.” And then a man I’d never seen before entered and sat down. He put his arm across my shoulder and spoke some preacherish clichés in a preacherish tone. Then, mercifully, he left. I said to my daughter, “Karen, I hope I’ve never done that to anybody.” She said, “Oh, Daddy, I don’t think you have ever done that.” I hope not.[1]

When we use these words of assurance to remember the promises of God that’s one thing, but when we use them as magic words to calm someone down so our pain is relieved, well, that’s the worst thing we can do.

There is an ancient theological concept that was greatly influenced by an even more ancient philosophical concept known as apatheia; it’s the root of our word apathy. The concept of apatheia allows us to define “God as one whose perfection leaves God unaffected by the contingencies and circumstances of the created order.”[2] John Calvin used this principle as a way to explain that the emotions attributed to God like the ones in this passage from John are the just way Scripture expresses what is truly incomprehensible in a way we can begin to understand.

To paraphrase this using the slang of a few years back: Divine emotion? It’s a God thing, you wouldn’t understand.

As for me, I don’t really understand that concept as it pertains to the Lord, and particularly not as it pertains to the fully human and fully divine Jesus of Nazareth. We read that because of the death of his dear friend Lazarus, Jesus is deeply disturbed in spirit. We read that Jesus is deeply moved. We read later again that Jesus is deeply disturbed. The Jews could even see that Jesus deeply loved Lazarus.

We read that Jesus began to weep.[3] Honestly though, I prefer the traditional translation of this verse, Jesus wept. Jesus was so overwhelmed that he wept at the loss of his friend. Jesus knew what he would do, and he knew what he would do for the glory of God for the sake of the crowd standing there; so that they may believe that it was the Father who sent the Son. Still, Jesus wept.

Jesus knew the pain. Jesus knew the grief. Jesus knew the sorrow. Jesus was overwhelmed.

Jesus knew the prophecy of Isaiah. Jesus knew the tears of the mourners would be wiped away. Jesus knew the extravagant grace and peace which comes from the glory seat of the Lord God Almighty would be known by his work.

Jesus knew the glory of the new heaven and the new earth; the glory made possible by the passing of the first heaven and the first earth. Jesus knew the glory of the holy city, the new Jerusalem. Jesus knew these things because he is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. Jesus knew all of this and more than we could ever hope or imagine.

And Jesus wept.

Today as we celebrate All Saints’ Day, we celebrate those who have gone before us in the faith. Today we celebrate the life of Elizabeth Beck who played organ and provided music for worship for this part of the Body of Christ. We celebrate the life of Leah Chapman who was taken from this world all too soon. We celebrate the life of Raphael Mabry, and we celebrate the life of my mother Mary Margaret. We celebrate the lives of all of those who have preceded us onto the glory of God. As we celebrate their lives, and the richness that fills our lives because of them, we too mourn. We shed a tear as we smile. We weep.

We are the recipients, the heirs of these glorious promises; promises of peace, promises of grace. We have a confidence in the prophecies and we have confidence in Christ. By Christ, the kingdom of God is here; the kingdom of God is now. Still, we know by the realities of sin and life that the kingdom is not yet fully here, it is not yet. There is sorrow and there is mourning. In this not yet, Jesus weeps. Jesus who knows the fulfillment of the promises weeps with Martha and Mary. And Jesus weeps with us too.

[1] Card, Michael, “A Sacred Sorrow, Reaching Out to God in the Lost Language of Lament.” Introduction by Eugene Peterson. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2005, pages 11-12.
[2] “Feasting on the Word.” David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Editors. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, page 236.
[3] John 11:35, New Revised Standard Version. This is the version we use in worship.

What Do You Want Me to Do for You?

2009-10-25T13:35:00.000-05:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Lakin, Kansas on Sunday October 25, 2009, the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Psalm 34:1-8, (19-22)
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 10:46-52

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

“Job then answered the Lord.” Now there’s a statement that takes some guts; Job answered the Lord. Of course, Job asked quite a question himself. Job asked “Why?” Why did he lose all of his earthly possessions? Why did he lose his family, his seven sons and his three daughters? Why, why, why?

Now, Job didn’t start off asking these questions. In the beginning, after losing everything, Job’s wife offers this advice: “Curse God and die.” “Get it over with,” she says. “Just do it” the good folks at Nike tell us.

Job curses too, Job curses creation, specifically his creation. “Let the day perish in which I was born.” He curses the day of his conception, “Let that day be darkness.” But curse God, no.

Job had led a blameless life, fearing God and turning away from evil. He made offerings not only for himself and his wife; he made them on behalf of his children just in case they slipped. There is no one like him. When the accuser comes before the Lord after “going to and fro on the earth” the Lord asks, “Have you considered my servant Job?”

Job was blameless. Not without sin, but he was blameless; and he knew this. What we call “the gospel of prosperity” is nothing new. Do good, get rewarded. When it gets taken away, it’s obviously because of something you’ve done. This is the argument Job’s friends are making through the text. The pity is that Job gets suckered into this argument.

Job begins to argue with his friends with the wisdom of Proverb 26:4-5:

Do not answer fools according to their folly,
or you will be a fool yourself.
Answer fools according to their folly,
or they will be wise in their own eyes.

Job begins to argue back with his friends, answering them according to their folly. It is then that Job asks “Why, why, why?”

Finally, nearing the end of the book of Job, the Lord asks Job a question. The Lord demands and the Lord asks:

“Gird up your loins like a man;
I will question you, and you declare to me.
Will you even put me in the wrong?
Will you condemn me that you may be justified?

Job asks “Why?” He wants to hear the Lord God explain what's going on. He wants to know, “Why me?” And the Lord tells Job to “Cowboy up.” Understanding the work and the will of God are outside of Job's pay grade, and he had better get used to it. “Why?” The answer to that one's just not in the cards.

Job comes to the conclusion that what God says is true:

I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Job knows that some things are too wonderful for him to know.

Job had lost everything in his life, everything which the culture tells him is important. He had lost his wealth and his children. These things were returned to him, and returned in abundance. He is so grateful that he even gives his daughters a full share of inheritance along with their brothers, something unheard of in that day and time.

The Christian singer Michael Card discerns one thing more that Job receives, or rather, one more thing that Job never lost. In all things, in all times, and in all trials, Job is never outside of the presence of the loving God. Job is never outside of the protection of the grace and peace of the Lord.[1] Even when his life is the bleakest, even when all Job has is sackcloth, ash, and friends like these; Job is in the presence of God.

Bartimaeus was a blind beggar. We know so very little about Blind Bartimaeus that we don't even know his name! As Mark points out, Bartimaeus is the Son of Timaeus. In Aramaic, Bartimaeus means Son of Timaeus. We know so little about him that we don't even know his name; we know his father's name, but not his.

Bartimaeus is not a terribly popular man. He sits on the road outside of Jericho on the way to Jerusalem. Jericho was a sort of a resort town and the road to Jerusalem was a busy place. This is where he begged. When you drive in a big city and see people at a stop light using a squeegee to clean windshields for money, on the first century road between Jericho and Jerusalem, that would be Bartimaeus.

Bartimaeus hears the commotion and finds out who is coming, Jesus of Nazareth. This is the last healing miracle found in Mark's gospel, so we can take it for granted that by this time in his earthly ministry the word had been passed up and down the road. Jesus of Nazareth is coming and he heals the sick.

“Jesus, Son of David,” Bartimaeus cries, “have mercy on me!” And the people rebuke him; they demand he shut up. The obvious reason the people tell Bartimaeus to be quiet is that they don't want to disturb the Rabbi while he is on the road. But there is another possible reason too. While at this point in Mark's gospel there is no question, no doubt about Jesus’ messianic identity, this is the first time anyone uses the royal title, “Son of David.”

To the religious elite, this is like calling a First Lieutenant fresh out of ROTC “General,” but with eternal overtones. The people were on their way to Jerusalem for the Passover, there were bound to be religious leaders along the way with the group. We know all to well that not everyone considered Jesus to be God with us, so suddenly a blind man sees more than the Scribes and Pharisees hope or imagine. I expect that there are a lot of people trying to tell the blind man to close his mouth along with his eyes.

Can you imagine the looks when Jesus told him to come down? Jesus stops the crowd in their tracks and says, “Call him here.” The good people along the route tell Bartimaeus “Take heart, get up, he's calling you.”

I like this translation, “take heart.” The New American Standard Bible renders it a little differently. It says, “Take courage.” These two together go a long way toward what the original language intended. The New International Version and the New Living Translation rendering of “Cheer up” in this passage doesn't do it for me. Bartimaeus sits on the road all day begging from strangers and travelers. He learns Jesus is coming and invokes the royal name of God to address him. He will not be quiet when the crowd demands it. It seems of Bartimaeus’ needs, he doesn’t need cheering up.

I guess another way to translate this is “Cowboy up.”

Bartimaeus throws off his cloak, sprang to his feet and comes to Jesus.

I grew up in the Kansas City area. One of the places I would frequent during the more misspent parts of my youth was Westport. While running around there, I met a man named Curtis. Curtis was a homeless man, burned over half of his body. His face was scared; he had just one arm, and a pronounced limp.

Whenever I would see Curtis, regardless of the season, I would see him wearing a parka. That parka had all of his worldly possessions. One night, a kind of a chilly night, particularly late in the night, or early in the morning if you will, I saw him sleeping in a doorway, using his parka for cover.

Bartimaeus' cloak served the same purpose as Curtis' parka. It kept the sun off of him during the days and kept him warm at night. It held his worldly possessions. Living on the road in ancient times is not so different from living in the streets in midtown Kansas City, both of them could be dangerous places, even for those familiar with the ins and outs of living there. To lose his cloak would have been a huge loss in the life of a man with out vision or even his own name.

Bartimaeus throws off his cloak and comes to Jesus. The odds of it being there when he got back to it were poor; very, very poor. Yet Bartimaeus is willing to throw away all he has for the hope of seeing Jesus.

Jesus asks “What do you want me to do for you?”

The first request from Bartimaeus had all ready been asked, “Have mercy on me!” This request is granted. Jesus shows him mercy. In a world where we see just a blind beggar, in a world where we don't even know the man's name, in a world where we hope the crazy screaming man will just be quiet; Jesus shows him mercy. Jesus calls Bartimaeus to him. The Lord our God calls the dirty, smelly, poverty stricken, blind man to his side.

Jesus gives Bartimaeus the most important thing anyone can give someone, dignity. Jesus welcomes this man who society shuns into his holy presence with out condition. Unconditional love, love he cannot earn. Bartimaeus receives grace and mercy.

Then Bartimaeus asks for the gift of sight. “Rabbi, My teacher, let me see again.” No frills, no spitting in the mud, it is the faith of Bartimaeus that makes him well, faith that in Jesus Christ all things are possible. By grace through faith Bartimaeus receives the gift of sight. Faith that in Jesus Christ, even when the people around us say we have nothing, not even a name, we have a place in the arms of God.

Job had everything taken from him, Bartimaeus left it behind voluntarily. The results for both of these men was the same, they had their vision restored. They were both able to see the light of God at work in the world, and in their own lives. Job had to learn what this truly meant through the loss of everything. Bartimaeus left everything in his cloak on the side of the road just to follow the vocation laid before him on a dusty road to Jerusalem.

The Lilly Foundation funded a project to study evangelism in the seven mainline American churches using denominational records and followed up with over 1,200 interviews. One of the things they discerned is that the people who have never heard the gospel can be split into different populations.

One of the nine groups who need the Good News of Jesus Christ is those who are “far from the church” and are “hurting.”[2] These are people who are burned out by congregational conflict. These are people who find the theology of their youth to be oppressive. These are people who have experienced tragedy and for whom the church has provided no comfort or support. These are the people who have been judged and shunned by the church.

Job is one of these people. Job was met by his friends and received the holy counsel, “So, what did you do to deserve this fate from the Lord?” Bartimaeus is one of these people. Because of his blindness, he is so shunned by his people that we don’t even have his name. What we have in these stories, what we have to share with the world is that when the world is at its worst the Lord God does not forsake us. The Lord God never abandons us. The Lord God never deserts us. The Lord asks “What do you want me to do for you?”

When the world turns its back on us, the Lord is at our side. The Lord calls us. The Lord lets us see in a world blind to the work of God. This is our call, this is our vocation; we must again learn to speak so that those who will hear us will understand we have something to say. And what a thing we have to say. What a thing we have to share. We believe that faith makes a difference in our lives. We believe that we are saved by faith through grace.

As the body of Christ, we are called to be the presence of God in the world. In this truth, we must recall the teaching of Aquinas, “Share the gospel, use words when necessary.”

When the world is at its worst, the Creator is at our side; Emmanuel, God with us. And by this, we are called to take God’s word of grace and peace into the world, using words when we must.

[1] Card, Michael, “A Sacred Sorrow.” Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2005, pages 41-45
[2] Reese, Martha Grace, “Unbinding the Gospel, Real Life Evangelism.” St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2008, page 90.

The Sons of Zebedee

2009-10-18T13:16:00.002-05:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday October 18, 2009, the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Job 38:1-7, (34-41)
Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c
Hebrews 5:1-10
Mark 10:35-45

May the words of my mouth and the mediations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

You know me well enough to know that sometimes, I get an image burned into my head that I just can’t get rid of until I share it. Sometimes it’s worth sharing, more often than not that’s the reason I keep them to myself or share them only with Marie. Well, the first part of this passage did just that.

I see the dreamy eyes of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, as they approach Jesus. In their minds eyes they are sitting next to Jesus, everyone wearing white robes, everyone’s hair flowing in the wind, riding on the back of a classic Ford Mustang convertible, the Homecoming King and the attentive court.

Actually, the image in my head was Homecoming Queen because my high school didn’t do a Homecoming King, but I don’t want to make this image any more unorthodox than it all ready is.

Still, you know, the wave: elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist, wrist. Smiling and waving at the appreciative crowd; riding on the back of the convertible along the parade route. Crowds of people along the way would be getting ready for the big game, but not before showing their undying love for the three in the car. Sure, Jesus is in the middle, surrounded by admirers and disciples, sitting in the honored seat. He is the one everyone adores the most; but everyone looks to the Sons of Zebedee, James and John, as the next most popular kids in the senior class.

Jesus can’t be matched, everyone knows that, but to be next to the Lord, that is the greatest place anyone could ever hope to be; a place that can’t be matched. James and John sit and wave and bask in the Lord’s reflected glory and know everyone wants to be just like them.

Suddenly, Jesus busts their dream bubbles asking, “You might think you can get in the car, but do you think you’ll be able to take the ride? Will you be able to wear the crown and the sash? Will you be able to take everything the crowds have to give, the love, the adulation, the jealousy, the envy, the hatred, the scorn?”

“Oh, yes, we most certainly will be able to take it all.” It’s almost as if they didn’t hear the second half of the litany Jesus laid out.

Jesus gives the blushing boys a nod and tells them the truth they don’t understand, “Well guess what; you will get to wear the crown and the sash and you will know the love, the adulation, the jealousy, the envy, the hatred, the scorn. But whether you’ll be riding in the classic Mustang or not, well, that’s not up to me.”

That’s when the rest of the homecoming court gets upset with the upstarts. You know the rest, kicking, scratching, hair pulling…

I can’t decide if my re-visioning of this passage is like a bad teen movie or the spoof of a bad teen movie. If this gives you the willies, just imagine what I share only with Marie and then imagine what I keep to myself.

As silly as my re-visioning of this scene is, what is even sillier is its context. The disciples are on the road going up to Jerusalem during this passage. Immediately before our reading, Jesus shares this with the disciples, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.”[1]

This isn’t even the first time Jesus had predicted his Passion; his death and resurrection. This is the third time Jesus had told his disciples that he will be mocked, spat upon, flogged, killed, and after three days raised from the dead. It is completely absurd that immediately after this teaching, this repeat of this teaching; the Sons of Thunder ask if they can sit next to Jesus in his glory.

