Sermons of Rick Carroll

15 January 2012 Glorify God John 1:43-51

2012-01-16T17:11:00.000-08:00

15 January 2012 Glorify God John 1:43-51

This morning we will install two session elders, Jeff Woodruff and Duane Hiller for the class of 2015. These two have heard God’s call to serve the church and they have answered that call. I know you will join me in thanking them in advance for their service to God, to this church, and to our wider world.

A day like today may bring memories of those times God nudged you to service in God’s kingdom. God’s serving community has so many faces. Why, our joining with family to be family may have been our very first call. As we grew older God had a way of nudging us on beyond our first family to school, from school to work and perhaps another family, from another family to community and yes, church. So many times we have found ourselves on our knees trying to understand God’s call, trying to discern God’s will.

Often lost in our prayer for discernment is God’s affirmation, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” We do not choose God, but God choses us. God reminds us this morning through John’s gospel this call business is all God’s doings. It is God’s doing that we are found by God and sent into God’s kingdom. It is God who equips us and chooses us for kingdom building. The call of God is to all believers, not just to these two good folks this morning.
The evidence is before us. All in these pews this morning are gifted and equipped by God. Now do not try and deny it! We know it to be true here at Genesis for each of you have unique gifts, a special calling.

Being so gifted by God began with those early disciples whom he desired. God desired to have them and gifted them with three special assignments: to preach the gospel, to heal the sick and to be with him. The first two assignments are task specific, preach and heal. The third, to be with him, is often overlooked.
To always be close to Jesus can be risky. Being with him means we have to be so close that we know where he is going and what he will do next, and with whom. Knowing Jesus took risks with people, places, and events makes us uneasy when we hear God’s call to be with Jesus in his ministry. Knowing Jesus’s ways we may hesitate, we may stand motionless, before we commit to let God use us where God leads. For where God leads we may not want to go.
In our hesitation, our motionless, we may truthfully and honestly wonder. How could this be God calling me to this way? Where did God come to know me so well God can direct my life? We know God know us. God is God after all. But how do we know when it is God calling and not our own desire or that of the evil one?

In our Gospel story this morning Nathanael sounds like us. He asks Jesus, “How do you know me?” “Who have you been talking to about me?” “We’ve never met, have we?” Jesus answers, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” How does Jesus know Nathanael? Jesus knew him before anyone knew him, even before he was born.

One of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 139. It begins, “O Lord, you have searched me and know me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.” God knows us before we know ourselves!

Jesus saw Nathanael under a fig tree before Philip found him. Jesus saw Nathanael before he was born. Nathanael now understands who this Jesus is. Nathanael has experienced the revealing of a deeper truth than he could have ever imagined on a regular day hanging out under a fig tree waiting for his buddies to come by so they could go and do what guys do. No, this will not be that sort of day.

Jesus spoke and it was revealed to Nathanael that his invitation to come and see for himself the one about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth, came not from Phillip, but from the Messiah himself. Jesus invited Nathanael, calling him to come and see, and Nathanael realized Philip was right, they had found the one who was to be Messiah.

With this new found knowledge, Nathanael quickly confesses, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel.” Nathanael’s response becomes for us a powerful confessional confirmation of who Jesus is, the one coming to save the world. It also speaks in a real sense of the mutual recognition possible through Jesus, one of knowing and being known, seeing and being seen.
In our Old Testament reading Samuel also has a strange encounter of sorts. He is awakened from his sleep by the Lord calling his name, “Samuel, Samuel,” and he said, “Here I am,” and then thinking Eli had called him he ran to him there in the room where he was asleep. But Eli said, I did not call you, lie down again. This happens two more times before Eli finally realizes that Samuel is hearing the Lord call to him. Eli tells Samuel to go, lie down; and if he calls you again, you shall say, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.” This response, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening” becomes our biblical response when we sense God is calling; first be open to God’s speaking, then listen and respond.

Samuel, like our newly elected and soon to be installed elders, is to be established as the rightful bearer of God’s word and authority. He begins, and we begin the same way, by learning to listen and then learning to respond.
First, to listen and be sure it is God calling and not our own personal messenger and then, to respond, to reach out and attach ourselves to the ministry God has for us. We all belong to God. God uses each of us. God uses our mind, our body, and our spirit in ways that are nothing short of a miracle, in ways that are clearly God’s freely given grace.

I read in a recent Christian Century magazine article that on their own neither Samuel nor Nathanael are able to interpret these strange encounters. Samuel doesn’t recognize God’s voice, and Nathanael is puzzled by Jesus’ origins, and then by his extraordinary ability to know and see.

But both of them are portrayed as truthful, and the childlike innocence in Samuel is reflected in a description of Nathanael as an Israelite in whom there is “no deceit.” No cunning, no spin, no dishonesty, just a purity of heart that helps open their eyes to see God.

The good news for us this third Sunday of the New Year is that in our innocence and with Jesus’ help our eyes have been opened to see God. On our own we are not able to know about these strange encounters. On our own we don’t know if God is calling us or it is some telemarketer or our own driven egos. On our own the competing voices pull us further from God and we lose our authentic Christian selves.

Jeff and Duane have responded to God’s call. They have recognized a kindred spirit in our Lord. They have prayed and listened and heard and believed and realized the risk of accepting a call to serve God’s church as an officer and member of session. A risk they enter into freely, I trust!

The New Testament tells us that when the apostles started churches they appointed elders to govern the congregations in their absence. Although it is not certain what the elders’ responsibilities were in the early church, their position was clearly one of honor. We do know from scripture they were expected to exhibit the highest moral character. Elders were to be compassionate, humble, and eager to serve the congregation like a shepherd, following the example of Christ.

The responsibilities of those we elect as elders is clearly stated in the Book of Order. They are to encourage the congregation in the worship of God, they are to equip the church in mission in the world, they are to comfort and care for the sick with special attention to the poor and the oppressed, and they are to serve in the higher governing bodies of the church.
Our session, with the exception of certain rights and privileges granted to the congregation and pastor, has virtual oversight of all the spiritual, educational, and practical activities of this church.

As Presbyterians, we believe that the Holy Spirit works best in our church through the will of the people as represented by these good folk we install this morning. They are good and faithful shepherds who are concerned solely with the health of our church and the work of God’s kingdom.
I imagine they have been surprised by their encounter with the living God, calling them to a leadership position in this church. We’ve all been there. Surprised and frightened and humbled at the same time. Encounters when God calls us are like that.

For his part, Nathanael was surprised to be invited to come and see for himself that Jesus was the chosen one. What frightened him was the realization he was known so intimately by Jesus. For his part, Samuel thought Eli was calling his name. Instead, it was God calling him.

We are called to come and see this Jesus who knew us before we were born and knows us so intimately know. We may think it is this church or the Nominating Committee perhaps that calls our name. It is God calling us. And we celebrate all those who come and see.
For we see who has called us to servant discipleship. We hear his call every day and we come. We come so we may be authentically who we are called to be, followers of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the King of Israel!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever more. Amen

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01 January 2012 “What’s up with this?” Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7

2012-01-01T06:11:00.000-08:00

01 January 2012 “What’s up with this?” Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7

It may be the best question to ask this first Sunday of the New Year. What’s up with this? Was Jesus really born for us to treat him this way?
How far have we gone from worship to silly human distraction?
David Davis of Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton, NJ tells the story of a Christmas pageant with significant issues. Mrs. Smith, the pageant director, was only in her first year as the volunteer in charge, and if David is honest, it would probably be her last.

As David tells it, “Nightmare” might be too strong a word to ever use for a Christmas pageant, but that years might qualify. After all, the term “perfect Christmas pageant” is an oxymoron. Christmas pageants are going to have rough edges. However, on this particular evening, as the pageant played on, Mrs. Smith was just a bit taken aback by the sharpness of those edges.

Mary had been sick all morning and the bucket next to the manger was for her. Joseph was thirteen now and decided about ten days ago that he wasn’t going to enjoy this pageant at all. When the animals arrived behind the shepherds, any hope of heavenly peace vanished. They took over the whole chancel and elevated “lowing” to a new, loud, hip-hop, rap sounding art form.

Right near the end, just before everyone was to sing “Joy to the World the Lord is come” and “He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness,” the narrator, Jerod, literally fought his way to center stage for his last line. He stepped on and over sheep and cows. Mary was reaching for the bucket, and Joseph had rolled his eyes so many times they just about fell out of his head.

So Jerod had to shout over the barnyard noise. Finally, in desperation, he put his folder down and stretched out his arms and with no little amount of exasperation, yelled, “Christ was born for this?”

Mrs. Smith, now fully exhausted, said to no one in particular, “it was an exclamation point, not a question mark.”

However, some years it does feel more like a question mark, doesn’t’ it? Christ was born for this? Some years the pageantry of life seems to not be like a chancel drama, but a pageant of life itself.

That is how William Muehl once described it. “This rich pageant of life is often fouled up,” “Fouled up by our rigid moralism, and the cross is hidden beneath the flimsy fabric of our simple piety . . . Our flesh drives and afflicts us from birth to death.”

You and I, we find ourselves stepping on and over so much as we make our way across life’s stage. Every year in this family of faith, somebody heads to Bethlehem by way of the grave, because death has an unceasing part to play. Every year, for some it is Christmas carols and tears as the earthiness of the flesh has torn at relationships, or the brutality of disease has torn at the flesh. Christ was born for this?

This year, like every year, we come face to face with flesh not just torn but destroyed. There are places in our world destroyed by war, torn by economic distress or natural disaster and nations proving something other than the “glories of his righteousness.” Yet we sing “peace on earth and good will to all,” not just once or twice, but over and over again.
It was not too long ago that Jesus made the cover of both Time and Newsweek. When such an appearance happens to be around Christmas, we can expect some conversation about the birth narratives found in the gospels of Luke and Mark. The headlines tell the story, “Behind the First Noel: How the story of Christ’s birth came to be” and “The Birth of Jesus: from Mary to the manger, how the Gospels mix faith and history to tell the Christmas story and make the case for Christ.”

Writers in both magazines engaged scholarly opinions to raise critical issues surrounding the Virgin Birth, and the importance of Bethlehem, and the questions of numbers in terms of the Magi, and whether or not the star was Haley’s Comet.

When turning to the question of why this all makes a difference, both magazines looked to the message of the angel in Luke: “For to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
“A simple, joyous proclamation of salvation,” one writer concluded. “On earth peace, good will toward all,” cited the other writer, calling it “a promise whose fulfillment is worth our prayers not only in this season, but always.” One concludes with a simple proclamation of salvation; the other a sweeping prayer for peace. As important as both may be we still find ourselves asking, Christ was born for this?

The reader of Time and Newsweek ought to be turning pages looking for more, looking for what is missing, looking for why this nativity of Christ would have anything to do with you or me.

Perhaps what they fail to consider is that Christ came that you and I might be justified by faith. “In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith,” the scriptures tell us. “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

That is what is missing. If you “belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” These words come to us from the Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Galatians. It is his approach to the birth of Jesus. “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.” No angels; no shepherds; no Magi; no star. You and I, we are adopted as children of God. Christ was born for this!

We can remember growing up and as recently as this past Christmas Eve standing in our sanctuary to sing “Silent Night.” The candlelight would spread, and some would sing with tears streaming down their cheeks. The pew might even shake a bit. We might even say that was the night we learned it was safe to cry in church.

But we learned something far greater about faith and God’s promise. “We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.” That is God’s promise, hear and now, in the very earthiness of life. Such fullness of time belongs to God in those moments when in that exact earthiness of our lives, we come face to face with the promise of God. “We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.” The nativity of the Christ Child enters into our own mundane lives and there are additional truths that become self-evident.

God has promised us; “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Phil 4:13)

“I am persuaded that neither life nor death, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor death, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:38-39)

“I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mt 28:20)

“My peace I leave with you, not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (Jn 14:27)

“Come unto me all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Mt 11:28)

“I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”(Jn 6:35)
“This is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” (Lk 22:19)

Somewhere this rich pageant of life is unfolding. Somewhere a child of God is moving to center stage, stepping on and over more than an abundance of life’s joys and challenges clawing at her feet. Few will pay attention and she will have to shout over the world’s noise. But for her, it is the fullness of time, with a heart stretched out to God, she will proclaim, not with a question mark, but with an exclamation point: “Christ was born for this!”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever more. Amen

Additional sources:
“Lectionary Homiletics,” Volume XVII, Number 1, 45-47.

