25 December 2011 “Keep Unwrapping” Luke 2:1-14 (15-20)
I believe it would be the perfectly normal thing to come to church on Christmas day, feeling all warm inside from the joy of the morning, and expect at worship to have that joy sustained and even, if possible, raised a bit.
Christmas is such a wonderful time of the year. It is a time of anticipation and celebration. It is a time we unashamedly celebrate in our hearts the birth of the baby Jesus. While tinged with anxiety, a baby being born is also a time of celebration. And the Christmas birth is no exception.
We love hearing the familiar story and the eye witness accounts of the scene in the stable. And we can imagine the first time the baby Jesus must have cried and those standing by smiled and longed to pick him up and comfort him in any way they could.
We also realize more than just a baby has been born this day. Jesus becomes a man, a different sort of man. He becomes a man of peace, conviction, wisdom and moral fiber. This day a savior is born!
Shortly after his birth there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Than an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid.”
I can only imagine how those shepherds must have felt when the angel of the Lord stood before them. Actually, that’s not right, I cannot imagine. Having never knowingly had an angel of the Lord stand before me, I cannot imagine how they felt. But, something caused the angel to say to them, “Do not be afraid!”
There are times we need to hear those same words. In the midst of real suffering we long to hear, “Do not be afraid.” In our darkest hour we pray an angel will come to comfort us saying, “ Do not be afraid, for see I bring you good news of great joy for all the people.”
Good news of great joy. This is the emotion at the heart of Christmas, great joy. Not a joy that creates pleasure or euphoria. No, this is a joy that creates in us a new desire, an enthusiasm, a passion, an eagerness. This Christmas emotion of great joy is God’s joy, it is a joy that comes from a God who still cares for this creation and all those faulty selves that live in it.
Often we read in scripture of the importance of having wisdom about these things. If knowledge is the makeup of things and wisdom the significance of things, we learn through Luke’s gospel the importance of this Jesus who comes to us first as a baby, then a man, and finally, a messiah.
Let me caution you from the beginning. The story of Jesus’ birth, his life as a man, even as messiah does not tell us the complete story. Jesus has a deeper purpose. He lived to be in relationship with each of us. Which means we are all related to that child and we are all related to one another. This truth is hard to fathom. The world we live in is not a world that sees and acts and does things as if we were all related. On the contrary, we hear proclaimed every day, there are foreigners in our midst.
Janet and I have been blessed with the births of seven grandchildren and I can tell you, families come together at a birth like at no other time. Others of you have had similar experiences with a family, or friend, or neighbor. It is not that we don’t always get along, it just seems that at a birth particularly we find ourselves excited to see even the most cantankerous brother or sister, aunt or uncle. For they have come to see the baby and they too have traveled from afar, they have come bearing gifts of glad tidings. With each birth comes great hope and a new chance to love innocently again.
God really started the whole thing. From the very beginning, God creates. And that creation has not stopped. That is what God does. And babies may be the crown jewels of God’s creation. It should come as no surprise to us that God’s redemptive act often begins with the birth of a child. For Abraham it was Isaac, for Hannah it was Samuel and for Isaiah and all the people of God the promise again is through the birth of a child.
This child then becomes a man. A different sort of man. A man of peace, conviction, wisdom and moral fiber. Yet, there is more to this Jesus than this. Who among us is without sin? No one. Who among us is without material possession? No one. Who among us is wiser than the wisest ruler, wisest priest, wisest sage, and wisest truth teller. No one.
This man Jesus lives like no other before him. He was a teacher. His lesson was about living in this world and the next. He performed miracles. He healed the sick, cured the lame, and raised the dead. He was a prophet. He knew about the kingdom to come. He could see into the future and offered us a picture of a reality greater than the one of this world. He was a priest. He brought passion and gentleness and caring and healing to a bitter and frightening world. He was a peacemaker. He found gentler ways to respond to violence and terror and threats. He was a ruler. He ruled with love and justice and mercy. He was a sage. He was a wise man. He knew the significance of things and he committed his entire life to bring truth to a world torn by illusion longing for understanding.
This Jesus, this man of human flesh and blood, born to us again this Christmas is the truest compass to the good ever known to mankind. This Jesus, if we have ears to hear, teaches right living in the eyes of God. Right living with all of God’s creation. He excluded no one. He includes us and everyone around us and everyone known and unknown to us and everyone who has come before us and everyone who will come after us. Everyone is included in Jesus’ world both here and in the world to come.
His message is simple, yet impossible at the same time. Simple in theory, but impossible in reality. Simply to say, I can do that, impossible to actually do. Impossible if we dare take life on alone. Absolutely possible if we unite with the one who desperately desires our company.
With Jesus Christ, born this day to be our savior, all is real. This world and the truth found in our faith, they are real. This Christmas season makes that truth alive.
The zeal in this mornings Christmas story is in the personal nature of God’s promise, “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” “To you is born this day”, to you and to me and to all God’s people, our Savior is born.
In the movie “Field of Dreams”, a child of the 1960’s turned Iowa farmer suddenly hears a voice telling him to plow up his fields and build a baseball field. “If you build it, he will come” says the voice. Ray, the farmer, obeys the voice and finishes the field. The voice visits again, telling Ray, “Ease his pain.” Mystified by whose pain he is supposed to heal, Ray begins a long search for the one who will be healed by this cornfield turned baseball diamond. One day, Ray’s father, who had died before Ray had ever had a chance to build any kind of meaningful relationship with him, appears on the field for a game with several other ballplayers. With tears in his eyes, Ray believes he has finally found the one in need of healing. “Ease his pain,” murmurs Ray. As his father steps across the field Ray says, “It was for you Dad that I built this field.” “No Ray,” says one of the players gently. It was built for you. “It was for you.”
It was for you and for me that Jesus came this Christmas season. It was for our hurts, our sins, our failings, our broken heart, our doubt, our grief, our anger. We were in the dark and he wanted to be the light to guide us back home.
The transforming moment of Christmas comes when we claim our place at the manger. When we realize that the Christ Child has come, not just for the world, but for us. It is not just world peace that he promises, but our peace.
My prayer this Christmas is that we will accept this gift, that we will realize our exhaustion is good, for our weakness is God’s strength. Our emptiness gives God room to enter in to our lives and to allow us to take our place alongside the manger and join with the heavenly host who proclaim, “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and his is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen
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Sunday, December 25, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
11 December 2011 Waiting for the Light John 1:6-8, 19-28
11 December 2011 Waiting for the Light John 1:6-8, 19-28
Along with age, we would hope, should come wisdom. While wisdom is often elusive, I have come to the understanding, sometimes the hard way, learning patience in the meantime can be helpful.
When younger, I liked cars. I had a 1955 Chevrolet that I wanted to ‘fix up.’ I was not patient about it. I wanted it fixed up immediately. It was a costly lesson.
My next ‘schooling’ was when we had children. Being patient with children is like trying to mix oil with water. When babies, they need immediate attention to keep them dry and fed and not crying. They will not wait. When two, they want what they want when they want it, which is, as you know, immediately. Being patient is a foreign notion in the world of young children.
Despite the immediate nature of life and family and work and play we can learn about patience. We can learn it may help keep us out of trouble. That too we may have to learn the hard way. We may also learn being patient is instructive. How often have we hurriedly packed for a trip then patiently waited for others to finish their packing, only to remember something we had forgotten. Having a time of patient waiting is a good thing.
Today is the third Sunday of the advent season. We have learned these past two Sundays about being prepared, holding vigil, waiting and watching for the coming of our Lord Jesus. He is to come at first for his birth and then again for his second coming. We may be surprised how taking a moment, waiting, and being patient may help in our preparation.
The thought of Jesus’ coming at Christmas brings joy and excitement with thoughts of family and celebration . And we cannot wait! The though of Jesus’ coming to judge us, on the other hand, can bring a fair amount of anxiety. For that we could wait many life times.
Preparation for Christmas offers honest delight. Memories from before. Hope for the time to come. Preparation for the second coming offers a wholly different preparation. It is about living our lives as faithful covenant people, following God’s commandments, loving one another, praying and being penitent. Sometimes patience and waiting seem to have no place in either.
When in High School, our son Kevin, was in the play “West Side Story”. It is a musical about a New York street gang, the Jets, and the return of one of their former members, Tony. At first Tony doesn’t want to return to that old life, but then his enthusiasm builds. In his excitement about being back with his old friends and the new adventures they will have, he sings a song called “Something’s Coming.”
This could easily be our theme song for advent. Something’s coming, a messiah, Jesus, who will be our savior and our judge. But, we have to wait. We have to wait until the 25th for Christmas and we have to wait for a second coming we have no date for. With built in excitement for one and anxiety for the other, I wonder how patient we will be.
Tony sings on, “There is something due any day, it may come cannon balling down through the sky, gleam in its eye, bright as a rose! Who knows?”
In the gospel reading this morning we learn who knows. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. Bright as a rose! Who knows?
Like Tony, our excitement for this season is building, but unlike Tony, we are not being asked to return to an old life, we are being called to an alternative life, a new one, to a new place, a place of hope and expectation. “Something’s coming,”
Last Sunday, John was identified for us in Mark’s gospel as a baptizer. This Sunday, in John’s gospel, his role has changed. Here John is to be a witness to Jesus. Through John’s witness, the world will come to know the presence of God in Jesus. Through John’s witness, the world will come to know the presence of the light to the world. The light in the ancient world was a symbol for recognizing God and life everlasting. In the New Testament, the light is Christ, the light of the world who calls us out of darkness into his marvelous light.
The good news this Christmas season is this marvelous light has already entered into many of us. Here, in our heart and soul, we have received the light of Christ. Our entry point to this truth is our baptism.
Baptizing babies, all dressed in white, doesn’t appear to be so life changing on the surface. Without it, however, we are lost to a world of darkness. John warns us, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord.” Here is a clear and powerful critic of our lost world of darkness and sin. John’s voice is crying out to tell where he is and where we are also. It is from our wilderness of sin that we are to make straight the way of the Lord. Our baptism becomes our entry way to making our life straight, making an alternative lifestyle.
Our conversion to this new life will only be successful through the steady, patient, there is that word again, intentional, prayerful, and worship filled new life that we Christians testify will draw us closer to Jesus and indeed make us safe and joyous. That alternative life is one grounded by scripture and enacted through the tradition of the church. We have both at hand here with us this morning.
The preparation we face today is one of living and practicing this new life by remembering the baptismal light that is alive in our very soul, then living as if this truth makes a difference. Every step we take in our preparation for the coming of the babe is a step toward a life dedicated to our new life as an apostle, as a disciple, as one who loves Jesus more than life itself. Every step we take in our preparation, in our ministry, as beloved followers of Jesus Christ, is a step to improve our baptism by living with increasing singularity of purpose and commitment to honor our calling as children of God.
God’s Spirit will work where it will and accomplish its purposes. But often what stands in our way is our own impatience and our belief that the Spirit in us cannot be stirred and that we cannot be opened to new possibilities. When we cover over and deny our impatience, our faith grows hard and we find ourselves committed to the wilderness without the grace to rethink our position.
The Old Testament theologian, Walter Brueggemann, says, “The darkness in our life hides the source of the grace we need to live in the light.” Our darkness hides God’s grace, Jesus’ love and the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit that indwelled us at our baptism is not a wall, it is like the wind. It is not coercion, it is possibility. It is not a threat, it is our opportunity, our guiding light, to this new life of hope and expectation.
It is vital and necessary that we have this advent season. It is our time to prepare ourselves for a life with Christ because, when we are honest with ourselves, we are simply not prepared. Who among us can truthfully say, take me today Lord, I am ready. This is truth telling about the shape we are in. And that truth telling makes us free. Free to live a life of new possibility.
“Who knows?” Tony sings in the musical, “I got a feeling there’s a miracle due.” The Christian writer, Vicki Lumpkin, agrees, “The Light of the world stands in our midst. In taking a human body, Jesus has blessed our humanity and given tangible form to God’s reconciling love.” Isaiah 61:9 also agrees, “We are truly the people whom the Lord has blessed. We are blessed by God’s presence, by God’s intervention in our lives, by God’s grace and love given to a people who often fail to recognize it.”
John tells us that the One for whom we wait often stands unrecognized. He often appears in unexpected places and acts in surprising, unexpected ways. What then are the things that prevent us from recognizing this miracle? Living in our public life perhaps. Needing to slow down. Being patient enough to open our eyes to see the miracle before us.
The Epistle reading for today calls us to live in a state of intimacy and communion with God, to do that which is good and avoid what is evil. We may have more straightening out to do than we realize. But there is hope filled good news!
The wilderness in our lives is also a place of holy encounter – holy ground. The ‘wild place’ we inhabit on a daily basis is also the dwelling place of one who is extraordinary. We have not been abandoned. We don’t have to wait until some future date to experience the miracle of God’s grace.
Tony sings, “And something great is coming!” Indeed, something great is coming, something beyond our wildest expectation is coming. It is right around the corner. God has spoken a Word of love, made it real, and set it in our lives. It is an incarnate, an en-fleshed Word of justice, mercy, and restoration. His name is Jesus.
“Who knows!” Tony sings, “Maybe tonight . . . ” The message of John is “maybe today!” And this is a message worth waiting patiently for; this is a message worth our preparation. Someone great is coming, his name is Jesus.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit one God now and forever. Amen.
Additional resources:
“The Christian Century,” November 29, 2005, pg. 22.
“Preaching and Worshiping in Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany,” pg. 108.
121111.gpc
Along with age, we would hope, should come wisdom. While wisdom is often elusive, I have come to the understanding, sometimes the hard way, learning patience in the meantime can be helpful.
When younger, I liked cars. I had a 1955 Chevrolet that I wanted to ‘fix up.’ I was not patient about it. I wanted it fixed up immediately. It was a costly lesson.
My next ‘schooling’ was when we had children. Being patient with children is like trying to mix oil with water. When babies, they need immediate attention to keep them dry and fed and not crying. They will not wait. When two, they want what they want when they want it, which is, as you know, immediately. Being patient is a foreign notion in the world of young children.
Despite the immediate nature of life and family and work and play we can learn about patience. We can learn it may help keep us out of trouble. That too we may have to learn the hard way. We may also learn being patient is instructive. How often have we hurriedly packed for a trip then patiently waited for others to finish their packing, only to remember something we had forgotten. Having a time of patient waiting is a good thing.
Today is the third Sunday of the advent season. We have learned these past two Sundays about being prepared, holding vigil, waiting and watching for the coming of our Lord Jesus. He is to come at first for his birth and then again for his second coming. We may be surprised how taking a moment, waiting, and being patient may help in our preparation.
The thought of Jesus’ coming at Christmas brings joy and excitement with thoughts of family and celebration . And we cannot wait! The though of Jesus’ coming to judge us, on the other hand, can bring a fair amount of anxiety. For that we could wait many life times.
Preparation for Christmas offers honest delight. Memories from before. Hope for the time to come. Preparation for the second coming offers a wholly different preparation. It is about living our lives as faithful covenant people, following God’s commandments, loving one another, praying and being penitent. Sometimes patience and waiting seem to have no place in either.
When in High School, our son Kevin, was in the play “West Side Story”. It is a musical about a New York street gang, the Jets, and the return of one of their former members, Tony. At first Tony doesn’t want to return to that old life, but then his enthusiasm builds. In his excitement about being back with his old friends and the new adventures they will have, he sings a song called “Something’s Coming.”
This could easily be our theme song for advent. Something’s coming, a messiah, Jesus, who will be our savior and our judge. But, we have to wait. We have to wait until the 25th for Christmas and we have to wait for a second coming we have no date for. With built in excitement for one and anxiety for the other, I wonder how patient we will be.
Tony sings on, “There is something due any day, it may come cannon balling down through the sky, gleam in its eye, bright as a rose! Who knows?”
In the gospel reading this morning we learn who knows. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. Bright as a rose! Who knows?
Like Tony, our excitement for this season is building, but unlike Tony, we are not being asked to return to an old life, we are being called to an alternative life, a new one, to a new place, a place of hope and expectation. “Something’s coming,”
Last Sunday, John was identified for us in Mark’s gospel as a baptizer. This Sunday, in John’s gospel, his role has changed. Here John is to be a witness to Jesus. Through John’s witness, the world will come to know the presence of God in Jesus. Through John’s witness, the world will come to know the presence of the light to the world. The light in the ancient world was a symbol for recognizing God and life everlasting. In the New Testament, the light is Christ, the light of the world who calls us out of darkness into his marvelous light.
The good news this Christmas season is this marvelous light has already entered into many of us. Here, in our heart and soul, we have received the light of Christ. Our entry point to this truth is our baptism.
Baptizing babies, all dressed in white, doesn’t appear to be so life changing on the surface. Without it, however, we are lost to a world of darkness. John warns us, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord.” Here is a clear and powerful critic of our lost world of darkness and sin. John’s voice is crying out to tell where he is and where we are also. It is from our wilderness of sin that we are to make straight the way of the Lord. Our baptism becomes our entry way to making our life straight, making an alternative lifestyle.
Our conversion to this new life will only be successful through the steady, patient, there is that word again, intentional, prayerful, and worship filled new life that we Christians testify will draw us closer to Jesus and indeed make us safe and joyous. That alternative life is one grounded by scripture and enacted through the tradition of the church. We have both at hand here with us this morning.
The preparation we face today is one of living and practicing this new life by remembering the baptismal light that is alive in our very soul, then living as if this truth makes a difference. Every step we take in our preparation for the coming of the babe is a step toward a life dedicated to our new life as an apostle, as a disciple, as one who loves Jesus more than life itself. Every step we take in our preparation, in our ministry, as beloved followers of Jesus Christ, is a step to improve our baptism by living with increasing singularity of purpose and commitment to honor our calling as children of God.
God’s Spirit will work where it will and accomplish its purposes. But often what stands in our way is our own impatience and our belief that the Spirit in us cannot be stirred and that we cannot be opened to new possibilities. When we cover over and deny our impatience, our faith grows hard and we find ourselves committed to the wilderness without the grace to rethink our position.
The Old Testament theologian, Walter Brueggemann, says, “The darkness in our life hides the source of the grace we need to live in the light.” Our darkness hides God’s grace, Jesus’ love and the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit that indwelled us at our baptism is not a wall, it is like the wind. It is not coercion, it is possibility. It is not a threat, it is our opportunity, our guiding light, to this new life of hope and expectation.
It is vital and necessary that we have this advent season. It is our time to prepare ourselves for a life with Christ because, when we are honest with ourselves, we are simply not prepared. Who among us can truthfully say, take me today Lord, I am ready. This is truth telling about the shape we are in. And that truth telling makes us free. Free to live a life of new possibility.
“Who knows?” Tony sings in the musical, “I got a feeling there’s a miracle due.” The Christian writer, Vicki Lumpkin, agrees, “The Light of the world stands in our midst. In taking a human body, Jesus has blessed our humanity and given tangible form to God’s reconciling love.” Isaiah 61:9 also agrees, “We are truly the people whom the Lord has blessed. We are blessed by God’s presence, by God’s intervention in our lives, by God’s grace and love given to a people who often fail to recognize it.”