Perhaps what makes this entirely too sinfully human is that James and John ask to sit next to Jesus in his glory; this glory they anticipated would be far greater than any earthly kingdom. Their question, absent any reference to the Passion, would have been a request to sit as princes in this earthly kingdom. They were seeking power and glory; I hope they were also seeking the good things power and glory can bring.

They are anxious to be next to him in his ecstasy, but not in his agony. On the heels of his last Passion prediction, they ask Jesus if he will let them hear the cheers, but in this scene nobody asks to hear the cries.

It’s easy for us to swell with knowing as Jesus tells James and John that sitting at his left and right is not for him to grant. It is glorious to hear that those places are for those for whom it has been prepared. There’s a certain ethereal joy knowing there is a place is prepared for the Church Christ ordains. It gnaws at the pit of my stomach when I read that with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left.[2] People, we beg to be next to Jesus in his glory, but we hardly beg for a place at Golgotha, the place of the skull.[3]

In the meantime the rest of the disciples get angry with James and John. While scripture is particularly silent on the reason, I suspect that they were angry with them for their request. The others were probably angry that James and John had done an end-around on them and asked for the good seats. I wonder if they were angrier because they hadn’t thought of it first. I can’t imagine they were ticked because they wanted be the first to share in the terror Jesus predicted.

I wonder if they would have asked the same question if they knew what they were getting themselves into. How often do we remember the Passion when we hear Jesus say, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.”

I hope James, and John and the rest were thinking about justice for the poor, care for the hungry, healing for the sick; things that a Godly kingdom brings. I hope they were thinking about the things Jesus talked about in his words on how Gentiles lorded power over one another. Jesus warned about exercising power like tyrants; warning against capricious laws, greedy taxes, and lustful appetites.

The Presbyterian Lay Committee is a group of Presbyterians who come together and share common concerns and seek common interests. There are dozens of such “affinity groups” scattered around the Presbyterian Church, running the political gamut from very liberal to very conservative. I do not think it is a disservice to categorize the Lay Committee as one of the more conservative affinity groups.

What follows is a commentary by the Rev. Parker Williamson from the September 4, 2009 edition of their newsletter, “The Layman.” Rev. Williamson is Editor Emeritus of “The Layman,” consultant to the Presbyterian Lay Committee, and an honorably retired PC (USA) minister.

Health care is not an entitlement issue. Those who frame public discourse on this subject in the language of “rights” – sadly, this is the approach employed by political lobbyists for the Presbyterian Church (USA) – reveal their ignorance of Scripture and of the human condition.

If human beings had a right to good health, then billions of us – ultimately, all of us – may file a grievance against our Creator. Some of us are unhealthy at birth. All of us are born hosting bacteria that under conditions beyond our control can result in illness and death. Scripture informs us that there is a time to be born and a time to die. These times are not set by us, and they most certainly should not be set by our government. They are the province of God.[4]

I can’t read that without sorrow. Williamson holds up the “human condition” in the same way antebellum American slave owners held up the “Curse of Ham” from Genesis 9:22 to say that Africans were cursed to be slaves. “God ordained their slavery; it says so in the Bible. The plantation is just one way to help every cotton-pickin’ one of them live into their godly office.” He holds up birth defects and grave childhood illness as an expression of Ecclesiastes 3:2, “Hey, there is a time to die, and some die sooner than later. Can’t stop it, God’s plan.”

In fairness, there are some valid points in the commentary. Williamson goes into the fact that for many, lifestyle is a factor in health, obesity for example. For these folk, he recommends a bootstrap approach. He quotes Jesus to the man at Bethsaida asking the, question “Do you want to be healed?” He implies that those who do not wish to take care of themselves in the first place really don’t want to be healed. Sure they want symptom relief, but not healing.

The article ends with this: “We [the Lay Committee] will respond to the Lord’s call for compassion, challenging the wisest among us to implement that compassion through policies that define reciprocal partnerships between donor and recipient.”[5]

This statement seems a bit unwieldy, so let me share what I think it means. I read “donor” as the one who pays for health care reform and “recipient” as the one receiving health care services. By virtue of his place in the organization, Rev. Williamson is saying the Lay Committee will support a call to compassion, but only one that calls people to lead a healthy life and that people be healthy before the “donor” pitches any pennies in their direction. The Lay Committee is willing to respond to the call for God’s compassion, but not willing to lead.

When I read Rev. Williamson’s words, what I see is not compassion; I see pity for people who do not live healthy lives. There is disdain for those who do not live up to his expectations. These folk may be pitiable creatures, but they do not deserve his helping hand.

I don’t read compassion for those whose injured lifestyle damages their health. I don’t sense the Lord’s call to compassion in his words. I sense blaming people for hurting themselves and taking money from his pocket to help subsidize their unhealthy lifestyle. I sense a laissez-faire approach to compassion; let them care for themselves first.

When I read his remarks, I read that he supports a program that calls for the Lord’s compassion. As for action, he is willing to say no to plans being considered right now, but not willing to suggest alternatives. He is not willing to go out and touch all of God’s children who are hurting right now where they are right now. It seems in this case he is not willing to say “we who are great among you must be your servant, for whoever wishes to be first must be slave of all.”

I say this is a shame. As the children of God, we must be willing to reach out. To be great means to be the slave of all.

James and John wanted to sit at the right hand of the Lord to bask in his glory and exercise his power. Jesus says that it is for the Son of Man to come, not to be served but to serve, and give his life for a ransom for many. Jesus knows that we cannot take on the obligation that he alone fulfills.

Jesus calls us, as his blessed children, to go following his example. Jesus sits with the poor; Jesus breaks bread with sinners; and yes, Jesus heals the sick. We are called not to be served, but to serve. Yet, we cannot save anyone; that alone is his work. He alone is the great High Priest. He gives his life for a ransom for many. We cannot save the world; instead we are called to be the hands, eyes, ears, voices, and hearts he will use to save the world.

We are called to live our lives in his service. We are called to live as the children of God, not the children of Zebedee.

[1] Mark 10:33-34, NRSV
[2] Mark 15:27
[3] Mark 15:22
[4] Williamson, Parker, The Layman, http://www.layman.org/News.aspx?article=26338, retrieved October 16, 2009.
[5] Ibid.

The Call to Live

2009-10-11T14:20:00.004-05:00

I looked so bad this morning that the congregaton sent me home. I can't blame them, my head cold is pretty bad and Marie has a touch of pneumonia. Still, this sermon would have been heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berrryville, Arkansas on Sunday October 11, 2009, the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Psalm 22:1-15
Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 10:17-31

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

From time to time, you might be curious about what is involved in preparing the sermon, the Word of God interpreted. Let’s begin here, that’s what I start with. The sermon is the Word of God interpreted and if it is anything less than it is wholly and holy inadequate. The purpose of the sermon is to share the Truth of the Word of God (with a capital “T” here) with the people of God in this time and place; and the first priority is God’s word before all else.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:

“We must not be afraid to spend the time and effort required [to become acquainted with the Holy Scripture as the Reformers knew it, as our fathers knew it]. …How are we supposed, for example, to achieve certainty and confidence on our actions and in our personal life and in the church, if we do not stand on solid scriptural ground? Not our own heart but God’s word decides our path.”[1]

Yes, time and place matter, but the Word of God matters more than the time and place where they are heard. Only through the Holy Spirit by critically reading and seeking the Word of God in the written Text, in the Holy flesh or in the spoken word; only by being in the word of God will we live Bonhoeffer’s words achieving “certainty and confidence on our actions and in our personal life and in the church.”

So this, this particular piece of scripture gets dicey. If I bring this message of the Good News of Jesus Christ poorly, I will make you shut it out considering it to be what we call in the United States very, very bad news. There is a “Gospel of Prosperity” heard in churches around the world that is as pervasive as the “Law of Prosperity” heard in the time of Jesus. In Jesus’ time and even long before, those who were rich, or as in this case “have many possessions,” were considered to be very blessed by the Lord God. Where the world and the common interpretation of the Law saw this man as blessed, Jesus saw what this man lacked and told him what to do about it.

Most Presbyterian Churches are blessed to have members of power and wealth, but there is a slippery side to power and wealth. Marie Bolerjack tells the story of a Mississippi man who wanted to join the Presbyterian Church in their town because that’s where the “movers and shakers” were. While I do not see that man’s motivations in this part of the Body of Christ, I will not say it’s absent from every church in America, particularly the Presbyterian.

So yeah, this gets a little dicey.

An unmeasured look at this Word reminds me of the title of an old song by Bachman-Turner Overdrive, “Give Me Your Money Please.” A more measured take would be from the 1990’s; “Give It Away” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. But being the guy reading the scripture, and being the guy who will later say, “Do good and share what you have for such sacrifices are pleasing to God,” it is perfectly reasonable for you to hear “Give Me Your Money Please.”

The man runs up and kneels before Jesus and asks him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” What must I do to inherit? The man tells our Lord that he has been a good boy, and a good man. He has kept the law; the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments.

Jesus loves the man and tells him what he did not expect to hear, he begins with this little phrase, “you lack one thing.”

So here’s the good news, the man is doing all of the right things, or at least he’s doing nothing wrong. He’s keeping the law; he’s evidently not cheating anyone. He honors his parents and doesn’t covet his neighbor’s ox or ass. I assume he gives his tithes to the temple and keeps a kosher table. He’s a good doo-bee, but he lacks one thing.

That’s when Jesus drops the bomb.

“Go and sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” The man goes away grieving because he has many possessions.

I love the word “grieving” in this passage. I don’t have a lot of stuff, not compared to many who “chase the American dream;” but I love my books. I love to read them. I love to study them. I love to use them in work and in play. I love to organize them. I love to discuss them. I love to teach them. So if I were told I had to give away all of my books, I am sure that I would ultimately ask, “You mean this one too?” Surely as I would ask that question I would hear “Especially that one.” I get that kind of grief.

Jesus looked around at his disciples and said, “How hard will it be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.”

Yes Paul, “Especially that one.”

But did you notice what Jesus did here? He shifted the focus of the dialogue. The man asked what it took, what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus shifts the talk on life to talk on the kingdom of God.

Eternal life and the kingdom of God are two distinct things, if it were not so, Jesus would not have made the distinction. But is there a difference between these distinctions? Let me share a couple of stories with you.

This look at eternal life comes from the Kiester, Minnesota Courier Sentinel:

A little girl was distraught that her cat had been hit by a car and killed. Her mother, seeking to console her, said, “Well, honey, at least you know that your cat is now with God.” The girl screwed up her face, thought for a second, and said, “I don’t think so. What would God want with a dead cat?”[2]

This look at the kingdom of God comes from the C.S. Lewis classic “The Screwtape Letters.”

Prosperity knits a man to the world. He feels that he is “finding his place in it,” while really it is finding its place in him. His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, build up in him a sense of being really at home on earth, which is just what we [the “we” here are demons of which Screwtape is a manager] we want. You will notice that the young are generally less unwilling to die than the middle-aged and the old.

The truth is that the enemy, having oddly destined these mere animals to life in his own eternal world, has guarded them pretty effectively from the danger of feeling at home anywhere else.[3]

The little girl and Screwtape have the right ideas. What does God want with a dead cat? What is eternal life if we are dead? It is in our living here on earth that we have our foretaste of the kingdom of God. The Lord has given us a place and it has little to do with our place in the world. Our life in the kingdom has little to do with power and importance, good work and an agreeable home. As we strive for the things of this world, we often feel that the important things in life are slipping away, and this is Lewis’ point. As we strive for life on earth, the kingdom presses on us oh so much more, making us realize that it is not stuff that makes life worth living.

Life worth living is about relationships. Kingdom life begins with a relationship with Christ and flows into relationships with people and the world around us. In a way, this is what Jesus was telling the man. Eternal life is something we receive, but it is in the kingdom of God that we live.

The man asks what he has to do to receive the inheritance. Let me ask you, what have we ever done to receive an inheritance? Our inheritance laws are a little different from those of ancient Israel and Judea. In that day and time what you had to do to receive an inheritance is to be a son. To inherit eternal life we are called to be disciples of Christ Jesus, this is how we join the family. We become heirs of the eternal life. There is nothing we can do to earn an inheritance. An inheritance comes from family and we are the family of God.

We are called to be members of that family, we are called to take up our cross and follow God. We are called to become citizens of the kingdom. These passages from Mark make it clear that one of the crosses we all have to bear as citizens, particularly those who have much, is dealing with how we use our wealth.

We’re back to the dicey part.

So here is a point worth making, we are to give, but if we don’t give well it can be worse than if we never gave at all. This is perhaps our most difficult undertaking. You know, anyone can just give it away, but giving it away well is a completely different matter.

Living in central Austin, the Seminary warned us students and family not to answer our doors to strangers; seems pretty obvious. Honestly, as students on financial aid, if we answered the door for every person who came by for a handout, we would soon be opening a café. The only difference between our set up and a regular restaurant would be that nobody but us would be picking up the check. There was one woman in our complex who did open her door and give and give and give; until it became a revolving door. It made her so anxious that it ruined her health and a barrier formed between eternal life and the kingdom of God in her life.

Say every single one of us liquidated our stuff; land, property, cars, the whole kit and caboodle; say we took this pot of funds and went to any one of the hundreds of homeless shelters between Memphis and Fort Smith. Suppose we tossed the accumulated millions of dollars into the air giving it to the poor, what do you think would happen? Honestly and horribly, I can say from experience, that the next millionaire would be the owner of the closest liquor store owner. I don’t say this to be cruel; I do say it because unfortunately it is true. I have seen people begging for money in Austin and Kansas City and walk away when someone offers to buy a sandwich instead of giving cash on the barrelhead.

To give well is important in the call to give. Giving poorly, as these circumstances show us, is giving dangerously. This is the difference between giving and good stewardship.

We never hear what happens to this man with many possessions after he goes away. Here’s what I would love to have happened. I would love to believe that the man did as Jesus commanded. I would love to hear that he liquidated his assets and helped the poor. Maybe he gave to the temple, maybe the Salvation Army; maybe he started a foundation or a school. Maybe he started a school for kids in places where schools are uncommon. What if he funded the Qumran community, sitting on the library board perhaps? This is my hope; that he followed Jesus without ever leaving home.

And maybe, just maybe, we never hear from him again because he is so busy living his life in the kingdom of God, he no longer worried about eternal life. To paraphrase Bonhoeffer, maybe he was able to achieve certainty and confidence on his actions and in his personal life and in the church by standing on solid scriptural ground with God’s word deciding his path.

Life in the kingdom of God is better than a dead cat any day.

[1] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, I Want to Live These Days with You, a Year of Daily Devotions, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, page 294.
[2] From the Keister, Minnesota Currier Journal, cited in http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=1593
[3] From C. S. Lewis, “The Screwtape Letters” cited in Christianity today found at http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=1034.

Made for Something More

2009-10-04T15:33:00.003-05:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday October 4, 2009, the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Today we also celebrate World Communion Sunday.

Job 1:1, 2:1-10
Psalm 26
Hebrews 1:1-1, 2:5-12
Mark 10:2-16

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

Often, I wonder if the Lord doesn’t put his face in his hands and ask “what in the world are they thinking?” This reading and several more from the gospel readings coming over the next few Sundays produce that attitude from me. Maybe it’s “Why ask these questions?” “They just don’t get it some days.” Or the ever popular, “It just goes to show you…” Today, Jesus is given a test “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” We often think of this as a test to draw Jesus into the web of the Pharisees and trap him into a controversy so to hasten his way to the cross, but it may not have been that at all.

The controversy the Pharisees attempted to draw Jesus into was less about the Word of God and more about the way people thought about the Word of God. The Pharisees were trying to draw Jesus into an argument between rabbinical schools of thought, which are kind of like Judaism’s version of denominations, and their views on divorce. Evidently, controversy over divorce is as old as marriage itself.

Regarding divorce, the position taken by the Shammai School was very strict, while a more lenient stance taken by the Hillel School. Somewhere between the two fell the teachings of the Aqiba School.[1] If Jesus takes one position over the others, then the uproar begins. Sit on the fence and everybody gets upset. The Pharisees have set an argument before Jesus hoping he would fall into the controversy, dividing the people of God.