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25 December 2011 “Keep Unwrapping” Luke 2:1-14 (15-20)

2011-12-25T06:25:00.001-08:00

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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11 December 2011 Waiting for the Light John 1:6-8, 19-28

2011-12-11T06:59:00.000-08:00

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.

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04 December 2011 Wilderness Survival Mark 1:1-8

2011-12-11T06:55:00.001-08:00

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.

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27 November 2011 The Awakening Mark 13:24-37

2011-11-29T05:33:00.000-08:00

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

20 November 2011 “Little Things Count” Matthew 25:31-46

2011-11-20T06:36:00.000-08:00

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.
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13 November 2011 Our Stewardship with God Matthew 25:14-30

2011-11-13T07:21:00.000-08:00

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

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06 November 2011 Get Ready for God Matthew 25:1-1

2011-11-06T05:40:00.000-08:00

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.
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Tis a Gift to Be Humble

2011-10-30T06:02:00.000-07:00

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
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26 October 11 Following Jesus Matthew 22:34-46

2011-10-24T17:08:00.001-07:00

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

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“Which Life”

2011-10-16T06:19:00.000-07:00

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.
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Many Are Called, but Few Are Chosen

2011-10-10T17:11:00.001-07:00

09 October 2011 Many Are Called, but Few Are Chosen Matthew 22:1-14

We now have our third parable in as many Sundays. The Marriage Feast we read this morning is the last. Knowing there is that moment when the whole story turns we may not have expected to consider Jesus’ immeasurable blessings are only for those who wear the wedding robe.

A few years ago, at the Nashville Festival of Homiletics, Tom Long, an author of many books about preaching, told this story. He, Fred Craddock and Barbara Brown Taylor, who also have written extensively on preaching, were sitting in the stands at a baseball game in Atlanta when suddenly the ushers descended on a man seated a few rows in front of them. They argued back and forth with him for a few moments, and then, to the surprise of everyone in the vicinity, took the man by the arms and frog-marched him out of the stadium. No one knew why the ushers had targeted this man; no one had ever seen anything like it. Everyone just sat in stunned silence, our three preachers among them. Then Fred Craddock shook his head, gestured at the empty seat, and said to his friends, “Must not have had a wedding garment.”

Perhaps we consider a text like this morning’s and we feel like one of the onlookers at that baseball game: speechless. We may wonder, what do those in charge of the wedding crowd know that we don’t know?

On the surface the story seems simple enough and then that turn. The king’s son marries and the king throws a party. He invites many guests: anyone and everyone it seems. But, the invited guests snub the king and his son and the wedding

banquet. The king is rightly enraged and radically changes the guest list. He starts over and invites more guests: anyone and everyone. This time, to his surprise, the guests come. Perhaps they heard what happened to the original group.

The king begins to inspect his guests and discovers one inappropriately dressed. Again he is enraged and orders his attendants to “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Then we hear the final decree; “Many are called, but few are chosen.”

If we consider this parable as representing entre into the kingdom of God we may be somewhat taken aback that our salvation comes down to a dress code. We may be like those at the baseball game.

No one knew why the attendants took this man out of the wedding feast. Surely he did or said something insulting or threatening or rude. This cannot be about what he wore. Everyone must have sat in stunned silence. Has the king not heard of what happened in Matthew 6 with the lilies of the field and not worrying about what we wear?

Perhaps we have this parable because the parents of teenagers in Jesus’ time asked him for help. Perhaps this surprise that God now expects proper dress in a proper place is Jesus’ way of giving parents a dress code and the weapon of profound biblical truth to help carry the day.

We just might expect a parent say, “Why am I worrying about clothing, you ask? Well, after you’ve considered the lilies of the field, how they neither toil nor they spin, consider the wedding guest who forgot to wear a coat and tie. My suggestion is that you ditch the flip flops this minute, march back upstairs, and find something decent to wear to church unless you would like to spend the rest of the day in outer darkness, where I promise you there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Good response aside, nothing Jesus says gets to be taken in isolation, without at least remembering his other words and teachings. We can’t decide once and for all which is more important: Matthew 6 or Matthew 22? We have to read them both, which is daunting when you think about it. Consider the lilies and consider the wedding guest!

We just as well consider the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree. They are all expressions of extremes, of times when Jesus seems to go almost overboard in his reaction to something. A fig tree that doesn’t produce fruit? Wham! Curses to it! A wedding guest without a wedding garment? Wham! Off with his head! Indeed, all are important, all matter, they all save. But how?

What may strike us about these stories is that Jesus is making a point about integrity: Be who you are. Let your life express whose you are. Otherwise, you are as welcome at the tables as a termite and about as useful.

Jesus is lifting us up to be who he has made us to be. If we are a fig tree, by golly, then be a fig tree! Make figs! If we are a wedding guest, for goodness sake, then let’s look like we are at a wedding instead of going to the dentist. No offense to dentists, but take off the long face, change the droopy attitude, put on your party clothes and celebrate – because this is a celebration! And anyone who is not happy to be here – and happy to see who else is here – is officially uninvited!

We have been in worship at other churches, never here at Genesis of course, where it looks like people are about as happy to be in church as Eeyore. We might never guess, to look at them, that salvation is a good thing. We would never know, to hear them tell it, that Christ has made a difference. They have no wedding garment – no outer sign that this really is a party, that we really are, as David Buttrick puts it, “being saved,” that the gospel is really and truly good news!
Maybe the reason for their reserve has more to do with upbringing and custom than stinginess our sourness; maybe. Or maybe they find it hard to put on a wedding garment that everyone else, like taxpayers, sinners, and prostitutes are wearing, too.

Sometimes I am like that. Sometimes I have a hard time celebrating when I look around and notice who else has been invited to the party. Especially when they so clearly don’t deserve to be there. Sometimes I deliberately under dress, or choose to sit and pout in my flip flops while everyone else is dancing in their party shoes. Sometimes I don’t put on the wedding garment that Jesus has already laid out for me, freshly laundered, on my bed. On those days, just send the ushers in after me.
The free character of God’s grace is extended to all who God calls. The free character of God’s grace, however, does not mean that grace is ‘bargain-basement goods, cut-rate forgiveness, cut-rate comfort,” as Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed. The grace of God remains costly and is never “cheap grace,” that “mortal enemy of our church.” “Above all,” Bonhoeffer wrote, “grace is costly, because it was costly to God, because it costs God the life of God’s Son…and because nothing can be cheap to us which is costly to God…Costly grace is the incarnation of God.”
Matthew’s version of the parable opens the doors of God’s kingdom wide, but it does not forget that this kingdom has a king and that this kingdom cannot be converted to conform to our own expectations. While many are called, few are chosen.

About this passage Emil Brunner asks, “But what happens to God’s invitation?” For Brunner it’s not refusals but excuses given by people who are preoccupied and allow other things to interfere. In this context Jesus pronounces the word of judgment and has the servants go into the street “where the gypsies live” and invite people to the banquet.

Guests arrive, but there is an intruder, an individual without the wedding garment. Brunner sheds light on the passage by explaining the oriental custom of the host providing each guest with a wedding garment that the intruder, out of laziness, had not put on. It serves as a severe warning to those Christians who don’t discard their rags. “They want to believe but not to obey,” argues Brunner, “to enjoy and rejoice but not to change their ways.” As Brunner explains, they want both God’s love and to keep their self-love, God’s mercy and their own self-centered hearts.

Brunner consoles listeners by reminding them that Jesus is not expecting perfect obedience overnight, but that divine forgiveness calls us to forgiveness as well. In the closing words of Brunner, “The wedding garment is laid out; all we have to do is to put it on.”

We are to put it on because we are called. The wedding garment, Jesus Christ is laid out for us. All we have to do is put him on. All we have to do is put on the life of Christ, to cloth ourselves in God’s costly grace, Jesus Christ.

But we know that sometimes we follow another way. We pay no attention and go off – one to his or her field, another to his or her business. Some seize the king’s servants, mistreat them and discard them. The king is enraged. He sends his army and destroys our other way.

But we are wedding guests. So be wedding guests. Be who you are, accept the invitation. Accept the body of Jesus Christ to be the wedding garment. We should take off the long face, change the droopy attitude, put on our party clothes and celebrate.

Kim Peavey, who writes and farms in New Hampshire, tells of never being smote on the head, or anywhere else, for that matter, with religious conviction. Yet, after years of milking cows, traveling, graduate study in poetry, teaching college writing, shoveling horse manure and stints as a researcher and writer, she found herself applying to theological schools. This despite, as she says, she can’t even say the word prayer out loud, much less the J-word (Jesus, that would be).
All during first-week orientation, she alternately cries on a rock outdoors by herself and tries not to cry during meetings, worship service, and getting-to-know-each-other games. There are many people at seminary, a great diversity of people, some of whom are friendly, and who look as alarmed at this churchy situation as she does. There are also other people, people who do not choose the vegetarian entrée, people who drink out of Styrofoam cups, people who look like they think she should go forth, be fruitful and multiply, or at least cover her head.

She decided to stay, maybe through her first class. Then, slowly, she discovers she is a wedding guest and she graduates and funny things happen. People think she knows things. They ask her the words to “Amazing Grace.” They ask her about church history, they ask her for a bible, and people ask her to perform wedding ceremonies. She finds herself being who she is.

Then a friend who is dying of cancer asks her to lead her funeral service. She is so terrified by this that she realizes she must do it. A poem comes to her. She sends it to her dying friend. She says, “Read it at my service, please.” When she dies, she does.

In the final paragraph she writes. “In the end, I do not become an ordained minister. Neither do I imagine that I will ever find myself at peace with the complexity, difficulty, and luminosity of the Christian Church. But I have come to a truer, more fruitful engagement with religion, with my work of writing, and with the world, complete with all its non-vegetarian non-feminist non-environmentalists. I have become less afraid, more willing, more open. I have become myself, or more myself; and I have come to know that this in itself is good. And right. And holy.”

Be yourself, or more yourself, a wedding guest. Accept the invitation to life in Jesus Christ. Put on the new person of Jesus Christ and celebrate the good news – for this is a celebration!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever, Amen.

Additional helps:
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Discipleship, Barbara Green and Reinhardt Krauss, tr. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 43, 45.
“Image: Art, Faith, Mystery,” Spring 2011, Number 69, Pgs. 87-98.
“Lectionary Homiletics,” Volume XIX, Number 6, pgs. 14-23.
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02 October 2011 Matthew 21:33-46

2011-10-03T17:14:00.000-07:00

02 October 2011 Matthew 21:33-46

The questions we hear and often ask ourselves are seldom as innocent as they seem. One pastor tells of a visit with a lifelong member of the church who had not attended for a long time. As they talked the parishioner was curious, ‘How are they doing down at the church?” What a great theological question, “How are they doing down at the church?” From that question our pastor had her sermon for the next Sunday. She called it, “We Are They.”

Her theme was woven around the truth that we are the “they” in this morning’s gospel. We are the tenants who were leased the vineyard. We are they and the not so innocent question that should concern us comes in verse 20, “Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

Throughout church history the church has pointed to a lot of “theys.” Sometimes the list pointed to the religious officials of that day like the Pharisees and the chief priests. But the theys also included Gentiles, women, the uncircumcised, eunuchs, Judaizers, sinners, and Barbarians. People in every age have had a tendency to put distance between themselves and the theys.

It’s like being back in school when some of our classmates would get caught doing something we might now consider casual and being sent to the principal’s office. What will he do to them? And when they get home. What will their parents do to them? It’s like listening to the terrible things people do to one another on the news? What will they do to them? We want to stay away from those theys.
According to Matthew’s gospel the owner had already done a lot of the heavy lifting. He had “planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower.” And then he left his vineyard in the hands of the tenants who at harvest time seize his slaves, beat one, kill one, and stone another. Finally he sent his son and they killed him too.

It is painful to consider we may be the tenants in this parable. We understand God has left the vineyard in our care. But we are faithful people and we work hard to bring about God’s kingdom.

Leaving the vineyard in our care might remind us of that first creation garden in the Genesis story where God first left God’s kingdom in our hands. Like Adam and Eve and these vineyard tenants we have made our mistakes.