John tells us that the One for whom we wait often stands unrecognized. He often appears in unexpected places and acts in surprising, unexpected ways. What then are the things that prevent us from recognizing this miracle? Living in our public life perhaps. Needing to slow down. Being patient enough to open our eyes to see the miracle before us.
The Epistle reading for today calls us to live in a state of intimacy and communion with God, to do that which is good and avoid what is evil. We may have more straightening out to do than we realize. But there is hope filled good news!
The wilderness in our lives is also a place of holy encounter – holy ground. The ‘wild place’ we inhabit on a daily basis is also the dwelling place of one who is extraordinary. We have not been abandoned. We don’t have to wait until some future date to experience the miracle of God’s grace.
Tony sings, “And something great is coming!” Indeed, something great is coming, something beyond our wildest expectation is coming. It is right around the corner. God has spoken a Word of love, made it real, and set it in our lives. It is an incarnate, an en-fleshed Word of justice, mercy, and restoration. His name is Jesus.
“Who knows!” Tony sings, “Maybe tonight . . . ” The message of John is “maybe today!” And this is a message worth waiting patiently for; this is a message worth our preparation. Someone great is coming, his name is Jesus.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit one God now and forever. Amen.
Additional resources:
“The Christian Century,” November 29, 2005, pg. 22.
“Preaching and Worshiping in Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany,” pg. 108.
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04 December 2011 Wilderness Survival Mark 1:1-8
04 December 2011 Wilderness Survival Mark 1:1-8
I admit to a wave of nostalgia every time I hear the old 60’s protest song, “Abraham, Martin, and John.” It may sound familiar, “Has anybody here seen my old friend John? Can you tell me where he’s gone? He freed a lot of people but it seems the good die young. I just look around and he’s gone.” The song, first recorded by Dion, is a tribute to the memories of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John and Robert Kennedy.
“My old friend John” refers to the late President John F. Kennedy. But I wonder if during this second week of Advent we might consider a reference instead to John the baptizer? Has anyone here seen our old friend John? The one who first appeared in the wilderness.
Perhaps John is someone like Jason Cole, the associate pastor at Parkway Baptist Church in Natchez, Mississippi who happened to answer the phone when National Public Radio called in late September 2005, and he spoke for the heroism of a church that was in its fourth week of providing shelter to hundreds of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
Jason reported, “We have said several times during our worship services that we don’t want to go back to being ‘normal.’ People have stepped up to be involved in ministering to people. We have seen a lot less self-centeredness and a lot more servant hood. We’ve grown very close to the people taking shelter at the church; we’ve loved them as if they were our own family.”
Pastor Cole and his congregation have learned a valuable lesson. In the midst of providing Christian witness to people who were taken from the comfort of their homes and their cities by a fierce force of nature and then thrown into a place of desperate isolation without resources, a strange and imposing wilderness, both groups have answered the Advent call and are preparing the way of the Lord. Normal will never be the same normal again. Jesus’ path has been made straight.
In the midst of a violent wilderness, peace and tranquility had a chance to overcome sin. Repentance was given a chance in the form of the challenge to provide for those in desperate need. Repentance was given a chance in the form of the challenge to accept assistance from that desperation.
I wonder, where has our friend John the Baptist gone now? The one proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
John is Jesus’ break out prophet. He lived in Judea and had close contacts with the wilderness where he began his public ministry by proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. In obedience to the words of Isaiah, John was in the wilderness crying; “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
The wilderness of Judea was the center of religious hope as well as a place of refuge. It was the symbol of the wilderness in which God had led his people for forty years before bringing them to the Promised Land. In the wilderness, the way of the Lord was to be made straight, and some believed the Messiah would first appear there. Jesus had been baptized by John in the Jordan River. He did not really have any sins to confess. He was baptized as a sign that he was willing to obey God fully.
Following his baptism, Jesus remained in the wilderness for forty days. His waiting represents a period of waiting upon the Lord, a period of temptation and discipline corresponding to the forty-year period of preparation Israel spent in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land. Sounds like an Advent time doesn’t it?
From my earliest recollection I have this image of our John as that of a wild man. He looks and sounds like a hairy fire and brimstone preacher, whose breath smells of locust and honey. Not a likely candidate to attract us to baptism, I dare say, especially if we have to go to the wilderness to find him.
The wilderness. Just speaking it brings thoughts not to dissimilar to those of John. Wild looking, wild acting, unpredictable and potentially dangerous. The wilderness can be a very dangerous place.
As we sit here this morning in the comfort of our sanctuary, I do wonder, where is our friend John? The one who freed a lot of people. The one who told us that Jesus, who is more powerful, is coming after him.
About this time of year Christmas begins to take our attention from such questions whether we want it to or not. Christmas certainly isn’t the enemy here. But the preparation for Christmas with lights, sales, parties and Christmas cards is not the sort of preparation the gospel calls us too this Advent season. Admittedly, for many of us, the holiday preparation becomes a real distraction from our Christian witness.
But we are here and our minds, hopefully, have the time for the question. Where is our friend John? It seems he has left us. We won’t find him rushing about town at Wal-Mart or Target. John’s words of repentance, his good news preached in the wilderness doesn’t sell well in the days before Christmas at the shopping mall. Christmas and the shopping mall are normal for us. We know what to get there. Presents and stuff. Gifts for loved ones and ourselves too.
But John is not at the mall. John offers something the mall doesn’t offer. What John offers we can only get in the wilderness where the message is different. Something quite different.
John promised that someone was coming, someone so spectacular that it was not enough simply to hang around waiting for him to arrive. No, this is no pre-Christmas sales line to get in. But, it is time to get ready, to prepare the way in our hearts, our minds and our actions, so that when he comes he can walk a straight path right to our doors.
This is the good news John brings. Yet, one of the striking things about John is, he was not near a church or synagogue. He was in the wilderness and only those willing to go there were able to taste his freedom.
I suspect John the Baptist would not be welcome in most churches today. He wouldn’t be affirming, sensitive, or inclusive. He’d peak out loudly and forcefully and tell us to mend our ways. His message is short, unmistakable, and simple: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Admittedly his message is inconvenient. It is demanding. Most of us would rather forget it. But this message is the key to our completely new life. That is why crowds poured out of Jerusalem to hear John’s preaching. They confessed their sins to John and begged him to baptize them.
For his part, Jesus did not seek the counsel of a scribe or Pharisee – Jesus turned instead to John. His counsel was to baptize Jesus and open his life to receive the Holy Spirit. That was John’s counsel.
Advent reminds us that the Christian life means “living toward a vision.” That vision revealed to us at Christmas only means something when we see it as part of the larger story, God’s story. From Abraham and Sarah, to David, to Isaiah, to Peter and Paul, our faith has always strained forward to God’s future, God’s vision. The Christian community is always a waiting, longing, hoping people, looking beyond the horizon of the daily news to a God who has great plans for the creation.
Advent hope isn’t some pleasantry that sets us nodding off in our Christian comfort zone. People of hope don’t just shrug their shoulders at violence or injustice, or AIDS, or the poverty in our own community, or people displaced by hurricane or wildfire or economic collapse. People who walk in the light of the Biblical hope refuse to accept the world as it is, normal, because they cannot forget the vision of what it will be. Every time we reject violence, or feed the hungry, or hug those who weep, or work for reconciliation, we are living toward the vision, we are walking in its light.
Jim Wallis the founder of the Sojourner’s community says, “The new order of the kingdom is breaking in upon you and, if you want to be a part of it, you will need to undergo a fundamental transformation . . . God’s new order is so radically different from everything we are accustomed to that we must be spiritually remade before we are ready and equipped to participate in it.”
Perhaps it is time we consider the wilderness before us. Rhonda Van Dyke Colby tells a story of meeting John the Baptist one day at the Kmart. Kmart can be a scary place. Her John the Baptist was in the person of a disheveled man, a bit wild in the eyes, standing on the corner at the entrance to the store. He held a sign made out of a torn-up cardboard box. It read, “It’s time for a change.”
Once inside Rhonda didn’t think about him again. On her way out she heard someone ringing a bell, thinking it was the Salvation Army she turned to see her John the Baptist ringing the bell and still holding his sign, “It’s time for a change.”
‘Nice sign,’ she said as she reached in her purse for some change.’ Are you prepared,’ he asked her. ‘Well,’ she replied, ‘not yet. That’s what all these packages are about. I’ve got a lot of decorating to do, and my husband and I have our annual Christmas open house, and I haven’t even started baking. It’s more than a little overwhelming. So, I’ve started a list of things I simply must do to be prepared.’
‘Let me help you,’ he said. ‘Let me help you take your packages to your car. Then I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.’ When Rhonda opened the car door he saw her daily planner and said, ‘better bring that with you.’
Back in the snack bar at the store he leafed his way through my life – my lists and schedule. Most of the time, he just shook his head. Then he brightened up. ‘O.K. here is something I like. Get rid of clutter. Clear a path. Tell me about that,’ he asked.
I explained the den was stacked with boxes of Christmas decoration and I needed time to sort out the Santa place mats from the nativity scenes and clear a path through the den. He was clearly disappointed.
When he had finished he turned to a new page and with his old pencil stub he wrote, ‘Do List, number 1, hold a baby.’ Before I could ask him to explain I heard a woman let out a squeal. Her toddler had crawled under a table and was about to bump his head. Without a word, she passed me her newborn to hold as she ran after her little crawler. For a moment I wasn’t in Kmart but in Bethlehem. The tiny hand was the hand that would reach out to embrace the cosmos.
I looked back at my planner and saw Number 2, ‘Wonder.’ Wonder? Wonder what? Wonder why God chose a helpless little baby to bring salvation into a hostile world. Wonder why after thousands of years we still haven’t gotten the message. Wonder when Christ will come again.
I looked back at my planner and saw Number 3, ‘Look to the Stars.’ What did that mean? As I walked out of the store I looked up to see a clear sky, full of stars. There were thousands of them. They took my breath.
There in the parking lot, looking into the night sky, I had a strong sense that I had been looking in the wrong place for Christmas. I had been too busy rushing around to look up. I had been so busy worrying about what I had to do that I forgot to appreciate what had already been done for me. I had been so preoccupied with following the crowd that I had neglected to follow a star.
No matter how your Advent season is going so far, it is not too late. Not too late to hold a child, to wonder, to look up, to follow a star. It is not too late for a change. I learned it the night I met John the Baptist at the Kmart.”
The child is coming. Advent is our time to search for our John the Baptist. Advent is our time to find our real star. And thanks be to God, Advent is our time to be found by that baby who will come to be born in a manger.
I pray during this time of expectation our gracious Lord God will open our eyes and open our ears and open our hearts so we will not miss the miracle that awaits us. So that once found, we will walk in his way this day and for ever more.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit one God now and forever. Amen
Additional resource:
Lectionary Homiletics, volume XVII, Number 1, p. 11.
120411.gpc
I admit to a wave of nostalgia every time I hear the old 60’s protest song, “Abraham, Martin, and John.” It may sound familiar, “Has anybody here seen my old friend John? Can you tell me where he’s gone? He freed a lot of people but it seems the good die young. I just look around and he’s gone.” The song, first recorded by Dion, is a tribute to the memories of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John and Robert Kennedy.
“My old friend John” refers to the late President John F. Kennedy. But I wonder if during this second week of Advent we might consider a reference instead to John the baptizer? Has anyone here seen our old friend John? The one who first appeared in the wilderness.
Perhaps John is someone like Jason Cole, the associate pastor at Parkway Baptist Church in Natchez, Mississippi who happened to answer the phone when National Public Radio called in late September 2005, and he spoke for the heroism of a church that was in its fourth week of providing shelter to hundreds of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
Jason reported, “We have said several times during our worship services that we don’t want to go back to being ‘normal.’ People have stepped up to be involved in ministering to people. We have seen a lot less self-centeredness and a lot more servant hood. We’ve grown very close to the people taking shelter at the church; we’ve loved them as if they were our own family.”
Pastor Cole and his congregation have learned a valuable lesson. In the midst of providing Christian witness to people who were taken from the comfort of their homes and their cities by a fierce force of nature and then thrown into a place of desperate isolation without resources, a strange and imposing wilderness, both groups have answered the Advent call and are preparing the way of the Lord. Normal will never be the same normal again. Jesus’ path has been made straight.
In the midst of a violent wilderness, peace and tranquility had a chance to overcome sin. Repentance was given a chance in the form of the challenge to provide for those in desperate need. Repentance was given a chance in the form of the challenge to accept assistance from that desperation.
I wonder, where has our friend John the Baptist gone now? The one proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
John is Jesus’ break out prophet. He lived in Judea and had close contacts with the wilderness where he began his public ministry by proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. In obedience to the words of Isaiah, John was in the wilderness crying; “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
The wilderness of Judea was the center of religious hope as well as a place of refuge. It was the symbol of the wilderness in which God had led his people for forty years before bringing them to the Promised Land. In the wilderness, the way of the Lord was to be made straight, and some believed the Messiah would first appear there. Jesus had been baptized by John in the Jordan River. He did not really have any sins to confess. He was baptized as a sign that he was willing to obey God fully.
Following his baptism, Jesus remained in the wilderness for forty days. His waiting represents a period of waiting upon the Lord, a period of temptation and discipline corresponding to the forty-year period of preparation Israel spent in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land. Sounds like an Advent time doesn’t it?
From my earliest recollection I have this image of our John as that of a wild man. He looks and sounds like a hairy fire and brimstone preacher, whose breath smells of locust and honey. Not a likely candidate to attract us to baptism, I dare say, especially if we have to go to the wilderness to find him.
The wilderness. Just speaking it brings thoughts not to dissimilar to those of John. Wild looking, wild acting, unpredictable and potentially dangerous. The wilderness can be a very dangerous place.
As we sit here this morning in the comfort of our sanctuary, I do wonder, where is our friend John? The one who freed a lot of people. The one who told us that Jesus, who is more powerful, is coming after him.
About this time of year Christmas begins to take our attention from such questions whether we want it to or not. Christmas certainly isn’t the enemy here. But the preparation for Christmas with lights, sales, parties and Christmas cards is not the sort of preparation the gospel calls us too this Advent season. Admittedly, for many of us, the holiday preparation becomes a real distraction from our Christian witness.
But we are here and our minds, hopefully, have the time for the question. Where is our friend John? It seems he has left us. We won’t find him rushing about town at Wal-Mart or Target. John’s words of repentance, his good news preached in the wilderness doesn’t sell well in the days before Christmas at the shopping mall. Christmas and the shopping mall are normal for us. We know what to get there. Presents and stuff. Gifts for loved ones and ourselves too.
But John is not at the mall. John offers something the mall doesn’t offer. What John offers we can only get in the wilderness where the message is different. Something quite different.
John promised that someone was coming, someone so spectacular that it was not enough simply to hang around waiting for him to arrive. No, this is no pre-Christmas sales line to get in. But, it is time to get ready, to prepare the way in our hearts, our minds and our actions, so that when he comes he can walk a straight path right to our doors.
This is the good news John brings. Yet, one of the striking things about John is, he was not near a church or synagogue. He was in the wilderness and only those willing to go there were able to taste his freedom.
I suspect John the Baptist would not be welcome in most churches today. He wouldn’t be affirming, sensitive, or inclusive. He’d peak out loudly and forcefully and tell us to mend our ways. His message is short, unmistakable, and simple: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Admittedly his message is inconvenient. It is demanding. Most of us would rather forget it. But this message is the key to our completely new life. That is why crowds poured out of Jerusalem to hear John’s preaching. They confessed their sins to John and begged him to baptize them.
For his part, Jesus did not seek the counsel of a scribe or Pharisee – Jesus turned instead to John. His counsel was to baptize Jesus and open his life to receive the Holy Spirit. That was John’s counsel.
Advent reminds us that the Christian life means “living toward a vision.” That vision revealed to us at Christmas only means something when we see it as part of the larger story, God’s story. From Abraham and Sarah, to David, to Isaiah, to Peter and Paul, our faith has always strained forward to God’s future, God’s vision. The Christian community is always a waiting, longing, hoping people, looking beyond the horizon of the daily news to a God who has great plans for the creation.
Advent hope isn’t some pleasantry that sets us nodding off in our Christian comfort zone. People of hope don’t just shrug their shoulders at violence or injustice, or AIDS, or the poverty in our own community, or people displaced by hurricane or wildfire or economic collapse. People who walk in the light of the Biblical hope refuse to accept the world as it is, normal, because they cannot forget the vision of what it will be. Every time we reject violence, or feed the hungry, or hug those who weep, or work for reconciliation, we are living toward the vision, we are walking in its light.
Jim Wallis the founder of the Sojourner’s community says, “The new order of the kingdom is breaking in upon you and, if you want to be a part of it, you will need to undergo a fundamental transformation . . . God’s new order is so radically different from everything we are accustomed to that we must be spiritually remade before we are ready and equipped to participate in it.”
Perhaps it is time we consider the wilderness before us. Rhonda Van Dyke Colby tells a story of meeting John the Baptist one day at the Kmart. Kmart can be a scary place. Her John the Baptist was in the person of a disheveled man, a bit wild in the eyes, standing on the corner at the entrance to the store. He held a sign made out of a torn-up cardboard box. It read, “It’s time for a change.”
Once inside Rhonda didn’t think about him again. On her way out she heard someone ringing a bell, thinking it was the Salvation Army she turned to see her John the Baptist ringing the bell and still holding his sign, “It’s time for a change.”
‘Nice sign,’ she said as she reached in her purse for some change.’ Are you prepared,’ he asked her. ‘Well,’ she replied, ‘not yet. That’s what all these packages are about. I’ve got a lot of decorating to do, and my husband and I have our annual Christmas open house, and I haven’t even started baking. It’s more than a little overwhelming. So, I’ve started a list of things I simply must do to be prepared.’
‘Let me help you,’ he said. ‘Let me help you take your packages to your car. Then I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.’ When Rhonda opened the car door he saw her daily planner and said, ‘better bring that with you.’
Back in the snack bar at the store he leafed his way through my life – my lists and schedule. Most of the time, he just shook his head. Then he brightened up. ‘O.K. here is something I like. Get rid of clutter. Clear a path. Tell me about that,’ he asked.
I explained the den was stacked with boxes of Christmas decoration and I needed time to sort out the Santa place mats from the nativity scenes and clear a path through the den. He was clearly disappointed.
When he had finished he turned to a new page and with his old pencil stub he wrote, ‘Do List, number 1, hold a baby.’ Before I could ask him to explain I heard a woman let out a squeal. Her toddler had crawled under a table and was about to bump his head. Without a word, she passed me her newborn to hold as she ran after her little crawler. For a moment I wasn’t in Kmart but in Bethlehem. The tiny hand was the hand that would reach out to embrace the cosmos.