You know, it might actually have been better if this trap had been set to snare Jesus toward the cross. If the argument had really been about human relationships then it would have been more worthy than what the Pharisees were trying to get Jesus into. Then at least the controversy would have had some merit in the sense of eternal life. But no, this controversy is being used to divide people and set earthly powers and principalities; it’s about whose Rabbi is right. Instead of the argument going to answer the great spiritual questions of life, the universe, and everything; it becomes a contest to see who’s right and who’s wrong.

We know the game the Pharisees are playing, the gospel tells us that they came and tested Jesus. It doesn’t say whether Jesus knew they were coming to test him or not, but our Lord is more than wise enough to see the snare that was being laid out. Jesus knows the game that they are playing and he knows the truth is the only way to answer their question.

They ask “Is it lawful?” Jesus asks them back, “Well, what did Moses command you?”

Always willing to answer their own questions, the Pharisees said “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” With just a word from Moses, the woman becomes eligible for a pink slip. I imagine the Hillel rabbis were happy to hear this from the Pharisee. I am just as sure that those who sided with the Shammai were dismayed, ready to make their point before the Lord.

But Jesus will have nothing to do with their arguments over the interpretation of the law. Jesus, the Word Incarnate, turns away from interpretation and shares the Living Word with all who will listen. The reason Moses said this was not because of marriage, but because of the people who married. Moses said a man can write a certificate of dismissal not because marriage is hard, but because of the hardness of human hearts.

This word, hardness, has a specific meaning for the Rabbis and the Pharisees; it doesn’t describe something hard like a rock or difficult like ruling the people or perilous like crossing the desert. In this case, Jesus meant that the people of God were as stubborn and unyielding as they were when Moses used this word in Deuteronomy 10:16 summing up the essence of the Law saying to the people “Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer.”[2]

In this passage he stands more against adultery than for marriage. Jesus stands for what God wants. Jesus stands for the better way. Jesus stands up for people who are married more than he stands up for marriage. He stands for people sharing life together in the love of God rather than institutional wedlock. He stands for grace and love over law and certificates of dismissal. Jesus stands up for loving and caring relationships, not legal documents that either bind or unbind a couple. Jesus stands up for something more, something better, the things that make life worth living.

A life constrained by legal bonds and contracts is hardly a life worth living. Life was never meant to be lived in court; it is meant to be lived in the unconditional love of God. A love we are given not despite who we are—despite the fact that there is divorce and remorse—but because of who we are—because we are the children of God. It is as the children of God that we become who we are meant to be.

Jesus knows that this connection, this untainted love is best shown by children; children who do not know what we grown-ups horribly call real life. Children who in the best of circumstances could never imagine shattered relationships. Children who inherently trust; trusting and loving so graciously that Jesus says the kingdom of God belongs to such as these children. Jesus says “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

We live in a complicated world, and it just keeps getting more complicated everyday. The things that don’t get more complicated get bigger and faster. If I told you that it is easy to live in our world like children you would probably laugh and rightfully so. Yet no matter how hard this is, we are given what we need to live in the kingdom in our day and in our time.

About twenty years ago a nationwide poll asked, “What word or phrase would you most like to hear uttered to you, sincerely?” The number one thing the respondents most wanted to hear was “I love you.” The second is as glorious as the first, “You are forgiven.” The third seems removed from the others. It’s “Supper is ready.”[3]

Today, in worship, we hear all of these things. Today, the Lord our God tells us these things. Today we have heard God’s love, and we respond to God’s love sharing God’s peace and love with one another. We have confessed our sins against God and against one another and have heard “Christ who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one origin. In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.”[4] Soon we will hear the words of invitation to the table, the call that supper is ready as we celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

By the grace of God we are given what we need to live mature God loving lives, lives worthy of the kingdom of heaven, and the hard cold world we see all around us. We are given the blessings of God’s love, God’s forgiveness, and God’s nourishment. We have received love and grace, plate and cup; and we have received them from Jesus.

Earlier I asked if the Lord doesn’t wonder what we’re thinking. We keep trying to draw Jesus into our controversies when he keeps trying to draw us closer to his, the controversy of his incarnation, the controversy of his death, the controversy of his resurrection. We try to twist the law and the Lord into our wrangling while he made us for something more, something better, something holy.

The psalmist writes:

I will wash my hands in innocence, O Lord,
that I may go in procession round your altar,
singing aloud a song of thanksgiving
and recounting your wonderful deeds.[5]

We are called to come together and rejoice. We are called to come together and share. When we ask what we have to give one another, we must give from what we received. We must learn the songs of God in our own lives so that we may sing aloud our song of thanksgiving, recounting God’s wonderful deeds.

We are called to share what we are given with the world. We can spend all the time we want lamenting what we don’t have with one another because we live in a world where the Word does not seem to be in the world, not yet. But we must be willing to share what is here all ready, and in Christ what we have to share is everything that’s worth sharing.

By this, we share the gospel. By this, we build relationships. On this World Communion Sunday, we join with Christians around the world and celebrate what brings us together instead of what tears us apart. And today, to nourish all creation for this task, we are fed by the sacrament. Come, taste and see that the Lord is good.

[1] Williams, Lamar, Jr. Mark, Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1983, pages 175-177
[2] Ibid.
[3] http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=1193, With thanks to James A. Harnish, "Walking With Jesus: Forgiveness," Tampa, Fla., March 22, 1998.
[4] Kirk, James G. “When We Gather, A Book of Prayers for Worship.” Louisville, KY; Geneva Press, 2001, page 233.
[5] Psalm 26:6-7 from the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship

Eulogy for Ricky Lee Williams, Sr.

2009-10-01T15:07:00.002-05:00

This eulogy was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas during the Service of Witness to the Resurrection on Thursday October 1, 2009. Thanks to Michael Card for the story of the little boy and the man.

Psalm 23
Matthew 25:31-46

I love a good story. Who doesn’t? A story that you might not know is that the lights outside of these front doors are not original to this building. Sure, renovations happen all of the time, not much of a story there. But the source of those lights, now that’s a story. You see, those two lanterns sitting so valiantly, waiting for God’s people to come and worship the Lord of all creation, those two lanterns came off of the Berryville speakeasy. That’s right; the lights that shine the light of God on the world were once on a prohibition era illegal saloon. I guess you can never tell just where anything came from, or where anything is going.

You might ask why I would tell that story, the answer is easy. Yesterday when Ricky’s family heard this story, they told me that he would get a hoot out of his funeral being held in a place with tavern lanterns on the front stoop.

Ricky loved a good story, and I wish I knew more of the details to this one, because it would be a yarn worth spinning. Ricky loved not just to hear a good story; he loved to tell them too.
As the father of five, he had a bunch of growing up tales to tell, both to and then about his children.

A Nam era vet, I can only imagine the stories he had about his time in the service. For example, he is the one and only soldier to receive a three day pass for acing the sharpshooting course. The reason he is the one and only is because after he got the pass, word came down the line that that little commendation would never happen again. So to this day, Ricky is the one and only.
In the service, he was reported missing in action, which must have been harrowing. The time he served as a prisoner of the NVA could have only been worse.

He loved to travel, not in the way most folks travel. He loved to hitch-hike across the country finding adventures and tales along the way. He would tell stories and share them with friends and I imagine anyone with an ear to bend and a few minutes to listen. His family told me that he would stand behind every word he said… until it changed.

I was told that he stood up for what he believed. He stood up for people who could not defend themselves. He stood up for those who are weak and less fortunate. He stood up.

He stood up.

Not long ago, I heard a definition of what it means to stand up for someone. It’s from a story of a young boy and an older man. It’s a story about a boy who was upset with his parents, for a reason long lost to time. The little boy was upset, so the older man took the younger boy aside and said, I believe in you, even if you’re wrong, I believe in you.

I think Ricky would have liked that story. It points to a love that is given without reservation. Love given without condition. Love given without strings attached. The Ricky his children shared with me yesterday would have been like this older man, he would have stood up for the boy.

The joy of this story is that our Lord loves us all with this same love. I am told that Ricky was not a religious man, and as the local Presbyterian minister, it may seem out of character for me to say that Jesus is standing for Ricky right now; even though he wasn’t religious. That’s fine because being without religion does not mean being without faith; and salvation comes by grace alone though faith alone. You see, God believes in us. God believes in us.

And Ricky, the man who sticks up for his friends, the man who sticks up for those who can’t stick up for themselves, this man is before God now. And I have faith that the Lord who takes care of the weak is now taking care of Ricky. Because as Jesus tells us all, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” This, this my friends is eternal life.

Godfellas

2009-09-27T15:39:00.001-05:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday September 27, 2009, the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22
Psalm 124
James 5:13-20
Mark 9:38-50

While having nothing to do with the episode, the title for this sermon is taken from the Peabody Award winning final season episode of the FOX television series “Futurama.”

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

Have you ever thought of yourself as an evangelist? You know, an evangelist, someone who shares the good news of Jesus Christ with people who don’t know the gospel. That’s all the word evangelist really means, someone who shares the good news. It has nothing to do with having a TV show or a restaurant in Branson. Have you thought of yourself as someone who tells others about Jesus?

I imagine shockwaves just went through your body because speaking out loud, whether in a crowd or one-on-one, frightens us. There is an old Jerry Seinfeld joke that says that in a study of fears, the fear of speaking in public was rated higher than the fear of death. This much is true. So the comic concludes most people would rather be the person in the box than the person giving the eulogy. Again, humor conveys truth in a way plain facts cannot.

Very few of us warm to the word evangelism. It seems to either make us feel guilty because we're not doing it, or turn us off because there's no way we would ever want to do it. Evangelism seems completely foreign to us and that is not only true about our congregation, it is a nationwide dilemma.

A very large study has just been done on evangelism in churches like ours. The conclusive finding was that the vast majority of people would rather go get a root canal than talk about, much less do, evangelism. For the last forty years, most, most churches have been in decline. It seems we’ve developed literally a life-threatening aversion to evangelism.

Right now, at this very minute, you may want to put your fingers in your ears and sing “na, na, na.” Anything to drown out the “E” word! Why do so many of us have such a visceral reaction to evangelism? There are all kinds of reasons why not much evangelism is happening in most congregations. Here is one of my reasons. I don’t want to be anything close to the stereotype that comes to my mind when I think of an “evangelist.”

I don't want to have the cheesy theme park, or the horrible suit, or fake hair, or bilk people out of their money. Nor do I want to offend people by pressuring them with rhetoric about where they'll spend eternity after death.

Besides that, I wonder sometimes how I can tell people what they ought to believe. I have enough trouble in my own life. I'd rather just do the best I can, being the best child of Christ I can, and hope that is a good witness to others. Life in Christ is about life before it’s about death.

After all, St. Francis of Assisi said, “Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” I do fine talking faith language with you here at church. You are my people. We speak the same language, but when I’m with people who aren’t churchgoers, words fail even me. When I flounder, I pray words aren’t necessary.

Maybe that’s better anyway; we should act as Jesus would have us act than speak as we think Jesus would have us speak. In our gospel reading today, we have an example of someone who is doing evangelism the old fashioned way, without words, and it isn’t one of the twelve disciples.

Those of you who know my cinematic tastes know that I love mobster movies, and one of my favorites is on AMC tonight, “Goodfellas.” Based on the Nicholas Pileggi book “Wise Guy,” “Goodfellas” is the story of the rise and fall of three gangsters over three decades. Ray Liotta plays the central character, Henry Hill; the man whose life the book and movie are based. In one scene, Liotta explains what it means to be a part of something as a member of a crew, a family.

He talks about how one wise guy introduces someone to one another wise guy in a social setting. He says that when one wise guy introduces somebody to another wise guy, one of the things he can say is “He’s a friend of mine.” That means that he’s just a guy; maybe a neighbor, but nobody special, not someone who is connected. The other way to introduce someone is to say “He’s a friend of ours.” This tells the other wise guy that this is someone who is connected someone who is a part of a crew; someone who has made his bones, taken a pinch. This way he says that this is someone who is connected to the same thing we are.

Jesus said to John and said to the twelve, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

Jesus says this to the twelve about the someone who was casting out demons in his name; Jesus says, “He’s a friend of ours.” Jesus tells the twelve that this someone is one of us, a goodfella; or if you will I guess that would make him a Godfella.

“Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.”

Jesus tells the twelve that this someone, this person casting out demons in His name, this one is a friend of ours.

So what does this mean to us? And what does this mean to us doing evangelism?

First, it reminds us of the teaching from John’s gospel, Jesus has “other sheep that do not belong to this fold.” He brings them along and they listen to the sound of his voice too. In a way, by acknowledging that this man is not one of the twelve and that he is a friend of ours; Jesus tells his disciples that this man who they do not know is a sheep from another fold, a brother from another mother. Implicitly, Jesus tells us as his disciples that there are folks who we may not recognize as his disciples that he does.

In “Experiencing God,” Henry Blackaby teaches disciples of God everywhere that the place to go to seek Jesus is where he is all ready at work. To become a more effective disciple, find where God is working and work there. We as a congregation have done this, and continue to do it annually. Loaves and Fishes Food Bank of the Ozarks is one of the most effective ministries in the county. No place in Carroll County does more to support the feeding of the poor than Loaves and Fishes.

Daily we join this ministry volunteering time, talent, and treasure. Annually, we join this ministry providing school supplies to hundreds of children who need them. Every dollar we spend on school supplies for the kids is a dollar their parents, or just as likely single parent, can spend on utilities or rent.

Another thing our gospel reading tells us is that we must be wary with whom we associate. Bear with me, this is a sort of a round about thing. The first thing we have to know is that in the time of the scripture, body parts were often used poetically to represent different social groups. So when we read that it is better to cut off your hand or your foot or to tear out your eye; Jesus was not meaning that we should literally maim ourselves. It is more likely that Jesus is telling us that there are people that we need to cut out of our lives. Maimed socially probably; maimed physically no. We are better to be rid of a person who separates us from participating in the life and work of Christ’s body than it is to follow them.

As the apostle Paul reminds us all, “Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.” When we combine knowing the body has many members with knowing there are sheep from other folds with knowing that some of the members Jesus described in this passage should be cast away; we can come to this conclusion: There are folks we should associate with and folks we should not. The hallmark of those we should associate with returns us to the fact that whoever is not against us is for us. Whoever works for the kingdom of God are our brothers and sisters, we shouldn’t associate with those who don’t.

Perhaps there was some sort of code, like the hands to be cut off were those who did things that were not godly, not for the good of the body of Christ. Perhaps the feet were leaders who led people to poor choices, choices that move us from the work of God. Perhaps those who were the eyes were who saw were prophets. The eye to be torn out could be a false prophet. This is purely my speculation; it might also have at most a grain of truth; but this saying is more than the heavenly benefits of self-mutilation. This saying of Jesus tells all of his disciples we must be discerning of the company we keep.

Our reading from James puts another spin on this though. James reminds the people of God that if whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save a sinner’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. To me it seems James changes the focus, just a little bit, from what was written in Mark. James’ epistle reminds us that we are called to help bring back the lost sheep to the flock. Jesus tells us that we must not follow them, but we are called to live a life worthy of them following us back to the fold.

So what is a little church in Berryville, Arkansas to do? We are not to live lives of Thoreau’s quiet desperation; we are to live life boldly as the children of God giving water to quench the thirst of the world weary for the Word and work of God. We are to be the salt of the earth; we are salt for God’s all creation.

Salt is used for two things, salt preserves and enhances. We are to do these things, we are to preserve and enhance the life of the world in the name of God. Yes, this sounds like a huge undertaking, one that we cannot possibly achieve on our own, and you are right. And that is why, to coin a phrase, we need to think globally and act locally. Or in words that may seem holier, we are to work toward the kingdom of God in the eternal life granted by our Lord Jesus in this time and place knowing that when the word goes out it does not return unanswered. We never know how the living word returns.

An example of that can be found on that little thing we call the internet. By the grace of God, we have someone in this part of the body of Christ that knows how to take a long string of digital code and translate it to words and pictures streaming across creation. The words being spoken here will be heard by others, and hopefully expand far beyond an LCD monitor and speakers. The word that starts here will go far beyond here, being salt to the world. Praise be to God and thanks be to Kenny for taking what is nothing more than magnetic notches on a card and transforming it to the word of God wherever it is downloaded, seen, and heard.