The first involves the land. We thought the land belonged to us. We forgot we were to be stewards of someone else’s property. The tenants create a false sense of ownership in their efforts to secure their perceived inheritance. They think, we are the ones slaving over the land. How dare the owner send servant after servant and finally his own son to collect what we have worked very hard to cultivate and grow and harvest. They felt they were due the inheritance, the land and its bounty. How dare anyone threaten to take what is rightfully theirs?

Before we rush to condemn these tenants we might consider for a moment how well we have done with the vineyard we have been given. Have we considered the jungle we have overtly or covertly made or allowed to be made? War; terror; ecological disaster; families in disarray; confusion; fear and pessimism everywhere; values twisted and the old words given new and strange definitions.
We protest, of course, we are not they. It isn’t our fault. We blame it on someone else. Like in Genesis the man blames the woman. The woman blames the snake. I guess the snake had no one to blame, or did not care.

We blame it on the tenants before us or the tenants here now. We blame it on the government or the hypocritical religious institution. Some of the darkest chapters in the life of the church are the times we blamed then punished others using chapter and verse from this parable.

In our way of thinking the words they and we were poles apart. Jesus will not let us judge so easily. He brings the two words and the two different worlds of they and we closer together.
Human beings have spent a lot of time and energy arguing about judgment and we know well the justification, “An eye for an eye.” The scholars tell us, “An eye for an eye” was originally an attempt to keep the urge to retaliate in check. Given the human appetite for revenge even “an eye for an eye” is hard to enforce.
Jesus spends a lot of time talking about judgment. He tells story after story, parable after parable. This particular text has been noted as Matthew’s way of showing the end times: the fall of Jerusalem, the diaspora of the Jews, the rise of Christianity among the Gentiles.

But, as Professor Anna Carter Florence has suggested, what if this wildly outrageous story is simply that: a wildly outrageous story about a world we have yet to meet? What if this is a story that contrasts human judgment with the as-yet-unexperienced-and-unimagined divine judgment of a God who is so far beyond us, that we cannot even apply the same patterns of justice?

In the human realm, when wicked tenants behave like this, we know what happens. We have perfectly credible, reasonable, rational ways to judge those caught in the act, and this act is particularly foul. So, what would we do? Well, we would put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give the owner of the vineyard the produce at harvest time!
Notice that Jesus doesn’t exactly confirm us in our perfectly credible, reasonable, rational judgment. Instead, he offers a cryptic exegetical comment, “Have you never read in the scriptures, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing and it is amazing in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”

The church today is having a hard time. A new song book is coming out soon because we cannot decide what songs to sing, we cannot decide what instruments to play, we have tried other ways and still cannot all agree on what liturgy to use, if any, we cannot agree on what time to meet, or what is appropriate attire for the occasion or how the building should be configured. Perhaps our trouble may be the same as the Pharisees. We forget this is God’s thing we do here on Sunday morning’s. We forget we are tenants only. We forget the owner of the vineyard will one day come and ask us for an accounting.

Maybe our most important calling is to stop pointing fingers. Maybe it is not the liberals or the conservative we should blame. Maybe it is not the government or the immigrants or the extremists or the terrorists or even our wayward parents. We are they. We are to faithfully tend the garden we have been given. We are to receive those God sends our way. We are to make sure that when God walks down our street and stops at our house we do not miss God.

How much easier to point fingers at those other folk over there. It’s just too hard otherwise to consider our role and responsibility to the vineyard, to consider what it means to be a tenant in this year of 2011 here at Genesis church?

The call to fidelity, which means tending the vineyard, begins at home. It does not end here but it starts here. To participate in the church is to risk an encounter like that moment when the prophet Nathan confronted King David after he had taken another man’s wife and foretold the fateful words, “Thou are the man.”
Oh, if we could come to church assured that the enemy is not us, that we are not the man or the woman on whom God’s kingdom depends or on whom God’s judgment falls!

One of our greatest challenges in this matter of divine judgment may be that we live in a society that tends to fear judgment. The “problem’ is always somewhere else other than here. The “sin” is always with folks other than us.
A visitor recalled sitting in a small, rural church in the mountains of North Carolina during a particularly pointed sermon. The preacher, as the visitor recalled, was preaching a text from Jeremiah in which the prophet catalogs Israel’s multiple sins. And then the preacher, as preachers often do, began to talk about the sins of the congregation, condemning them for their assorted instances of their sin. Then, as if the preacher sensed that the attentiveness of his congregation was wandering the preacher blurted out, “I’m talking about you! And you, and you and you!”
This was a powerful moment. It is so easy to have a sermon bounce off our head and hit someone in the pew behind us. “I’m talking about you!” leaves no rebound.
I wonder if Jesus is reminding us that ‘what we would do’ is not what God would do. In the realms of God, judgment will not look like it does in the human realm. The vineyard will bear another kind of fruit. The old ways will be crushed beneath an open tombstone and death, where will thy sting be, then?

All we can say is what we know: God will forgive seventy times seven. God will welcome the prodigal home. God will open the banquet to tax collectors and prostitutes. God will raise the dead to new life. What we know about what God would do is that it is completely incredible, unreasonable, and irrational; not at all what we would do.

And we need not be reminded that many of us are lousy gardeners. Not all. Some of us can plant anything and make it grow. But Jesus said we all have been given this plot of land. It was in good shape when God gave it to us. Now our task is the same as those who came before us. It is to leave the garden better than we found it.
If this is true it will take all of us to make this garden lush and green and productive again. Hopefully we will work to reach out and join hands and hearts to our brothers and sisters and even strangers and enemies. Isn’t this the kind of world we want to leave for those who follow us?
Maybe it is about us after all.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. One God, now and forever. Amen.

Additional resources:
“Pulpit Resource,” Volume 36, Number 4, 2008, pgs. 5-8.
“Lectionary Homiletics,” Volume XIX, Number 6, pgs. 11-12.

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25 September 2011 “Showing up” Matthew 21:23-32

2011-09-25T06:04:00.000-07:00

25 September 2011 “Showing up” Matthew 21:23-32

The story is told of a missionary who was scheduled to speak about his mission work at a distant church. He got up before daybreak that Sunday morning and spent the afternoon speaking with members of the congregation. As he was leaving that evening, the treasurer of the church gave him an envelope, which he tucked in his pocket. It was very late when he made it home. As he undressed, he remembered the envelope. He turned on the light in the bathroom and opened it. Out fell a check with his name written on it in bold letters. Under his name were the words: A million thanks! It was signed by the treasurer. While I am sure the “A million thanks” was sincere, sometimes words are not enough.

In this morning’s gospel, Jesus is asked rather bluntly by the scribes and Pharisees who in the world he thought he was. He had just entered into Jerusalem, he had cast the moneychangers from the temple, cursed the fig tree and asked the religious officials if they had accepted John and the baptism he brought. The stories they heard about Jesus were of a man who was performing miracles, healing the sick, raising the dead and challenging the established churches authority. They wanted to know who he possibly thought he was coming into their temple trying to teach them this way.

Knowing sometimes words are not enough, Jesus tells them a parable, a story which will explain who he is if they will live their life like the parable says they must. Living this new way they will know who he is because mere words cannot tell them. Knowing who he is, they will discover, is not about head knowledge. They will know who he is when they act, when they live their lives in a certain way. Then and only then will his identity be known to them.

Of course this is Jesus’ message to us too. We can do all the bible study in the world for all the days of our lives yet we will not know who Jesus is until we actually live what we believe. When we live what we believe our lives change, our views about life change, our expectations for life change.

Jesus told the scribes and the Pharisees a parable about a man who had two sons. First, he sent his older son to work in his vineyard, but his son refused to go, then later, he changed his mind and headed for the fields. Not knowing this, the father sent his second son to do the work his older brother had refused to do. This son said he would go, but then changed his mind and never set foot in the fields. “Which son did the will of the Father?” Jesus asked. Which of the two boys obeyed?

It is easy to see that the son who obeyed his father is the one who went into the field to work the vineyard. This was the first boy. Even though he said he would not go, when he changed his mind and went to the vineyard that is when he was being obedient.

Having told this teaching parable Jesus makes crystal clear to these priests and elders from the temple the lifestyle they must lead if they are to know him and under whose authority he acts.

Then, he tells them which brother they were. They were not the one who obeyed their father. They were the ones who said they would go and do the work their father asked them to do but never set foot in the fields. They said all the right things, believed all the right things, stood for all the right things, but would not do the right things God asked them to do.

And lastly, because they would not live their lives doing what God asked them to do prostitutes and tax collectors would enter the kingdom before them. Why so harsh? Because as religious leaders, the priests and scribes were known for their words, but were short on deeds. The Danish theologian and philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said, “Jesus wants followers not admirers.”

We hear all too often of people whose actions do not match their words. They sound great, they say all the right things yet they fall far short of doing what they say they will do or being who they think they are. When I am honest with myself and listen to myself, and assess my actions I am certainly guilty of the same thing.
Perhaps you are too. We pray,” I love you Lord, I give my life to you Lord, and I will follow wherever you lead me Lord.” Yet how quickly do these words of faithfulness to discipleship become defensive when we try to explain our inaction, when we try to justify why we have fallen short of what God asks us to do. Who among us has not been like the second son, saying we will be faithful and then forgetting or ignoring our very own promises. We all know how hard it is sometimes to keep the promises we make.

As Elisabeth Elliot has observed, “The problem with living sacrifices like us is that we keep creeping off the altar.” We know about the creeping. This creeping, this sliding away from faithfulness may be conscious or unconscious.

Consciously we know when we say one thing and do another, when we promise we will love each other on Sunday and then find ingenious ways to take advantage of one another on Monday. This consciousness is not the real problem for most of us. It is the unconscious that is most problematic, the way many of us substitute our beliefs about God for our obedience to God, as if it were enough to say “I go Lord”, without even tensing a muscle to get out of our chairs. It is easy to get beliefs mixed up with actions.

There are many people I know who believe they love their families but spend very little time with them. There are even more who believe they are against violence in movies but stand in line for the next “Die Hard” sequel. There are sadly greater numbers who believe in the American way but are not even registered to vote.
There is this peculiar gap between what we believe and what we actually do. The theological word for it is sin – missing the mark – which is both inevitable and forgivable but never tolerable for those who say they love Jesus. When Jesus is the mark we are missing the result is deeply damaging. We see it tear up families, friendships, communities, even our world when we say we will love and instead we are indifferent, when we say we will do right and do wrong, when we say “I will go Lord” and go nowhere at all.

What we believe, you see, has no meaning apart from what we do about it. There is no creed or mission statement that is worth more than one visit to a sick friend, or one handout given to someone homeless, without a job, or a crumb to eat.

It becomes clear to me every day here at Genesis, there are faithful souls in this church whose actions do match their words. We do care for one another, for our community, our country, and our world. We do not have to look far to know there are people who do what they can do. There are ones among us who take casseroles in times of need, who write a note when someone needs it the most, who take folks who don’t have a car to the store, who make an encouraging phone call or give a gentle squeeze of the hand to say “I am praying for you.” Some living sacrifices do not slip off the altar.

In Isak Dinesens book, “Out of Africa”, she tells the story of a young Kikuyu boy named Kitau who appeared at her door in Nairobi one day to ask if he might work for her. She said yes and he turned out to be a fine servant, but after just three months he came to her again to ask her for a letter of recommendation to Sheik Ali bin Salim, a Muslim in Mombasa. Upset at the thought of losing him, she offered to raise his pay, but he was firm about leaving.

He had decided he would become either a Christian or a Muslim, and his whole purpose in coming to live with her had been to see the ways and habits of Christians up close. Next he would go live for three months with Sheik Ali to see how Muslims behaved and then he would make up his mind.

Aghast, Dinesen wrote, I believe that even an Archbishop, when he had these facts laid before him would have said, or at least thought, as I say, “Good God, Kitau, you might have told me that when you came here.”

You know, God is always watching, if we think God will tell us ahead of time when he is looking to see if our actions match our words we are in for a rude awakening. You see, God has been telling us all along to be on the lookout, we will not know the time or place God will call us to account for our lives. There are plenty of people who say, believe, or stand for all the right things. What God is short of are people who will go where God calls them and do what God gives them to do.

A Baptist minister in Birmingham Alabama named Roger Lovette tells about his son sending him a bulletin from the Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia. One Sunday his son stood in a long line of visitors to listen to Jimmy Carter teach Sunday school. He stayed for the worship service and sent the bulletin for that Sunday to his dad.