I looked back at my planner and saw Number 2, ‘Wonder.’ Wonder? Wonder what? Wonder why God chose a helpless little baby to bring salvation into a hostile world. Wonder why after thousands of years we still haven’t gotten the message. Wonder when Christ will come again.
I looked back at my planner and saw Number 3, ‘Look to the Stars.’ What did that mean? As I walked out of the store I looked up to see a clear sky, full of stars. There were thousands of them. They took my breath.
There in the parking lot, looking into the night sky, I had a strong sense that I had been looking in the wrong place for Christmas. I had been too busy rushing around to look up. I had been so busy worrying about what I had to do that I forgot to appreciate what had already been done for me. I had been so preoccupied with following the crowd that I had neglected to follow a star.
No matter how your Advent season is going so far, it is not too late. Not too late to hold a child, to wonder, to look up, to follow a star. It is not too late for a change. I learned it the night I met John the Baptist at the Kmart.”
The child is coming. Advent is our time to search for our John the Baptist. Advent is our time to find our real star. And thanks be to God, Advent is our time to be found by that baby who will come to be born in a manger.
I pray during this time of expectation our gracious Lord God will open our eyes and open our ears and open our hearts so we will not miss the miracle that awaits us. So that once found, we will walk in his way this day and for ever more.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit one God now and forever. Amen
Additional resource:
Lectionary Homiletics, volume XVII, Number 1, p. 11.
120411.gpc
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
27 November 2011 The Awakening Mark 13:24-37
Do you sense the irony of Advent? We are to begin our personal preparation for everything the coming of the Lord means, as somehow we recover from the season of Thanksgiving, only to be Black Friday-ed to Christmas.
We are preparing all right. We are trying to figure out how we will get the family together this year. We are needing to know what is on everyone’s Christmas list. We are worried how we will find time to clean the house and cook cinnamon breads and pecan tassies, or whatever it is we make just for Christmas. The sheer weight of the preparation directed at Thanksgiving and now to Christmas leaves little, if any, time for preparing for the coming of the Lord. Or, is it just me.
In the midst of our hectic holiday preparation Marks gospel message to us is this, ‘keep awake.’ Keep awake. Seriously. We are so tired we fall into bed and cannot will ourselves to fall asleep. So, here we are this morning. Tired and just a little bit cranky. Or, is it just me.
Mark really does paint a pretty harsh picture of our coming future. The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give us light, the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. The Son of Man comes in the clouds with great power and glory and the angels begin to gather his elect from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. I would say from these accounts creation is pretty well done and only our judgment awaits us.
It sounds like Mark is wedging into these holidays has story of the coming of the end of the world and of human history. The Greek word for this is apocalypse. It’s translated as an uncovering or revealing of the end of the world.
On the other hand, Mark’s gospel insists the message to us is one of comfort and hope. When we see these things, we need to know a rebirth is coming. A transformation is on the way. A change to fulfill the words of the Lord is upon us. This rebirth foretells the second coming of our Savior, Jesus of Nazareth.
We may wonder, why didn’t Mark just say so! Why all this end of the world as we know it stuff? We can breathe a little easier now. Better things are to come.
Of course, before we become too relaxed, Jesus tells us only the Father, God in heaven, knows the day or hour for Jesus’ return. And lest we forget, Jesus will return for the judgment and the gathering of his elect.
So, beware and keep alert is the gospel message this morning. Be aware and be alert. The doorkeeper for the Lord is commanded to be on watch. Therefore, keep awake, or we may be found asleep when Jesus comes. His coming will be sudden. And what is said to us is said to all: Keep awake.
We do sense there is more at play here. Jesus is calling us to be more than just awake. Being awake alone requires nothing more than just not being asleep. Instead, our state of wakefulness must be filled with living. Let us be careful, however, that the living we fill our life with is on the surface and in the depths more than rote, scripted meaningless formality. More than Thanksgiving gatherings and Black Fridays. If our joy is found only in the events, milestones, or miscellaneous trappings of our life, we may need this Advent season more than we realize.
We come into this world not knowing much. We spend our lifetime trying to figure out the facts of life, the meaning of life, trying to learn how to live in the real world. Early on, things are not too complicated for us. Food, clothing, shelter, a dry diaper, a full belly, a warm bed to sleep in.
Later, when we mature, we discover there are boundaries to what we call the facts, the truth, the world as it is. That is when complications arise. We discover our world view is limited. Limited to where and when and with whom we are raised.
This limit becomes obvious when we journey outside our boundaries. We no longer find ourselves to be like everyone we know. We discover a place or truth or awareness or person who could never fit in and be like everyone we know. This is when we have our first glimpse of the possibility of something else, something new, something different about life.
We should always wonder and never think we have known all there is to know. We should ask. What else is there? What is possible? What may be new and different about life? What other way is there to live?
If, like Jack, we climb up the beanstalk, and find a world ruled by a giant, good or evil, would we come down the beanstalk any different than when we went up? I dare say we would!
If we then wonder, why me Lord, consider instead, why NOT me Lord? Why do we think life can be filled with predictable and scripted living without regard for the possibility of something more?
The truth of this morning’s gospel is this, life cannot wait for us to discover or be discovered for something more. We know judgment is coming. During advent this message comes to us loud and clear. Someone new is coming into our lives.
In preparing us for the coming of God in human form, God calls out the major players to get our attention. And what a better, if unwelcome, wake-up call than Isaiah proclaiming in 64:6 that “we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.” And then God sends us Jesus.
Advent means preparing ourselves to celebrate not only the birth of Jesus but his second coming too. Life cannot wait for us to come to terms with our un-righteous righteous deeds. We know not the hour or the day!
Think, therefore, of Advent as a glorious ‘in between’ time. A time between one event that has already happened, the first coming, the birth of the Messiah, and another event yet to happen, a second coming. A time for possibilities understood and real change. It is a time for transformation. For cleansing our filthy cloth. Advent wakes us to a rebirth, a rebirth through a life of change brought about by the Holy Spirit and our entrance into the eternal family of God in the judgment of the second coming.
How then do we, as the church and as followers and friends of Jesus, wait during this in-between time? I’m not sure. Clearly life does go on despite our questioning, our anxiety, or lack of preparedness. Do we just take it easy, kick back biding our time until judgment day? I think not.
The truth is it is hard to wait. The expected end time begins to dim in our minds, we loose the motivation, we do not feel the expectant excitement or worry that the time is near. We do not know the day or time like we did for Thanksgiving and like we do for Christmas.
In our waiting malaise we may even forget what we are waiting for. When we’ve been waiting for something a long while, it can be difficult to continue living with expectancy.
Expectancy of what, we wonder. We certainly have experienced reliving Jesus’ birth through the centuries. How then do we go from this known event, Jesus’ birth celebrated at Christmas, to an unknown event, his second coming and judgment? Again, I’m not sure.
We do not have first-hand experience of such a coming. Yet, how we wait is important. How we wait becomes our link with expectancy. It does matter what we do during the ‘in-between’ time. If not to us, then to Jesus.
Ruth Patterson sees this in-between time as a threshold time, a thin time, as if the veil between what we see and touch and know and the unseen world of wonder, of spiritual reality, is very fine and at any moment could be lifted. Perhaps knowing this, that the veil will be lifted at any moment, is just the thread we need to keep us guessing how we should live right now.
Patterson suggests we consider one of two waiting ways. One passively the other passionately. Passive waiting seems safest but there is something to consider in passionate living.
It is easy to know what we are passionate about. If we simply look at our life and be honest with ourselves about those things we do again and again, those things we cannot leave alone, those things we spend most of our time with, we will know our passion. Do we have routines, habits, hobbies, or past times that keep our interest day after day, that keep us feeling alive? There lies our passion.
The expected passion for us Christians is to live passionately for Jesus Christ. In our routines, habits, hobbies and past times are we known to be in a relationship with Jesus? If we are waiting passionately, living in Christ, then we are going to stay alert and keep watch, ready to pick up any sign of what God is doing, and to join in, to cooperate with God. If we have a passion for God, then that passion must translate itself into a shared compassion for others, a yearning and an aching to see a world where justice and right relationships prevail, and a willingness to become makers rather than simply lovers of peace.
The title of Eugene Peterson’s book, “Christ plays in ten thousand places,” comes from a poem by Gerard Manly Hopkins called, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire.” It ends with these words:
For Christ plays in ten thousand
Places,
Lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes
Not his
To the Father through the features
Of men’s faces.
In this poem we here that Christ plays through the limbs and the eyes of our faces. Christ plays through us. As we play, Christ plays. We have become Jesus’ passion.
Peterson’s book is about spiritual theology. Theology is the attention we give to God, knowing God is revealed in the Scriptures and in Jesus Christ. Spiritual is the insistence that everything that God reveals is capable of being lived by ordinary people passionately.
When we are living our Christian ‘in-between’ time we would benefit from joining our revealed knowledge of God with the practical knowledge that what God reveals is to be lived by each of us in Christ-like passion. For Peterson, spiritual theology is the attention we give to the details of living life in the way of Christ.
This is how we are to live during this time in-between Jesus’ first birth and his second coming. Living because of God, living in and with God, living to the glory of God.
Peterson says, “The end of all Christian belief and obedience, witness and teaching, marriage and family, leisure and work life, preaching and pastoral work is the living of everything we know about God.”
Christ, the God-revealing Christ, is always ‘playing’ in all of life. Christ plays in creation, in history, and in the continuing community of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord Jesus Christ’s desire is for you and me and everything around us to get in on the playfulness of living in relationship with Christ.
With this truth before us, every day is Advent. We are on the threshold of so much. God is pointing to countless doors of opportunity to share his good news. God has equipped us for these opportunities with every spiritual gift we need as we live and wait for the return of Jesus. So, there are no excuses for our malaise, our forgetfulness, our falling asleep or for giving up any hope of Christ’s return.
Jesus entreats us this morning, in his absence, to be on the watch. To be on the watch filled all the while with passionate living. A passionate living that helps us to truly be Advent people, to live as we have been called to live, to make special preparations to welcome the Beloved, for maybe, just maybe, he will come earlier than we expect. Maybe, just maybe Jesus will come to us today and reveal his love for us, looking for our passionate love in return.
Be therefore awake, dear ones, be awake.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit one God now and forever. Amen 112711.gpc
We are preparing all right. We are trying to figure out how we will get the family together this year. We are needing to know what is on everyone’s Christmas list. We are worried how we will find time to clean the house and cook cinnamon breads and pecan tassies, or whatever it is we make just for Christmas. The sheer weight of the preparation directed at Thanksgiving and now to Christmas leaves little, if any, time for preparing for the coming of the Lord. Or, is it just me.
In the midst of our hectic holiday preparation Marks gospel message to us is this, ‘keep awake.’ Keep awake. Seriously. We are so tired we fall into bed and cannot will ourselves to fall asleep. So, here we are this morning. Tired and just a little bit cranky. Or, is it just me.
Mark really does paint a pretty harsh picture of our coming future. The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give us light, the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. The Son of Man comes in the clouds with great power and glory and the angels begin to gather his elect from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. I would say from these accounts creation is pretty well done and only our judgment awaits us.
It sounds like Mark is wedging into these holidays has story of the coming of the end of the world and of human history. The Greek word for this is apocalypse. It’s translated as an uncovering or revealing of the end of the world.
On the other hand, Mark’s gospel insists the message to us is one of comfort and hope. When we see these things, we need to know a rebirth is coming. A transformation is on the way. A change to fulfill the words of the Lord is upon us. This rebirth foretells the second coming of our Savior, Jesus of Nazareth.
We may wonder, why didn’t Mark just say so! Why all this end of the world as we know it stuff? We can breathe a little easier now. Better things are to come.
Of course, before we become too relaxed, Jesus tells us only the Father, God in heaven, knows the day or hour for Jesus’ return. And lest we forget, Jesus will return for the judgment and the gathering of his elect.
So, beware and keep alert is the gospel message this morning. Be aware and be alert. The doorkeeper for the Lord is commanded to be on watch. Therefore, keep awake, or we may be found asleep when Jesus comes. His coming will be sudden. And what is said to us is said to all: Keep awake.
We do sense there is more at play here. Jesus is calling us to be more than just awake. Being awake alone requires nothing more than just not being asleep. Instead, our state of wakefulness must be filled with living. Let us be careful, however, that the living we fill our life with is on the surface and in the depths more than rote, scripted meaningless formality. More than Thanksgiving gatherings and Black Fridays. If our joy is found only in the events, milestones, or miscellaneous trappings of our life, we may need this Advent season more than we realize.
We come into this world not knowing much. We spend our lifetime trying to figure out the facts of life, the meaning of life, trying to learn how to live in the real world. Early on, things are not too complicated for us. Food, clothing, shelter, a dry diaper, a full belly, a warm bed to sleep in.
Later, when we mature, we discover there are boundaries to what we call the facts, the truth, the world as it is. That is when complications arise. We discover our world view is limited. Limited to where and when and with whom we are raised.
This limit becomes obvious when we journey outside our boundaries. We no longer find ourselves to be like everyone we know. We discover a place or truth or awareness or person who could never fit in and be like everyone we know. This is when we have our first glimpse of the possibility of something else, something new, something different about life.
We should always wonder and never think we have known all there is to know. We should ask. What else is there? What is possible? What may be new and different about life? What other way is there to live?
If, like Jack, we climb up the beanstalk, and find a world ruled by a giant, good or evil, would we come down the beanstalk any different than when we went up? I dare say we would!
If we then wonder, why me Lord, consider instead, why NOT me Lord? Why do we think life can be filled with predictable and scripted living without regard for the possibility of something more?
The truth of this morning’s gospel is this, life cannot wait for us to discover or be discovered for something more. We know judgment is coming. During advent this message comes to us loud and clear. Someone new is coming into our lives.
In preparing us for the coming of God in human form, God calls out the major players to get our attention. And what a better, if unwelcome, wake-up call than Isaiah proclaiming in 64:6 that “we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.” And then God sends us Jesus.
Advent means preparing ourselves to celebrate not only the birth of Jesus but his second coming too. Life cannot wait for us to come to terms with our un-righteous righteous deeds. We know not the hour or the day!
Think, therefore, of Advent as a glorious ‘in between’ time. A time between one event that has already happened, the first coming, the birth of the Messiah, and another event yet to happen, a second coming. A time for possibilities understood and real change. It is a time for transformation. For cleansing our filthy cloth. Advent wakes us to a rebirth, a rebirth through a life of change brought about by the Holy Spirit and our entrance into the eternal family of God in the judgment of the second coming.
How then do we, as the church and as followers and friends of Jesus, wait during this in-between time? I’m not sure. Clearly life does go on despite our questioning, our anxiety, or lack of preparedness. Do we just take it easy, kick back biding our time until judgment day? I think not.
The truth is it is hard to wait. The expected end time begins to dim in our minds, we loose the motivation, we do not feel the expectant excitement or worry that the time is near. We do not know the day or time like we did for Thanksgiving and like we do for Christmas.
In our waiting malaise we may even forget what we are waiting for. When we’ve been waiting for something a long while, it can be difficult to continue living with expectancy.
Expectancy of what, we wonder. We certainly have experienced reliving Jesus’ birth through the centuries. How then do we go from this known event, Jesus’ birth celebrated at Christmas, to an unknown event, his second coming and judgment? Again, I’m not sure.
We do not have first-hand experience of such a coming. Yet, how we wait is important. How we wait becomes our link with expectancy. It does matter what we do during the ‘in-between’ time. If not to us, then to Jesus.
Ruth Patterson sees this in-between time as a threshold time, a thin time, as if the veil between what we see and touch and know and the unseen world of wonder, of spiritual reality, is very fine and at any moment could be lifted. Perhaps knowing this, that the veil will be lifted at any moment, is just the thread we need to keep us guessing how we should live right now.
Patterson suggests we consider one of two waiting ways. One passively the other passionately. Passive waiting seems safest but there is something to consider in passionate living.
It is easy to know what we are passionate about. If we simply look at our life and be honest with ourselves about those things we do again and again, those things we cannot leave alone, those things we spend most of our time with, we will know our passion. Do we have routines, habits, hobbies, or past times that keep our interest day after day, that keep us feeling alive? There lies our passion.
The expected passion for us Christians is to live passionately for Jesus Christ. In our routines, habits, hobbies and past times are we known to be in a relationship with Jesus? If we are waiting passionately, living in Christ, then we are going to stay alert and keep watch, ready to pick up any sign of what God is doing, and to join in, to cooperate with God. If we have a passion for God, then that passion must translate itself into a shared compassion for others, a yearning and an aching to see a world where justice and right relationships prevail, and a willingness to become makers rather than simply lovers of peace.
The title of Eugene Peterson’s book, “Christ plays in ten thousand places,” comes from a poem by Gerard Manly Hopkins called, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire.” It ends with these words:
For Christ plays in ten thousand
Places,
Lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes
Not his
To the Father through the features
Of men’s faces.
In this poem we here that Christ plays through the limbs and the eyes of our faces. Christ plays through us. As we play, Christ plays. We have become Jesus’ passion.
Peterson’s book is about spiritual theology. Theology is the attention we give to God, knowing God is revealed in the Scriptures and in Jesus Christ. Spiritual is the insistence that everything that God reveals is capable of being lived by ordinary people passionately.
When we are living our Christian ‘in-between’ time we would benefit from joining our revealed knowledge of God with the practical knowledge that what God reveals is to be lived by each of us in Christ-like passion. For Peterson, spiritual theology is the attention we give to the details of living life in the way of Christ.
This is how we are to live during this time in-between Jesus’ first birth and his second coming. Living because of God, living in and with God, living to the glory of God.
Peterson says, “The end of all Christian belief and obedience, witness and teaching, marriage and family, leisure and work life, preaching and pastoral work is the living of everything we know about God.”
Christ, the God-revealing Christ, is always ‘playing’ in all of life. Christ plays in creation, in history, and in the continuing community of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord Jesus Christ’s desire is for you and me and everything around us to get in on the playfulness of living in relationship with Christ.
With this truth before us, every day is Advent. We are on the threshold of so much. God is pointing to countless doors of opportunity to share his good news. God has equipped us for these opportunities with every spiritual gift we need as we live and wait for the return of Jesus. So, there are no excuses for our malaise, our forgetfulness, our falling asleep or for giving up any hope of Christ’s return.
Jesus entreats us this morning, in his absence, to be on the watch. To be on the watch filled all the while with passionate living. A passionate living that helps us to truly be Advent people, to live as we have been called to live, to make special preparations to welcome the Beloved, for maybe, just maybe, he will come earlier than we expect. Maybe, just maybe Jesus will come to us today and reveal his love for us, looking for our passionate love in return.
Be therefore awake, dear ones, be awake.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit one God now and forever. Amen 112711.gpc
Sunday, November 20, 2011
20 November 2011 “Little Things Count” Matthew 25:31-46
20 November 2011 “Little Things Count” Matthew 25:31-46
You may remember we enjoy reading mysteries at our house. One of my favorites is “Murder in the National Cathedral” by Margaret Truman. The setting for her book is the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. By all accounts it is a stunning place. It was built on the highest hill in town. It is adorned by towers that seem to reach to the heavens. The Cathedral has beautiful scrollwork, fancy finials, and wild looking gargoyles. It seems any church worth is salt has wild-looking gargoyles. One must keep the evil spirits away!