Blackaby’s advice is well heeded here; let us be salt for the world. Make this part of the body of Christ a place where God is working where people will seek to follow. Seek those who are doing Christ’s work because if they aren’t against God, they are for God. Discern those who lead well and call those who have been led astray. And remember that whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward; together we will be Godfellas.

Great Generosity

2009-09-20T12:58:00.003-05:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday September 20, 2009, the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Proverbs 31:10-31
Psalm 1
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

In a college football crazed state, there should be a lot of people who know the name Joe Paterno.[1] This being SEC country, some may not be familiar with this Big 10 conference coaching legend, and if that’s true shame on you. Coach Paterno, nicknamed “Joe Pa,” has spent his professional life at Penn State coaching Nittany Lion football teams to 386 victories counting yesterday’s win over Temple, the most among active major college coaches.

So, he's famous as an NCAA Football coach, but perhaps even greater than his coaching numbers are his statistics as a philanthropist. Since 1998, Joe and Sue Paterno have given more than $4 million to the university. Their generosity funds scholarships, faculty positions, construction of an interfaith spiritual center and a sports hall of fame on the University Park campus. Donald W. Reynolds used his money to improve Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville. Joe Pa used his to double the size of the main Penn State library.

Paterno earns just under $600,000 per year in base salary as Penn State’s head football coach, with more through endorsements and media partnerships. In an era when most major college football coaches would just assume tattoo their salaries to their foreheads for the world to see what studs they are; Coach Paterno’s salary was unknown until journalists scoured hill and dale, filing “Freedom of Information Act” requests, and going to court. And while yes, the Paterno’s won’t know poverty in their lifetimes, the most successful coach in college football makes a mere pittance compared to Arkansas’ Bobby Patrino whose base salary is $2.85 million per year and is miniscule compared to the University of Alabama’s Nick Saban and his $4 million per year contract, making him one of the highest paid coaches in the history of Football.

A little over a year ago, Coach Saban made the cover of Forbes Magazine as “Sports’ Most Powerful Coach.” Paterno just graduates 78% of his players, second only to Northwestern in the Big 10 Conference and significantly greater than the NCAA’s biggest football powers who combined graduate 65% of players.

Paterno regards his success with characteristic humility and perspective: “I make more money than I should make. They let me work, so, thanks.” Sue Paterno said, “Money has never been important to us. What is important to us is what the future of the world will be.”[2]

In a world where men are measured by the size of their bank accounts and their employment contracts, Joe Pa chooses to measure himself by more than the two National Championships his teams have won. He measures his success by giving to the University that he has made his home. He measures his success by graduating students from major American university. He measures his success by those who benefit from the fruit of the financial legacy he donates to the university. He and his family measure success by looking to the future of the world.

And the disciples were arguing about who is greatest; so Jesus tells them what it takes. Whoever wants to be first must be last and servant of all. Welcome to divine logic. The world says people who are powerful, people who are great, have servants; they don’t become servants. This doesn’t set so well with people in either the first or the twenty–first century.

Jesus makes his point by taking a little child, bringing a child to their circle, holding this young one in his arms he says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Even in these words, Jesus sets aside his divinity; he sets his God-ness aside telling the disciples that whoever welcomes him does not welcome him. Like an emissary, like an ambassador, Jesus holds himself not in his own name, in his own status, but as the representative of the one who sent him. As we read last week, Peter has all ready told those with ears to hear that Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one of the Lord of heaven. In the passages between this one and the passage we read this week, Peter, James, and John had seen Jesus transfigured, chatting up Moses and Elijah, or more like they were chatting him up. And the one who welcomes a child welcomes the one who sent him.

If this seems confusing to us, imagine what it seemed like to the disciples. They had their ideas about what power is, and what power does. They were merchants and fishermen, a tax collector and a political radical, an accountant with bad intentions and the rest. They knew about power. They had seen it come down from Rome and they had seen it come from the Temple. They had seen it come from centurions and they had seen it come from scribes. They had seen power run downhill and run over them. They could never imagine that the one who wants to be first must be last and servant of all. This is surely contrary to their personal experience.

We’ve heard this before, so it might seem more righteous to us than it did to them. Unfortunately, familiarity breeds contempt, especially with scripture. When it does, things get lost. Quickly, this scene can dissolve into everybody singing “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” A lovely image set to a wonderful hymn of the church, but it leaves Jesus neutered. The wild and radical king of the universe, the Messiah, the one who will not only end the reign of Rome in Palestine but the realm of Satan in creation is reduced to a cute scene painted on the walls of Sunday School rooms. This reduction is no where near complete. This reduction is far less than the work of God who walked the Earth.

What gets lost is that the children are powerless. What happens happens to them, not by them. Children are innocent. Children are vulnerable. Children are the weakest of the weak. Imagine if Jesus had taken someone who was homeless and said “whoever welcomes one such child of God welcomes the one who sent me.”

Imagine Jesus walking into Loaves and Fishes and saying “whoever welcomes these children of God welcomes the one who sent me.”

Imagine every time I get a phone call from someone needing help, or someone who drops by needing assistance and hearing Jesus say “whoever welcomes…” Well, you know where I’m going. And please believe me; this is the thought that goes through my mind every time the phone rings.

But there are more ways than financial to welcome the weak and the powerless. One of the ways that a powerless man represents us all is found on the Voyager space vehicle. There are many ways to tell and retell this story, but one of the best ways I have ever heard it told was by Bradley Whitford in his role as Josh Lyman on “The West Wing.”

Voyager, in case it’s ever encountered by extraterrestrials, is carrying photos of life on earth, greetings in fifty-five languages, and a collection of music from Gregorian chant to Chuck Berry, including “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” by 1920’s bluesman Blind Willie Johnson, whose stepmother blinded him at seven by throwing lye in his eyes after his father beat her for being with another man. He died penniless of pneumonia after sleeping bundled in wet newspapers in the ruins of his house that burned down, but his music just left the solar system.[3]

Sent off into space, sent across the cosmos for whomever or whatever will receive it, along with the greatest cultural treasures of our planet goes Blind Willie Johnson. Born before the turn of the last century, a black man from Texas, blinded by his mother, sings the blues. In his time he was powerless, he was not welcomed. Now his music represents us all to God’s creatures from other corners of God’s creation.

Please don’t think me indelicate for using the phrase “black man,” but at the turn of the century America didn’t have African-Americans. Sadly, the phrase “black man” may well have been as delicate as it got. Other terms and expressions that are far worse were used in that time. In its way, this change makes Jesus’ point too. A race of people who have been enslaved and oppressed now represents us all outside the galaxy we know.

The alcoholic is another group shunned by what is known as “polite society.” This tidbit comes from the South Bend Christian Reformed Church Web Site, “It’s fascinating that Twelve Step programs like AA begin exactly where Jesus begins, poverty of spirit. Step one: I admit I am powerless over my addiction and my life has become unmanageable. Step two: I have come to believe that only a higher power can restore me.”[4]

The drunk are shunned, seen as weak, unable to hold their liquor. But those who are recovering from addiction know better than anyone that they are powerless. They may not be innocent, but they sure know they are powerless; and they know they are vulnerable.

Continuing, “That’s poverty of spirit. I can’t do it. I am helpless before my sins, my failures, my needs. It seems to me that being a Christian means you realize that that’s where you begin every day of your life, needing God’s grace. It’s hard for us to admit that about ourselves—that we can’t do it.”

Those who know their addiction and seek recovery seek wholeness and health. Through AA and similar recovery groups, they find that in life and in death, we belong to God. They also find that nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

One of the things people do to interpret parables and other biblical stories is to assign the characters in the story to the heroes of the faith. So I guess in the story I just shared, Nick Saban and Bobby Patrino would be two of the disciples, maybe even the “Sons of Thunder,” James and John. Coach Paterno could be Peter, the rock. I guess that means that Jesus… well, Jesus would be Jesus. In any story, any parable, only Jesus will ever be Jesus. That’s the point, too.

In the words of Sojourners Magazine creator and editor Jim Wallis, “Who speaks for God? God speaks for God. And it is the voiceless and powerless for whom the voice of God has always been authentically raised. It is up to us to make sure that our vision bears some resemblance to the vision the prophets of God proclaim throughout the Scriptures. Then the people on the street corners will have a better idea of who the children of God really are.”[5]

No matter how good we are, no matter what we can do; or more no matter what we think we have done; to paraphrase the a parish Priest in the movie “Rudy,” God is God and we aren’t.

As James’ epistle reminds us, we are to submit ourselves to God, for when we draw near to God, God draws near to us. Or to paraphrase this, when we welcome the weak, the oppressed, the powerless, the innocent; when we welcome all of God’s children in his name, we draw closer to God.

Mary wrapped Jesus in swaddling clothes: a symbol, not of poverty, as some have tried to make it, but of maternal care and tenderness. What are we wrapping people we meet in? Are we swaddling them in compassion, tenderness, generosity and devotion? Are we wrapping them in the Word of the loving, eternal, Triune God? Are we welcoming them as Mary welcomes her son, as Jesus welcomes the child? Welcoming the weak and the poor in the name of the Lord, this is the measure of the great generosity we are called to share with the world.

[1] Joe Paterno facts come from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Paterno, retrieved September 19, 2009.

[2] Larry James, On 'Spending' A Life Well, Heartlight Magazine, November 27, 1999, ">www.heartlight.org/feature/sf_980318_spending.html. from http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?keywords=generosity, retrieved September 19, 2009.

[3] The West Wing, The Warfare of Genghis Kahn, http://www.tv.com/the-west-wing/the-warfare-of-genghis-khan/episode/289368/summary.html?tag=header_area;tv_header, retrieved September 20, 2009

[4] Ibid, HomileticsOnline.com, Leonard J. Vander Zee, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” September 21, 2003, South Bend Christian Reformed Church Web Site, Sbcrc.org.

[5] Ibid, HomileticsOnline.com, Jim Wallis, Who Speaks for God? (New York: Delacorte Press, 1996), 39-40.

The Worst Thing to Say to God

2009-09-13T12:33:00.000-05:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday September 13, 2009, the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Proverbs 1:20-33
Psalm 19
James 3:1-12
Mark 8:27-38

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.

So what’s the worst thing we can say to God? The most obvious answer is to say “I don’t believe in you.” The most obvious answer is to deny God lock, stock, and barrel. The word atheist takes its cue from this, the roots of this word simply mean “without God.” But I have a question for the atheist; “Who are you saying this to?” Who does the atheist tell there is no God? If you shake your fist at the sky and cry out “There is no God!” or “I don’t believe in you!” it just looks funny. Who or what are you shaking your fist at anyway?

But here’s the sticky part of that little foray, God believes in us. We don’t have to believe in God for God to believe in us. How’s that for a mind bender? Our denial of God is a tempest in a teapot, a grain of sand in the middle of the desert. Our denial of God does not mean that God denies us. I want that to sink in, our denial of God does not mean that God denies us.

So often, our self-importance rises to the point that it’s as if when we don’t believe in something, it no longer exists. This has some validity; it was the premise of the thirty-first episode of the original Star Trek series called “Who Mourns for Adonis?”[1] But not the Lord God, our belief in God never changes that God believes in us.

Facebook is a social networking website, a sort of an internet coffee shop where you can get together and chat or leave messages for friends. Marie and I have a wonderful friend who recently participated in a conversation on my Facebook page.[2] I started with this conversation: “The Today Show just reported that many Republican and conservative Democratic members of Congress are skeptical about the President’s health care reform package. Gee, if I had their insurance I could afford to be skeptical too.”

Another Arkansas pastor added this comment: “It’s also nice to know that the Today Show can handle breaking news like that! Where have they been for the last several months that they think this is news?”

Our friend then responded: “That’s for sure. Now someone try to explain to me all the $&@#* televangelists who are spending so much time saying how terrible this will be. When was the last time any of these ‘things’ (they are not really people, and will best serve this planet as worm food from inside their graves) preached about Matthew 19:24 & Mark 10:25? [These are parallel versions of the story of the Rich Young Man][3] And some people wonder why I am an Atheist. OK I will stop stoking my own fires and try to relax.”

In his way, our friend asks “where is mercy for the poor, taking care of the sick and needy, and how can someone who claims to be a voice for the Almighty Lord turn an eye away from the oppressed in favor of big business and a big ole pile of cash?” The answer to this question is beyond me, so let me share my paraphrase of Jesus words’ from Matthew 25:34-40 from last newsletter, “As you do for the least of these, know that you do for me.”

Honestly, the God that our friend is talking about, the god he sees spouted from the lips of televangelists, gods who build temples to their prophets on television, I don’t believe in that god either. Some “gods” just aren’t worth believing in, those are more like idols than gods.

This is where I want to put in the disclaimer: Let’s not sprain a shoulder patting ourselves on the back for not denying the presence and authority of God. There are other fish to fry in this pan. Our Facebook friend makes the very important point that sometimes Christians rest on the promises of God when they should roll up their sleeves and get something done.

This is shifting out of focus, so here is the point: Saying we don’t believe in God is not the worst thing we can say to God; there are worse things than that. So, let’s go beyond the threshold of denial and go to a more specific question, one suited for the Church, “What is the worst thing we, the believers, the Body of Christ; what is the worst thing we can say to God?”

Jesus asks the disciples “Who do the people say that I am?” These guys are connected; they are the “man on the street.” They have their fingers on the pulse of the community. They are “Joe the Plumber” and “Pete the Fisherman.”

“Well boss,” they start, “some folks say you’re John the Baptist.” By this time the Baptist had been executed. So John reincarnated in a man who is only about a few months younger than him would have been tricky. Still, the folks who say Jesus is John recognize our Lord’s holy presence and power.

They continued with “other folks say you’re Elijah.” This is an important one because the prophet Malachi said Elijah was to precede the Messiah.[4] Elijah was to return from the whirlwind and proclaim the coming of the Kingdom of God. During the Passover Seder, Jews send the youngest child at the table to check the door to see if Elijah has come. Being Elijah would be a good gig.

In truth though, we have an idea about Elijah. Matthew’s gospel says “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John (the Baptist) came; and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.”[5] Luke’s gospel speaks of the Baptist as having the Spirit and power of Elijah.[6] Jesus later laments “that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him.”[7]

Of course in John’s gospel, John the Baptist says that he is not Elijah[8] and that’s the last thing John’s gospel has to say about the Baptist. As good of a gig as being Elijah is, three out of four gospels surveyed recommend John the Baptist for this reincarnation.

They keep on going with “still others say you are one of the prophets.” Where can you go with that? The prophets were revered, but they weren’t the most popular kids on the playground. Jesus calls Jerusalem “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” Obedience and discipleship are glorious and vital to life as it should be lived, but who signs up for life as it should get you killed? From the ancient prophets, to our Lord, to the Apostles, to the entire Book of Martyrs; honor those who make the decision toward discipleship who are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice; and know that I am in awe of those who can take that walk, because...well, just because.

Jesus then springs Final Jeopardy on the disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” This is the most important question they have ever been asked and Peter answers with these words he hopes and prays will be affirmed, “You are the Messiah.” Jesus doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t say no, he tells the disciples not to tell anyone about him. This is as close to “yes” that anyone will get at this point in Mark’s gospel.

Peter answers, “You are the Messiah.” Messiah is a Hebrew word; more often we use the word that comes from the Greek, Christ. Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus is the Christ. Peter must have been ecstatic! This is the man sent to save the nation of Israel, this is the one sent to save the world. I can just imagine the disciples exchanging high-fives all around, celebrating the Messiah—Prophet, Priest, and King—had come.

In Jewish theology, the Messiah was expected to come in power and glory—not unlike Christian theology—but this power and glory was expected to be military. The Messiah Israel expected two thousand years ago would have battled and defeated the Roman Empire. So this must have been a wonderful moment for the disciples; Peter has finally said the big “it.” Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus is the Christ. Happy days are here again.