Reverend Lovette discovered this notice in the bulletin: “Rosalynn Carter will clean the church next Saturday. Jimmy Carter will cut the grass and trim the shrubbery.”

It is not always the one who talks or preaches or teaches who reflects the will of the Father. Sometimes it is the one who shows up on a hot Saturday afternoon to dust the pews, take out the trash, cut the grass, lend a helping hand to a stranger, reach out to pray with someone, letting their actions speak louder than their words.
Letting our actions speak louder than our words is what is most important to God. It is not what our mouths say, it is what our lives say that teach others under whose authority we act. This is how we will know who Jesus is, by living our lives in action, doing his will. This is how Jesus reveals to us who he is. Not in the words we say but in the things we do. This is exactly the model Jesus lived and the clear way we are to follow.

You know, Jesus has learned to tell the difference between those whose actions match their words and those whose don’t, and we can know it too. Even about ourselves. To tell which one we are, look in any mirror. What is moving? Our mouth or our feet? It is so telling isn’t it. Our mouth or our feet?

Clearly one without the other is like a check with God’s name in bold letters and the words, “A million thanks.” Sometimes words are not enough.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. One God, now and forever. Amen.

Additional resources:
“Home By Another Way,” Barbara Brown Taylor, p. 188-191.
“Showing up,” Christian Century, V. 122, No. 19, pg. 20.

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18 September 2011 “Begin With the End in Mind” Matthew 20:1-16

2011-09-19T17:05:00.000-07:00

18 September 2011 “Begin With the End in Mind” Matthew 20:1-16

I have always been a big fan of Brenham State School. That’s the place in Brenham where people with mental retardation live and work. During my time there I learned so much about human behavior, supervising people, advocating for those who struggle to advocate for themselves, and much more. I felt, and still believe, it is a good place.

As good as it is people are people and some days the job can wear folks down. The staff work hard hours; 6/2, 2/10, or 10/6. They work holidays and weekends. At times the work is highly stressful and difficult physically and emotionally.
I had the advantage of working with the staff a long time. I knew them and they knew me and that was a very good thing for them and for me. But on occasion their job performance did not meet my expectations and we would talk.

Over time I learned who I could talk with easily and who would push back a bit. The push back folks almost always brought our talk to the point where eventually they would say, “That’s not fair,” or “You aren’t being fair,” or “The system isn’t being fair,” and on and on about something being unfair.

I must admit I seldom saw it that way. Being fair, while important in the context of being just, usually meant to the employee I should give them a break. They wanted me to overlook the rule or ignore unacceptable behavior because they believed themselves to be a good person, or they had not intended to break a rule, or there were special circumstances.

And they may have been right. This work discussion involved them and they felt they deserved to be treated fairly according to their definition. “Treat me fair,” they would say. “Don’t punish me.” “Don’t tell me I’m not doing my job correctly.” “Treat me differently if it means I’ll get a break.” Otherwise, I was not being fair.
Working directly with people in any and all settings can produce stress. We all feel it and it is obvious we will never totally eliminate stress from our lives. Even if we change jobs, move to another town, or retire. No matter, stress is just a fact of life.

We do learn over time that we can reduce our stress if we will be honest with ourselves about its cause. But we’ve made decisions and we have commitments and obligations. So our challenge becomes one of healthy vs. unhealthy decision making about the stressors we have and our habits or disciplines or responses for managing them.

When I taught stress management to the people I supervised I was not surprised by what stressed them. Money issues were the most dominant, followed closely by family concerns. Physical problems, addictive behaviors of all sorts were there too. Over and over again I heard the same unrealized expectation about these difficult life issues. Life should be fair, folks would say.

It is certainly clear where we want fairness. We want life and work and school and the law and mom and dad and church and especially God, to be fair.
Life and work and school and the law and mom and dad and church and God should be just and honest and good with all things being equal, impartial, unbiased, with even and equal treatment for everyone. Oh, we know what a slippery slope this can be.

We know full well life is not always fair. Work is not always fair. School, mom and dad, the law, church, those preachers, they are not always fair. There is not one place in the book of life where it says we can expect fairness. Even if we are promised fairness, we would all have a pretty strong self interest in defining what fairness would be and I dare say some folks would be left out of the fairness equation if it were up to us.

We all know life has established rules and laws to govern what is just and expected. Yet those rules and laws differ in different settings and circumstance. No two sets of parents have the same governing ideals. Rules do change.

Going in I naively thought people wanted to be treated the same. Oh, how I discovered that is not the case. We think we do, but we really don’t. If two people walk into work ten minutes late and the rule calls for a certain response they do not want to be treated the same. They want to be given a break and excused for their lateness for they have compelling reasons that should be considered. Oh how the slippery slope of favoritism and unfairness is being greased.

Your see, if we are punished it’s unfair. If another receives what we consider preferential treatment it is favoritism. Even when everyone receives the same consequence the system is seen as unfair. We hear, “Those people in charge should just overlook that. That’s not really that important. People do that all the time. No one gets hurt.”

Jesus tells the story this morning of workers receiving the same wage. It is a story of workers being treated the same. It doesn’t work. There is a cry that the landowner is being unfair. There is a really good reason given. Not all worked the same hours, they say. God is being unfair. God should not be giving the same wage; everyone should be treated according to their good works.

What these workers are saying is we should be treated individually. When justice is being dealt, we want our particular circumstances to be taken into consideration. This seems only fair. But then folks jump to the most outrageous conclusions when that individual treatment appears to show favoritism or ignores perceived justice. That’s not fair. I deserve more or less than those others. So, we go back to the basics. Treat ever one the same.

But we cannot ignore how we are programmed. ‘The early bird gets the worm.’ ‘Get to work early and work hard. That’s a sure path to success.’ On and on.
The vineyard boss should pay attention to the best worker, the first one into the vineyard in the morning and the last one to leave at night. Those first into the vineyard should be the first in line to get their pay. The boss will surely pay them what they deserve.

Only, according to this morning’s gospel, those who get to work last will be first and the first to work will be last! Wait. What happened? The old ways of thinking about early birds, working long and hard will get you nowhere! Seriously! Surely something is wrong. This won’t work. It’s not fair.

And, it gets worse. Those at the end of the line will not only be paid first, they will be paid as much as those at the front. This is just so unfair. What was Jesus thinking? There is really going to be trouble over this!

Then the landowner reminds the workers. First, this is my vineyard. Second, I have paid you exactly what I said I would. Third, what business is it of yours what I pay the other workers? From his perspective, if he wants to be generous with his money should the workers begrudge his generosity?

Yes indeed. They do begrudge his generosity. They have a strong sense of what is fair, what is right and what is not. Equal pay for equal work is fair. Equal pay for unequal work is not fair. Paying top dollar to those who do the most work is fair. Paying top dollar to those who do the least work is not fair. Treating everyone the same when they are is fair. Treating everyone the same when they are not is not fair.

If life and work, mom and dad, the law and school, and church, are not going to be fair at least God should be. God should be the one sovereign authority whom we can count on to reward us according to our efforts, who knows when we have been naughty and nice, who knows how hard we have worked and who keeps those most deserving in the front of the line where they belong and then rewards them accordingly. Life may not be fair, but God should be.

It may be disturbing at first to hear this morning that this is not so. We believe God should reward us according to our efforts, our good works and according to what we believe we deserve. But it will not be so according to this morning’s gospel.

This householder, this landlord, this God puts the same amount of money into the hands of those who arrived last and worked least. And God starts at the end of the line on payday where those who gave the least effort stood.

Can you imagine the cheering, the laughter and back slapping back there at the end of the line when those there realized what was happening? While near the front, with the first and the most, there is loud grumbling and even hostility.
Everyone is paid. They are paid the same. But how it is received depends entirely on what each of us believes we deserve. Those of us who receive more than we feel we deserve are jubilant. Those who receive less are furious.

Not only does our response depend on what we believe we deserve, it also depends on where we are in the pay line. The majority of us would argue we have been short changed, After all, we are the ones who deserve the most, we are good Christians, we work hard at being faithful, we come to church, we give, we say our prayers, our sins are just so tiny compared to most people, we feel sorry for the homeless as we check to see that our door is locked when they walk up to our car asking for a handout. We feel sorry for the poor in areas of devastation as we avoid the alley ways in certain parts of Austin.

It is entirely possible that we are mistaken about where we are in line. It is entirely possible that, as far as God is concerned, we are, at best, halfway around the block from the front of the line and that there are all sorts of people ahead of us. Other folk who are far more deserving of God’s love than we. People who have many more stars in their crowns than we will ever have. They are at the front of the line, and we are near the end of it for all sorts of reasons.

I don’t mean to be pointing fingers here. There are so many things we mean to do and so many we mean not to do. Even when we do our best, things get in the way; people get sick, businesses fail, relationships go down the drain. There are a lot of reasons why people wind up at the end of the line and only God can sort that out.
But suppose for a moment that it is you back there and me too. I know you don’t want to be alone, surrounded by strangers, people who don’t understand you, friends who don’t care for you, loved ones who might abandon you. We are all there. And when we least expect it the paymaster faces the line and says, ‘We are starting at the end of the line today’ and God hands you your ticket and every one of us around you receives theirs and all of us near the end of the line begin to cheer. We begin to cheer for we realize God’s saving grace comes even to sinners like us. No matter the hour, God’s forgives, and God blesses us with God’s grace. No matter when we first went to work and began to believe and give our life to Jesus our salvation is the same as the saints. Our salvation is the same as the death bed converts.

We don’t know why, God seems to love us indiscriminately and seems to enjoy reversing the systems we set up to explain why God should love some of us more than others of us. By our standards, God may not seem fair or just, but for those of us who stand near the back of the line this sounds like very good news. Because then there is a chance we will receive from God much more than we are worth, that we will get far more than we deserve, not because of who we are but because of who God is.

God is fair and God is just. Not by our standards but by Gods. By those standards God is forgiving, loving and generous even to those who are late coming to the vineyard. And God extends that same grace to ones as undeserving as you and me and for that reason there is a very good chance that the cheers and back slapping, the laughter and gratitude will turn out to be directed to the least of these, found by our God, right back here where we belong.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. One God, now and forever. Amen.
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11 September 2011 ‘Judgment Set Aside’ Matthew 18:21-35

2011-09-12T17:18:00.000-07:00

It is not unusual in this day and time to find people who lead perfectly normal lives despite their shortcomings in mathematics. I know many of you are skilled in the areas of math. Many did just fine in high school algebra or college calculus or some other twisted mind numbing formulaic learning.

But there are some of us who just don’t understand beyond simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. My first arithmetic nightmare was in elementary school. It stopped being fun when I tried to learn the multiplication tables? The nines just about did me in…

I shuddered with this memory, and others, when faced this morning with more math. Peter asks Jesus, “Lord, how often should I forgive my brother and sister who sins against me? Seven times? No, he says, and then we have this really bad flashback as Jesus responds with a geometrically progressive figure, not seven times, but, seventy-seven times.

It is also not unusual in this day and time to find people who lead perfectly normal lives despite struggling to try and understand the moral to every story found in scripture. This mornings’ parable of the unforgiving servant is an example.
There is this king who wants to settle accounts with his slaves. One in particular owes so much he deserves to be sold to pay his debt. The king is ready to give him what he deserves then changes his mind when the slave talks the king into feeling pity for him. The king changes his mind and actually forgives the entire debt, clearly not what the servant deserves. Then, you guessed it, the king changes his mind again, becomes angry with the servant and turns him over to be tortured until he would repay his entire debt.

Wedged in the middle we read of this slaves’ refusal to return the same mercy he had just received to a fellow slave who owed him money. Once forgiven, his mistake was to not return the favor.

Next in the scripture we read this, “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
Brennan Manning has written an interesting book titled, “The Ragamuffin Gospel.” In it he tells a personal story, “On a blustery October night in a church outside Minneapolis, several hundred believers had gathered for a three-day seminar. I began with a one-hour presentation on the gospel of grace and the reality of salvation. Using Scripture, story, symbolism, and personal experience, I focused on the total sufficiency of the redeeming work of Jesus Christ on Calvary. The service ended with a song and a prayer. Leaving the church by a side door, the local pastor turned to his associate and fumed, “Humph, that airhead didn’t say one thing about what we have to do to earn our salvation!”