I have read there are three doors at the entrance with creation scenes carved into the arches above them: the birth of the moon is on the right side, the sun on the left, and in the middle, the first human beings emerge from the swirling waters of creation. Inside, the stained glass windows reach so high you may hurt your neck craning to see their top. And when the sun is bright you can walk under them through streams of sapphire, ruby, and emerald light that cover you as if you were walking through a rainbow.
At the high altar in the far back of the cathedral is where Jesus sits on his throne at the end of time. He is surrounded by the whole company of heaven as he balances the round earth on the palm of his hand like a piece of ripe fruit. Well, actually, it is not the real Jesus. It is an image of Christ the King, preparing to judge the world.
This is where we enter Matthew’s gospel this last Sunday of the Christian year. The feast of Christ the King. On this day Jesus is preparing to judge the world. Our judge happens to be the one who knows everything we have ever done. We might pray Jesus never writes a mystery novel with us as the main character.
I am told the National Cathedral has a sign over the cash register that says, “We may not have seen you take it, but God did”. Let there be no doubt whose house this is! We are so guilty!
Next Sunday is the first Sunday in Advent, with Christmas not to far behind. So, we just as well begin today to try and make that turn from hiding our true nature to our full acceptance into the heart of the gospel. For this season of new birth is about to begin.
Jesus has been telling us these past few weeks we need to be prepared because we do not know when our bridegroom, our king, our savior will come again. He has told us the importance of recognizing our inability to invest in this world on our own. And we hear this morning of our pending judgment before Christ our King.
Ezekiel brings us to this place by reminding us of our dependence on God for all things. We are so lost that God must take the trouble to find us and then rescue us. God said, “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, for I will judge the strong and the weak.”
This talk of judging, of sorting out the sheep, sounds frightening and worrisome. We have this flawed human belief that judgment is our job alone. The thought of being judged, especially by our God who sees all things and knows all things about us, should frighten us more than knowing Santa is always watching to see who has been naughty and nice.
Ezekiel calls us on this. Judgment belongs to God alone and God’s concerns are not our own. When God begins the sorting of the flock it is not to divide the good from the bad. God sees what we have refused to see. God is seeking out the weak.
Judgment in Matthew’s gospel, on the other hand, is a sobering account of the second coming. While Ezekiel warns us against claiming for ourselves tasks that belong to God, Mathew tells us that we are to take on other tasks on God’s behalf.
The judgment in Matthew speaks to what we are to do in the present, if we truly believe that Christ is among us. To really push us beyond our comfort zone, we are to act as if Christ is in other people, even the stranger, the prisoner, the sick and the hungry.
All too often this truth, that Christ is among us in that other person we come in contact with, produces a disappointing harshness in us. Fred Craddock, a gifted preacher, describes it as “the ability to look at a starving child…and say, ‘Well, it’s not my child.’ To look at a recent widow or widower and say, ‘it’s not my mom, it’s not my dad.’ It is within the capacity of the human spirit to look out upon the world and everything God made and say, I don’t care.”
It’s is really more than that. We cannot be complacent and think just because we have never said words like these we will be judged righteous. Remember, our action or inaction speaks louder than our words.
In our defense, we echo the gospel, “When was it that we saw you, Lord?” The beauty of this question is that it is asked by both the blessed and by the accursed. Being unaware of the good we have done or equally unaware that we have done something wrong, our question is the same. When was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick or in prison and did or did not take care of you?
We need not spend too much time trying to figure if we are sheep or goats. Matthew uses these animals to make a point. The sheepherder, Jesus, separates the sheep from the goats. The sheep are blessed and inherit the kingdom and eternal life. The goats are accursed and inherit the eternal fire and eternal punishment.
It really does not matter what image Matthew uses; wheat and tares, good seed and bad, wise maidens and foolish ones. What matters is we hear and know the gospel message that relationship with God is not a matter of having faith alone, but of doing faith.
What is difficult about Matthews point is life is never as clear cut as he makes it out to be. It is as if God waits for a moment like this and really turns up the heat.
If we travel to the National Cathedral in Washington we will be confronted with a lot of homeless people. We have people here in Austin who are homeless. That is not news to us. We have actually lived here long enough to begin to recognize them on their street corner. Perhaps you have helped them. Perhaps not. Either way, you may have asked yourself. Was that the right thing to do?
Matthew sounds like he knows. He seems so sure about what is right and what is wrong, about who is blessed and who is cursed. And in our anxiety about doing what is right, about being on God’s good side, we risk finding our motivation rooted in personal judgment. So we do a mental assessment. I need to help at least one person who is hungry, one who is thirsty, a stranger, one who is naked, one who is sick, and a prisoner. Now, isn’t that a bit much?
The truth is, we cannot make law out of the gospel. There is always a problem thinking we only need to do what the memo says in order to satisfy the boss; nothing more, nothing less. Sometimes doing the right thing has little to do with following the rules alone. Only God knows what is in our heart and what will be on the final exam.
In Matthew’s gospel both groups were totally baffled by their final grade. They did not even remember being tested! “When was it that we saw you” and acted or did not act. What had we done that was right, what had we done that was wrong? And when? We have not seen you. That is what we want to know too.
William Willmon, former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University and currently Bishop of the North Alabama conference of the United Methodist Church tells a story of having traveled to Haiti.
He says, “Haiti is a desperate country. It is one of the poorest nations in the world. The average life span is just over 40 years. Unemployment runs somewhere over 80 percent.
During my visit to the city of Port-au-Prince I met a little woman, in her sixties. Her name was Ruth. She had come from her native Wisconsin and went to work as a nurse in Haiti among the poor. Eventually, Ruth began collecting children off the street, children who had been abandoned because they were severely physically or mentally handicapped. Ruth, and her fellow workers, now have about 30 of these children in a home in the city. Most of them will live with her until they die, for there is no way they can ever live on their own.
They are organized into small families, where they are lovingly taken care of. Ruth finances her operation with funds from wherever she can get them, mostly from churches in the United States.
Smilingly, even enthusiastically, Ruth moves about her work, taking time to hug each child, praising them, calling each by name, many who can only lie in bed all of their lives. After their visit with Ruth and her home for children, one of the members of our team said, “I think I’ve been in the presence of a living saint.”
Ruth may not describe herself that way. She minimizes herself in her work. She said, “I just saw a need and tried to do what I could.” One person in the group asked her if she felt that her work was effective?
Ruth replied, “I try not to ask myself about effectiveness. I try to disciple myself to just do what I can do today, one child at a time, and let the Lord worry about tomorrow.”
It is important we notice, at the last judgment, Jesus did not say a word about effectiveness. His only question will be, did you feed those who were hungry? Did you visit those in jail?
We should all take comfort in this good news. In the end, we will not be judged on whether or not we were able to effect justice or to change the world. In our arrogance we forget, the world is not going to be changed by us, but by God.
If we go to a place like Haiti worrying about effectiveness, we probably won’t be there very long. If we find ourselves in front of a person gripped by addiction or pervasive poverty and we worry about effectiveness, we probably won’t be there very long either.
It is God’s job to worry about issues of effectiveness, long-term worth, and eternal value. It is our job to be faithful, to be, in our lives and deeds, an outpost of the kingdom, a guiding light in the storm of life, a credit to the king.
To this end, our job to be faithful is within our control. We can do our part for the gospel message, for the kingdom here and now and the kingdom to come. Thankfully, we need not look to change the world overnight. Small baby steps will do. The time spent visiting one afternoon, the card sent in sympathy to someone who is afraid or grieving, and yes, perhaps even a dollar or two to the homeless man or woman are the baby steps. The biggest surprise just may be that when we take these steps with these unsuspecting folk, Jesus counts everything done for them as if it had been done for him.
Supposing then that Jesus really is present in every single person whose path crosses ours, how do we live? What difference might that make? I don’t know, but I do know that we are being asked to wrestle with these questions, to let them challenge us and unsettle us. To perhaps for the first time actually see the person before us and look them in the eye knowing God may be returning our gaze. Then we will know what to do.
God sees what we may refuse to see, for God seeks the weak and lowly. And when the time comes to sort us out, those are the eyes that will meet our eyes, the eyes of the judge who sees, who knows and who loves us so much he lays down his life for us all. Our Christ IS King.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen
Resources:
“The Christian Century,” November 15, 2005, pg. 18.
“Lectionary Homiletics,” Volume XVI, Number 6.
“Pulpit Resource,” Volume 36, Number 4.
112011.gpc
You may remember we enjoy reading mysteries at our house. One of my favorites is “Murder in the National Cathedral” by Margaret Truman. The setting for her book is the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. By all accounts it is a stunning place. It was built on the highest hill in town. It is adorned by towers that seem to reach to the heavens. The Cathedral has beautiful scrollwork, fancy finials, and wild looking gargoyles. It seems any church worth is salt has wild-looking gargoyles. One must keep the evil spirits away!
I have read there are three doors at the entrance with creation scenes carved into the arches above them: the birth of the moon is on the right side, the sun on the left, and in the middle, the first human beings emerge from the swirling waters of creation. Inside, the stained glass windows reach so high you may hurt your neck craning to see their top. And when the sun is bright you can walk under them through streams of sapphire, ruby, and emerald light that cover you as if you were walking through a rainbow.
At the high altar in the far back of the cathedral is where Jesus sits on his throne at the end of time. He is surrounded by the whole company of heaven as he balances the round earth on the palm of his hand like a piece of ripe fruit. Well, actually, it is not the real Jesus. It is an image of Christ the King, preparing to judge the world.
This is where we enter Matthew’s gospel this last Sunday of the Christian year. The feast of Christ the King. On this day Jesus is preparing to judge the world. Our judge happens to be the one who knows everything we have ever done. We might pray Jesus never writes a mystery novel with us as the main character.
I am told the National Cathedral has a sign over the cash register that says, “We may not have seen you take it, but God did”. Let there be no doubt whose house this is! We are so guilty!
Next Sunday is the first Sunday in Advent, with Christmas not to far behind. So, we just as well begin today to try and make that turn from hiding our true nature to our full acceptance into the heart of the gospel. For this season of new birth is about to begin.
Jesus has been telling us these past few weeks we need to be prepared because we do not know when our bridegroom, our king, our savior will come again. He has told us the importance of recognizing our inability to invest in this world on our own. And we hear this morning of our pending judgment before Christ our King.
Ezekiel brings us to this place by reminding us of our dependence on God for all things. We are so lost that God must take the trouble to find us and then rescue us. God said, “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, for I will judge the strong and the weak.”
This talk of judging, of sorting out the sheep, sounds frightening and worrisome. We have this flawed human belief that judgment is our job alone. The thought of being judged, especially by our God who sees all things and knows all things about us, should frighten us more than knowing Santa is always watching to see who has been naughty and nice.
Ezekiel calls us on this. Judgment belongs to God alone and God’s concerns are not our own. When God begins the sorting of the flock it is not to divide the good from the bad. God sees what we have refused to see. God is seeking out the weak.
Judgment in Matthew’s gospel, on the other hand, is a sobering account of the second coming. While Ezekiel warns us against claiming for ourselves tasks that belong to God, Mathew tells us that we are to take on other tasks on God’s behalf.
The judgment in Matthew speaks to what we are to do in the present, if we truly believe that Christ is among us. To really push us beyond our comfort zone, we are to act as if Christ is in other people, even the stranger, the prisoner, the sick and the hungry.
All too often this truth, that Christ is among us in that other person we come in contact with, produces a disappointing harshness in us. Fred Craddock, a gifted preacher, describes it as “the ability to look at a starving child…and say, ‘Well, it’s not my child.’ To look at a recent widow or widower and say, ‘it’s not my mom, it’s not my dad.’ It is within the capacity of the human spirit to look out upon the world and everything God made and say, I don’t care.”
It’s is really more than that. We cannot be complacent and think just because we have never said words like these we will be judged righteous. Remember, our action or inaction speaks louder than our words.
In our defense, we echo the gospel, “When was it that we saw you, Lord?” The beauty of this question is that it is asked by both the blessed and by the accursed. Being unaware of the good we have done or equally unaware that we have done something wrong, our question is the same. When was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick or in prison and did or did not take care of you?
We need not spend too much time trying to figure if we are sheep or goats. Matthew uses these animals to make a point. The sheepherder, Jesus, separates the sheep from the goats. The sheep are blessed and inherit the kingdom and eternal life. The goats are accursed and inherit the eternal fire and eternal punishment.
It really does not matter what image Matthew uses; wheat and tares, good seed and bad, wise maidens and foolish ones. What matters is we hear and know the gospel message that relationship with God is not a matter of having faith alone, but of doing faith.
What is difficult about Matthews point is life is never as clear cut as he makes it out to be. It is as if God waits for a moment like this and really turns up the heat.
If we travel to the National Cathedral in Washington we will be confronted with a lot of homeless people. We have people here in Austin who are homeless. That is not news to us. We have actually lived here long enough to begin to recognize them on their street corner. Perhaps you have helped them. Perhaps not. Either way, you may have asked yourself. Was that the right thing to do?
Matthew sounds like he knows. He seems so sure about what is right and what is wrong, about who is blessed and who is cursed. And in our anxiety about doing what is right, about being on God’s good side, we risk finding our motivation rooted in personal judgment. So we do a mental assessment. I need to help at least one person who is hungry, one who is thirsty, a stranger, one who is naked, one who is sick, and a prisoner. Now, isn’t that a bit much?
The truth is, we cannot make law out of the gospel. There is always a problem thinking we only need to do what the memo says in order to satisfy the boss; nothing more, nothing less. Sometimes doing the right thing has little to do with following the rules alone. Only God knows what is in our heart and what will be on the final exam.
In Matthew’s gospel both groups were totally baffled by their final grade. They did not even remember being tested! “When was it that we saw you” and acted or did not act. What had we done that was right, what had we done that was wrong? And when? We have not seen you. That is what we want to know too.
William Willmon, former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University and currently Bishop of the North Alabama conference of the United Methodist Church tells a story of having traveled to Haiti.
He says, “Haiti is a desperate country. It is one of the poorest nations in the world. The average life span is just over 40 years. Unemployment runs somewhere over 80 percent.
During my visit to the city of Port-au-Prince I met a little woman, in her sixties. Her name was Ruth. She had come from her native Wisconsin and went to work as a nurse in Haiti among the poor. Eventually, Ruth began collecting children off the street, children who had been abandoned because they were severely physically or mentally handicapped. Ruth, and her fellow workers, now have about 30 of these children in a home in the city. Most of them will live with her until they die, for there is no way they can ever live on their own.
They are organized into small families, where they are lovingly taken care of. Ruth finances her operation with funds from wherever she can get them, mostly from churches in the United States.
Smilingly, even enthusiastically, Ruth moves about her work, taking time to hug each child, praising them, calling each by name, many who can only lie in bed all of their lives. After their visit with Ruth and her home for children, one of the members of our team said, “I think I’ve been in the presence of a living saint.”
Ruth may not describe herself that way. She minimizes herself in her work. She said, “I just saw a need and tried to do what I could.” One person in the group asked her if she felt that her work was effective?
Ruth replied, “I try not to ask myself about effectiveness. I try to disciple myself to just do what I can do today, one child at a time, and let the Lord worry about tomorrow.”
It is important we notice, at the last judgment, Jesus did not say a word about effectiveness. His only question will be, did you feed those who were hungry? Did you visit those in jail?
We should all take comfort in this good news. In the end, we will not be judged on whether or not we were able to effect justice or to change the world. In our arrogance we forget, the world is not going to be changed by us, but by God.
If we go to a place like Haiti worrying about effectiveness, we probably won’t be there very long. If we find ourselves in front of a person gripped by addiction or pervasive poverty and we worry about effectiveness, we probably won’t be there very long either.
It is God’s job to worry about issues of effectiveness, long-term worth, and eternal value. It is our job to be faithful, to be, in our lives and deeds, an outpost of the kingdom, a guiding light in the storm of life, a credit to the king.
To this end, our job to be faithful is within our control. We can do our part for the gospel message, for the kingdom here and now and the kingdom to come. Thankfully, we need not look to change the world overnight. Small baby steps will do. The time spent visiting one afternoon, the card sent in sympathy to someone who is afraid or grieving, and yes, perhaps even a dollar or two to the homeless man or woman are the baby steps. The biggest surprise just may be that when we take these steps with these unsuspecting folk, Jesus counts everything done for them as if it had been done for him.
Supposing then that Jesus really is present in every single person whose path crosses ours, how do we live? What difference might that make? I don’t know, but I do know that we are being asked to wrestle with these questions, to let them challenge us and unsettle us. To perhaps for the first time actually see the person before us and look them in the eye knowing God may be returning our gaze. Then we will know what to do.
God sees what we may refuse to see, for God seeks the weak and lowly. And when the time comes to sort us out, those are the eyes that will meet our eyes, the eyes of the judge who sees, who knows and who loves us so much he lays down his life for us all. Our Christ IS King.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen
Resources:
“The Christian Century,” November 15, 2005, pg. 18.
“Lectionary Homiletics,” Volume XVI, Number 6.
“Pulpit Resource,” Volume 36, Number 4.
112011.gpc
Sunday, November 13, 2011
13 November 2011 Our Stewardship with God Matthew 25:14-30
13 November 2011 Our Stewardship with God Matthew 25:14-30
In the accounts of family life there are rules. At our house we begin our day with the one cup rule. There are a number of does and don’ts associated with this rule but one of the most sacred is no budget talk in the morning until we have both had at least one cup of coffee. To even dare start talking about the budget too early brings on the biggest frown or scowl or glare sending the perpetrator to silence. That would be me, the perpetrator.
I certainly understand the need for the rule. We do not want to be inundated or overburdened and depressed before we are awake. We want to be sharp in order to understand the details to make a good plan. We do not want to make a mistake for then we will not have a good plan – one that will keep us safe, take care of our obligations, and help us have fun.
This morning we celebrate Stewardship Sunday. I trust you have all had your one cup of whatever you need. Jesus is calling us to a budget meeting of sorts. One where we will be faced with tough questions. What are we willing to do for this church, given our situation? What are we willing to give for God’s work, knowing we have limited resources? What are we willing to sacrifice that the kingdom of heaven will come, knowing we are timid and afraid?
Listening to Matthew’s gospel for answers we may sense the need for a one cup rule. Each of the servants in this parable are singled out according to their ability, and entrusted accordingly with a sum of money to invest. One in particular seems overwhelmed. Perhaps it is not just a cup of coffee he needs.
When the time comes for a budget talk we find this poor slave has not invested wisely. He actually has not invested at all. He hid the talent in the ground. I guess this was the best he could do without adequate caffeine.