So with this affirmation, with these words, Jesus lets the disciples know what it means to be the Christ, to be the Messiah. He lets them know about the great military battles to come. He shows them how Rome is going to be broken; sent home tail between the legs.

He tells them, “the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”

Yeah! Wait, no!

Peter is shocked. He knows the commentaries. He knows the history. He has all ready given the right answer once today and so now he’s going to help out. “Dude, you got it all wrong. You don’t get rejected, you do the rejecting. You can’t die, you lead the army.” I’m thinking that the whole “three-day-rise-again” piece went over his head since his hands were already filled with enough stuff to set Jesus straight.

Jesus just gave the right back at you, Peter: Yeah! Wait, no!

Peter just said the worst thing he, or any of us, could say to God. He said “No.” Jesus said, “This is my way, this is my fate, and it’s gonna be a ride.” Peter said, “No, Mr. Messiah, you don’t understand, it can’t happen that way, it’s gotta be this way.” Peter said “No” to the Christ; and the Christ said “No” right back.

Saying “Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Holy One of God—Jesus is Lord” is the most important affirmation we can make. I want to say this again: saying “Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Holy One of God—Jesus is Lord” is the most important affirmation we can make. Still this is only the first step in the faith we profess. Too often, we profess that we understand more like Peter understands than God wants.

If “Jesus is Lord” is the most important thing we can say, then the next most important thing is how we say “Jesus is Lord.” We have to move beyond giving the right answer and put the right answer into action; taking the word that “Jesus is Lord” into the world for the benefit of God’s good creation. In a very real way, it is worse to know God and say “no” to God’s authority than it is not to know God at all.

It is up to us to seek what the Lord wants from us. We seek what God wants from the Word of God; the Living Word of God in Jesus Christ, the written Word of God in Holy Scripture, and the spoken Word of God proclaimed. We must seek from the Word what it is to be good disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ because the primary concern of discipleship is to translate legitimate Christian speech into vital Christian action.

We must also beware of what we hear, what we discern. Peter shows us that it is way too easy to expect something only to discover that God has nothing to do with our expectations; especially if those expectations have come from the scribes and Pharisees of yesterday, today, or tomorrow.

Knowing what it truly means to say that Jesus is the Messiah is as important as saying it. Responding to what knowing “Jesus is the Messiah” means is what follows from saying and knowing. For what will it profit to have great faith and do nothing with it? For what will it profit to gain the whole world and forfeit life?

The Lord has endowed us with capacities to make the world serve God’s needs and to enjoy its good things. Life is a gift to be received with gratitude, a task to be pursued with courage. We are free to seek this life within God’s purposes: to develop and protect the resources of nature for the common welfare, to work for justice and peace in society, and use God’s creative powers for the fulfillment of eternal life in God’s good creation.[9]

When we say “no” to God, we trade the joyful life in Christ for the pale shelter of the presumed peace and security of human things. As our Facebook friend asked, “Where is mercy for the poor, taking care of the sick and needy, and how can someone who claims to be a voice for the Almighty Lord turn an eye away from the oppressed in favor of big business and a big ole pile of cash?” As Jesus responded, “Take up your cross, and follow me.”

[1] Memory Alpha—The Star Trek Wiki, http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Who_Mourns_for_Adonais%3F_(episode), retrieved September 10, 2009.
[2] Facebook Paul Andresen The Today Show just reported that many Republican and, http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/timelovesahero?v=feed&story_fbid=166087572192, Retrieved September 10, 2009.
[3] The bracketed addition is my editing comment, not a part of the original text.
[4] Malachi 4:5
[5] Matthew 11:13-14
[6] Luke 1:17
[7] Matthew 17:12, Mark 9:13
[8] John 1:21
[9] Paraphrase from the seventeenth paragraph of the PC (U.S.A.)’s Confession of 1967, this Sunday’s Affirmation of Faith

We're All In This Together

2009-09-06T16:48:00.004-05:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday September 6, 2009, the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Psalm 125
James 2:1-10, (11-13,) 14-18
Mark 7:24-37

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

About six months ago, the Session commissioned two bible study and prayer groups based on the “Unbinding the Gospel”[1] real life evangelism series. One of the greatest strengths about this series is that it places at the forefront of evangelism where the church is located, spiritually and physically.

To describe the new people who would come to the church, the author uses nine categories. The first four groups are people like us. They are our children, their friends, folks who attend but have not made a commitment, and people who transfer from other congregations whose theology is similar to ours.

Just a note on this last group, church professionals tend to frown on people changing church affiliation willy-nilly, and even more with pastors who try to solicit members of other congregations. This is called swapping sheep. There are times when people just need to change their church, but first the sheep and their shepherd should talk about this first. Why? To see if the relationship can be salvaged. Also, if the sheep has a habit of moving from flock to flock to flock, there are some other issues involved. Still, there is a valuable and God blessed ministry in accepting sheep from other flocks when the move is right. But that’s getting away from the point.

The other groups are transfers from different theologies, people who have drifted from church, people who have left the church hurt, those who are not Christian but are like us, and finally those who are not Christian and are not like us.

The reason any of this is important is found in our reading from Proverbs. The rich and the poor have this in common: the Lord is the maker of them all. The Lord is the Maker of us all; the rich and the poor, the young and the old, the powerful and the powerless, the women and the men. The Lord is the Maker of us all.

But let’s be honest, this sounds nothing like the Lord and Messiah who says “it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” The Lord is the Maker of us all; the rich and the poor, the young and the old, the powerful and the powerless, the men and the women. But taking a look at the gospel reading asks the question of whether this is as true about Jew and Gentile.

We should remember, Mark’s gospel, the first of the gospels, was written by Jews for Jews. This work was definitively focused on what Jesus meant to the new community of believers, believers who were still decidedly Jewish, and believed Jesus is the long awaited Messiah, or as we would say, the Christ.

These people were still trying to define what it meant to be Jews who were no longer waiting for the Messiah. In their eyes, these Jewish Christians weren’t so much leaving the faith of their fathers as they were embarking on the next step in the faith of their fathers. This meant that not only did they have to navigate life knowing the Messiah; they also had to try to make their ways in the temple their Messiah cleansed.

While this story was written thirty years after the events recorded in Acts, it would still be between ten and twenty years before they were. Yes, by this time Peter had eaten unclean food with the God-fearing Cornelius the Centurion, but the story had not yet been recorded in the way we have it today. Still, the gentiles, the Syrian woman and the man from the Decapolis, they were a different kettle of fish and the new Jewish Christian community was having a difficult time dealing with these situations; but there was an example for them to follow, the example Jesus set in this passage from Mark.

In this passage, the people see that their deeply seated prejudices were just that, deeply seated prejudices. They were so deeply seated that even the Jewish Messiah knew them, and before the Syrophoenician woman, expressed them. Yet as these long held prejudices were held by the people, the Lord showed them a better way. He showed them the unmerited favor of his grace, healing those who knew him by reputation, maybe not as Lord, but they knew him by reputation.

By this, he demonstrated once and for all that those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor. He shows a good name is to be chosen rather than great riches and favor is better than silver or gold. And by these traits he shows that whoever sows injustice will reap calamity and the rod of the sower’s fury will be destroyed. In these simple yet extremely strange verses from Mark’s gospel, we are shown the wisdom of the Proverbs because the Lord is the maker of us all.

The comedienne Rita Rudner, using the wisdom which only the jester can share with the king, says it this way. “If you put flour and water together, you have glue. If you add butter and eggs, you have the makings of a cake. Where did the glue go?”[2] The glue that holds together the insulated community becomes something much greater when combined with the other. To become the community of God, the cake of our Lord, we must combine who we are with the other so that we become something better, something greater in the name of the Messiah.

The last five of the nine groups from “Unbinding the Gospel;” transfers from different theologies, people who have drifted from church, people who have left the church hurt, those who are not Christian but are like us, and finally those who are not Christian and are not like us; there is one very, very important thing that we must recognize about these people: They aren’t going to look much like us. I want to say that one more time; the people who know the least about Jesus Christ, the people the Messiah longs for us to be with; the people who need the Lord the most; they may have many things in common with us, but they won’t look like us.

They will be drifting, they will be hurt. They will be an injured people who are seeking a life that they know exists and may only have an inkling of where to find it. They may find that spark, the spark of the joy of a relationship with Christ in a friend or a coworker. They will be the eggs and butter to our water and flour.

Jesus was sent for the nation of Israel, but he has come to redeem all of us. We see this in Mark’s gospel. There is no longer rich or poor in the kingdom of God—we are all rich in the life of God. Reaching beyond the Proverb, James teaches we are all called to show favor to all God’s creatures, not just the honored ones.

We are called to act. We are to serve one another as we are to serve the Lord our God, and as the Lord our God serves us. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

The simple act of sitting down around a table is something a lot of people don't find particularly important - but for Christians, the shared supper is a vital aspect of spiritual life.

The Scriptures speak of three kinds of table fellowship that Jesus keeps with his own: daily fellowship at table, the table fellowship of the Lord's Supper, and the final table fellowship in the kingdom of God. But in all three, the one thing that counts is that ‘their eyes were opened, and they knew him.’

The fellowship of the table teaches Christians that here they still eat the perishable bread of the earthly pilgrimage. But if they share this bread with one another, they shall also one day receive the imperishable bread together in the Father's house.[3]

We are called to go into the world, even into places we are not particularly comfortable, whether physically or socially. Like Jesus going into the gentile lands, we are called to go into the wilderness and serve one another. We are called to a living faith, not one that fades away as soon as we leave the doors of this sanctuary. We are called to take this faith and use it for the good of all God’s creation. James reminds us that faith without works is dead, and ours is a living faith. Yet, we must be reminded that James does not teach that our righteousness comes from our works.

Our faith, our vocation is outrageous. We are called to serve a God who works like no human being ever could. Yet our God walked the earth like every other human being does. We are called to believe wild and unusual things, some which offend our sensibilities—and the sensibilities of the world around us. And I say so let it be; after all if the Proverb teaches us one thing, we’re all in this together. Let’s be together in the name of the Lord.

[1] Reese, Martha Grace, “Unbinding the Gospel.” St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2008. I can’t recommend this book and its evangelism ideas more highly.
[2] http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?keywords=together, accessed September 5, 2009.
[3] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, “Life Together” New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954, 66.

The Christian Mandate

2009-08-30T14:01:00.004-05:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday August 30, 2009, the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

On Wednesday evening when we got together for our reading of Mark’s gospel, a lot of thoughts started running through my mind. One of the things on my mind had to do with how things tend to run downhill. There is the polite example where we know that water runs downhill. One trip to the manse in a downpour shows that. Another way to look at this downhill flow is political. The word comes from above and those of us who live below have to deal with the follow through. The unfunded mandate, a requirement imposed by Congress on state or local governments with no funding to pay for it,[1] is a wonderful example of what government rules and regulations running downhill means.

There is something that I think I need to make clear about this first; many of these mandates are well intentioned, like the Clean Water and Clean Air acts. When many of America’s most polluting industries were getting started, there was so little efficiency that there was often considerable waste and pollution. The effects of this pollution were so far down the pike that they meant little at the time. Unfortunately, sometimes these inefficient ways became SOP, standard operating procedure. So today, the culture of many industries is to not change not simply because of the expense, but also because of red ink in the profit column too. In the meantime, air, ground, and water become polluted creating a whole new industry, the super-fund clean-up industry.

So yes, many mandates are well intentioned but at the same time, profits are lost to pay for them. Because they aren’t funded any other way, investors become leery and move their money out of these formerly more profitable industries. This creates twists and turns to the economy which can be felt at every level of society. President Reagan talked about “trickle-down economics” and how a rising tide lifts all boats. From what I have seen in life and in ministry, I am more familiar with the “trickle-down” that means the poor get poorer.

So, how does this relate to scripture? In Mark 7:3-4 we learn that the Pharisees and all of the Jews do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands observing the tradition of the elders and do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it and there are many other traditions that they observe including the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles. What this scripture only alludes to is that it isn’t just the Pharisees and all of the Jews who observe these rituals; they insisted that those they did business with also followed these rituals.

While the “they” of “they wash it” meant the washing performed by the temple kitchen patrol, it also included handling long before it ever reached their kitchen. The long-drawn-out laws of hand washing extended far beyond the hands of the Pharisees. This ritual cleanliness had to include all of the planting, harvesting, and preparation from the field. It also included the artisans, workers, and merchants who created and sold the cups, pots, and bronze kettles. The rules created its own little closed system to serve the temple; and the Pharisees ruled over it all.

It’s sort of like a small business getting a government contract. But before you sign the contract, you had better be aware of all of its terms and conditions. You had better be aware of every little provision and clause in the contract, every jot and tittle. You had better be careful because violating any piece of the contract makes the whole thing voidable. If your contract gets voided, there goes your investment, your profit, and the wages you owe your employees, and from there it just keeps running down hill. So beware of all of the terms of the contract. Beware of all of the terms in the law.

In Judaism, traditionally there are 613 commands, the Taryag Mitzvot. The Mitzvot are separated into two categories. There are 248 mitzvot aseh, or positive commands; one for each bone and significant organ in the human body. These are the things we are to do. There are also 365 mitzvot lo taaseh, or negative commands; one for every day of the year. These are the things we are never to do.[2]

Some of these rules make perfect sense to us today, things like, “Know there is a God,” “Know God is One,” and “Entertain thoughts of no other god except for the One True God.” We’re familiar with these rules from the Old Testament. These are lessons Jesus teaches us in the gospels.

Then again, there are others we do not follow. For example, the mitzvot includes prohibitions against eating non-kosher fish. Sorry, but I enjoy shrimp. They’re not kosher, but they’re tasty. Pork isn’t kosher either, but bacon makes everything better. In fact, a note to anyone who brings shrimp wrapped with bacon in two weeks for potluck Sunday: I will make it my purpose in life to make sure you don’t have to worry about leftovers.

On top of the mitzvot, human rules and traditions designed to protect the law created barriers to the law. It literally became impossible to follow the law because there were so many barriers to it. These barriers are bad enough when they create unintended consequences, but the step that is even worse is when people intend to take advantage of others using the barriers and the law.

One of the best examples in the last twenty years of people taking advantage of the law deals with home ownership. As long ago as the Clinton presidency, the government policy was to encourage and enable people to get mortgages so they could own their own homes. Home ownership is the greatest source of personal wealth for the majority of Americans, so encouraging home ownership is as American as apple pie. People own their own homes, they gain equity, personal wealth increases, and the American dream starts to become true for people who never imagined the dream could be theirs. Unfortunately, this is where the dream ran amok.

The Christian Century recently ran the story of an elderly woman named Mabel[3] who was a client of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. She needed just a little more money than her social security and house cleaning job provided. Between Mabel’s niece April and the loan salesman “Bill Sykes,” Mabel and her house went from the frying pan into the fire.

Bill Sykes knew that Mabel wouldn’t be able to handle the new level of debt, especially since Mabel owed back taxes and back water bills on the house. There were also a couple of judgments against the property so this new level of debt would soon become impossible to repay.

To quote the article:

The day before the signing, Sykes had not been happy. Two deals had tanked already that morning when a stubborn appraiser had refused to bring him high enough home values. He wouldn't use that bozo again. And now with Mabel's loan in doubt, he'd be lucky to gross $5,000 for the week—half his usual. He'd have to call the car dealer and tell him to put the Jaguar on hold.

A year ago Sykes would've given up. But that was before the big lunch he'd had with a representative of a subprime lender. The rep had displayed his employer's array of aggressive loan products: no doc, low doc, doc lite. All Sykes needed was a cooperative appraiser and a friendly closer, and he would be set: with these new products he'd be able to finance anybody. A year later, Sykes could see that the rep wasn't far wrong.

The vulnerable and overly trusting homeowner sitting on a ton of equity, the nice mortgage broker worming into the homeowner’s life, the greedy family member helping things along, the high up-front fees, the cash payment to cushion the deal, the risky mortgage products and the broker schooled by a lender's rep on how to push them. All this story needs is an out of tune piano to sound like a Dudley Do-Right cartoon. Unfortunately, this story doesn’t have an out of tune piano. Even more unfortunately it doesn’t have a Mountie.