The author goes on to say, “I hear in his fuming the clear impression that the pastor believes salvation is something we earn. And if we ignore this truth, we will get exactly what we deserve.” It is not unusual in this day and time to find people who lead perfectly normal lives who would agree completely.

At the beginning of the gospel story, when the king initially decided to sell his slave to pay his debt, I didn’t want to see the servant go to jail. Like me, you may have felt sorry for him. Poor little slave being ruined by the big powerful king. But, by the end of the story, when this once forgiven servant socks it to his fellow slave, we are delighted to see him led off to get what he deserves. Where we once would have appealed for clemency, for generosity even, we now applaud with vengeance in our hearts when the slave is punished for his own injustices.

By the end of the story, there is actually no difference between the selfish little servant and the big forceful king. At least the king showed he had a soft side. The servant on the other hand had no nice side in him at all. In the end, they both are the sorts of person who repay injustice with punishment. Many of us would be ok with this story. We could easily explain, this is just the way the world works.
Perhaps this is the point the pastor was making in the story from the Ragamuffin Gospel. We know about grace and salvation, we just need to know what we have to do to earn them!

Then again, it seems obvious, to earn something we have to do something. And if we don’t do something, we won’t get paid. We will then get what we deserve, nothing. We know the slogans, “There is no free lunch”, “You want money, work for it”, You want mercy, show you deserve it”, “Do unto others before they do unto you”, “God loves good little boys and girls”. Oops, did I sneak that last one in?

If we must be a good little boy or girl before God will love us, well, we may be doomed. This may be a formula none of us will ever live up to. Clearly, if it is up to us, we will get what we deserve and it won’t be pretty.

Yet, we try. Even in this morning’s gospel, Peter asks Jesus for us about being a good little boy or girl. “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times? Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.” Jesus’ answer is clear. There is to be no magic formula, no limit to our forgiveness. Forgiveness is to become for us a way of life that never ends!

Ouch! I wonder, has Jesus gone too far with us this time? The world is a rough place. The news is not filled with stories of justice and forgiveness. This world is often a bloody, exceedingly dangerous, and revenge filled place. We remember 9/11. We know all too vividly, terrorism has no limits. Genocide has occurred during our lifetime, this very moment groups of people live in eternal cycles of vengeance and violence, Arab-Israeli, rich-poor, brown-white, have-have not.
The harsh truth of Jesus’ story this morning is that in our secret satisfaction as the servant is led to get what he deserves, we are probably no worse, but certainly no better than he. From this moment forth, however, we know the moral of the story. And that should make all the difference. It is clear from verse thirty -five, “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” How many times? That’s right, the days of playing the “I don’t like math” card are over. Jesus is proposing a new response to a common place story of seemingly deserved judgment. Jesus is offering forgiveness as a new model, a new formula, one that has no limit.

Jesus is actually offering much more. Forgiveness is not the end all. Forgiveness is a small example of a much larger gift from God; Jesus is offering us hope, eternal grace, eternal salvation, and eternal joy.

These past few Sundays we have heard Jesus in the scriptures talking at length about what relationships in the Christian community are like. By now it should be obvious, Jesus is making the point over and over again, the most important thing in the world is the life of this community. In this community, if we want to be members of it, we are called to do everything in our power to nourish and strengthen the bonds of love within us, and between us.
We cannot do that if we are like the rest of the world, repaying injustice with punishment, being the ‘give them what they deserve” police. Scripture is clear, life is not about being a good little boy or girl to earn God’s love. God doesn’t keep score and we shouldn’t either.

Truth is, some times we have forgotten what it is like to be forgiven – from the heart, to have our record scrubbed clean, our name removed from the ledger with no chance of the score ever being kept again. We forever bury that feeling when we keep score with others or when we search for ways to earn our own forgiveness, our own salvation, our own love.

Truth is, it is just not up to us, it is just not of our own doing. All we have ever been able to do is ask for it, for forgiveness, for salvation, for God’s love – and when it has been given, it has come to us from outside ourselves, from another, from God alone, and most importantly it is, we forget, a free gift. A free gift from someone we have hurt, someone to whom we are in debt, but someone who has decided that what is more important than getting even, is to forgive us and stay always in relationship with us and give us hope beyond ourselves.

The story is told that when the Civil War ended a group gathered outside the White House and President Lincoln came out to say a few words to the crowd. It was a great time of celebration. A band was there. The President talked briefly about the horrors of war and then he joked a little because he had a great sense of humor. The people were delighted and exuberant that they had won the war that had been going on for four years. Lincoln talked about how important it was to get back together and heal the nation’s wounds and let brothers and sisters join each other once again. Then he said, “In a few moments, I want the band to play and I am going to tell them what I want them to play.”

The crowd thought he would get them to play “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” that had become their theme song. But Mr. Lincoln said, “I wonder if we, in winning the war, have the right now to play that music again…if maybe that would not be appropriate”. That should have been a clue to what he was going to say. Because he turned to the band and said, “Now this is what I want you to play – I want you to play Dixie.” The band almost dropped their instruments. For a minute they just stood there with the crowd open mouthed. The looked at one another. They didn’t have the music to Dixie. They hadn’t played Dixie in quite a while.
Then after a long pause the band finally got together and they played Dixie. There wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd.

With the wisdom and love of Jesus Christ as our example, having heard him say as he hung from the cross, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they are doing”, we are in the unique position this morning to get back together with those we have been separated from, to heal all wounds needing forgiveness, and to let brothers and sisters join each other once again. Forgiving seventy times seven.

It is quite a unique position we are in this morning and what a rare and wonderful God who loves us. For our God never retaliates, our God is always forgiving and remembering our sins no more, and though our God has given us our cross to bear, especially on this anniversary of 9/11, God is praying, that despite ourselves, we too will live a life of forgiveness equal to his.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

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04 September 2011 “Forgiveness” Matthew 18:15-20

2011-09-05T17:01:00.001-07:00

In our travels Janet and I always have an eye out for a bookstore. Usually the antique shops are closed. But bookstores are always open. We can happily spend hours hanging out in bookstores. Actually we do more than just hang out. We buy books on a fairly regular basis. Just ask our kids about the boxes of books they moved for us in the past.

One of our favorite bookstores is in the Heights in Houston near Rice University. It is called Murder by the Book. If you are a mystery lover you would be in mystery book heaven at Murder by the Book.

We also like to watch mystery movies. Hercule Poirot is a favorite, or Miss Jane Marple. We like Brother Cadfile or the newer Jesse Stone mysteries. There are many we enjoy though Janet wasn’t too keen on the new Sherlock Holmes.
Our favorite television channels for mysteries are Masterpiece Theatre and, surprisingly, the Hallmark channel.

One particularly good show from the Hallmark Channel was “Harvest of Fire.” It is the story of an FBI agent, Sally, who is looking into several barn burnings in Amish country. The ending was a surprise to me though not to Janet. She often figures out ‘who did it’ before I have a clue. My impression for the longest was this story was about a hate crime against the Amish. As you will hear, I was lost in my world of assumptions.

There were several plots and twists and turns in the story, which makes for great intrigue. Just what you want in a good mystery. The life of the Amish was portrayed honestly and added a unique perspective not seen in many mysteries.
I was struck by how the Amish way of life meshed with their religion. It was interesting to see their faith centered in their family life and to learn how their life as a community of believers was formed by that faith .

Centrality of faith in family life and especially in the life of the community of believers unfolded for us in Matthews Gospel reading this morning as once again Jesus has something to teach us. His intention, I believe, is to teach a clear ethical and moral truth.

Jesus says, ‘If any member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.’ Apparently Jesus feels we must take our concerns for sin or for fault with another to that person and speak with them. Hardly novel, Jesus believes we should learn to talk with one another. Especially when we have challenges or problems in our relationships.

Isn’t this good advice for being in any relationship whether a problem or not occurs, whether it is personal or corporate, intimate or religious. Isn’t this good advice when miscommunication or hurt feelings occur? Admittedly, it is difficult to gather the strength sometimes to talk things out.

In the Amish home and in the Amish community honesty and truth-telling were essential to being faithful to Jesus’ teaching about how we glorify God. In “Harvest of Fire,” Sally, our FBI agent, was searching for just that, the truth.
She began to notice the affection one particular young man, Sam, had for one particular young lady, Rachael. She learned the young ladies mother had forbidden Rachael to see Sam. Yet they met. They met until Rachael realized her dishonesty and told Sam she could not see him because she did not want to continue to disobey her mother. Her love for him was tempered by her love for her mother and her duty to obey and be honest.

I sense in Jesus’ teaching and in our mystery movie an underlying call to ethical behavior in the role of friendship in telling the truth.

The early Greek philosopher Aristotle saw virtue in friendship and even argued for friendship as the basis for all ethical or moral behavior. Gone wrong, he pointed out, untrue friendship could become the excuse for immoral behavior when friends do not act like true friends.

A true friend, as Jesus says, will go and point out the fault if another member of the church, sins against you. An untrue friend will offer a weak excuse. ‘Who am I to judge?’ ‘If I stay out of your life, you will stay out of mine.’
Jesus is telling us, ‘My friend, this is no friend.’ “If you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you…if the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.”

Our community of the faithful is in jeopardy when we avoid our responsibility as a true friend. There is no friendship without truthfulness. There is no truthfulness without judgment. The act of telling the truth is actually an act of the deepest love.
In the Christian community we need one another. To be family with one another we must work together. Jesus’ message is straight forward, to work rightly as a Church, as a family, we must go to those with whom we are having difficulty and we must talk.

There it is again, we must talk with one another. But, talking can be painful. Personally I will go to great lengths to avoid a verbal fight with someone. I know, just to talk doesn’t mean it’s always going to turn out with tension or shouting. But there is that chance.

Seldom do we find someone who enjoys confrontation and it just seems to us that to go and talk, even with a friend, about a fault or a sin committed is a sure recipe for losing that friend. How often, I wonder, do we avoid telling the truth because we do not want to risk our relationship with the one who has offended us.
Rachael, in “Harvest of Fire,” did not want to tell her mother she had been seeing the forbidden young man, Sam. She did not want to disappoint her mother with her disobedience. She did not want to risk losing her mothers trust. So she kept quiet about it.

Sam, we soon discover, is not being completely truthful with Rachael. He had something to hide too. His father, Jacob, had been shunned by their church for being prideful. In the past Jacob had built a barn that was not in compliance with the Amish way for barn-design restrictions and his actions were deemed prideful and unacceptable to the elders.

Obedience to the ruling elders, in things both great and small, was essential for the survival of the Amish faith community. If Jacob would not follow one rule they felt there was the danger he might not follow others and thus contaminate them all with disobedience. So he was shunned. Sam was angry with the elders as was his father. Their strained relationship with the church community was also tearing them apart.

Sally, the FBI agent, had been watching for clues to the identity of the barn burner. She was learning about the Amish by actually living in one of their homes. They were teaching her a lot about love and duty and commitment to family and to community. And they were teaching her about the need to be a true friend when someone like Jacob disobeyed their rules, sinned against them, and needed to hear the truth. In their community, for sin, for fault, there were consequences.
What the community expects and deserves at this point is repentance, repentance from the one who has sinned and fallen away from the community. What the community does not need is defiance. Defiance hampers forgiveness, and worse yet, may lead to the death of the community.

In the midst of this chaos relationships are lost, real relationships. If the church is a place of truthfulness, and I think it is, the church is the place where keeping the family together and maintaining relationships is worth the risk of being truthful.
There is no doubt that to tell the truth may risk a relationship. But to not tell the truth may risk the loss of the family, the community, or the church. It is with this fear of loss before us that we discover the path to restored relationships begins when we seek repentance.

In our barn burning mystery it came out that Sam, the young man whose father had been shunned, had set the barn fires in retaliation for the injustice he felt the church elders had done to his family. When the FBI investigator , Sally, confronted him and his father with their sin she unknowingly made the first step to repentance possible. She helped them begin to restore their relationship with their faith community. The restoration took on meaning when Sam went before everyone and confessed his sin and asked for forgiveness.

Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, an international federation of communities for people with mental or physical disabilities, once said, “Community is a continual act of forgiveness.”