First impression is this parable is about wise investment and judgment. For those astute in this sort of thing there is comfort. Not so for those who are less astute or afraid.
This passage is near the end of the final major teaching section in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus has announced signs of his return and the future establishment of God’s empire. He says now is the time for disciples to be faithful and hopeful in their anticipation of God’s future return even though no one knows when that will be. The important reminder from Jesus is that we, his disciples, are to be faithful and wise.
Last Sunday we read the parable about the five wise bridesmaids and the five foolish bridesmaids. Jesus’ message was one of being prepared. Not out of fear, but out of hope. A hope grounded in the assurance that the coming of the Son of Man brings forgiveness, comfort, rest and eternal salvation. Today, Jesus gives us this parable of the talents. Wisely investing verses foolishly burying.
We can look at the object to be invested, the talent, in one of two ways. In New Testament times, as money, the talent was equal to six thousand drachmas, worth more than fifteen years’ wages for a laborer.
In a different way, a talent may also be a gift we have been given from God in the form of an individual skill, or ability, or characteristic, or passion. Something special we can do that is unique to us.
Being near the end of his earthly life, Jesus wants to leave us with another important teaching. He calls us, his slaves, and entrusts his property to us in the form of our special talents and abilities. He expects we will use our talents and abilities to his glory, to grow his kingdom here on earth, for he will come again.
We don’t need to know when, we just need to be prepared, be wise, we must be ready, and use the talents we have been given. When Jesus does come again he will settle accounts with us.
The scripture makes it clear, we are to take the talent from him, be trustworthy in our investing in the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom here in our midst, for to those of us who have much even more will be given for we will ultimately have an abundance. The foolish slave, who buries the talent, who does not use their God given gifts, even what they have will be taken away and they will be thrown into the outer darkness.
This sounds so harsh. I understand Jesus will come again in judgment, but the requirement to invest wisely or be judged unworthy for inclusion in the kingdom sounds like we have to work towards our salvation. Didn’t Jesus pay the price for our salvation once and for all on the cross? How could that sacrifice have been forgotten and replaced by a works righteousness sort of rule?
Perhaps we haven’t truly understood this parable after all. We know Jesus is on a fast track to teach us who he is, who God is and the price he is about to pay to remove our sins forever. We know Jesus is teaching about the kingdom in our midst, what we as disciples must do, what we must give, how we must live to be faithful servants in the kingdom here and now. There is also the promise of the kingdom to come, the promise that Jesus will come again to take us, his disciples, with him. But we are here now and we have a role to play and sometimes we are not the most attentive students.
The unwise bridesmaids were left out of the banquet and the unwise slave is thrown into the outer darkness. Sounds like punishment. Sounds like having oil on hand to keep our lamp burning and being wise in our investing will include us in the kingdom. Or does it?
Everything we have in this world comes from God. As such, nothing we can do alone will help us be faithful disciples destined for this kingdom or the kingdom to come. Everything we have comes from God. We, therefore, are individually inadequate to the task of discipleship no matter how hard we try.
It is true that God gives us skills, abilities, and talents to invest in this kingdom. God gives them to us because we are inadequate otherwise. But there is more. Not only does everything come from God, everything belongs to God. Those talents are not ours. They are Gods.
I once read the Christian Century magazine about a popular little book called The Kingdom Assignment. It is the story of a pastor, Denny Bellesi, who gave out $10,000 in $100 increments to church members one Sunday. Please do not look under you pew cushion, you will not find $100 unless it slipped out of your purse or pocket.
He gave the church members $100 with three requirements: The $100 belongs to God. You must invest it in God’s work. You must report your results in 90 days. The reports were startling: people made money hand over fist to contribute to the work of the church, creative ministries were begun, lives were transformed, people wept for joy – and it was all covered by NBC’s Dateline.
This is a heart warming story. But let us be careful about being overly joyful with their good fortune, we might be placing a limit on our possibilities for real joy. Let us also be careful we not limit our investment in the kingdom of God to $100.
Jesus gave his slaves a talent, in terms of money, a huge amount, in terms of individual abilities, a great confidence. If we consider the talent we have been given may be not only money or individual abilities but the very gospel of Jesus Christ, why then we see how astounding this parable is. Jesus is calling on us to prepare ourselves this very moment, in this very place, to invest our lives, not in money or individual abilities alone, but in the gospel message of the good news of Jesus Christ who is our Lord and our Savior, sovereign about all things.
Our Book of Order lists six Great Ends of the church. They are: the proclamation of the Gospel for the salvation of humankind ; the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; the maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of truth; the promotion of social righteousness; and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.
In her recent book, The Promotion of Social Righteousness, the Reverend Doctor Cynthia Rigby from Austin Seminary addresses the theological and practical implications of the promotion of social righteousness.
She writes, “…to imagine justice is to envision everyone having what they need, and to move from imagining justice to participating in it so deeply that we make a contribution to it (that) requires fundamental change not only to how we handle our material resources, but a lot to who we are.”
What would it mean for everyone to have what they need from us here at Genesis Presbyterian Church? What would it mean in respect to the Gospel? To the nurturing of the children of God? To the maintenance of divine worship? To the preservation of the truth? To the promotion of social righteousness? To the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven? How would we be fundamentally changed?
Jesus is calling us this morning to imagine what we can do to help fulfill these needs. More than as an individual, we are being called as a church. It is to this corporate body, Genesis Presbyterian Church, the Mission Presbytery of which we are a member church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), this is to whom the gospel has been entrusted. The rewards are not neat progress reports after 90 days, but the joy of the messianic banquet. The table where just this past Sunday Jesus offered again his body, given for us, and his blood, shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins. Where each time we eat the bread and drink from the cup we proclaim the saving death of the risen Lord, until he comes again.
Isn’t this worth more than $100? Isn’t this worth more than a reserved giving of our time and talent? Why should we give everybody $100 and say, “This belongs to God,” implying the greater amount in our investment portfolio is ours?
Would it be more honest if we admitted this morning how difficult it is to do what this parable is asking us to do, to realize what Jesus has called us to invest, not just a talent or two, but our entire life, all of it? Isn’t this part of Jesus’ call to fundamental change, to transformation, to servant discipleship?
If it is Jesus’ intention that an astonishing gift like his gospel has been unloaded upon an unsuspecting church like ours that has not the faintest notion how to handle it, then might it be that the parable asks from us not the offering up of our individual abilities, but rather the frank, embarrassing admission of our corporate inability?
Instead of thinking we can with any degree of confidence have insight into the gospel we have been entrusted with maybe God needs for us to huddle up, shake our heads and confess, “We just have no idea, the treasure is too big, too heavy.” We haven’t had our cup of coffee yet!
Maybe then, and only then, in our humility, can we dare do something for God. God does not give the gospel to me or you so our individual ability alone can be put to good use. No, God gives the gospel to all of us so our inability might be exposed and instead of feeling ourselves glorified in what we think we have done, God will be glorified. God will be glorified because our work is inadequate. We must depend on God’s ability for ours is too small. We must depend on God’s ability to unleash the fullness of the gospel message. The gospel is too big, remember, left alone, we will bury it. We will bury our best intentions and we will bury the church!
The gospel isn’t being unleashed if we begin to think an extra $100 or so is all that belongs to God. The message of the gospel is too big for such trifles. Fundamental change requires we give our all. Time, yes. Talents, yes. Tithes, that too.
Surely it is only to the dumbfounded, to the clueless, to the overwhelmed, to those of us who are under no illusion that God calls. For we have never known quite what to do because of what Jesus did for us and asks of us and we don’t pretend it has ever have been otherwise – surely this is our shared inability, or inability to bear the weight of the gospel alone.
Yet despite that, we dare unleash the gospel, not for ourselves, but for God. We dare trust in God and unleash the gospel that those lost will be found, that those hungry will be fed, that those lost will be loved.
To unleash the gospel is our calling. For when we do and when we give our all we will become the ones to whom God will ultimately say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Well done.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. And all God’s people say. Amen
111311.gpc
In the accounts of family life there are rules. At our house we begin our day with the one cup rule. There are a number of does and don’ts associated with this rule but one of the most sacred is no budget talk in the morning until we have both had at least one cup of coffee. To even dare start talking about the budget too early brings on the biggest frown or scowl or glare sending the perpetrator to silence. That would be me, the perpetrator.
I certainly understand the need for the rule. We do not want to be inundated or overburdened and depressed before we are awake. We want to be sharp in order to understand the details to make a good plan. We do not want to make a mistake for then we will not have a good plan – one that will keep us safe, take care of our obligations, and help us have fun.
This morning we celebrate Stewardship Sunday. I trust you have all had your one cup of whatever you need. Jesus is calling us to a budget meeting of sorts. One where we will be faced with tough questions. What are we willing to do for this church, given our situation? What are we willing to give for God’s work, knowing we have limited resources? What are we willing to sacrifice that the kingdom of heaven will come, knowing we are timid and afraid?
Listening to Matthew’s gospel for answers we may sense the need for a one cup rule. Each of the servants in this parable are singled out according to their ability, and entrusted accordingly with a sum of money to invest. One in particular seems overwhelmed. Perhaps it is not just a cup of coffee he needs.
When the time comes for a budget talk we find this poor slave has not invested wisely. He actually has not invested at all. He hid the talent in the ground. I guess this was the best he could do without adequate caffeine.
First impression is this parable is about wise investment and judgment. For those astute in this sort of thing there is comfort. Not so for those who are less astute or afraid.
This passage is near the end of the final major teaching section in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus has announced signs of his return and the future establishment of God’s empire. He says now is the time for disciples to be faithful and hopeful in their anticipation of God’s future return even though no one knows when that will be. The important reminder from Jesus is that we, his disciples, are to be faithful and wise.
Last Sunday we read the parable about the five wise bridesmaids and the five foolish bridesmaids. Jesus’ message was one of being prepared. Not out of fear, but out of hope. A hope grounded in the assurance that the coming of the Son of Man brings forgiveness, comfort, rest and eternal salvation. Today, Jesus gives us this parable of the talents. Wisely investing verses foolishly burying.
We can look at the object to be invested, the talent, in one of two ways. In New Testament times, as money, the talent was equal to six thousand drachmas, worth more than fifteen years’ wages for a laborer.
In a different way, a talent may also be a gift we have been given from God in the form of an individual skill, or ability, or characteristic, or passion. Something special we can do that is unique to us.
Being near the end of his earthly life, Jesus wants to leave us with another important teaching. He calls us, his slaves, and entrusts his property to us in the form of our special talents and abilities. He expects we will use our talents and abilities to his glory, to grow his kingdom here on earth, for he will come again.
We don’t need to know when, we just need to be prepared, be wise, we must be ready, and use the talents we have been given. When Jesus does come again he will settle accounts with us.
The scripture makes it clear, we are to take the talent from him, be trustworthy in our investing in the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom here in our midst, for to those of us who have much even more will be given for we will ultimately have an abundance. The foolish slave, who buries the talent, who does not use their God given gifts, even what they have will be taken away and they will be thrown into the outer darkness.
This sounds so harsh. I understand Jesus will come again in judgment, but the requirement to invest wisely or be judged unworthy for inclusion in the kingdom sounds like we have to work towards our salvation. Didn’t Jesus pay the price for our salvation once and for all on the cross? How could that sacrifice have been forgotten and replaced by a works righteousness sort of rule?
Perhaps we haven’t truly understood this parable after all. We know Jesus is on a fast track to teach us who he is, who God is and the price he is about to pay to remove our sins forever. We know Jesus is teaching about the kingdom in our midst, what we as disciples must do, what we must give, how we must live to be faithful servants in the kingdom here and now. There is also the promise of the kingdom to come, the promise that Jesus will come again to take us, his disciples, with him. But we are here now and we have a role to play and sometimes we are not the most attentive students.
The unwise bridesmaids were left out of the banquet and the unwise slave is thrown into the outer darkness. Sounds like punishment. Sounds like having oil on hand to keep our lamp burning and being wise in our investing will include us in the kingdom. Or does it?
Everything we have in this world comes from God. As such, nothing we can do alone will help us be faithful disciples destined for this kingdom or the kingdom to come. Everything we have comes from God. We, therefore, are individually inadequate to the task of discipleship no matter how hard we try.
It is true that God gives us skills, abilities, and talents to invest in this kingdom. God gives them to us because we are inadequate otherwise. But there is more. Not only does everything come from God, everything belongs to God. Those talents are not ours. They are Gods.
I once read the Christian Century magazine about a popular little book called The Kingdom Assignment. It is the story of a pastor, Denny Bellesi, who gave out $10,000 in $100 increments to church members one Sunday. Please do not look under you pew cushion, you will not find $100 unless it slipped out of your purse or pocket.
He gave the church members $100 with three requirements: The $100 belongs to God. You must invest it in God’s work. You must report your results in 90 days. The reports were startling: people made money hand over fist to contribute to the work of the church, creative ministries were begun, lives were transformed, people wept for joy – and it was all covered by NBC’s Dateline.
This is a heart warming story. But let us be careful about being overly joyful with their good fortune, we might be placing a limit on our possibilities for real joy. Let us also be careful we not limit our investment in the kingdom of God to $100.
Jesus gave his slaves a talent, in terms of money, a huge amount, in terms of individual abilities, a great confidence. If we consider the talent we have been given may be not only money or individual abilities but the very gospel of Jesus Christ, why then we see how astounding this parable is. Jesus is calling on us to prepare ourselves this very moment, in this very place, to invest our lives, not in money or individual abilities alone, but in the gospel message of the good news of Jesus Christ who is our Lord and our Savior, sovereign about all things.
Our Book of Order lists six Great Ends of the church. They are: the proclamation of the Gospel for the salvation of humankind ; the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; the maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of truth; the promotion of social righteousness; and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.
In her recent book, The Promotion of Social Righteousness, the Reverend Doctor Cynthia Rigby from Austin Seminary addresses the theological and practical implications of the promotion of social righteousness.
She writes, “…to imagine justice is to envision everyone having what they need, and to move from imagining justice to participating in it so deeply that we make a contribution to it (that) requires fundamental change not only to how we handle our material resources, but a lot to who we are.”
What would it mean for everyone to have what they need from us here at Genesis Presbyterian Church? What would it mean in respect to the Gospel? To the nurturing of the children of God? To the maintenance of divine worship? To the preservation of the truth? To the promotion of social righteousness? To the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven? How would we be fundamentally changed?
Jesus is calling us this morning to imagine what we can do to help fulfill these needs. More than as an individual, we are being called as a church. It is to this corporate body, Genesis Presbyterian Church, the Mission Presbytery of which we are a member church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), this is to whom the gospel has been entrusted. The rewards are not neat progress reports after 90 days, but the joy of the messianic banquet. The table where just this past Sunday Jesus offered again his body, given for us, and his blood, shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins. Where each time we eat the bread and drink from the cup we proclaim the saving death of the risen Lord, until he comes again.
Isn’t this worth more than $100? Isn’t this worth more than a reserved giving of our time and talent? Why should we give everybody $100 and say, “This belongs to God,” implying the greater amount in our investment portfolio is ours?
Would it be more honest if we admitted this morning how difficult it is to do what this parable is asking us to do, to realize what Jesus has called us to invest, not just a talent or two, but our entire life, all of it? Isn’t this part of Jesus’ call to fundamental change, to transformation, to servant discipleship?
If it is Jesus’ intention that an astonishing gift like his gospel has been unloaded upon an unsuspecting church like ours that has not the faintest notion how to handle it, then might it be that the parable asks from us not the offering up of our individual abilities, but rather the frank, embarrassing admission of our corporate inability?
Instead of thinking we can with any degree of confidence have insight into the gospel we have been entrusted with maybe God needs for us to huddle up, shake our heads and confess, “We just have no idea, the treasure is too big, too heavy.” We haven’t had our cup of coffee yet!
Maybe then, and only then, in our humility, can we dare do something for God. God does not give the gospel to me or you so our individual ability alone can be put to good use. No, God gives the gospel to all of us so our inability might be exposed and instead of feeling ourselves glorified in what we think we have done, God will be glorified. God will be glorified because our work is inadequate. We must depend on God’s ability for ours is too small. We must depend on God’s ability to unleash the fullness of the gospel message. The gospel is too big, remember, left alone, we will bury it. We will bury our best intentions and we will bury the church!
The gospel isn’t being unleashed if we begin to think an extra $100 or so is all that belongs to God. The message of the gospel is too big for such trifles. Fundamental change requires we give our all. Time, yes. Talents, yes. Tithes, that too.
Surely it is only to the dumbfounded, to the clueless, to the overwhelmed, to those of us who are under no illusion that God calls. For we have never known quite what to do because of what Jesus did for us and asks of us and we don’t pretend it has ever have been otherwise – surely this is our shared inability, or inability to bear the weight of the gospel alone.
Yet despite that, we dare unleash the gospel, not for ourselves, but for God. We dare trust in God and unleash the gospel that those lost will be found, that those hungry will be fed, that those lost will be loved.
To unleash the gospel is our calling. For when we do and when we give our all we will become the ones to whom God will ultimately say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Well done.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. And all God’s people say. Amen
111311.gpc
Sunday, November 6, 2011
06 November 2011 Get Ready for God Matthew 25:1-1
Mrs. Gay, my first boss taught me several valuable lessons. The one that I will never forget is to always be busy. At first I thought if I looked busy that would be enough. I was wrong. I learned I had to actually be busy and not according to my standards, but according to hers.
The lesson was actually an easy one to learn. She would find me somewhere back in the shop, it was a Pontiac dealership, and ask, “What are you doing”? If what I was doing wasn’t, in her opinion, of extreme value, she would find something else for me to do. And usually what she found for me to do was difficult and wasn’t nearly as much fun as what I was doing. So, I learned, be busy and be busy at something worthwhile according to Mrs. Gay’s standards.
Now this management style, while it did produce results, was pretty intimidating and clearly charged with fear. It kept me ever vigilant and on task.
It is not too difficult to recognize a similar element of fear in this morning’s gospel. It is as if Jesus is asking, “What are you doing?”
Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. The foolish ones did not plan ahead in case something went wrong – they did not bring extra oil for their lamps, just in case. The wise ones, on the other hand, were ready. They had plenty of oil, just in case.
So, when the bridegroom comes late who know what the ladies are doing. The five wise ones are ready with extra oil to stay alert to the coming of the bridegroom whatever the hour. The five foolish ones are not ready. What were they doing? Standing around in the dark, fearful, knowing they will have to try and recover for their lack of preparedness, these ones miss being with the bridegroom at the wedding banquet.
When asked, “What are you doing,” they had only looked busy. With empty lamps in hand fear gripped them as they realized they were losing their hope. Perhaps forever.
There may be a tendency here to harshly judge these five poorly prepared ladies for not being mature in their faith, for not watching intently enough for the bridegroom, who we know to be our savior Jesus Christ.
It may also be that we begin to feel guilty that in our own life we have become so attentive to living, working, tending to our most immediate needs, that we too are woefully ill prepared and are not watching intently enough for the coming again of our savior, that same bridegroom, Jesus Christ.