The article ends like this:

Many have asked who is to blame. Some would blame the homeowners themselves. It is true that some borrowers bought homes they couldn't afford, but this happened mostly at the end of the lending spree and especially in certain highly publicized markets. The majority of borrowers sucked into bad subprime loans were long-term homeowners like Mabel who had equity that could be stripped and were on the receiving end of relentless marketing.

Some also point a finger at the Community Reinvestment Act, arguing that it forced banks to extend overly risky loans to unworthy borrowers. But the CRA was passed way back in 1977, some 25 years before the boom in subprime lending, and the biggest subprime lenders were nonbank entities not regulated by the CRA.

The chief culprits in the subprime lending crisis are the brokers, lenders, ratings agencies and investment banks that set up the system and pushed it beyond its breaking point, together with the policy makers and regulators who ignored warning signs and failed to apply the brakes.

As for Sykes, he's doing well these days. The meltdown has been good for the many entrepreneurs in the business who are now engaged in the mortgage-rescue industry that sprang up overnight. Just as before, Sykes sends out mailers by the thousands to homeowners in foreclosure. But now, instead of offering refinancing, he presents himself as an expert in foreclosure prevention and loan modification. He says he knows how to help homeowners get good results with their lender. He says he can gain a sympathetic hearing if he discovers that the homeowners were duped when they got their loan. He should know.

There are some people who would say that I as a pastor have no business talking about this from the pulpit. Some people would tell me to be quiet about political things; about law and government and clean air and talk about Jesus. Friends, the plain truth is that the gospel is political. In a time when church and state were completely interconnected, the gospel preached by Jesus was for the leaders of the synagogue and the political leaders because the synagogue leaders were political leaders. Separating church and state is not a biblical concept; it has only been around for about 240 years. So when we talk about the mandates that are a burden on the people, those mandates come from every seat of power and are put upon those who are subject to the power and the powerful.

So what we must do as Christians, as followers of the one true Triune God is to find the mandate of the faith. First and foremost, our mandate is our Lord Jesus Christ, in his person, his words, and his work. It is found in his life, and his death, and his resurrection.

This is perhaps the most difficult, the most scandalous part of the gospel. By emptying himself of his Godly status, taking earthly form, and joining with us, Jesus teaches that it is in weakness and in poverty that real strength is found and exercised. Our society teaches us that we are to gain and exert power in strength. Our culture teaches that it is better to be Bill Sykes; make a ton of cash and get the Jag. Jesus teaches from the mitzvot not to withhold charity to the poor.[4]

Our mandate is found in the word of God. To find God’s will, we need to go to the best source of information about God, scripture opened by the Holy Spirit. The testimony of the testaments brings us words thousands of years old; words as important today as when they were written. Some will say the Bible is out of touch with our lives, but I say that words about the human condition and the one who created humanity are never out of vogue. This reading from Mark is a fine example. The injunctions from 1James are another.

Our mandate is found in the sacraments, the water of our baptism, and in the plate and cup of the table. At the font, we join with Jesus as members of his church. In the plate and cup we are nourished by the food of his body and blood. These symbols instituted by the Lord our God are what we use to define who we are in community with Christ and how he continues to feed us.
Our mandate is found in the church, the body of Christ. It is found in the worship and the fellowship we share together. It is found worshipping Christ, even with people we do not agree with, as long as we can all agree that Jesus is Lord.

There are all sorts of mandates in our world and in our lives. As a mandate, the law, the mitzvot, is important. Yet first we are called to follow Jesus, and the advice Jesus gave the Pharisees. To rephrase verse seven, worship Jesus, worship him, not the concepts and precepts we put in his path. We don’t have to protect Jesus from one another. We don’t have to build barriers to protect him. He proved he could take on death and hell. Let us follow Him, do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God protecting the sick, the orphan, the widow and the oppressed. Doing these things, not following selfish human traditions and evil intentions, God’s good will comes from us and we will not be defiled.

[1] Unfunded Mandate, http://www.c-span.org/guide/congress/glossary/unfunded.htm, retrieved August 29, 2009.
[2] 613 Mitzvot, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_Mitzvot, accessed July 2, 2007.
[3] Lindsey, Daniel P. “Foreclosing on Mabel.” The Christian Century, August 11, 2009, pages 30-33.
[4] Deuteronomy 15:7

Last Resort

2009-08-23T07:12:00.001-05:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday August 23, 2009, the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time.

1Kings 8:22-30, 41-43
Psalm 84
Ephesians 6:10-20
John 6:56-69

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

Today is the end of our time with the sixth chapter of the book of John. We began with 5,000 men being fed bread and fish on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. After dinner, Jesus shares a little one-on-one time with some disciples while the twelve sail across the lake. Later in the evening, leaving everyone unaware, Jesus follows the boat using only his sandals and his very being to make his way across the water. The twelve were shocked and amazed to see Jesus water skiing without the benefit of a boat across the lake, and those who Jesus left on the other side were just as shocked and amazed because Jesus was gone and all of the boats were still there.

This is when Jesus begins teaching lessons about the true bread of eternal life; and many of these lessons are repeated and repeated again so that all may hear, so that all may know. Some of his words are hard truths, like when he told the people that they came to see him because he could fill their bellies with bread, not because he is the bread. Some of his words are offensive. Jesus uses the “I AM,” the holy name of God when referring to himself. Jesus teaches that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood. This freaks out the people who take this too literally. This really freaks out those who make the connection between drinking his blood and the Genesis 9 prohibition against consuming blood. Those who make the connection between blood and atonement found in Leviticus 14 are ready to rent their robes and cry “Blasphemy!”

So for those who were going along with the difficult teachings about flesh and blood, Jesus then tells the disciples that flesh is useless! It’s the Spirit that gives life. His words are spirit and life; as are his flesh and his blood. The twist is not that his flesh and blood are useless, it’s that our flesh and blood are. There is nothing we can do to create truth. There is nothing we can do to make good. There is nothing we can do to earn salvation. Our flesh is the source of nothing. By him all things are possible. Life is found in him, by him, and through him. Just as the living Father sent him and he lives because of the Father, so too we live because of him; because of his flesh and because of his spirit.

It’s all in a day’s work for the bread of life.

A missionary told how she was once describing the loving character of the Christians’ God to a company of her Chinese sisters. As she went on in her holy enthusiasm, picturing God’s real character as full of mercy to the sinful and the suffering, one of the Chinese women turned to her neighbor and said, “Haven’t I often told you there ought to be a God like that?”[1]

These women had obviously believed in what we would call other gods. I don’t know what these other gods were. We could speculate and consider and think ourselves more enlightened because we don’t believe in the same sort of god-play that they do. But to what end?

When I was a young man, I would go on walks with my father. He would tell stories and impart wisdom. One evening crossing Brush Creek in Kansas City he told me, “You know, I tell you these stories so that you don’t make the same mistakes I did.” I answered him, “Don’t worry, I’ll make my own.”

We can say we don’t make the same mistakes these Chinese women made, not knowing about the one true Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No, we have other Gods.

One recent example of this sort of idol worship is a sense of security and protection emboldened by American power. In the third episode of the NBC drama “The West Wing,” the liberal democratic President Josiah Bartlett learns that his former chief physician, a naval officer, was killed going overseas to a new deployment. As the President laments this death he asks, “Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the earth unharmed, cloaked only in the words ‘Civis Romanis’ I am a Roman citizen. So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens.”[2]

Whether in ancient Rome, a fictional Washington D.C., or a real life Hometown, U.S.A.; this sentiment is not without appeal. When I heard that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the man responsible for killing 270 people, many of them Americans, in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland was set free to die at home,[3] a choice he did not give his victims; I don’t wonder if “Civis Romanis” is American Imperialism. I’m thinking it’s a good idea.

This is the sort of thing we might expect to hear from a pundit on Fox News, not the liberal President Bartlett.

What we would expect from this fictional president, a character whose fictional opponent called him a weak, lily-livered, intellectual, elitist snob, is something more of what we knew as a nation in the 1970’s in the morass of post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, hyperinflationary times. This quicksand of indecision which was often coupled with a hand-wringing of guilt over national sins, some of which are older than the nation itself, was caused by actions and inactions which needed then and continue to need national atonement. Still, handwringing and being ashamed are not the acts of atonement scripture prescribes. I looked it up.

It’s easy to say that these are two different sins; one of vanity and the other inferiority. I see them as mirror images of the same sin, one of an overblown sense of self held over the blessings of the Lord God. In our oh so enlightened culture, we often think that there is something that we could do to make things better; something we can do with our power, or something we can do with our wealth, or something we can do with our intellect, where without God we can do nothing. Without God, we can do nothing.

We as individuals and as a nation must remember that Jesus offered everything he had to end the separation between God and God’s good creation. He offered his flesh and his blood, his human life so that we may know eternal life. He emptied himself of his Godly status to be fully human, flesh and blood, so that he may be exactly like we are, though without sin. The man who could have brought himself off of the cross and changed life as we know it through power and might stayed there unto death, changing life as we know it by the power of weakness and submission.

When we depend on our strength more than we rely upon the Lord, we look to a god who is not our God. When we allow our weaknesses to overwhelm us, we fall before a god who is not our God. Have we made the same mistake that the Chinese women made? Not really, in truth, we have made our own. This tension between divine action and human choice has been a theme of this chapter from John’s gospel, of the past month of Sundays.

This might be a hard teaching. It may cause some to turn away. It may even offend. Jesus knew this. He knew his teachings would divide families, he knew his teachings would cause separation. Not because of anything he does, on the contrary. God the Father sent Jesus so that all may come to know God not only as Spirit but as flesh and blood. By sending Jesus, God the Father grants us the ability that we may all come to the Lord. But Jesus knew that because of who we are, because of human choice, because of the freedom we have to love God and one another, because of who we are, Jesus knew his hard teaching would cause some to turn away.

In this case, more than five-thousand turned away, the five-thousand who came just for the bread that fills the belly. The twelve who came because Jesus is have the bread that fills the soul, the words of eternal life; they stayed because they knew Jesus was their last resort. They stayed because they had come to believe and know that Jesus is the Holy One of God.

Jesus knew they would stay, for a while; but in his perfection, he knew that we are not so perfect. Jesus knew Judas would betray him to the Roman Legions. Jesus even knew Peter, the speaker for the twelve, would deny him. Yet Jesus loved them. He loved them all. He loves them all.

Peter is held in this piece as the paragon of virtue. But we know better. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we know Peter will draw a short sword and take the ear off of one of the slaves of the Pharisees. Peter will deny Christ just because he wanted to hear what was happening and keep warm. Some days we will act like Peter, professing and proclaiming the name of the Lord. And there are days when we abandon the Lord just to keep warm. Yet Jesus loves us. Jesus loves us all.

If you ever get the chance, the next time you are in Tulsa, go to the Great Harvest Bread Company store. Great Harvest is a maker of fine artisan breads and the smell alone is worth making the trip. The first time I went to Great Harvest was to the store in Colorado Springs. I walked into the store and was overwhelmed with the scent of the grains, yeast, spelt, berries and melting butter.

The most wonderful thing about going into the store is the free samples. They cut off a big hunk of bread, slather it with real butter—none of this margarine or “it’s not butter”—they slather it with real butter and hand it to you to taste that it is good. In line you find yuppie mothers with twin strollers, business people in high dollar suits, and homeless folks coming in from the weather. They don’t give you a tiny little spoonful of heavenly goodness like a Baskin-Robbins sample; they give you a thick slice of bread with butter.

It’s amazing; people come in as much for the experience and fellowship as they do for the filling of their bellies. This is a foretaste of the bread of life which fills our bodies and feeds our souls. Even more than great artisan bread, Jesus feeds us on every level. Jesus is the last bread we will ever want—not just for the physical fulfillment—but because once we experience God in Christ nothing else is the same.

Our flesh is useless; in his flesh is eternal life. As Jesus shares in our life we are to share in his so that we may live together in God’s peace and love. It is in his spirit that we have eternal life, life worth living.

It is this bread and this cup, his body and his blood that we share together at the table set by him so that we may be fed body and soul. It is by this bread and this cup that we are fed and strengthened to go into the world taking these hard lessons and the knowledge that there is no one and nothing else that compares to life in Christ.

It’s all in a day’s work for the bread of life.

[1] “Dome on the Range,” HomeliticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=93000158, retrieved August 13, 2006
[2] “The West Wing: A Proportional Response,” TV.com. http://www.tv.com/the-west-wing/a-proportional-response/episode/790/summary.html, retrieved August 22, 2009
[3] Lockerbie bomber freed, returns to cheers in Libya, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090820/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_lockerbie, retrieved August 22, 2009.

Bread of Life

2009-08-16T21:28:00.000-05:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday August 16, 2009, the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14
Psalm 111
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:51-58

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

In John’s gospel, Jesus says “I AM” twenty-four times.[1] In each of these phrases the text invokes something very special; each of these phrases uses the Greek version of the Holy Name of God. I was reminded last week that it was C. S. Lewis who said that it is foolish to believe that Jesus is a wonderful teacher, but not the Son of God and the Son of Man. Jesus declares that he is the Son of God and the Son of Man. He clearly says “I AM,” at least in John’s gospel. Lewis tells us that our choices are to believe that Jesus is either exactly who he says he is, or that he’s a complete and total whack job. It is foolish to believe that a man can be a wise teacher if he claims to be God and is not. This is eminently logical, but logic is not where we should be coming from today.

Logic and knowledge and interpretation were the wheelhouse of the Jewish leadership. Jesus says I am the living bread that came down from heaven…and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. The first thing that the temple leaders can think to say is “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Yes, of course it’s a good question. It’s a very good question especially from someone and for someone who is so locked up in the legal aspects of faith that mystical and metaphorical symbols have no other expression than those of their fathers and their fathers before them. This is probably what Jesus finds disappointing. These are leaders who are ordained to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love fail to exercise a grain of imagination. Well, actually I misspoke, that question comes from my ordination vows, not the Jewish leaders. Too, they are in the vows taken by all Presbyterian Elders.[2]

Jesus offers eternal life, life in Christ, life that is available not just in the future, but today too. Eternal life is connected to physical life; after all, Jesus existed in this world, he is the Word become flesh. But eternal life is more than physical life. Eternal life is life in Christ, life in God. Eternal life is life worth living. Very early on in John’s gospel we read this as it is written, “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” In a very real way, John teaches that before the Word, before the life and the Word of Jesus how people lived wasn’t really life at all. Instead, at its best it was a step toward what life could be.

Some people lived well in that first step of life; David and his son Solomon were great examples of glorious lives lived in the Lord before Jesus lived. Our reading today demonstrates this showing that when the Lord asked Solomon what gift he wished to receive, Solomon was wise enough to ask for an understanding mind to govern the Lord’s people and the ability to discern between good and evil. It’s not too much of a leap to connect this request with our call to serve God’s people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love.

Because Solomon sought wisdom instead of riches and power he received wisdom and was also given riches and power. Yet, neither David nor Solomon had the connection to the Lord that we have today. As from words of the Lord Jesus, “Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.” As glorious and blessed as their lives were, they could not partake of God incarnate and live because of him, not in the way available to us through the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We participate in this action when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. It is in the supper that we celebrate our continuing to abide in Christ and that Christ abides in us. By abiding, our lives and our faith are nourished in the love of the Lord Jesus. According to John Calvin, with the participation of the Holy Spirit, faith is nourished and strengthened by the sacrament. He calls the Lord’s Supper “a secret too sublime for my mind to understand or words to express. I experience it rather than understand it.”[3]

It is this choice of Calvin’s that further invites us to experience that mystery rather than to try to pick it apart. Denominations have done this dissection for hundreds of years, but it is to no avail. Rather, let us know that Jesus said “this is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Let us know that his body, his very flesh to us is bread for life. Let us remember this as we partake of the supper together. This element of togetherness is too important. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes of coming together as the family of God together at the table which Christ invites us to share.

“The simple act of sitting down around a table is something a lot of people don't find particularly important - but for Christians, the shared supper is a vital aspect of spiritual life.