At first when the investigator accused him of burning the barns Sam denied it, but then his moral beliefs took over and he confessed to his bishop before the entire congregation as they were raising a new born in place of one of the ones he had burned. And then the miracle, by God’s grace, the community did not abandon him. Their bishop defined God’s grace when he said, “Despise the sin, not the sinner.” In solidarity they accepted his cry for forgiveness and as community they all stood to be with him and walked with him as he was being taken away to trial.
There is a great lesson in this young man’s response to having his sin made public. He did not defend himself against the charge regardless of the cost; he did not forsake his relationships in favor of nursing his own hurt feelings or wounded pride.

No, our lesson this morning is to know that the reason to take Jesus’ advice is to learn our talking things out is the first step to winning back a relationship that is in danger of being lost. The reason Jesus teaches us to be truthful to our friends is to help us restore our relationship with them. Our goal is reconciliation not retribution. Community is a continual act of forgiveness.

With a goal to gain or regain our sister or brother in Christ our actions require a specific response. Jesus’ is clear about that. Our truth lived in forgiveness will reveal the true nature of our relationship with our friends in Christ. If we are a true friend that is.

I sense two things in Matthew this morning that I saw in those Amish people. First in shunning they took a stand and told a member of their flock, “ No, you have done wrong against God and against your church family.” There is a consequence for that. They told the truth about sin.

Secondly, they teach us about forgiveness when one repents. The Amish did not learn this by themselves. They learned it from Jesus. Jesus Christ tells the truth about our sin and, when we are contrite of heart, he forgives us as we are to forgive one another.

Jesus also promises that where two or three are gathered he is there with us. Jesus gathers with us for he expects that when we tell the truth we will risk relationships. Knowing the danger, Jesus stands with us. As we seek repentance over punishment, as we offer and receive forgiveness, Jesus is our ever present help. He made that clear up there on the cross as he said “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Dear friends, community is a continual act of forgiveness.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

Additional helps:
Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Seeds of Heaven.”

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28 August 2011 "Peter Again” Matthew 16:21-28

2011-08-28T05:36:00.001-07:00

Most mornings while I eat breakfast I read in the One Year Bible. Recently I was reading in the Old Testament about Job. I’m usually at a loss about Job. He was doing just fine until God let the devil test his faith. That test, which he passed, costs him everything. Bad news is followed by more bad news which is followed by really bad news. I wish somehow Job could have been spared from his pain. It seems to me he had done nothing to deserve the devil!

Still feeling for Job I read Matthew’s gospel for this morning’s sermon. I wish someone would have warned me. Now the bad news is for Jesus. It begins when he says he must go to Jerusalem where he will undergo great suffering and be killed. Then, more bad news, Peter gets into trouble when he tries to intervene. He innocently tries to help so his friend won’t have to suffer and die. But his attempt backfires. Then the really bad news. We learn that to be a disciple of Jesus we must deny ourselves and take up our cross.

It’s not good news about Jesus. And Peter, well he’s been in trouble before. But deny ourselves! Take up our cross! Surely we have done nothing to deserve the devil! We’ve worked hard, we’ve been true and faithful. Are we to now consider our success and wealth come at the cost of our soul! Is the news so bad this Sunday we are to become like Job and lose our lives to the devil? Where is the good news, we scream!

When bad news overwhelms us we respond in different ways. Sometimes we become angry, sometimes we look for someone to blame, sometimes we cry, and sometimes we feel sorry for ourselves. One thing we all have in common is our desire that somehow bad news will just go away, that someone will protect us and make life right. Sometimes we discover we are to be that someone.

There are certain times when we feel a duty to protect those we love. Good parents especially seem to feel this way and that is a very good thing. Our caring parents worked really hard at keeping us safe and out of harm’s way.

Others protect us too, those in law enforcement, fire protection, medical care, people like that. Truth is, we all have a roll to play in protecting those we love. We keep a lookout for potentially dangerous situations and we help one another. That is what people who love one another do. We help. Especially when we see that someone may be taking a risk we feel they need not take.

I wonder if Peters response to Jesus’ shockingly bad news was a response rooted in a deep love for him, a cry to not take a risk he doesn’t have to take and the desire on his part to shield Jesus from what awaited him in Jerusalem - great suffering and death.

While this may have been Peters intention, Jesus did not take it that way, he did not turn to him and say, ‘Oh, don’t worry about me friend, I’ll be alright. God is watching after me.’ No, Jesus reacts quite unexpectedly. “Get behind me Satan,” he says. Then he tells all his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Or did Jesus think Peters’ response was rooted in his own fear? Fear of loosing the person he loved more than anyone, fear of being left to do God’s work alone, or fear of being abandoned forever. We don’t know.

Perhaps it had nothing to do with Peter and everything to do with Jesus. Jesus’ response seems harsh. It is as if he tells Peter, ‘Don’ tell me what to do you Satan.’ Doesn’t Jesus know Peters response could save his life?

Ah, perhaps that is exactly the point. For those who want to save their life will lose it. Jesus has drawn his life to the core focus of his being and his reason for living. To save his life and ours he will offer his all. He will lose his life so we may realize ours. Jerusalem is the necessary way.
First of all Jesus wasn’t ASKING about Jerusalem, he was TELLING about Jerusalem. He was telling his disciples “I must go.” Jesus makes it clear, he is not being forced to go. He realizes Jerusalem is the path he must take to be the person Peter has declared him to be, Messiah. He realizes to suffer and die on the cross is his destiny, for he must be what he really was meant to be.

He has been a great moral teacher, a great prophet, and he has healed many people. But there is something greater ahead. Who do you say that I am? And Peter said, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And because of who you are, there must be another way other than the road to Jerusalem. Jesus tells him, no, there is no other way and then the most painful truth, you are a stumbling block to me my friend!

As shocking as it is to Peter and to us, for Jesus to be Messiah ‘he must go’ to Jerusalem, suffer, and die. To find another way would radically change who he was.

It is also shocking to us that if we are to be Jesus’ disciple we too must go and take up our cross to follow him. For to find another way would radically change who we have been called to be. Beloved, there is no place for a limited and partial disciple in God’s kingdom. It is all or nothing for us.
All or nothing demands a high price. Jesus paid his and now we learn we must pay ours too. There is a road that awaits us. A road and a shadow. Suffering and a cross. Hard truths. We don’t save ourselves by holding on to ourselves. We don’t save ourselves at all.

When we give our life away we are living as a Christian disciple. We are living as Christ because to live only for comfort and safety is not living Jesus’ way. To be shielded from this way of denial and cross is to decide in favor of perceived comfort and safety and to decide against being who we are meant to be.
Living as we do in the near desert of central Texas we have discovered all too painfully this summer water is a valuable commodity. Life cannot be shut up and saved in comfort and safety any more than our waters from rain or rivers can be put in a mason jar to be kept in a kitchen cupboard only to be looked at. Water is not meant to be locked and stored away. It is to be drunk so that we may live, it is to water our earth so we will have food to eat, it is to enjoy in recreation and sport to give us quality in our life. It is to be poured out, to be moving, living water, rushing downstream to share its wealth without ever looking back.

Peter wanted to prevent Jesus’ life from being spilled and wasted, he wanted to save it, to preserve it, to find a safer, more comfortable way for Jesus to be Lord. What he did not see was that Jesus’ supply of life was never-ending.
In the midst of his angst Peter missed the good news. Jesus told him “…on the third day (he would) be raised.” Surely Peter missed that. Who Jesus was to be is woven into this first telling of what we call his passion prediction. Jesus was born to be God’s promised ‘anointed one’ who fulfilled the Old Testament prophecy. He was to be the anticipated king and deliverer who brings salvation to the world. You see, Jesus must go to Jerusalem and endure all the humiliation, suffering and death on that cross to be who WE need him to be. It is the only way we become who God needs us to be.

The disciples now know what Jesus had not told them before. They now know what he must do before he can truly be Messiah. And it must have scared the wits out of them. It must have scared them because this suffering and death was going to happen to one whom they dearly loved, one whom they had left everything for. One whom they desired to live like, loving their enemies, feeding the poor and the widow, forgiving sins, healing and curing the sick.

They had not bargained for the full deal. They had not realized the full cost of discipleship. Jesus was saying that where he goes, we must also go. Surely it cannot be that this is the cost disciples must pay. What kind of Messiah is this? The true Messiah wouldn’t let himself suffer and die such a humiliating death. And he certainly wouldn’t expect his followers to take the same path. Jesus cannot mean we are to take up our cross and follow him into death. Surely he must mean something else.

The minute we try to limit Jesus to something less than what he is meant to be we limit ourselves. For we are called to be full-time, all or nothing disciples. Not just when we are being like him as we teach and heal and make disciples. Not just when we are in our ‘Let’s fix the world’ mode. But even when we are called to pick up our cross and follow him to Calvary.

While Jesus’ cross was evident, ours are less so. We don’t take up a literal cross. We take up life and life is hard to pick up some days. We will suffer, evil lurks, we die and we are in the core of that storm. Yet, when we center our lives in Jesus’, when he becomes the core of our being, we have taken up the cross of life and we can only follow him for he is the light in our storm. True, living this way we lose our way. But living this way we are found by Jesus for whose sake our lives are found.

The stark reality of Jesus’ revealing his destiny to us in this mornings Gospel is that Jesus was about something bigger than the miracles he had performed, he was about something bigger than the fine moral life he was living as an example for us to follow. What Jesus was about was a love so deep he died that our sins would be forgiven and that we would realize God’s promise of eternal salvation for those who accept the invitation, “Come and follow me.”

Our challenge this morning is to follow that kind of savior. One who will not compromise on who he is called to be and who will not compromise on who he expects his disciples to be. Jesus was chosen by God to take up his cross and Jesus expects the same from us. This is the life to which we are called. This is the life that matters for Christ’ sake, not our own.

This just may be where we silence ourselves and slip into the shadows to go on to live a life that matter’s to us. Living Jesus’s way takes us beyond comfort and safety. We cannot deny the fear, it is real, but we need not let our fear stop us. It did not stop Jesus.

To become who God has called us to be means going beyond the limits we place on our lives with false securities. It means receiving our lives as gifts instead of guarding them as our own possessions. It means sharing the gifts we have been given instead of bottling them for our own consumption. It means giving up the notion that we can find another way to be a disciple of Christ that avoids giving our life, body and soul, to our Lord and Savior on his terms.

To be Jesus, our Christ took the road less traveled. His entire life was directed to that road and he took it. He took it and confronted the powers of evil. He was nailed to the cross, knew death first hand, breathed and bleed his last.

If we are to be his friends, his loved ones, and his disciples, where he goes we must go too. This is the way to the truth and the life. This is the way to the good news this world cannot give. There is no other way. If we doubt it we need only remember Job and then Jesus’ promise, “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done…”

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

Additional helps:
Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Seeds of Heaven.”
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21 August 2011 “God’s Rock” Matthew 16:13-20

2011-08-22T17:08:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, a woman walked out of her church after a particularly rousing Sunday service and bumped into a thin, sort of lost-looking man who was standing on the sidewalk looking up at the cross on top of the church steeple. She excused herself and started to walk away, but the man called her back. “Tell me,” he said, pointing through the front door into the church she had belonged to most of her life, “What is it that you believe in there?”

She started to answer him, and then realized that she did not know the answer, or did not know how to put it into words, and as she stood there trying to compose something the man said, “Never mind. I’m sorry if I bothered you,” and walked away. She shared the story with her pastor and confessed he did bother her.

Bothered or not, I wonder how we would answer such a question if asked as we leave worship today. What is it that we believe in here? What would we say about our faith, about our church, about our God? And more importantly, what difference might our answer have for the person pointing at our faith. Is there a real possibility their response to our feeble answer might be, “Never mind.” Or, if we dare say what we believe clearly would the follow-up question be more difficult, “Seriously, you really believe THAT in there?”
Imagine for a moment you are the woman. You have been in worship. You feel your soul has awakened within you and that you have felt God’s spirit in your heart as the word of God is read and proclaimed, as you prayed and sang and offered anew your life to our Savior.

Imagine for a moment the young man on the sidewalk though unknown to us is Jesus and he is asking us, “What did you just do in that place?” “Why, worship” we say”. Then he asks what we believe in there when we worship? Will there be a hesitation, a hushed and tentative answer or a bold clear proclamation?
In our gospel reading this morning Jesus and his disciples have just come into the district of Caesarea Philippi leaving a trail of miracles behind them. Thousands were fed, the sea was calmed and walked upon, and demons were cast out of a little girl. Always the teacher, Jesus had been asking his disciples questions about what they believed about him and it was time for questions again.