But this story isn’t directed just to those of us who feel afraid that we are ill prepared for faithful living and duty. No, let us not forget, all ten of the bridesmaids fell asleep. Those prepared and those not. The primary difference is that one group anticipated the bridegrooms delay and made contingency plans. One group stayed ready for any possibility, rainy day or worse. The other group? Well, they were thinking only about the honeymoon and not about the days and years to come.
There’s a Quaker word that’s been used to describe the bridesmaids with the extra oil for their lamps – the word is “all-there-ness”. “What it means is that in the Christian life, it is important for us to be truly present to what’s going on – so we’ll be “all there”.
I recently read, “. . . living the Christian faith isn’t so much about getting ready for the end times. It’s preparing to follow in the way of Jesus Christ when God’s promises are not fulfilled as soon as we had hoped.” To be truly present to what’s going on – so we’ll be 100% all there when asked, “What are you doing?” What are we doing day in and day out to follow in the way of Jesus? The way to truth and love and grace.
Perhaps one of the more famous stories making this point comes from a time in France during World War II. “When the darkness of Nazi Germany fell across southern France during World War II, the villagers of Le Chambon provided shelter to more than five thousand Jews, saving them from the death camps. One documentarian, seeking to identify some dramatic moment of decision among the villagers was surprised to hear villagers explaining the actions by saying, “It happened quite simply.”
The bible says to feed the hungry, to visit the sick. It’s a normal thing to do. One villager, asked to explain her decision to hide Jews after the German army had occupied southern France said matter-of-factly, “I don’t know. We were used to it.”
They were used to living this way, the way of truth, love and grace. They were used to living the ways of Jesus Christ giving their life, their day, their labor all to God. They would never fear anyone who questioned what they were doing.
Andrew Connors reminds us, “It’s easy to trust God’s promises when peace looks reasonable, the economy is on the upswing, and relationships are going well. It’s easy to trust that God is ushering in a new world when you see a hungry child given a full meal, a once declining church on the upswing, a sick family member healing with successful care. It’s easy to trust that Jesus is going to show up when you first hear the promises that he had made to come and make all things new.
But when it’s midnight, and you’ve been waiting for peace that never seems to come, waiting for a few extra dollars to get you out of a hole that never seems to shrink, waiting for something to change in a relationship that seems beyond repair…when you see hungry children go suffering, when you watch your church struggling, when the doctors tell you reluctantly that there’s nothing more they can do…that’s when we draw on the fuel that we hoped we would never need, fuel that enables us to live into God’s promises long before they are fulfilled.”
With this truth before us, this morning’s parable need not be read as a warning about being fearful and ill-prepared. No, our teaching is one of hope. There is good news to be found for those who follow Jesus Christ.
Embedded in this morning’s story is a gracious promise: Though today we may be frustrated with the inactivity of God in our lives – be patient. The Lord promises to come to us. God will come to us. God will find you. What is God doing? Seeking each of us.
Though we may be discouraged and tired from waiting, though we may have worn out our knees from praying for the living God to be present in our lives in a meaningful and undeniably real way – take heart. What is God doing? Longing for each of us.
Though we may be lost to what God wants us to do in our life, despair not, God has work for you and for me and God will, in God’s good time, call upon each of us to do it. What is God doing? Loving each of us.
By our human standards God may be moving too slowly. When we are in pain or difficulty any wait can seem too long. But be well assured, our God is a living God. Our God keeps the promises made. And our God has promised to come to you and to me in times of joy and in times of tragedy, in times of light and in times of dark, in times of laughter and in times of tears. Our God has promised to be ready, I wonder if we will? I wonder, what are we doing?
What are we doing about being “all there”, prepared and focused on God’s real presence in our lives? We do see God’s presence in our lives don’t we? It can happen quite simply. It is here in the love he has for us felt in the blessings of loved ones and friends, in this time and this place and in each of the pieces of our life story, the good times and the times not so good. Especially during the times not so good. That’s what God is doing. Standing with us always.
For us, being acutely away of God’s presence is a long and slow process. A process that comes from practicing God’s presence day after day and year after year, as we live and pray and worship, as we study and seek God’s comforting wisdom. As we follow in Jesus’ way of love and service.
Here is how Julian of Norwich, a mystic who lived in the late 14th century in England would sum this up:
“So God tells us: You will yourself behold that all will be well. It is as though God were telling us: Take it now in faith and truth, and in the end you will see truly, in all fullness and joy.
Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit will accomplish an action on the last day; what it will be, and how it will be accomplished, no creature…knows, and so it shall remain veiled until the act is accomplished. God wishes us to know this so that our spirits might be surrendered to God’s love, and we might then ignore every disturbance which thwarts our true rejoicing in God.”
This my friends is how we are to prepare ourselves to follow the way of Jesus. Knowing God will act on the last day, we are to follow our heart by surrendering to God’s loving presence now, rejoicing in our life filled with God’s grace, being “all there”, hearing the bible tells us how to prepare and how to live and follow Jesus Christ, being 100% present to what’s going on in our lives and the world so we can be 100% there for Christ to be his servant to the world.
We know what God has done and is doing for us.
What I wonder are we doing in return for God?
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever more. And all God’s people say, amen.
Additional resources:
“Lectionary Homiletics,” Volume XIX, Number 6, pgs. 48 – 55.
110611.gpc
The lesson was actually an easy one to learn. She would find me somewhere back in the shop, it was a Pontiac dealership, and ask, “What are you doing”? If what I was doing wasn’t, in her opinion, of extreme value, she would find something else for me to do. And usually what she found for me to do was difficult and wasn’t nearly as much fun as what I was doing. So, I learned, be busy and be busy at something worthwhile according to Mrs. Gay’s standards.
Now this management style, while it did produce results, was pretty intimidating and clearly charged with fear. It kept me ever vigilant and on task.
It is not too difficult to recognize a similar element of fear in this morning’s gospel. It is as if Jesus is asking, “What are you doing?”
Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. The foolish ones did not plan ahead in case something went wrong – they did not bring extra oil for their lamps, just in case. The wise ones, on the other hand, were ready. They had plenty of oil, just in case.
So, when the bridegroom comes late who know what the ladies are doing. The five wise ones are ready with extra oil to stay alert to the coming of the bridegroom whatever the hour. The five foolish ones are not ready. What were they doing? Standing around in the dark, fearful, knowing they will have to try and recover for their lack of preparedness, these ones miss being with the bridegroom at the wedding banquet.
When asked, “What are you doing,” they had only looked busy. With empty lamps in hand fear gripped them as they realized they were losing their hope. Perhaps forever.
There may be a tendency here to harshly judge these five poorly prepared ladies for not being mature in their faith, for not watching intently enough for the bridegroom, who we know to be our savior Jesus Christ.
It may also be that we begin to feel guilty that in our own life we have become so attentive to living, working, tending to our most immediate needs, that we too are woefully ill prepared and are not watching intently enough for the coming again of our savior, that same bridegroom, Jesus Christ.
But this story isn’t directed just to those of us who feel afraid that we are ill prepared for faithful living and duty. No, let us not forget, all ten of the bridesmaids fell asleep. Those prepared and those not. The primary difference is that one group anticipated the bridegrooms delay and made contingency plans. One group stayed ready for any possibility, rainy day or worse. The other group? Well, they were thinking only about the honeymoon and not about the days and years to come.
There’s a Quaker word that’s been used to describe the bridesmaids with the extra oil for their lamps – the word is “all-there-ness”. “What it means is that in the Christian life, it is important for us to be truly present to what’s going on – so we’ll be “all there”.
I recently read, “. . . living the Christian faith isn’t so much about getting ready for the end times. It’s preparing to follow in the way of Jesus Christ when God’s promises are not fulfilled as soon as we had hoped.” To be truly present to what’s going on – so we’ll be 100% all there when asked, “What are you doing?” What are we doing day in and day out to follow in the way of Jesus? The way to truth and love and grace.
Perhaps one of the more famous stories making this point comes from a time in France during World War II. “When the darkness of Nazi Germany fell across southern France during World War II, the villagers of Le Chambon provided shelter to more than five thousand Jews, saving them from the death camps. One documentarian, seeking to identify some dramatic moment of decision among the villagers was surprised to hear villagers explaining the actions by saying, “It happened quite simply.”
The bible says to feed the hungry, to visit the sick. It’s a normal thing to do. One villager, asked to explain her decision to hide Jews after the German army had occupied southern France said matter-of-factly, “I don’t know. We were used to it.”
They were used to living this way, the way of truth, love and grace. They were used to living the ways of Jesus Christ giving their life, their day, their labor all to God. They would never fear anyone who questioned what they were doing.
Andrew Connors reminds us, “It’s easy to trust God’s promises when peace looks reasonable, the economy is on the upswing, and relationships are going well. It’s easy to trust that God is ushering in a new world when you see a hungry child given a full meal, a once declining church on the upswing, a sick family member healing with successful care. It’s easy to trust that Jesus is going to show up when you first hear the promises that he had made to come and make all things new.
But when it’s midnight, and you’ve been waiting for peace that never seems to come, waiting for a few extra dollars to get you out of a hole that never seems to shrink, waiting for something to change in a relationship that seems beyond repair…when you see hungry children go suffering, when you watch your church struggling, when the doctors tell you reluctantly that there’s nothing more they can do…that’s when we draw on the fuel that we hoped we would never need, fuel that enables us to live into God’s promises long before they are fulfilled.”
With this truth before us, this morning’s parable need not be read as a warning about being fearful and ill-prepared. No, our teaching is one of hope. There is good news to be found for those who follow Jesus Christ.
Embedded in this morning’s story is a gracious promise: Though today we may be frustrated with the inactivity of God in our lives – be patient. The Lord promises to come to us. God will come to us. God will find you. What is God doing? Seeking each of us.
Though we may be discouraged and tired from waiting, though we may have worn out our knees from praying for the living God to be present in our lives in a meaningful and undeniably real way – take heart. What is God doing? Longing for each of us.
Though we may be lost to what God wants us to do in our life, despair not, God has work for you and for me and God will, in God’s good time, call upon each of us to do it. What is God doing? Loving each of us.
By our human standards God may be moving too slowly. When we are in pain or difficulty any wait can seem too long. But be well assured, our God is a living God. Our God keeps the promises made. And our God has promised to come to you and to me in times of joy and in times of tragedy, in times of light and in times of dark, in times of laughter and in times of tears. Our God has promised to be ready, I wonder if we will? I wonder, what are we doing?
What are we doing about being “all there”, prepared and focused on God’s real presence in our lives? We do see God’s presence in our lives don’t we? It can happen quite simply. It is here in the love he has for us felt in the blessings of loved ones and friends, in this time and this place and in each of the pieces of our life story, the good times and the times not so good. Especially during the times not so good. That’s what God is doing. Standing with us always.
For us, being acutely away of God’s presence is a long and slow process. A process that comes from practicing God’s presence day after day and year after year, as we live and pray and worship, as we study and seek God’s comforting wisdom. As we follow in Jesus’ way of love and service.
Here is how Julian of Norwich, a mystic who lived in the late 14th century in England would sum this up:
“So God tells us: You will yourself behold that all will be well. It is as though God were telling us: Take it now in faith and truth, and in the end you will see truly, in all fullness and joy.
Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit will accomplish an action on the last day; what it will be, and how it will be accomplished, no creature…knows, and so it shall remain veiled until the act is accomplished. God wishes us to know this so that our spirits might be surrendered to God’s love, and we might then ignore every disturbance which thwarts our true rejoicing in God.”
This my friends is how we are to prepare ourselves to follow the way of Jesus. Knowing God will act on the last day, we are to follow our heart by surrendering to God’s loving presence now, rejoicing in our life filled with God’s grace, being “all there”, hearing the bible tells us how to prepare and how to live and follow Jesus Christ, being 100% present to what’s going on in our lives and the world so we can be 100% there for Christ to be his servant to the world.
We know what God has done and is doing for us.
What I wonder are we doing in return for God?
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever more. And all God’s people say, amen.
Additional resources:
“Lectionary Homiletics,” Volume XIX, Number 6, pgs. 48 – 55.
110611.gpc
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Tis a Gift to Be Humble
30 October 2011 Tis a Gift to Be Humble Matthew 23:1-12
My favorite modern version of the Cinderella story is told in the movie “Ever After” with Drew Barrymore. Even with its contemporary flair, Cinderella is still a principled young woman who, through no fault of her own, comes face to face with the harsh reality of a forced humility of sorts.
Finding herself living with a new step-mother and step-sisters Cinderella’s life goes from one of privilege to one of servitude. She becomes, for all practical purposes, a slave to her step-mother and step-sisters. Despite this, she humbles herself to her new status in a way I’m not sure many would. Her decision to live in obedience and humility is in response to her love for her father and her desire to honor him in her submission to her wicked step-mother.
She endures humiliation and physical suffering as she is repeatedly treated cruelly.
When it seems things cannot get any worse, they do. There is to be a royal ball where the young and handsome prince of the kingdom will choose his new bride. Her step-mother refuses to let her go and her step-sisters are particularly mean to Cinderella as they prepare to go to the ball with the hope of marrying the prince. They repeatedly taunt her about being unworthy.
But, this is a fairy tale! The story takes a magical turn when Cinderella not only goes to the ball, she is the one who marries the prince and is brought up from her humble station to become a princess. This is a love story that ends the way love stories are supposed to end, happily ever after.
Our gospel story this morning has the potential to have the same happy ending.
We hear Jesus warning us, if we do not change directions with our life we may wind up where we are headed. Never one to only tell part of a story, Jesus tells us the whole truth, opening for us the possibilities for a clear path to a better place.
Jesus lifts up several commandments or pronouncements along this new way.
First, we are to do what the scribes and Pharisees teach us. We are not, however, to do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. How often have we heard our parents, our teachers, our bosses say to us, do as I say not as I do. Perhaps we have said it too.
Is it obvious we humans can be so certain and clear about how we are to act, what we are to do to get along, what is good and what is bad, yet we have the most difficult time living our own message. I wonder why that is? Selfishness on our part, looking out for #1, taking happiness into our own hands, deciding for ourselves where our real pleasures lie, getting ours before someone else takes it all. It is pretty obvious where our allegiance lies when our actions do not match our words.
Secondly, in all things we are not to take on the character of these scribes and Pharisees. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on the shoulders of others, yet are unwilling to lift a finger to move them themselves. They do all their deeds to be seen by others as if they are on a stage of respectability and play the part, acting it out in front of others, as if this in some way legitimizes their importance. They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues.
If we are in doubt about their perceived importance we need only look for them at the power table in the local restaurant. For there they are holding court in the public arena. Their seat is always front row, center stage, on the 50 yard line. They love to be greeted with respect and have people call them by their title. They identify themselves with their social, political, or financial prowess and expect that we seek out their broad ranging opinion even in areas where they have no particular expertise. Simply by their reputation they expect to be recognized as an expert in all things great and small.
Thirdly, Jesus tells us the other things we are not to do. We are not to be called rabbi or teacher or father. We are not to be known by our title. We are to be known by what we do, not who we think we are. We are to call no one our father on earth in place of our Father in heaven. We are to make no gods from the stuff of status which takes the place of our God in heaven. Nor are we to be called teacher in place of our teacher, Jesus Christ. Rabbi, teacher and father are roles reserved for God and God’s anointed. To presume such titles becomes a matter of pride. Perhaps even idolatry and sin.
Fourth, and most powerfully, the greatest among us is to become our servant. Have we heard the echoes we are the greatest? Thinking and acting so we become the one who does not do what Jesus teaches to be right and true. Yet, despite our tendency to selfishness, we are the one who is to become servant. Servant to ourselves and to others. But, most importantly, servant to God.
How does that happen? Through grand titles, specialized training, unlimited resources. No, today’s scripture tells us, it happens when we humble ourselves. When we find ourselves in what seems to us an unjust world and like Cinderella we show our love for our eternal Father by honoring him in our obedience, not to ourselves, but to our Messiah, our Savior, our Lord. Then we will be exalted for all eternity.
Exalted not because of anything we have done but because of what God has done for us. God’s gift for us creates his appreciation for the humility lived by those of us who genuinely seek to serve God’s world and not our own. Can this be true? Does Jesus really expect our exaltation with God will come only through our humility? Yes, he does, and if we have any doubt we need look no further than scripture for our assurance.
In another list of clear commandments or pronouncements, the Beatitudes, Jesus declares, “Blessed are the meek,” and the “poor in spirit” and the “pure in heart.” It is they who shall “See God”, and be called “the children of God.” This is a contrary notion to be sure and begs the question. What good is servant hood to society and exactly how can it bring about our exaltation? We are looking for power and rank and status and a high public recognition of greatness aren’t we?
Well, perhaps once again we are asking the wrong questions. Perhaps we see ourselves as scribes and Pharisees and what God expects from us is something radically different. Perhaps it is time to stop listening to ourselves and our own ideas about worthiness and listen to what our true teacher has to say.
Servant hood is what Jesus teaches. If we would be great (and let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to be great) we must be a servant first. If we choose to exalt ourselves, to raise ourselves to great power, we will find ourselves brought to our knees. Yet, if we humble ourselves, becoming a servant to the Lord, we will be known as an heir to the kingdom of God.
Now, if this seems counter intuitive or unnatural you may be right. Humility is unnatural. As Mark Twain recognized, the moment a person seems to have achieved real humility, it is destroyed by the pride at having accomplished it. Truly, humility is not a natural thing. What scripture tells us repeatedly is it is a gift of God’s grace.
Humility is not in the order of creation, but it comes to us in the order of the new creation, it is our baptism gift. And, perhaps the greatest news of all, it is a renewable gift, for things lost in sin are regained in God’s ceaseless outpouring of love. A love for each of us despite what appears far too often, our faltering lack of humility.
But how might we realize when humility is Jesus’ desired response? There is much in our life that gives us a place at the head of the table. That realization may begin when we first understand to be selfless is in itself a dying to self, an act of faith. Often, as scripture teaches, humility takes the form of serving the naked, the hungry, the thirsty, and the imprisoned. Loving our neighbor and especially our enemy.
These active themes of what we are to do for servant humility should become clear this morning. When humility is genuine, it has a clear active quality to it. No one should say about us Christian’s, do as they say not as they do. For true humility requires that our actions do match our words. “The greatest among you will be your servant”, Jesus declares. The servant is a worker. It is for this active, effective servant humility that we should pray.
And could a servant come to be among the greatest?
Frederic Buechner thinks it is possible. He tells the story of the biblical slave, Onesimus, whom St. Paul once met in jail. Buechner tells how Paul writes a letter to Philemon as a request that the master take the runaway slave back and that he treat him as a brother in Christ.