“‘The Scriptures speak of three kinds of table fellowship that Jesus keeps with his own: daily fellowship at table, the table fellowship of the Lord's Supper, and the final table fellowship in the kingdom of God. But in all three, the one thing that counts is that 'their eyes were opened, and they knew him.’

“‘The fellowship of the table teaches Christians that here they still eat the perishable bread of the earthly pilgrimage. But if they share this bread with one another, they shall also one day receive the imperishable bread together in the Father's house.’”[4]

We are called to eat the flesh, but we are to come together to eat it, not on the run like a holy sort of drive-thru window. We do this together because when we receive the Lord we receive one another too. Jesus came to be with the whole congress of creation, not just bits and pieces.

Thomas Merton wrote, “There is not one of us, individually, racially, socially, who is not fully complete in any sense of having in himself all the excellence of all humanity. And this excellence, this totality, is built up out of the contributions of the particular parts of it that we all can share with one another. I am therefore not completely human until I have found myself in my African and Asian and Indonesian brother because he has the part of which I lack.”[5]

We come together because separately none of us are complete.

Barbara Williamson tells this story: “Each year at lambing time, there are lambs and ewes who do not make it. Inevitably, on one side of the field is a ewe whose lamb has died. The ewe is filled with ilk but will not nourish any lamb she does not recognize as her own. Inevitably, on the other side of the field is a lamb whose mother has died. That lamb will starve because no ewe will accept and nourish it. So the shepherd takes the dead lamb and slits its throat, and pours its blood over the body of the living lamb. Recognizing the blood, the ewe will now nurse and save the orphaned lamb. Through the gift of the blood of the lamb who has died, the living lamb is recognized and restored to the fold, nourished and saved. That is the Lamb of God.”[6]

By his stripes, by his blood, we are saved. The bread of life feeds us and allows us to be recognized by the Father…or as this illustration tells us, the mother. This is a paschal way to express the invitation we receive to come to the table.

The words of the Orthodox liturgy call us to the table this way:

Come, O faithful ones,
let us enjoy the Lord’s hospitality,
in the banquet of immortality
In the upper chamber, with minds uplifted,
let us learn the Word from the Word
whom we magnify.[7]

We are called to the table to share the bread of life. Another ancient word used for the bread of life is Eucharist. The words of the ancient church describe the Eucharist as “either by good grace, or by thanksgiving. And rightly, indeed it is to be called good grace, as well because it signifies eternal life, concerning which it has been written: The grace of God is eternal life, and also because it contains Christ the Lord, who is true grace and the fountain of all favors.”[8]

Consider these words from Paul Bernier: “If we understand Eucharist as the mystery of Christ’s continuing ability to feed his people, if we know that his bread is broken to be shared with the needy and the poor, this will form out attitude and lend the dynamism of faith too our efforts. We need a clear ideal of what kind of world we are striving to build and the ideal we take from the Lord’s table is that he has given us brothers and sisters the world over who have a claim on us because we accept the bread broken in order to be shared.”[9]

These favors, this life, nourished by the bread of life calls us to more than simply taking from the loaf; we are to offer the loaf just as the Lord offered it to us. As the author Flannery O’Connor wrote, “You will have found Christ when you are concerned with other people’s sufferings and not your own.”[10] In the words of Mother Teresa, “The Eucharist and the poor are but one love for me.”[11]

As bloody and as violent as some of these images of are; twentieth century theologian Karl Rahner reminds us that “The Lord gave himself to us precisely as food to be enjoyed.”[12] In a world that is often more focused on the suffering of Good Friday, we are called to be the people of Easter. Grace came to us violently, but Jesus went to it voluntarily so that we may enjoy him forever.

I know I have piled many, many images together. Sometimes the connection is well explained, sometimes the imagery opens us to new ways to taste and see that the Lord is good, and sometimes it’s just baffling. It is my hope that these images can help spark a new look at the bread of life for all of us, a new look at the great I AM and who HE IS. Jesus is the bread of life; it is by his flesh that we are fed with the gift of eternal life. He is the fountain of all favors and we are the fruit of his work.

But in a spiritual way, many live like the Dickens character Oliver Twist. We are orphans in a strange place, hoping for even a morsel of bread so that we may know life, and so that we may share this new life with others. It is our hope that we may eat of this bread and drink of this cup; and when we do, we should hunger and thirst for new life, holy life, life in Christ. It is my hope that we can all leave here with Twist’s words on our lips, begging to the Lord our God with anticipation of living life eternal; life with, by and through God. “Please sir, I want some more.”

[1] BibleWorks search for the Greek phrase “ego eimi,” the equivalent to the Hebrew Tetragrammaton.
[2] PC(USA) and Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Book of Occasional Services, pages 58 and 24.
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin.
[4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954), 66.
[5] Eucharist, Liturgical Training Publications 18
[6] Eucharist
[7] Orthodox liturgy, Eucharist
[8] Eucharist
[9] Eucharist 86
[10] Eucharist 120
[11] Eucharist, 123
[12] Eucharist, 82

Which Came First?

2009-08-09T13:16:00.006-05:00

Dear Friends, please excuse my absence for the past two weeks. On July 28 at 2:00 AM my mother died. Thanks to the good people of First Presbyterian in Berryville for allowing my absence. Thanks also to the Reverend Dick Shinkle, and Mr. Ken Kinser for ably filling the pulpit while Marie and I were out of town.

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday August 9, 2009, the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
Psalm 130
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
John 6:35, 41-51

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

One of my high school biology teachers was one of those people with a slightly crazy eye and a wicked sense of humor. Naturally, I liked the guy. Just to add a little spice to the day, occasionally someone would ask Mr. Schartz a biologically absurd question. No, it wasn’t me… not always. For example, one day Mani Mani, yes, that’s his real name, asked Mr. Schartz “Which came first the chicken or the egg?” Mr. Schartz answered, “The egg, dinosaurs hatched from eggs long before chickens.”

Honestly, we were disappointed by his answer. Yeah, sure, dinosaurs were older than chickens, but it didn’t answer the question the way we wanted it answered. His answer was too simple, too direct, way too on target. We wanted some sort of obscure, arcane information that could have only come from the mouth of Mr. Schartz. Of course his answer was right, and I remember it over thirty years later, but if anything it was too correct. Nothing funny, nothing witty, nothing provocative, it was just the right answer given to fifteen and sixteen year old boys who were looking for something a little wilder and a little weirder.

The theological equivalent of this question goes something like this: Which came first, grace or faith; salvation or acceptance of salvation? Now there’s a question that has been asked for two-thousand years.

Jesus makes the answer abundantly clear in our reading today. “No one can come to me unless drawn by the father who sent me.” It is by the grace of God that we are saved. There is no act that we can perform which can enhance our status with God. There is no wrong we can right, no song we can sing, no word that we can speak that will do what God cannot do without us. Since there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation, salvation comes from grace alone.

A few years ago, the Mount Comfort church participated in a huge evangelical event sponsored by several churches in Northwest Arkansas, including First Baptist Springdale and Christian Life Cathedral. Marie and I served as counselors for the event. What this meant is that after the evening’s activities, we were to go to the floor of Barnhill Arena on the UofA Campus and help counsel individuals who were seeking a relationship with Christ connect with a church.

We were told that it was our duty as soldiers in the army of the Lord to get unbelievers to sign their names to the card connecting them to this event and the Lord Jesus Christ. Maybe it was in the other order, I don’t remember. It was important to get folks to sign their names to a card at the event—even if they had signed their name to a similar “card at church camp”[1] years earlier. The way the organizer described it, it was as if the camp card is no longer valid. That part always puzzled me, does signing a card at church camp expire after a certain age? Is “signature salvation” like cell phone rollover minutes? If not used after twelve months it goes away?

The way this event was described to us, it was our opportunity to “bring” the unchruched into a relationship with the Lord, as if anything we did could do that. A signature on a card, whether done at church camp or at the home of the Razorbacks, does not seal our salvation. That was done long ago before the dawn of creation. It was done by the creator of all things, the creator of salvation.

This is an example of what Ralph Wood wrote about in the journal “Christian Ethics.” Wood writes, “The German religious painter Mathias Grunewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece gets the order of things right when it shows John the Baptist standing beneath the cross and pointing with his long index finger away from himself to the Man who has been nailed on the cross for our sins. From the mouth of the Baptizer issues these words: ‘May he increase that I decrease.’”[2]

Paul’s famous writing to the Ephesians states it this way: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”[3]

Wood rephrases this with a provocative statement that is sure to convict any reader; “Without the gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone, we get the order backward—Christ decreased in order that we may increase.” [4] When we say we “bring” somebody to the Lord we put the cart before the horse. God is all ready with us, we bring nobody.

This takes us to another element from our reading of John’s gospel. Jesus goes on saying, “Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.” We are saved by grace which was present since before the beginning. We are saved by grace which is purchased by Christ’s death on the cross. Yet it is by faith that we come to know what God’s grace is and what it means to us, what eternal life means to us.

But I ask you to pause for a moment. We should never think of eternal life as what comes after. We tend to think of eternal life as something to do with length of life when in truth it has to do with the quality of our life, both here and on the other side of forever. “‘Eternal life’ does not speak of immortality or a future life in heaven, but is a metaphor for living now in the unending presence of God.”[5] Eternal life is a quality of life issue, but a quality of holy joy rather than a quality of human happiness.

Wood continues, “I don't believe that God much cares whether we are happy, but I believe that he cares enormously whether we are faithful and therefore joyful. Happiness is largely a matter of outward circumstance. We must possess certain things to be happy: health, money, security, success, and power. None of these things is required for joy. True joy lies in knowing that we are saved by God. It is by grace alone through his gift of faith alone. This knowledge brings the peace that surpasses all mere human happiness. We can have this joy and peace no matter how grim our circumstances-even amidst poverty and ill health, despite failure and weakness, and no matter how sinful we are.”[6]

This is how we are to respond, not in happiness, but in joy. In the joy of God we are to put away falsehood speaking the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Paul again explains this in his writing to the Ephesians as we read today. As with much of Paul’s teaching, this is not easy. We are called not to sin steal or let evil talk come from our mouths. We are to put away wrath and anger and wrangling and slander and all malice. We are called to be kind and tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven us. We are called to be imitators of Christ living in love as he loves us; giving ourselves as he gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

There are two things at work here; there is the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our response to that grace which is faith. These two things we will confess in word and song in a few moments.

Our Affirmation of Faith comes from the Westminster Standards and what we believe about effectual calling. (Sorry about the five dollar word.) We believe that God so loves the world, that even before the creation of the world, that although we are dead to sin, by the power of the Word and the Holy Spirit, through the saving work of Jesus Christ we are called into a saving relationship with the holy triune God.

And before our Affirmation, we will sing the song inspired by Isaiah’s vision of the Holy Lord in the temple. We will sing asking God’s question to Isaiah “Whom shall I send?” Then we will respond with Isaiah’s glorious words: “Here I am, Lord. / Is it I, Lord? / I have heard You calling in the night/ I will go, Lord, if You lead me. / I will hold Your people in my heart.”[7]

Our vocation is defined by Jesus in today’s gospel reading; the effectual calling of the Lord followed by our active response. It’s not the sort of thing that will win us a popularity contest, Jesus even notes that the popular kids, the power elite, grumble and complain about his words. Of course, it is the most powerful are called loudest by Jesus to hear the word of God. It is the most powerful who can make the biggest difference in the lives of the weak and oppressed in our earthly confines. Still, from the Sanhedrin to Congress, it seems like the power elite have trouble with this.

So it is up to us, it is up to the disciples of Jesus Christ to take God’s word into the world for caring for the poor, caring for those in need. Reinhold Niebuhr wrote of this and how we use our freedom. He tells us that freedom without responsibility is a horrible thing. Exercising freedom without resolve for others simply takes and takes; it’s a one way street of greed and gluttony. The freedom Christ exercises, the freedom Christ calls us to exercise is the freedom to live in joy and give sacrificially one for another. Freedom with responsibility requires action on our parts to take the gospel into the world and show the world God’s good grace through faith.

I read this yesterday and I have to share it with you. Wikipedia reports[8] “Penitents Compete” is a new Turkish reality television series in which a Jewish rabbi, a Buddhist monk, a Greek Orthodox priest, and a Muslim imam will attempt to convert a group of 10 atheists each week. It is scheduled to begin airing in September 2009 on Turkey's Kanal T network.

Kanal T's Deputy Director Ahmet Özdemir has said that that the goal of the show is “to turn disbelievers into (believers in) God,” but that which God they choose is up to them. He also believes that the show will be helpful for those interested in learning about other religions. Any converts will be offered a free pilgrimage to one of four holy sites–Mecca, Vatican City, Jerusalem, or Tibet. The newly-converted will be followed by a camera crew to ensure that the trip is a pilgrimage and not a vacation.

Two hundred atheists had already applied as of July and were being pre-vetted by an eight-person team of theologians to ensure that they truly are atheists, and not simply seeking to gain fame or fortune.

Some say the show will be good for interfaith relations and others say it’s inappropriate for television. A Turkish mufti worries that the show will confuse people and have negative consequences. An Israeli Rabbi noted that the spirit of this program does not jibe with Jewish tradition which doesn’t allow the active seeking of converts. This same Rabbi also said the show is “tasteless,” which I always thought was a touchstone of reality television.

Still, the best way for us to represent our faith, our life in Christ, whether on Turkish television or here in our own little corner of the world, is to hear Christ’s call and respond. We are to know that we do not come to the Lord unless drawn by the Father who sent him. We are to believe so that we may have eternal life. We are to enjoy eternal life confident in the life of peace and joy of knowing that we are saved by God, knowledge which surpasses all human happiness.

[1] That is a direct quote
[2] Homiletics Online, Animating Illustrations, keywords “grace alone,” http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?keywords="grace%20alone", retrieved August 6, 2009.
[3] Ephesians 2:8-9, NRSV
[4] Homiletics Online, Animating Illustrations, keywords “grace alone,” http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?keywords="grace%20alone", retrieved August 6, 2009.
[5] New Interpreter’s Study Bible, note on “Eternal Life from John 6 as found in the CD-ROM edition.
[6] Ibid, Homiletics Online
[7] Copyright © 1981 Daniel J. Schutte and New Dawn Music, 5536 NE Hassalo, Portland, Oregon 97213.
[8] Penitents Compete, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penitents_Compete, retrieved August 8, 2009.

Resting Place

2009-07-19T19:59:00.003-05:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville Arkansas on Sunday July 19, 2009, the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

2 Samuel 7:1-14a
Psalm 89:20-37
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

In doing research on this passage, one of the commentaries I read had this possible preaching theme: “Jesus demonstrates a healthy balance between having boundaries (the need for rest) and being a sacrificial blessing (caring for the crowd).”[1]

My first thought about this was, “Oh, really?” When I read this passage I never thought any such thing. I agree that Jesus demonstrates the need to keep a healthy balance, but honestly, I thought he failed in actually getting there. It’s like a long fly ball being curled foul by the wind into the stands. The long drive looks great and has plenty of distance, but other forces take over and when the ball lands it’s a strike against the batter.

Let’s take a look at the setting of our reading. Just before this point in Mark’s gospel, there are two miraculous healing stories followed by only a few tiny miracles and a whole lot of nothing being done in Capernaum. Of course, the biggest thing we remember about the Jesus homecoming episode is that the people expected nothing from him and got just what they bargained for. Then Jesus sends out the twelve in pairs. The apostles were able to do great acts of power and healing by the power of the Lord. Let me just add that this is not only the popular apostles, the high school cheerleaders of the apostles; but also the most reviled of them all, Judas Iscariot. If this were not so, surely one of the gospels would have said. Then in a sort of a sub-plot, between the time of the apostles being sent and their return, we witness Herod’s fear that John had risne from the grave ending with the flashback scene of the beheading of John the Baptist.