The road to Jerusalem and the cross lay ahead. Jesus knew he was running out of time. He needed to make sure he could leave his disciples and they would understand he was the Christ, the Messiah, the one who had come to save the world from sin and eternal damnation. So far, the disciples had not passed his tests. They were failing miserably.
So Jesus asks, “Who do people say I am.?” Admittedly, this should be easy. They don’t have to think for ourselves or search their brains for a clue. They simply say what others are saying, John the Baptist, Elijah, or even Jeremiah.

“But who do you say that I am?” Jesus asks. Now they cannot wiggle out of an answer, it is too personal, if they hesitate they risk Jesus saying, “Never mind, I’m sorry if I bothered you’ and he may walk away.

Fearing this, I can see them looking to the one person who always has an opinion about things, the one person who isn’t bashful about asking Jesus to explain things, the one person bold enough to even ask Jesus for miracles, Peter. I can just see all their eyes moving to Peter for help. And Peter delivers like he has never delivered before. He nails the answer! Seldom right, but never in doubt, this time Peter saves the day, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” he says.

Peter does not take the easy way out; he doesn’t guess or admit he doesn’t know who Jesus is because this time he knows. You are the Messiah Jesus, that is who you are! Jesus must have been hoping for this answer because in one fell swoop he declares ‘Blessed are you, Simon of Jonah,’ and then Jesus gives him a new name, He says, ‘You are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church.’
He also declares he will give to Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Words that tell us, Peter is given the knowledge he needs to interpret Jesus teaching. But be on the look out, we know enough about Peter to know he seldom leaves things alone. One minute Jesus says to Peter, “Oh you of little faith,” and then he is being blessed. I have a feeling Peters on again off again favor is the true picture of his life with Jesus. And he just may be the perfect model for how ours is too.
It is interesting and important to note, once Peter declares Jesus to be Messiah, Jesus pulls the plug and tells him his answer is not his own. We should be reminded too that when we profess Jesus as Lord and Savior, while our answer is right, it is not really our answer. Jesus explains, “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.”

The truth is we have not reasoned to the conclusion that Jesus is our Messiah, no, that truth doesn’t come from us. God has revealed it to us and without God’s help we too would find ourselves guessing Jesus to be John the Baptist or someone like that.

We should also wonder, if it was not Peters’ answer why did Jesus rewarded him. If our “finding” Jesus is not our discovery, I wonder why we are rewarded too.
Honestly, that’s what our Messiah does. Our savior loves people like Peter. People who are bold enough to declare him to be the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Jesus gives love and favor to those who have faith in him even though we stumble and forget from time to time.

We are so like Peter when we think we deserve a reward for our correct answer or our correct lifestyle. Like we have earned something, a blessing perhaps, that we are different from the rest who don’t get it. And then, like Peter, we stumble and make a mess out of things, we doubt, we declare we are faithful and promise to live our lives as if Christ were a part of our very soul, and then our actions don’t match our words.

Peter, fresh from his blessing, will in just a few verses in this same chapter, be rebuked by Jesus for arguing with him when Jesus tells his disciples what is going to happen in Jerusalem. He tells them he will be killed and on the third day be raised. Peter argues with Jesus and declares that this must never happen. And Jesus commands him, “Get behind me, Satan!” It is as if Jesus says, Peter you are a stumbling block in my path, and I have just stubbed my toe on the very one who is to be a building block in my church.

Do you see how Peter mirror’s our lives when we go from being blessed and the corner stone of the church to being a stumbling block in Christ’s way? This is the reality in our lives that shows us how desperately we need Jesus to give us the right answer to his questions. Our answers are not right. Without Jesus, we are truly a lost and forgotten rubble.
But Peter is also a positive model for us. He never hesitates to live his life, to be an active participant in the progression of time and space into which he has been thrown. To live, to love, to endure, to find in joy and bliss and pain and suffering hope. To risk grabbing hold of the one sure life-line with an eternal promise, a life with Christ, who is the Messiah!

There is an important distinction to note about Jesus’ renaming Simon Peter and then his speaking of the rock upon which his church is to be built. Petros, the Greek name Jesus gives Peter, means a stone or pebble, a small piece of a large rock, while petra, the Greek word used for rock, means a boulder, a great big rock. The importance of this difference affects how we interpret this story. Jesus is saying of Peter, you are a small piece of a larger rock, a chip off that rock perhaps. He is also saying he will build his church on a boulder, a great rock large enough and solid enough to be a foundation for a church.

Revisit the story in Matthew for just a moment, Jesus asks, ‘But who do you say I am?’ Simon Peter says, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus blesses him and says he is a chip off the old block, a small piece of a greater rock. That greater rock of course is Jesus Christ. That is who God’s church will be built upon, for God has revealed to Peter that Jesus is the Rock of Ages and we join in being those pebbles under foot that God uses for walls and supports and roofs for his kingdom on earth, his church. Like Peter, our proper place is as a building stone filling in those chinks in the church.

Dear ones, our gift this morning is that we are blessed because our answer to life’s question is God’s answer and we are the bed rock of the church where the Kingdom of God is built. We are chosen not because the right answer has occurred to us, oh no, the right answer occurs to us because we are chosen, because Jesus chose you and me to build his church upon.

We find our hope in a person like Peter and Jesus’ obvious love for him. He did not always say or do the right thing, yet he is the rock used to build God’s church. In that truth, there is hope for us because like Peter, we will remain a chosen rock whether we live as a corner stone or a stumbling block.

Being chosen is more about our willingness to try and answer what it is we believe than knowing the right answer. The right answer after all doesn’t come from us. It comes from God. Being willing to take risks and say what we believe, speaking in faith, from our heart, that is what God wants to hear from us.
It is a comfort knowing someone like us, Peter, is the one in charge of heaven’s gates. When we show up we will be recognized by one of our own. One who, like us, is not afraid to declare Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?
That matters a great deal, our willingness to boldly declare to the sort of lost looking man who is standing on the sidewalk looking up at the cross on the top of the church steeple wanting to know if his teaching has worked on us. Don a ’t be bothered like the woman who had just come out of worship, be like Paul, who takes a risk to answer the most important faith question we can be asked.
What is it that you believe in there, when you worship, the lost looking man asked. Truly, I cannot answer for you, he is saying. But the important thing for each of us is to try – not only to say what we believe but also to live what we believe.
Like Peter, we too will rise and fall, give the right answer some days and the wrong a few chapters later, yet we too are chips off the old block, pieces of the one true rock upon which even the powers of death shall not prevail.

And praise God, this is the truth we believe in here, this is the truth we will declare to all who ask. Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of the living God!
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Additional helps:
“The Seeds of Heaven”, Barbara B. Taylor, p. 74.
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14 August 2011 ‘Even the Dogs Eat’ Matthew 15:21-21

2011-08-15T17:26:00.001-07:00

To begin to understand this story about the Canaanite woman it is important we remember last Sunday’s story of Jesus walking on water. Now, while walking on water is very cool, we should not forget it was the disciple’s doubt that brought Jesus to his feet. Their faith had taken a big hit that night, especially Peters.
The disciples were in their boat in the middle of the lake when a big storm comes up. Next thing they know, Jesus came walking towards them through the rough waves and howling winds and they thought he was a ghost. Jesus shouts out, “Take heart, it is I: do not be afraid.” Peter said to Jesus what they all must have been thinking, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”

And Jesus does, saying “Come.” Peter comes bounding out of the boat onto the water only to become frightened. Revealing his true doubting nature he began to sink. He cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus did not hesitate, he saved Peter and then admonished him saying, ‘Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?’

Our passage this morning is a direct response by Jesus to his disappointment in his disciples and their repeated lack of faith. Jesus must have felt discouraged that the ones he personally chose to follow him still had little faith in who he was. He must have wondered what it would take to get through to them; I am their Lord and Master. Yet, they still don’t understand. They keep acting so predictably human. Saying they believe, yet acting otherwise.
So Jesus tries again with a story about a woman of unwavering faith. Jesus’ disciples, men specifically chosen, were at best shaky in their sure and certain knowledge. Yet here is a woman, a Canaanite, who is not from Jesus’ neighborhood, who is sure and certain and rock solid about where her faith is grounded.

Why then, we may wonder, does Jesus seem to reject her plea and try to push her away? If she is to be the true example of a faithful disciple why does he get into a debate with her when she continues to ask him for help?

‘Why’ questions can be the hardest to answer. It reminds me of all those times our children asked ‘why’ when we told them they had to eat their green peas. Our answers about healthy diets and nutritional value and a balance against all those sweets they had eaten fell on deaf ears. The kids had no clue about nutritional worth, they just knew they did not like peas and their question ‘why’ was not an attempt on their part to understand. It was their way of saying no to green peas. Children are practical folk, when they see no good reason whatsoever to eat green peas they won’t! Babies are the best example of this. When we put food in their mouths they don’t like they do the reasonable thing. They spit it out!
Our question ‘why’ just may be our refusal to accept the fact that Jesus really is out of character in this story. He appears to be pushing the woman aside, saying she’s one of those people and is not worthy of his help. This is so unlike the Jesus who cures the sick, helps the lame walk, and even restores life.

Or we may think Jesus was right. How dare she, a foreign woman think Jesus has been put on earth to help the likes of her. Indeed.

But something isn’t right with that option. Typically Jesus has been the liberator of the oppressed and especially of women who, in first century times, were the most oppressed. Scholars have viewed Jesus as a man who approaches women with compassion, friendship, even equality. This encounter seems to be an exception.

We have learned over and over again in scripture that Jesus was sent to save all people. We have been taught to love our neighbor, forgive even our enemy and certainly not talk about other people unkindly. We have been taught to not judge or be prejudiced to other people, be their man or woman, friend or foe, local or foreign.

Certainly Jesus was an enemy of such prejudice. He ate with tax collectors and sinners. He treated women and children with unusual regard. He touched and healed people who were considered unclean. Yet with this woman Jesus appears to not be Jesus. What could he be up to?

Here’s what we know. This woman is a Canaanite from Tyre and Sidon. She comes from the very people displaced by Israel’s occupation. It would be like a Palestinian woman of today asking for a favor from an Israeli leader. Despite their long history of antagonism and her foreign identity, this woman seeks Jesus’ merciful help for her demon-possessed daughter. In today’s Holy Land, it just wouldn’t happen.

Initially, Jesus ignores her and claims his mission is only to Israel, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”, he says. But she was not to be deterred, calling out to him again, ‘Lord, help me.’

Jesus’ response is in the form of a ‘No’ and he tells her why. ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

No, he is saying, I was sent only to the lost sheep, the children of God to bring them nourishment, to share with them the feast of the table of the Lord, to bring them food for salvation. It is not fair to take my calling to those people for that reason and throw it to the dogs. The gentile, the foreign dogs, we defeated to have their land, the land we were promised.

Can you believe this is Jesus speaking? Not only does he call the woman a dog he cuts her off completely from the promise of eternal salvation. Apparently she is not among those chosen as a child of God to be fed the gift of life.

And Jesus even places his argument against helping her in the context of fairness. I wonder what fairness has to do with anything. Life is not exactly intended to be fair is it?

For her part, the woman does not flinch; she comes back with a strong counter argument of her own. She does not argue with Jesus, she does not offer proof to nullify his argument, she does not offer evidence to the contrary. She doesn’t even attack the unsupportable claim of fairness. Instead, she uses her deep faith and Jesus own logic to show the complete story.

First she humbles herself. Then accepting her identity of even being called a dog she exposes the part of the story Jesus left out, she said, “yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table”.
Jesus must have smiled deep down inside; this woman gets it! Finally, someone with their wits about them to see the entire picture, to recognize when someone speaks of fairness in a limited context, to claim right and wrong in a self-serving way, that someone worships self before God. Finally, someone who realizes that faith is humbling, that a faithful person is one who must empty himself or herself of conceit and self-confidence and wholly depend on God’s unmerited favor.
I read once, faith in God requires us to admit to ourselves that we are not worthy of anything because of who we are, it is only because of whose we are that we can gain the favor we seek.

Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith!’ Great is her faith though she be a defeated enemy, a dog, she eats the crumbs that nourish life from the table of her master, the giver of eternal life. This woman recognized Jesus to be the source of the bread of life and that even a crumb from the table of her master was accessible to her. This is what is fair. Her life is bound to her unwavering faith in being able to receive life giving sustenance from her one Lord who was available to her only in the person of Jesus Christ. Alleluia!