He concludes, “It’s not known whether or not Philemon took the hint and let Onesimus return to be the old saint’s comfort for what time was left him, but there’s at least one good reason for believing that such was the case. Years later, when Paul was long since dead, another saint was in jail by the name of Ignatius. The Bishop of Ephesus had sent some friends to visit him, and Ignatius wrote asking if a couple of them could be allowed to stay. Ignatius in his letter used some of the same language that Paul had used in his to Philemon, almost as if he was trying to remind the Bishop of something. And what was the name of the Bishop he wrote to? It was Onesimus.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book The Cost of Discipleship tells us:
“Our activity must be visible, but never be done for the sake of making it visible. ‘Let your light so shine before [others]’ . . . and yet: Take care that you hide it! That which is visible must also be hidden. The awareness on which Jesus insists is intended to prevent us from reflecting on our extraordinary position. We have to take heed that we do not take heed of our own righteousness. Otherwise the “extraordinary” which we achieve will not be that which comes from following Christ, but that which springs from our own will and desire.”
Cinderella had it right. Active humility for the sake of honoring only our Father leads us to life in the kingdom of God. And Jesus has it right too. When humility is genuine, it has an active quality to it. An active quality that mirrors as best as humanly possible what God expects we are to become, a humble servant. Our servant life is to be lived out of our love for God. Not for the purpose of any reward at all. Only that we might have the pleasure of doing something solely for God.
The glass slipper that awaits us is being held by our prince, our prince of peace, and when the shoe fits, we will amazingly live happily ever after.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever, Amen
103005.uvd
My favorite modern version of the Cinderella story is told in the movie “Ever After” with Drew Barrymore. Even with its contemporary flair, Cinderella is still a principled young woman who, through no fault of her own, comes face to face with the harsh reality of a forced humility of sorts.
Finding herself living with a new step-mother and step-sisters Cinderella’s life goes from one of privilege to one of servitude. She becomes, for all practical purposes, a slave to her step-mother and step-sisters. Despite this, she humbles herself to her new status in a way I’m not sure many would. Her decision to live in obedience and humility is in response to her love for her father and her desire to honor him in her submission to her wicked step-mother.
She endures humiliation and physical suffering as she is repeatedly treated cruelly.
When it seems things cannot get any worse, they do. There is to be a royal ball where the young and handsome prince of the kingdom will choose his new bride. Her step-mother refuses to let her go and her step-sisters are particularly mean to Cinderella as they prepare to go to the ball with the hope of marrying the prince. They repeatedly taunt her about being unworthy.
But, this is a fairy tale! The story takes a magical turn when Cinderella not only goes to the ball, she is the one who marries the prince and is brought up from her humble station to become a princess. This is a love story that ends the way love stories are supposed to end, happily ever after.
Our gospel story this morning has the potential to have the same happy ending.
We hear Jesus warning us, if we do not change directions with our life we may wind up where we are headed. Never one to only tell part of a story, Jesus tells us the whole truth, opening for us the possibilities for a clear path to a better place.
Jesus lifts up several commandments or pronouncements along this new way.
First, we are to do what the scribes and Pharisees teach us. We are not, however, to do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. How often have we heard our parents, our teachers, our bosses say to us, do as I say not as I do. Perhaps we have said it too.
Is it obvious we humans can be so certain and clear about how we are to act, what we are to do to get along, what is good and what is bad, yet we have the most difficult time living our own message. I wonder why that is? Selfishness on our part, looking out for #1, taking happiness into our own hands, deciding for ourselves where our real pleasures lie, getting ours before someone else takes it all. It is pretty obvious where our allegiance lies when our actions do not match our words.
Secondly, in all things we are not to take on the character of these scribes and Pharisees. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on the shoulders of others, yet are unwilling to lift a finger to move them themselves. They do all their deeds to be seen by others as if they are on a stage of respectability and play the part, acting it out in front of others, as if this in some way legitimizes their importance. They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues.
If we are in doubt about their perceived importance we need only look for them at the power table in the local restaurant. For there they are holding court in the public arena. Their seat is always front row, center stage, on the 50 yard line. They love to be greeted with respect and have people call them by their title. They identify themselves with their social, political, or financial prowess and expect that we seek out their broad ranging opinion even in areas where they have no particular expertise. Simply by their reputation they expect to be recognized as an expert in all things great and small.
Thirdly, Jesus tells us the other things we are not to do. We are not to be called rabbi or teacher or father. We are not to be known by our title. We are to be known by what we do, not who we think we are. We are to call no one our father on earth in place of our Father in heaven. We are to make no gods from the stuff of status which takes the place of our God in heaven. Nor are we to be called teacher in place of our teacher, Jesus Christ. Rabbi, teacher and father are roles reserved for God and God’s anointed. To presume such titles becomes a matter of pride. Perhaps even idolatry and sin.
Fourth, and most powerfully, the greatest among us is to become our servant. Have we heard the echoes we are the greatest? Thinking and acting so we become the one who does not do what Jesus teaches to be right and true. Yet, despite our tendency to selfishness, we are the one who is to become servant. Servant to ourselves and to others. But, most importantly, servant to God.
How does that happen? Through grand titles, specialized training, unlimited resources. No, today’s scripture tells us, it happens when we humble ourselves. When we find ourselves in what seems to us an unjust world and like Cinderella we show our love for our eternal Father by honoring him in our obedience, not to ourselves, but to our Messiah, our Savior, our Lord. Then we will be exalted for all eternity.
Exalted not because of anything we have done but because of what God has done for us. God’s gift for us creates his appreciation for the humility lived by those of us who genuinely seek to serve God’s world and not our own. Can this be true? Does Jesus really expect our exaltation with God will come only through our humility? Yes, he does, and if we have any doubt we need look no further than scripture for our assurance.
In another list of clear commandments or pronouncements, the Beatitudes, Jesus declares, “Blessed are the meek,” and the “poor in spirit” and the “pure in heart.” It is they who shall “See God”, and be called “the children of God.” This is a contrary notion to be sure and begs the question. What good is servant hood to society and exactly how can it bring about our exaltation? We are looking for power and rank and status and a high public recognition of greatness aren’t we?
Well, perhaps once again we are asking the wrong questions. Perhaps we see ourselves as scribes and Pharisees and what God expects from us is something radically different. Perhaps it is time to stop listening to ourselves and our own ideas about worthiness and listen to what our true teacher has to say.
Servant hood is what Jesus teaches. If we would be great (and let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to be great) we must be a servant first. If we choose to exalt ourselves, to raise ourselves to great power, we will find ourselves brought to our knees. Yet, if we humble ourselves, becoming a servant to the Lord, we will be known as an heir to the kingdom of God.
Now, if this seems counter intuitive or unnatural you may be right. Humility is unnatural. As Mark Twain recognized, the moment a person seems to have achieved real humility, it is destroyed by the pride at having accomplished it. Truly, humility is not a natural thing. What scripture tells us repeatedly is it is a gift of God’s grace.
Humility is not in the order of creation, but it comes to us in the order of the new creation, it is our baptism gift. And, perhaps the greatest news of all, it is a renewable gift, for things lost in sin are regained in God’s ceaseless outpouring of love. A love for each of us despite what appears far too often, our faltering lack of humility.
But how might we realize when humility is Jesus’ desired response? There is much in our life that gives us a place at the head of the table. That realization may begin when we first understand to be selfless is in itself a dying to self, an act of faith. Often, as scripture teaches, humility takes the form of serving the naked, the hungry, the thirsty, and the imprisoned. Loving our neighbor and especially our enemy.
These active themes of what we are to do for servant humility should become clear this morning. When humility is genuine, it has a clear active quality to it. No one should say about us Christian’s, do as they say not as they do. For true humility requires that our actions do match our words. “The greatest among you will be your servant”, Jesus declares. The servant is a worker. It is for this active, effective servant humility that we should pray.
And could a servant come to be among the greatest?
Frederic Buechner thinks it is possible. He tells the story of the biblical slave, Onesimus, whom St. Paul once met in jail. Buechner tells how Paul writes a letter to Philemon as a request that the master take the runaway slave back and that he treat him as a brother in Christ.
He concludes, “It’s not known whether or not Philemon took the hint and let Onesimus return to be the old saint’s comfort for what time was left him, but there’s at least one good reason for believing that such was the case. Years later, when Paul was long since dead, another saint was in jail by the name of Ignatius. The Bishop of Ephesus had sent some friends to visit him, and Ignatius wrote asking if a couple of them could be allowed to stay. Ignatius in his letter used some of the same language that Paul had used in his to Philemon, almost as if he was trying to remind the Bishop of something. And what was the name of the Bishop he wrote to? It was Onesimus.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book The Cost of Discipleship tells us:
“Our activity must be visible, but never be done for the sake of making it visible. ‘Let your light so shine before [others]’ . . . and yet: Take care that you hide it! That which is visible must also be hidden. The awareness on which Jesus insists is intended to prevent us from reflecting on our extraordinary position. We have to take heed that we do not take heed of our own righteousness. Otherwise the “extraordinary” which we achieve will not be that which comes from following Christ, but that which springs from our own will and desire.”
Cinderella had it right. Active humility for the sake of honoring only our Father leads us to life in the kingdom of God. And Jesus has it right too. When humility is genuine, it has an active quality to it. An active quality that mirrors as best as humanly possible what God expects we are to become, a humble servant. Our servant life is to be lived out of our love for God. Not for the purpose of any reward at all. Only that we might have the pleasure of doing something solely for God.
The glass slipper that awaits us is being held by our prince, our prince of peace, and when the shoe fits, we will amazingly live happily ever after.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever, Amen
103005.uvd
Monday, October 24, 2011
26 October 11 Following Jesus Matthew 22:34-46
Clearly we are in the midst of a great debate. Actually, we are surrounded by an army of debaters greater than we have experienced in recent times. Have you noticed the raging questions, the experts who ask us time and time again, who is the greatest, testing us and our abilities to remain civil in the grip of the frenzy. The political debates have been lengthy, the arguments intense. Who will we elect? Who will we choose to be our next President?
The election is far off yet the army of pundits have surrounded us with their questions intent upon theirs being the one question that will sway our vote. You may be like me, a bit fed up with it all, the negative campaigning, the at times ridiculous nature of the attacks. Though I must confess I have enjoyed the Saturday Night Live appearances in the past of some of the candidates. And their parodies, well, they are just too funny.
Clearly these are serious times, we are still at war, the economy is in dire straights, greater numbers of folk continue to lose their jobs, their homes and their retirement dreams. These issues do require our fullest attention and our most faithful response to the questions that matter. Who should we align ourselves with and for what reasons? What do we say in response to the serious questions that test our worry? Will we ultimately be judged by our response? You bet we will. When the dust finally settles we will wonder, what did we do, oh my, what did we do?
Now, before my sweet wife becomes even more nervous about what I might say next about world affairs and the Presidential election, let me assure you, I have no desire to suggest how anyone might solve our problems or vote. I am clearly the least qualified about such things and have nothing more to offer than many of us here this morning, an opinion, and we all know what that is worth. But I can suggest we turn to scripture, and to one who was tested repeatedly during his adult life.
In Matthew’s gospel we hear Jesus being asked to resolve a great debate. He was surrounded by the powerful army of Jewish leadership, experts filled with raging questions, testing his ability to remain civil in the midst of their grasp of sedition. The army of pundits is upon him with their questions and they are important questions. Which commandment is greatest, implying of course, is the law greater than even the hope of a messiah? And we do want to know, what did Jesus do? What did he say? How did he vote?
Jesus doesn’t hesitate, in vs. 37 – 40 he answers, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
What an amazing and unpredictable answer, the whole duty of human kind, the whole moral and spiritual law, is summed up by Jesus in one word: love. Love directed first to God and then toward one another.
Did we notice the unusual context from which love is to be directed? From our heart, from our soul, and from our mind. Amazing. Love is to be the pervasive action in our heart, our soul, and our mind. Each of us is to become a vessel for love in the world in the ways God teaches us through the life of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that lives in each of us. We are to become life’s love centered here in our hearts, filling our soul and mind with love. And we cannot turn this love away from this time and place. We cannot ignore love any more today than we can on election day. Especially on election day.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the next time we sat in front of the evening news and just shook our heads as the candidates go at one another we could hear Jesus’ words instead? You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
I’ve heard few folk, be they politicians or not, make such a promise, let alone actually model their life after loving one another.
This week saw the death of another tyrant in the world. We live in a dangerous and unpredictable time and there is a time and place for firmness. Our challenges are real and they should scare us for they are deeply important. It is truly the case that in a civilized society our response to life and life’s challenges, as well as life’s hopes, just might help save the world. And those responses do speak clearly to who we are and what we believe. As Christian’s we carry a higher responsibility because we are loved and called to return that love.
How then do we love when love seems the last thing we need to do? Is love the real change the world is calling for? If so, how do we possibly understand what it means to love with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind?
Try as we might few of us feel we ever get it right. We could always do more. We could always think less of ourselves and more for those around us. Sometimes there is a sense that we are on the right track, we are loving one another, and then Jesus pushes us farther along his way than we want to go. Love our neighbor as ourselves. I wonder, do we get to choose which neighbor?
I don’t find that in scripture. Love my neighbor even if he or she is a liberal Democrat, or a conservative Republican, a Jew or a Muslim, doesn’t’ look like me, even someone with no faith at all. I don’t know.
I read recently that one of the skills of being a faithful Christian is the cultivation of the awareness that we do not, on our own, know what love is or who our neighbors are. These words await definition. Therefore, we must get up, get dressed, and come down to church together to learn just what these seemingly obvious words mean when used by Jesus, Son of David, Son of God. Christian love, we find, does not come naturally, is not universally shared, is not a common sense sort of thing.
How then could God expect us to know God’s intentions where love is concerned? Can we simply think about God and from our thoughts know God and love. I think not. I cannot believe that my own thoughts could answer such a question. The truth is, we really cannot know God. But there is something we can do, what we can do is love God. We can love God as God loved us.
We need only look at the life of Jesus Christ to know how God loved us. It is through the life of Jesus Christ that we can love God, one another, and even our neighbor. Jesus revealed in the scriptures a call aimed directly at you and at me. Come and follow me is what he said.
Jesus lived the life we are to live, a live of love. He loved God and lived the life God intended him to live here on earth. He loved the people in his life despite their sin, even when they were rascals, or strangers, or foreigners, or in power, or out of power, even those well and those sick, large and small, young and old, even those alive and those who had died. All of them he brought back to life. Even those who nailed him to the cross.
Dearest Lord, how can we imagine such love! Jesus died so that we might live. Jesus brought us with him to the cross so we would be cleansed of our sins and Jesus brings us with him through his resurrection so we too might be ascending into heaven with him.
By this love God may be touched and embraced and known and by this love we are called to touch our neighbor in love with all our heart, soul and mind. This is to be how our life is lived. It is a life of love particularly defined by Jesus. By ourselves we don’t know what love is, not until Jesus tells us and shows us do we know.
Now, many of us have head the teaching of Jesus for more than just a few years. We have sat through lots of sermons, often awake, and read lots of scripture, and we would readily admit there is very little that is simple about Jesus and his love.
His call to our life is a call to die to self and be born anew. Not so simple. His call to our life is a call to sell all that we have and be his disciple. Not so simple. His call to our life is a demanding call.
But often we forget, everything we have belongs to God. Everything we are comes from God. Everything we enjoy is God’s blessing. All the love in our life comes from God’s amazing grace given to us.
Truly, Jesus shows us the way to God’s love and that way takes us, with Jesus, through the cross. That is where God defines ultimate love for us. That is where God shows us how to love. That is where we understand God. There on the cross.
When that day for voting finally comes and someone asks us who we are voting for dare we answer it’s not so much a candidate we desire as it is a faithful way of life. That we are voting for the most radial change the world has ever seen, our desire is for love, to try to do the loving thing for all people in all circumstances and in all places.
In the context of our lives as Christians could there be a response that would be more risky than this, “I’m for love.” Could there be a response more demanding, more difficult, more complicated and more like our Lord, our Savior, our Messiah, Jesus Christ?
Try it, “I’m for love.”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
102311.gpc
The election is far off yet the army of pundits have surrounded us with their questions intent upon theirs being the one question that will sway our vote. You may be like me, a bit fed up with it all, the negative campaigning, the at times ridiculous nature of the attacks. Though I must confess I have enjoyed the Saturday Night Live appearances in the past of some of the candidates. And their parodies, well, they are just too funny.
Clearly these are serious times, we are still at war, the economy is in dire straights, greater numbers of folk continue to lose their jobs, their homes and their retirement dreams. These issues do require our fullest attention and our most faithful response to the questions that matter. Who should we align ourselves with and for what reasons? What do we say in response to the serious questions that test our worry? Will we ultimately be judged by our response? You bet we will. When the dust finally settles we will wonder, what did we do, oh my, what did we do?
Now, before my sweet wife becomes even more nervous about what I might say next about world affairs and the Presidential election, let me assure you, I have no desire to suggest how anyone might solve our problems or vote. I am clearly the least qualified about such things and have nothing more to offer than many of us here this morning, an opinion, and we all know what that is worth. But I can suggest we turn to scripture, and to one who was tested repeatedly during his adult life.
In Matthew’s gospel we hear Jesus being asked to resolve a great debate. He was surrounded by the powerful army of Jewish leadership, experts filled with raging questions, testing his ability to remain civil in the midst of their grasp of sedition. The army of pundits is upon him with their questions and they are important questions. Which commandment is greatest, implying of course, is the law greater than even the hope of a messiah? And we do want to know, what did Jesus do? What did he say? How did he vote?
Jesus doesn’t hesitate, in vs. 37 – 40 he answers, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
What an amazing and unpredictable answer, the whole duty of human kind, the whole moral and spiritual law, is summed up by Jesus in one word: love. Love directed first to God and then toward one another.
Did we notice the unusual context from which love is to be directed? From our heart, from our soul, and from our mind. Amazing. Love is to be the pervasive action in our heart, our soul, and our mind. Each of us is to become a vessel for love in the world in the ways God teaches us through the life of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that lives in each of us. We are to become life’s love centered here in our hearts, filling our soul and mind with love. And we cannot turn this love away from this time and place. We cannot ignore love any more today than we can on election day. Especially on election day.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the next time we sat in front of the evening news and just shook our heads as the candidates go at one another we could hear Jesus’ words instead? You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
I’ve heard few folk, be they politicians or not, make such a promise, let alone actually model their life after loving one another.
This week saw the death of another tyrant in the world. We live in a dangerous and unpredictable time and there is a time and place for firmness. Our challenges are real and they should scare us for they are deeply important. It is truly the case that in a civilized society our response to life and life’s challenges, as well as life’s hopes, just might help save the world. And those responses do speak clearly to who we are and what we believe. As Christian’s we carry a higher responsibility because we are loved and called to return that love.
How then do we love when love seems the last thing we need to do? Is love the real change the world is calling for? If so, how do we possibly understand what it means to love with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind?
Try as we might few of us feel we ever get it right. We could always do more. We could always think less of ourselves and more for those around us. Sometimes there is a sense that we are on the right track, we are loving one another, and then Jesus pushes us farther along his way than we want to go. Love our neighbor as ourselves. I wonder, do we get to choose which neighbor?