So as we return to our reading, the apostles, literally “the sent,”[2] gather around the one who sent them and tell him of all that they had done and taught. Jesus realizes that they have been hard at work doing just as he had instructed. I imagine he was as proud of them as a teacher is of any good student. Also, I can only assume that they had been gone for quite a while since the literary segue of the story of John’s death was needed between the sending and the returning. So after they return from time in the mission field and share all they had done; Jesus tells them it’s time they be off for a rest, a little leisure, and a bite to eat. So they went away in a boat to a deserted place by themselves.

Yes, rest is important, Sabbath is vital to life. Jesus will tell the apostles, the disciples, the scribes and the Pharisees that the Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath. Jesus decides to take everybody to Ferncliff;[3] they get away in the boat and head off to a deserted place by themselves. Of course, as we know from the reading, their sabbatical, their study leave does not go as Jesus had hoped.

Where they end up going is not nearly deserted enough because not only is the crowd there when the boat goes ashore, but people who were at their departure spot beat them to their arrival place. This, again, always bugged me. In theory, by boat is a quicker way across the lake than on foot, so how did the people beat them across? I always thought this question was on the order of the number of angels who can dance on a pin until Marie Bolerjack said something interesting at the Wednesday night Bible study.

She pondered aloud whether on the sea and in the boat qualified as the “solitary place” they went by themselves. Now there’s a thought I had never had before. The word the New Revised Standard Version translates as “deserted place” and the New International Version translates as “solitary place” is often translated as “wilderness,” “desolate,” “deserted place,” and “in the wilds.” This wilderness is the place where John the Baptist comes from. It is the place where Jesus goes after his baptism. In this case as in several others, this solitary place is where Jesus goes to be off by himself and pray.

The wilderness, the wilds are the place Christ goes to be separate from the pressures of daily life to be with the God the Father Almighty to recover and be rejuvenated. It is a place where Jesus has to go because being fully human means that he needs the recovery of the Sabbath as much as every other man, woman, and child. It is the place where Jesus wants his followers to be, to be with him and to be with his Father.

By these criteria, on the sea in the boat hardly qualifies on the face of what it means to be in a solitary place in the wilderness. But as happened so often, when Jesus wants to take a break and he can’t win for losing. He wants to go to a deserted place and “Boom!” it’s not deserted anymore. People crush in on him like a vice. He wants to take a rest but the rest of the world is weary for his help, his power, his teaching, his saving grace. Perhaps in the final analysis, on the sea in the boat is the only place that qualified as secluded.

At any rate, this is the only rest they got, because as soon as they came ashore at Gennesaret, the people were there to meet him. They met him with their sick. Those who could walk went to the middle of the town square. Those who could not walk were brought on mats to meet the prophet, the teacher, the one who could heal them. He did this because there was a great crowd, like sheep without a shepherd and Jesus has compassion for the sheep.

This is a good moment to revisit Jesus needing a rest. He needed the rest because he is fully human. But when he comes ashore he comes with compassion, compassion which is fully divine.[4]

Jesus had compassion, and compassion in this case is more than just a feeling. Compassion is a messianic characteristic. Often the word used for “having compassion” is also translated as “having pity,” so what’s the difference? I believe that the difference is that to have compassion demands a response; to be compassionate demands action. Jesus shows this by serving the people; serving bread and fish, serving healing and justice, serving as the one who bridges the gap between heaven and earth.

Pity may come with no strings attached, but it also comes with nothing else. Pity is something we keep to ourselves; or when we share it, pity doesn’t do much to help others. Compassion serves, compassion acts, compassion saves. Pity says, by “By God, that’s tough.” Compassion says, “Let me help.”

Still, true compassion, compassion in its fullest brings out the totality of mercy with which God claims creation in Christ’s saving act.[5] Compassion is in the divine nature, it is not just something we feel, it is more than that. Jesus was compassionate toward the people; more than feeling pity, Jesus exhibited compassion.

Christ healed. More often, this word in the Greek scriptures is not translated as healed, it is translated as saved. The healings, the compassion of the Lord is far beyond anything we could ever hope or imagine or especially accomplish. Yet, Jesus sent out the apostles with instructions to go. They went and by his power were able to cast out many demons and anointing with oil many who were sick the apostles healed them. For us; to be compassionate is the basic and decisive attitude in all Christian action.[6]

This is the call of Christian action, the vocation we are called to continue today. We are sent into the world as the apostles were two millennia ago. We are called to go and make disciples. We are to share the Good News of Christ with the world starting in our own backyards. It is not by our own power, our own charisma that people come to know the Lord; it is by the power of God which we carry like power is carried by copper wire. We are not the source, we are the conduit. This is our call, by our work we carry the Word to a world that needs it.

When living in Colorado, the church Marie and I attended sponsored a girl on a mission trip to Belize.[7] I don’t remember many of the details; I don’t remember what she did while she was there. I do remember that before she left there were several days of training at the mission’s camp in Orlando. Particularly, I remember hearing they were taught how to handle people trying to sell drugs to them on the streets. When I heard this, I decided that whatever they were doing, they were doing it in a dangerous place.

After this, they spent a couple of weeks in country. Upon returning home, they spent a day or so debriefing, and then they went to Disneyworld.[8] I don’t begrudge anyone a trip to EPCOT, but I did wonder what a ride on Space Mountain had to do with spreading the gospel. After some thought, I trusted that the folks who organize these trips knew what they were doing, and that was enough for me to mentally sign-off on a trip to the Floridian version of “The Happiest Place on Earth” after spending a couple of weeks doing whatever they were doing all the while dodging drug dealers.

I like to think that because of this passage I understand better now. After returning from the cities and the jungles of Belize they had a time together to discuss what they had done and what they had seen, just as the apostles did in the beginning of this reading. Then they went away together for leisure and something to eat. In accord with scripture, these American kids needed some time to rejuvenate and return to the normalcy of their way of life, and what’s more American than Mickey Mouse?

The Lord calls us all to a resting place, a place where we rest and recover from not just the hustle and bustle of everyday life, but from the work of serving God. That place is in His presence. We have to plug into the source of compassionate power to recharge ourselves too. It may be on a boat, it may be at some Mission camp in Orlando, and it should also be right here and right now. In worship, on the day the Lord set aside as the Sabbath, we are called to be together to praise and worship the one who comes with compassion and gives us a place to rest.

To rephrase the preaching point from the commentary, we need to practice a healthy balance between having boundaries and being a part of Christ’s sacrificial blessing. As the girl who made the mission trip, we are called to go and share the good news. Then we are to share what we have done in Christ and then be refreshed in the glory of God. We are called to go and make disciples. By the word, by the power of the Lord, we are called to cast out many demons and help those who are sick and heal them. Then after we are Christ’s resting place for others, when we return from doing God’s work in the world we are called to Christ’s resting place our selves.

[1] “G Force,” HomileticsOnline.com. http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=93040467, retrieved July 14, 2009
[2] apostolos, Bauer, Walter, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition. Frederick William Danker, Editor. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
[3] A PC(USA) camp, http://ferncliff.org/.
[4] Splagxnozomai, Kittel, Gerhard, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. vii, Gerhard Friedrich Editor, Geoffrey Bromiley Translator, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1971, pages 553-554.
[5] Ibid. page 554
[6] Ibid.
[7] Hi Nicole! Hello too to Bob and Nadine.
[8] I am sure every Disney reference is copywritten or registered in one form or another and the rights to these references will eternally belong to the Walt Disney Company.

The More Things Change...

2009-07-12T12:27:00.005-05:00

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday July 12, 2009, the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12-19
Psalm 24
Ephesians 1:3-14
Mark 6:14-29

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

Old expressions are a dime a dozen, so they say. What I like about them is that because of the associations we make with old expressions, because of our history and our culture, just a few words become greater than the sum of their parts, if you know what I mean. Consider this from a book I’m reading right now:

Gradually, the whole horrible truth about the war is being revealed. Every new book destroys some further illusion. How can we ever again believe anything when we compare the solemn pretensions of statesmen with the cynically conceived contest for power between two great alliances of states in which the caprice of statesmen combined with basic economic conflicts to dictate the peculiar shuffled in a different way and the “fellowship in arms” will consist of different fellows.

So do you think this is from some new liberal take on the war in Iraq? Is this a passage from Scott McClellan’s Dick Cheney bashing “What Happened, Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception?” I wouldn’t blame you if you thought it did. This paragraph comes from Reinhold Niebuhr’s “Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic.”[1] Niebuhr wrote this passage in 1923 in response to what he saw as the missteps of political leaders after World War One. Or as the old saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Of course, as I am trying to tell you that things don’t change much, I read one of the most unique texts in Mark’s gospel. This is the longest passage in Mark not immediately focused on Jesus. Fifteen verses with nary a mention of Jesus; twelve full verses without him at all. Of course, this foreshadowing is a part of my point.

The powerless are at the mercy of the powerful. A prophet singing a song of repentance is taken by a government official and sentenced to death. The official doesn’t really want to kill the prophet. Sure, the prophet is a pain, but the official knows that the prophet is righteous and holy. The government man is perplexed by the prophet; he may even ask the prophet “What is truth?”

In the end of the story, the leader is moved by circumstances to do what he really doesn’t want to do. He does it to save face. He offers alternatives to death; but this won’t save the prophet’s life. After his death, the prophet’s disciples come and take the body and put it in a tomb.

The powerless are at the mercy of the powerful. So, who am I talking about, John or Jesus? I guess it’s true; the more things change…you know.

The parallels and foreshadowing between the stories of the lives and deaths of John and Jesus in scripture are there for all of us to see. There is even a flashback to the baptism of the Lord as in both places John calls for repentance.

So from a literary point of view, in this nearly Jesus-Free-Zone, there is enough of the Messiah to make a connection. If just talking about words were enough, this would be more than enough. But as followers of Christ, we must be about more than words.

There is one other element of this story, another parallel that we receive in this scripture; an attitude of the church toward power. But don’t expect this set of parallels to connect to the time of the gospel; this is a call for our time.

Here’s a story, tell me if it sounds familiar. A man, a great king, finds a woman who appeals to his, shall we say, baser instincts. He finds her so appealing that he gets rid of her husband and fathers a child. So, is this the story of David or Herod? Well, as a matter of fact it is. It’s either one and both. How’s that for ironic, two kings, one who knows God’s heart and the other who crucifies God. There’s a pendulum swing that is difficult to wrap our heads around, but still, it is found in our holiest of scriptures. There are some things about scripture we should never try to get used to and that’s certainly one.

But I promised you a more current list of scandals. Let’s begin with the most recent. South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford admitted during a press conference less than a month ago that he had traveled to Argentina to continue an extra-marital affair with an Argentinean woman. He then resigned as head of the Republican Governors Association. He’s still governor of South Carolina, but at least he no longer sits at the head of the table of Republican Governors.

Strangely enough, Governor Sanford isn’t even the first politician involved in a sex scandal with an Argentinean, that honor goes to the Honorable Wilbur Mills, the Democratic House Representative from, yes, you guessed it, Arkansas in the 1970’s. His dalliance was with a stripper named Fanne Foxe. Just to show the world what kind of people we are, Mills got reelected after the scandal, although he did later resign after he gave an intoxicated press conference from Foxe's burlesque house dressing room.

Lest you think I spent too much time on Governor Sanford, I have two more words: Bill Clinton. (Long pause, eyes turned to the left…) Yeah, that brings back some memories.

Sure, nobody killed the spouse of the apple of their eye, but let’s face it, powerful men have had trouble with their zippers long before the invention of the zipper. To say anything different denies both the witness of history and the nature of sin. But this passage is about more than sexual scandals, it is also about power and how it is exercised.

Herod’s relationship with John must have been very interesting. Scripture tells us that Herod liked to listen to John, but Herod’s choice of a wife, rubbed him the wrong way. Still he knew that John was a righteous and holy man. Herod also knew which way the political winds blew; he knew that the people, led by John’s disciples, would be upset if John were executed. John irritated Herod, but Herod still knew that killing John was not in his best interest.

It was his wife Herodias who had a grudge against John.

As powerful as Herod was, he still needed to court those who were also powerful to keep them happy. This is the reason for the State Dinner, er, banquet. Herod throws a huge banquet with entertainment, his dancing daughter. So enraptured with her dance, Herod promises her anything, anything up to half of his kingdom. A broad gesture to be sure. Just as surely, it was a gesture, hyperbole. He didn’t mean “take half,” but the offer impresses the company and after all, isn’t that the object of the banquet?

His daughter Herodias is no dummy though; she asks her mother what she should request. Mom asks for the removal of the thorn from her side. So Herodias asks for John’s head on a platter. I wonder if the platter was worth thirty pieces of silver. It would not only be a poetic foreshadowing of Jesus betrayal; but it would also be consistent with the ancient price of a hit.

Should Herod have made his offer to Herodias? No, but he was acting like a big shot, he was caught up in the moment. Could Herod have stopped this request? Not without looking weak; and that’s the last thing the lackeys need to see, their king acting weak. Herod had to save face.

Again, the powerless are at the mercy of the powerful. Yet, it is the powerful who are convicted by the words of the powerless. John was a prophet. John was the man in a hair shirt who looked more than a little crazy. Yet, there was something about John that made Herod take notice. That thing was the truth. That thing was the word of the Lord. That thing was a vision for a world greater than the earthly realm of power and State Dinners, er, banquets.

This is the real importance of today’s text. Yes, the powerless are at the mercy of the powerful, but in reality, it is the powerless who have the high ground over those with political and social authority. It is the church, not the state, which is called to be the beacon of light, God’s light, over creation. It is our call to seek out the injustices the world imposes on the poor and the weak and lift them so that they may know God’s peace.

William Sloane Coffin wrote: “‘Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites!’ Jesus never hurt anyone, except deliberately. He hurt them only because he loved them, and wanted to save them rather than please them. And in true prophetic fashion, he attacked none more than the nation’s leaders because their one-sided righteousness was the source of such blindness to themselves and the source of such suffering to others.”[2]

Jesus called on the leaders of the land to seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. John did the same thing with Herod. Mother Teresa did this for any world leader who would take the time to listen. The church is called to continue this role in the world. It is our duty not to please the world but to do God’s work in it.

The Church is called to be the eyes and hands of God to hold the powerful to account for the injustices against the poor. It is our call to do that which is dangerous, that which is perilous. Herod and Pilate are out there and they want nothing more than the way things are now. They are comfortable in their places. We are called as the Body of Christ to seek justice for those who are oppressed in a world gone mad.

Coffin also asked, “Why is goodness forever on the scaffold, wrong upon the throne? Because what human beings seem most to fear is not the evil in themselves, but the good—the good being so demanding. Never would we have crucified Christ, the best among us, had we not first crucified the best within us. But never mind! Don’t follow the crowd. Follow Christ, cross and all.”[3]

Anyone who says it is not the role of the church to be critical of the government is sorely mistaken. Anyone who says the role of the church is to stay within its walls and seek piety for the sake of the body is sorely mistaken. Anyone who says we do nothing is mistaken, but anyone who says we do enough is also mistaken. Anyone who says I am only speaking to this part of the Body of Christ is mistaken and anyone who says I am speaking to a generic church is also mistaken. Seek God’s justice; this is the clarion call to us as a body, and us as followers of Christ, cross and all.

Since the Watergate scandal of 1972, there have been over 100 scandals that have been given the suffix “–gate.”[4] From Bill Clinton’s “Troopergate” to Elliot Spitzer’s “Troopergate” to Sarah Palin’s “Troopergate;” founded and unfounded, scandal is a part of the American political landscape. And political scandal is as old as the hills, as old as Herod. The more things change…

And it is the will of the Lord that the Body of Christ on Earth continues to seek justice for those who face injustice. It’s not easy, it is not without danger. The example of John proves this; the example of Jesus proves this. But it is their example that shows us the value of their sacrifice; and ours.

Jesus may not have been the immediate focus of this passage, but his fingerprints are all over it.

[1] Niebuhr, Reinhold, “Leaves from the notebook of a tamed cynic.” New York: Da Capo Press, 1929, page 42
[2] Coffin, William Sloane, The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years, Volume 1. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, pages 403-404.
[3] Ibid, page 408.
[4] Wikipedia, List of Scandals with –gate suffix, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_with_%22-gate%22_suffix, retrieved July 11, 2009.