I don’t find that in scripture. Love my neighbor even if he or she is a liberal Democrat, or a conservative Republican, a Jew or a Muslim, doesn’t’ look like me, even someone with no faith at all. I don’t know.
I read recently that one of the skills of being a faithful Christian is the cultivation of the awareness that we do not, on our own, know what love is or who our neighbors are. These words await definition. Therefore, we must get up, get dressed, and come down to church together to learn just what these seemingly obvious words mean when used by Jesus, Son of David, Son of God. Christian love, we find, does not come naturally, is not universally shared, is not a common sense sort of thing.
How then could God expect us to know God’s intentions where love is concerned? Can we simply think about God and from our thoughts know God and love. I think not. I cannot believe that my own thoughts could answer such a question. The truth is, we really cannot know God. But there is something we can do, what we can do is love God. We can love God as God loved us.
We need only look at the life of Jesus Christ to know how God loved us. It is through the life of Jesus Christ that we can love God, one another, and even our neighbor. Jesus revealed in the scriptures a call aimed directly at you and at me. Come and follow me is what he said.
Jesus lived the life we are to live, a live of love. He loved God and lived the life God intended him to live here on earth. He loved the people in his life despite their sin, even when they were rascals, or strangers, or foreigners, or in power, or out of power, even those well and those sick, large and small, young and old, even those alive and those who had died. All of them he brought back to life. Even those who nailed him to the cross.
Dearest Lord, how can we imagine such love! Jesus died so that we might live. Jesus brought us with him to the cross so we would be cleansed of our sins and Jesus brings us with him through his resurrection so we too might be ascending into heaven with him.
By this love God may be touched and embraced and known and by this love we are called to touch our neighbor in love with all our heart, soul and mind. This is to be how our life is lived. It is a life of love particularly defined by Jesus. By ourselves we don’t know what love is, not until Jesus tells us and shows us do we know.
Now, many of us have head the teaching of Jesus for more than just a few years. We have sat through lots of sermons, often awake, and read lots of scripture, and we would readily admit there is very little that is simple about Jesus and his love.
His call to our life is a call to die to self and be born anew. Not so simple. His call to our life is a call to sell all that we have and be his disciple. Not so simple. His call to our life is a demanding call.
But often we forget, everything we have belongs to God. Everything we are comes from God. Everything we enjoy is God’s blessing. All the love in our life comes from God’s amazing grace given to us.
Truly, Jesus shows us the way to God’s love and that way takes us, with Jesus, through the cross. That is where God defines ultimate love for us. That is where God shows us how to love. That is where we understand God. There on the cross.
When that day for voting finally comes and someone asks us who we are voting for dare we answer it’s not so much a candidate we desire as it is a faithful way of life. That we are voting for the most radial change the world has ever seen, our desire is for love, to try to do the loving thing for all people in all circumstances and in all places.
In the context of our lives as Christians could there be a response that would be more risky than this, “I’m for love.” Could there be a response more demanding, more difficult, more complicated and more like our Lord, our Savior, our Messiah, Jesus Christ?
Try it, “I’m for love.”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
102311.gpc
Sunday, October 16, 2011
“Which Life”
16 October 2011 “Which Life” Matthew 22:15-22
It has been a tough past few weeks and months in the world. Disasters natural and man-made alike have filled our newspaper front pages and television and radio airwaves with acts of terror, shootings at work, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, draughts, and wildfires. People have lost their homes, their jobs, their communities and in some cases, their lives.
Ten years ago it was 9/11. Following 9/11, there was war. War still rages on. These past few weeks and months people have been killing one another with bombs and guns. There is great fear in the hearts of many this very moment.
Closer to home, when the hurricanes and the earthquakes and the fires stopped their carnage people turned first to one another for help and then to their governments. Largely the cry to the government was filled with judgment and criticism. In comparison, when we see what our fellow citizens have done, it is not hard to be overcome by their sincere generosity and, in many cases, self sacrifice as they have reached out and offered the only help they could, themselves.
When we hear about the human cost in those places of man made violence, we can only turn to the government for help. The armies are the first to respond during times of war or when insurgents strike innocent people or criminals take matters into their own hands.
In perhaps less obvious ways, we find we respond in similar ways in our day-to-day living. Be it our business at work, our business or interest in the community or our business when at leisure, we turn to the power systems in place for guidance, for help, or influence. How else do we get things done? How else do we know what to do to function safely in this world? There are simply a myriad of systems and processes in place that we must know about and know how to navigate in order to get things done.
If we doubt this, we need look no further than the recent wildfires to see how quickly many lives came to a dangerous stand still when these systems were slow to respond. Those first hours and days in some cases there were no safe shelters, there was no food, no water, people did not have access to medical care, to basic sanitation systems, and when night came all were left vulnerable to the forces that surrounded them.
These truths are real and very, very, frightening. Our sense of absolute vulnerability should be evident. We live on the edge of chaos and don’t realize it until our comfort is shaken by events like these past few weeks and months. Our safety is shaken and all too often we find our sadness is too close to home.
Quickly we recover though, we remember, at our birth we needed help at every level and we received it. But as adults we come to believe we actually have real power and security. It seems that once we have reached a certain age and status we think we can take care of ourselves. If this is our belief, Jesus warns us to be permanently uneasy.
Jesus, we find, was on to something life changing in this morning’s gospel story. After the Pharisees plotted once again to entrap him they asking him, ‘is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not’, Jesus’ answer surprised them, ‘show me the coin used for the tax.’ Being the master at these games of entrapment, Jesus asks, “Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered. “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.’
Oh how wise and clear. Jesus points to the obvious. Give only to the emperor what the emperor is due. It is implicit in this command that the emperor has been receiving more than the emperor is due. That is still true today.
Give to God the things that are God’s. It is implicit in this command that God has been receiving less than what God is due. Sadly, this too is still the case.
How can this be, that we could possibly be giving more to our real world power sources than they are due and less to what our God is due? There must be a permanent uneasiness in our lives.
We do live in the here and now and our decisions about how we live do affect our lives and the lives of those around us and perhaps even the entire world. We do care, we know there are problems, and we are concerned when people lose so much. It could be us next time, we know that is true. The question then becomes, from where does our help come? Do we turn to Caesar or to God?
Since I have become a pastor it is not uncommon for me to see folk react differently when they discover my vocation. Often one of the first things they will say is, “I grew up going to church and I know I should be better about going now, but I have several really good excuses.” Questioning how they live their lives is the farthest thing from my mind, but implicit in their response is an unspoken feeling of guilt. The other frequent response is silence. I’m not sure which is more unsettling.
You may have heard it yourself when you invite someone to church. “I’m afraid we don’t have time for church,’ they say, ‘we’ve committed to soccer and cheerleading for our kids, we travel a lot, Bob loves his golf and then there is the hunting season. We have a full plate. Maybe in a few years we will find time for church. Right now it’s the kids and our family time.”
We hear in this response that not only have choices been made, they have been justified. Our priority is with the kids and our family time. Choices are made that all too often give to Caesar what rightfully belongs to God.
Jesus’ admonition to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s is a clever response, perhaps one that is appropriate for those of us who have trouble deciding what goes to Caesar and what to God. And we can have that trouble, the lines are not always clear. It is so easy to get caught up in living and the next thing we know life is all about this world and ultimately ourselves.
If we look again at the coin in this story it is clear, the coin was stamped with the image of Caesar. You and I, we often forget, are not created in any human image; we are created in the image of God. It is no simple matter, is it; to yield to God the things that are God’s. Not simple, nor is the price we pay insignificant. Jesus makes it clear, it is our very selves he is asking for, and we are the ones God expects to be rendered.
As Christians we must never forget, we are accountable solely to God for all the gifts we have received. The greatest of course being the gift of love. It is ours and it has come to us from God and we are accountable to God for it. Not so much for how we live in love, but for the way we use the love that has been given to us.
Our permanent uneasiness is real. It is not easy to balance church activities, living the life of Christ day and night, with everything else. We want to do it all. We do not want to sacrifice ‘alone time’, family time, travel time or shopping time. I couldn’t just pick on golfers and hunters without remembering shoppers too!
All too often we give God the balance left over when everything else has been done. God does not deserve the balance left over. God deserves to take first place in our lives.
A few years back I attended a conference on “God in the Workplace.” One of the stated purposes of the conference was to challenge us to not let our Monday-Friday work be at odds with our Sunday call to life-long ministry. In the course of the discussion, there were several important points that stayed with me.
The best being this, a business leader was sharing his frustration with a noted business expert that he found it impossible to organize, let alone accomplish, the multiplicity of priorities in his life. The expert stopped him immediately and challenged his notion of having priorities in life. His message was clear; life is not about having priorities, plural, it is about having a priority, singular. And that priority should be God.
How would that change your Monday-Friday? If your work and home and play life were not about priorities but about priority. If God were your single priority, how then would you give to God what is Gods? Would God then take first place in your life?
Thomas R. Kelly was a Quaker missionary, educator, speaker, writer and scholar. In A Testament of Devotion, he wrote: “We are trying to be several selves at once, without all our selves being organized by a single, mastering Life within us. Each of us tends to be, not a single self, but a whole committee of selves…. And each of our selves is in turn a rank individualist, not cooperative but shouting out his vote loudly for himself when the voting time comes….It is as if we have a chairman of our committee of many selves within us who does not integrate the many into one but who merely counts the votes at each decision, and leaves disgruntled minorities….We are not integrated. We are distraught. We feel honestly the pull of many obligations and try to fulfill them all….Life is meant to be lived from a Center, a divine Center….Most of us, I fear, haven not surrendered all else, in order to attend to the Holy within.”
I am the first to admit, it is not easy to surrender all, to give to God what is God’s. So often we find ourselves consumed by our perceived importance’s. How can we possibly have time for anything else?
Perhaps the worst sin is not to give to Caesar that which ought only to be given to God after all. Perhaps the greatest sin is not to recognize the difference. To fool ourselves into thinking all our busy work is somehow God’s work. Clearly there is a difference. Give to Caesar only what is Caesars, give to God only what is God’s.
I cannot tell you exactly where that line lies. I cannot in every case tell you what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God. But God can, if we will only pay attention, God can. Powerfully, lovingly, with grace and a life long commitment, God is revealed to us by God. Especially these past few weeks and months when things have been so tough.
When rescuers came, God was there.
When shelters were opened. God was there.
When volunteers showed up with food, water, clothing and a helping hand and a kind word, God was there.
Wherever there are people who show up during tough times, God has shown up.
When their words are of comfort, and promise and healing, it is God who is speaking.
That is where the line is for those of us who believe. God brings it, God defines it and God reveals it to us, and often as not, through us. Through each of us God reveals God’s love to the world.
And because of this amazing truth, God deserves all we have in return, every bit of us, not just the balance left over.
What in the world is God doing with us here at Genesis Presbyterian Church? God is showing us that line between Caesar and between God. When we step out in ministry to our community, when we bring forth our resources for mission and outreach, when we gather for worship, and especially when we hold one another in our tears, God is here with us.
Let us give to God what is God’s, this church, and us with it.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
101611.gpc
It has been a tough past few weeks and months in the world. Disasters natural and man-made alike have filled our newspaper front pages and television and radio airwaves with acts of terror, shootings at work, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, draughts, and wildfires. People have lost their homes, their jobs, their communities and in some cases, their lives.
Ten years ago it was 9/11. Following 9/11, there was war. War still rages on. These past few weeks and months people have been killing one another with bombs and guns. There is great fear in the hearts of many this very moment.
Closer to home, when the hurricanes and the earthquakes and the fires stopped their carnage people turned first to one another for help and then to their governments. Largely the cry to the government was filled with judgment and criticism. In comparison, when we see what our fellow citizens have done, it is not hard to be overcome by their sincere generosity and, in many cases, self sacrifice as they have reached out and offered the only help they could, themselves.
When we hear about the human cost in those places of man made violence, we can only turn to the government for help. The armies are the first to respond during times of war or when insurgents strike innocent people or criminals take matters into their own hands.
In perhaps less obvious ways, we find we respond in similar ways in our day-to-day living. Be it our business at work, our business or interest in the community or our business when at leisure, we turn to the power systems in place for guidance, for help, or influence. How else do we get things done? How else do we know what to do to function safely in this world? There are simply a myriad of systems and processes in place that we must know about and know how to navigate in order to get things done.
If we doubt this, we need look no further than the recent wildfires to see how quickly many lives came to a dangerous stand still when these systems were slow to respond. Those first hours and days in some cases there were no safe shelters, there was no food, no water, people did not have access to medical care, to basic sanitation systems, and when night came all were left vulnerable to the forces that surrounded them.
These truths are real and very, very, frightening. Our sense of absolute vulnerability should be evident. We live on the edge of chaos and don’t realize it until our comfort is shaken by events like these past few weeks and months. Our safety is shaken and all too often we find our sadness is too close to home.
Quickly we recover though, we remember, at our birth we needed help at every level and we received it. But as adults we come to believe we actually have real power and security. It seems that once we have reached a certain age and status we think we can take care of ourselves. If this is our belief, Jesus warns us to be permanently uneasy.
Jesus, we find, was on to something life changing in this morning’s gospel story. After the Pharisees plotted once again to entrap him they asking him, ‘is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not’, Jesus’ answer surprised them, ‘show me the coin used for the tax.’ Being the master at these games of entrapment, Jesus asks, “Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered. “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.’
Oh how wise and clear. Jesus points to the obvious. Give only to the emperor what the emperor is due. It is implicit in this command that the emperor has been receiving more than the emperor is due. That is still true today.
Give to God the things that are God’s. It is implicit in this command that God has been receiving less than what God is due. Sadly, this too is still the case.
How can this be, that we could possibly be giving more to our real world power sources than they are due and less to what our God is due? There must be a permanent uneasiness in our lives.
We do live in the here and now and our decisions about how we live do affect our lives and the lives of those around us and perhaps even the entire world. We do care, we know there are problems, and we are concerned when people lose so much. It could be us next time, we know that is true. The question then becomes, from where does our help come? Do we turn to Caesar or to God?
Since I have become a pastor it is not uncommon for me to see folk react differently when they discover my vocation. Often one of the first things they will say is, “I grew up going to church and I know I should be better about going now, but I have several really good excuses.” Questioning how they live their lives is the farthest thing from my mind, but implicit in their response is an unspoken feeling of guilt. The other frequent response is silence. I’m not sure which is more unsettling.
You may have heard it yourself when you invite someone to church. “I’m afraid we don’t have time for church,’ they say, ‘we’ve committed to soccer and cheerleading for our kids, we travel a lot, Bob loves his golf and then there is the hunting season. We have a full plate. Maybe in a few years we will find time for church. Right now it’s the kids and our family time.”
We hear in this response that not only have choices been made, they have been justified. Our priority is with the kids and our family time. Choices are made that all too often give to Caesar what rightfully belongs to God.
Jesus’ admonition to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s is a clever response, perhaps one that is appropriate for those of us who have trouble deciding what goes to Caesar and what to God. And we can have that trouble, the lines are not always clear. It is so easy to get caught up in living and the next thing we know life is all about this world and ultimately ourselves.
If we look again at the coin in this story it is clear, the coin was stamped with the image of Caesar. You and I, we often forget, are not created in any human image; we are created in the image of God. It is no simple matter, is it; to yield to God the things that are God’s. Not simple, nor is the price we pay insignificant. Jesus makes it clear, it is our very selves he is asking for, and we are the ones God expects to be rendered.
As Christians we must never forget, we are accountable solely to God for all the gifts we have received. The greatest of course being the gift of love. It is ours and it has come to us from God and we are accountable to God for it. Not so much for how we live in love, but for the way we use the love that has been given to us.
Our permanent uneasiness is real. It is not easy to balance church activities, living the life of Christ day and night, with everything else. We want to do it all. We do not want to sacrifice ‘alone time’, family time, travel time or shopping time. I couldn’t just pick on golfers and hunters without remembering shoppers too!
All too often we give God the balance left over when everything else has been done. God does not deserve the balance left over. God deserves to take first place in our lives.
A few years back I attended a conference on “God in the Workplace.” One of the stated purposes of the conference was to challenge us to not let our Monday-Friday work be at odds with our Sunday call to life-long ministry. In the course of the discussion, there were several important points that stayed with me.
The best being this, a business leader was sharing his frustration with a noted business expert that he found it impossible to organize, let alone accomplish, the multiplicity of priorities in his life. The expert stopped him immediately and challenged his notion of having priorities in life. His message was clear; life is not about having priorities, plural, it is about having a priority, singular. And that priority should be God.
How would that change your Monday-Friday? If your work and home and play life were not about priorities but about priority. If God were your single priority, how then would you give to God what is Gods? Would God then take first place in your life?
Thomas R. Kelly was a Quaker missionary, educator, speaker, writer and scholar. In A Testament of Devotion, he wrote: “We are trying to be several selves at once, without all our selves being organized by a single, mastering Life within us. Each of us tends to be, not a single self, but a whole committee of selves…. And each of our selves is in turn a rank individualist, not cooperative but shouting out his vote loudly for himself when the voting time comes….It is as if we have a chairman of our committee of many selves within us who does not integrate the many into one but who merely counts the votes at each decision, and leaves disgruntled minorities….We are not integrated. We are distraught. We feel honestly the pull of many obligations and try to fulfill them all….Life is meant to be lived from a Center, a divine Center….Most of us, I fear, haven not surrendered all else, in order to attend to the Holy within.”
I am the first to admit, it is not easy to surrender all, to give to God what is God’s. So often we find ourselves consumed by our perceived importance’s. How can we possibly have time for anything else?
Perhaps the worst sin is not to give to Caesar that which ought only to be given to God after all. Perhaps the greatest sin is not to recognize the difference. To fool ourselves into thinking all our busy work is somehow God’s work. Clearly there is a difference. Give to Caesar only what is Caesars, give to God only what is God’s.
I cannot tell you exactly where that line lies. I cannot in every case tell you what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God. But God can, if we will only pay attention, God can. Powerfully, lovingly, with grace and a life long commitment, God is revealed to us by God. Especially these past few weeks and months when things have been so tough.
When rescuers came, God was there.
When shelters were opened. God was there.
When volunteers showed up with food, water, clothing and a helping hand and a kind word, God was there.
Wherever there are people who show up during tough times, God has shown up.
When their words are of comfort, and promise and healing, it is God who is speaking.
That is where the line is for those of us who believe. God brings it, God defines it and God reveals it to us, and often as not, through us. Through each of us God reveals God’s love to the world.
And because of this amazing truth, God deserves all we have in return, every bit of us, not just the balance left over.
What in the world is God doing with us here at Genesis Presbyterian Church? God is showing us that line between Caesar and between God. When we step out in ministry to our community, when we bring forth our resources for mission and outreach, when we gather for worship, and especially when we hold one another in our tears, God is here with us.
Let us give to God what is God’s, this church, and us with it.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
101611.gpc
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