Here we encounter Jesus being Jesus. He is playing this wildly out of character antagonist role to make an illusive point and to test his disciples and the woman herself. He is teaching us that in life we will have our doubts about God and Jesus and we will encounter faithless acts of prejudice over and over again. But we will never be alone. God will never leave us to face our doubt alone.

Time and time again his disciples have not acted as if they really believed him to be the Messiah. They have been unfaithful or at the least, ones of little faith. So Jesus was going to role-play with this woman to help show them the kind of response he expects from those who claim to believe in him, to model the depth of faith he expects even from the most unlikely of followers.

Yet that is not all. There were false claims in his initial argument with the woman. Did we miss them? The disciples certainly did. Jesus’ being sent only to the lost sheep is a false teaching. Jesus’ claim of unfairness for taking the Israelites’ salvation and throwing it to the gentiles is also a false teaching. Jesus used them as a test, as a truth statement sort of test in his argument with the woman and his disciples said nothing. They were so totally set up for the real truth message to follow.

The correct teaching comes from the woman, she does not exclude the Israelites from their salvation, and actually, she does not exclude anyone. Yes, Lord, the Israelites, and even the gentiles, all lost sheep eat the gift of salvation that falls from their saviors’ table. The gentile woman gets it. The apostles were silent in the face of the false teaching. She is shouting the truth. They ask that Jesus ‘send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ Jesus recognized the truth when he heard it and would not silence it! Salvation is for all.

What is the other message for the faithful: Prayers will be answered.
Jesus said, “Let it be done for you as you wish”. From our faithfulness, from our prayer for help, mercy is given and received. From our prayer we receive help from the Lord, and we will be healed.

Dear ones. We are to take what little faith we have, no matter how slight the ember that burns and know with conviction, Jesus includes all of us, even the dogs who gather here at his table, when he promises eternal salvation. Our job is to fully believe in him. Fully being for all of us a slippery slope at times. But never for Jesus. Jesus is grounded. Grounded in his love for us shown there on the cross where we need not argue for his help, his hope, or his grace.

“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

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10 August 2008 Just Like Jesus Matthew 14:22-33

2011-08-15T17:24:00.001-07:00

The writer, Terry Tempest Williams, was being interviewed by Image magazine about her work in Wyoming for conversations with rural communities. It seems the state of Wyoming has tremendous growing pains right now, with an oil and gas boom and the removal of the wolf and grizzly from the endangered species list, and the increasing pressures of housing and retail development.

Williams’ said, “We are in a real place with real people who are struggling with some of the most critical issues of our time.” How, she wondered, might these stories go beyond rhetoric and pierce the hardest of hearts? In today’s gospel, as in all gospel stories, Matthew goes beyond mere story telling to touch our hearts and teach Gods lesson.

But, we begin with a story. It is one of Jesus calling us to do impossible things, to struggle with critical issues, and make real and lasting sacrifices.

I wonder how might we move beyond the surface level telling of our life stories and allow them instead to pierce our rough places, the calluses of protection and short termed security that protect our heart and soul.

How do we follow our own life stories to our hearts, the core of our intimacy with Christ Jesus, where the impossible becomes possible? Where struggle becomes a blessing, where our sacrifices glorify God.
Following last Sundays story about feeding the 5000, Jesus is on the move. He has the disciples get into a boat and travel to the other side of the Sea of Galilee while he goes up the mountain to pray. The boat the disciples are in gets caught in a storm and battered by the waves, it is far from the land, and they begin to fear for their lives.

Early in the morning, Jesus comes walking towards them. Out there, in the midst of the swells, with the wind against them, the disciples saw someone walking on the lake; they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear.

Crying out in fear can be a good thing. Especially when there is a good reason. But we know this is Jesus Christ who has come to save his disciples. He has given them new life, a new reason to love and Jesus doesn’t abandon those whom God has created. For God will not waist the gifts God has given us. God will not waist the call God has for our lives. God would not have chosen or called us if God did not believe we can do the impossible things God commands.

We on the other hand think, surely God could have found someone brighter, sharper, and more gifted than me to be in God’s boat. And to be God’s church, and to carry on God’s ministry.

We know all to well that to be a part of bringing about the reign of God on earth as it is in heaven is no easy task. And all too often, mired in our doubt about our own worthiness we do occasionally need rescue.

We too get caught in life’s storm. We too need Jesus to walk on water for us. We pray Jesus will single us out, rescue a sinking you and a sinking me and we pray Jesus will still our storm. And Jesus does still the storminess of life, and he rescues us from ourselves in the process.

Perhaps Peter’s example is good for us. Despite his brave impression of fearlessness, he does become frightened and with his doubt about Jesus, he began to sink, yet he cried out, “Lord, save me!” And Jesus reaches out to Peter, just as he reaches out to every one of us. Every one of us desperate to live that is. Every one of us willing to cry out, “Lord, save me!”

To paraphrase Paul’s reading this morning, when we cry out, Jesus saves us, and the Lord of all is generous to all and makes no distinction between Jew and Greek. Even those who do not call Jesus’ name, even those who do not know Jesus, even when our lives have become desperate, Jesus immerses himself in the depths of our lives.

What we discover from this mornings gospel is what Peter discovered. Jesus calls us to do the impossible, to come and walk with him and perhaps most importantly, Jesus follows us where ever that walk takes us. Even when we are falling below the stormy waters, sinking in above our heads, Jesus falls and sinks with us.

“Take heart, he says, it is I; do not be afraid,” I am here struggling with you. Let your real and critically important life issues be mine too. “Do not be afraid.”

Jesus stays with us no matter how deeply our despair because he is God. Jesus will not save himself at our expense; actually, he gave his own life for our benefit, so that we might live. “The same man who walked on water finds himself immersed in the deep with each of us.”
“Our call this morning is to do impossible things with our lives, like walk on water. Jesus calls us to be his disciples, to know what he knows, to do what he does, to be just like him. He would not have chosen or called us if he did not believe we can do the impossible things he commands.”

Jesus, throughout our lives, has told us to turn the other cheek if somebody walks up to us and slaps our face. Impossible?
He has told us to walk two miles if anybody asks us to walk one. A struggle?

He has told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. To big a sacrifice?

He has told us to be perfect, just like our Father in heaven is perfect.
He has told us to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons.
Impossible, critical, sacrificial discipleship.

He has told us to follow him wherever he goes – even to the cross.
And he has told each of us to be faithful to the gifts he has given us so that we may do his work here on earth.

Anna Carter Florence says, it is not up to us to walk on water, it is up to us to hear the call, and then to believe that it is not a ghost, not the tempter, not our imaginations playing tricks on us, but really and truly Jesus, our Messiah, our Savior, our Christ.

There is a scene in the middle of C. S. Lewis’ second chronicle of Narnia, when the four children return to Narnia. In their attempt to find their bearings in such an altered landscape, the children become hopelessly lost in a wild forest until Lucy, the youngest, spots the great lion, Aslan. Lucy tries to persuade the others that he is with them and providing them direction. However, since none of the others can see him, they ignore her and continue traveling in the wrong direction. Aslan comes to Lucy again and challenges her to follow him by herself even if the others will not believe her. The others grudgingly follow her and one by one are able to see Aslan for themselves. In speaking to the older sister, Susan, Aslan says, “You have listened to fears, child. Come; let me breathe on you…
How does this all happen? It happens by our faith. Going beyond mere rhetoric our heart is pierced by our faith, even the hardest of hearts.

If we will but grudgingly follow Jesus, we will one by one be able to see God, not only in this story but in our stories too.
We are in a real place and we are real people. Our call from Jesus is to go beyond story telling, to open our hearts and souls to his presence and to come and follow him.

Together. Always together with him. Christ Jesus will never ever lead us astray or leave us alone.

Come, let us breathe his breath of faith, and come let us worship him saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, one God, now and forever. Amen

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31 July 2011 Bring Them Here to Me Matthew 14:13-21

2011-08-15T17:21:00.000-07:00

These past few weeks we have been studying various parables. Jesus has used those parables, stories of obvious and everyday occurrences, to teach us deeper meanings. Last week, for example, we learned discovering treasure brings great joy. Not for the treasure found but to the Christian joy that lasts forever. Joy in finding God. Joy in the assurance we are loved by God and joy in the sure and certain knowledge that through God’s love we will live eternally with God.
Today’s reading in Matthew is different. It is the story about the miraculous feeding of the five thousand. Actually, there were many more than just five thousand. Verse 21 says, “…and those who ate that day were around 5,000 men, besides women and children.” With women and children there could have been ten to fifteen thousand who were fed that day!

Through those earlier parables it became clear Jesus has the ability to care for our deepest spiritual needs. In this story we find Jesus has the ability to provide for our natural needs too. When the people were sick, Jesus healed them; when they were sad, Jesus blessed them; and when they were hungry, Jesus fed them.
Early Christians likely told this story again and again. They told the story when they gathered around the table for worship. It reminded them of the last supper when Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it and said; “…take, eat, this is my body given for you, do this in remembrance of me.”

It reminded them also of stories in the Old Testament about how manna fell from the sky to feed the children of Israel in the wilderness and of the prophet Elisha feeding a hundred hungry men with twenty barley loaves.
Bread miracles are not new in scripture and today’s is one of the many impressive miracle stories. We find ourselves drawn to these stories. Like the magic trick that seems impossible we cannot wait until someone tells us the secret. How did he do that?

Did the bread and fish multiply all at once or as they were being passed around? Or was it more like an Easter egg hunt? There, look right there, it’s a hidden loaf of bread, there under that bush and my, oh my, I picked it up and look; here is this piece of fish! It was hiding under the bread. No, sorry, we really don’t know and Matthew doesn’t tell us.

Matthew does tell us the miracle happened in a lonely place where Jesus had gone. He was sad. He had heard his friend, John the Baptist, was dead. Jesus wanted to be alone for a while. But the crowds heard where he was and followed him. They followed him because they too needed personal time, personal time and attention to be with Jesus. They were sick, they were sad, and they were hungry. Jesus had compassion for them and he took the time to be with them, to lay his hands on them, to comfort them, and to cure those who were sick.

When it became evening his disciples recognized there were so many people out in that lonely place, in the middle of nowhere. If there was any hope of their having an evening meal they would have to be sent to the surrounding villages to buy food for themselves.

But Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” The disciples replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” Jesus replied, “Bring them here to me.”

Taking the bread and the fish, he looked up to heaven, “and after giving thanks to God,” he broke it and gave it to his disciples saying, “take, eat.” And all ate and were filled.

The people had great needs, they followed Jesus to be comforted, to be healed and to be fed, not only with bread and fish, but with Jesus’ presence. They sought Jesus to be with him, to be seen breaking bread together at the common table of humanity where they would receive lasting comfort and healing.
The push back from the apostles was a common sense response. A simple inventory of the food on hand told them what to do. Send them away. That was the common sense thing to do. To everyone but Jesus that is. You see Jesus defies common sense. Jesus operates from a different set of assumptions about what is possible in his kingdom.

All too often we are like the disciples, our common sense recognizes when we don’t have an abundance, when there is a scarcity. Not enough bread or fish, not enough people, not enough money, not enough time, not enough patience, not enough knowledge, not strong enough, too timid, too shy, not skilled enough. It is the same mind set the disciples had when they said, “We have nothing here…” to offer.

Jesus clearly sees things differently. Jesus is telling us straight up in this story, there is plenty, plenty of time, plenty of food, plenty of possibilities with the resources at hand. Yet, we are skeptical.

We are seasoned folk, we know how things work. When we look at the needs of the world we know it’s best to send the crowds away. Their need is too great and we have a scarcity of resources. Common sense tells us we cannot heal the world of AIDS, we cannot feed the masses who are starving, we cannot stop war and injustice, not with the resources at hand. Just do the math!

Jesus doesn’t buy it in our gospel story and Jesus doesn’t but it today that we are without the resources. Jesus knew the key, he knew where the needed abundance comes from. Wherever there is plenty of God there will be plenty of everything else. Wherever there is plenty of God, there will be plenty of everything else! Abundance and possibilities beyond what common sense may suggest.

Miracles actually do us an injustice, they tend to let us off the hook. They lead us to say, let God do it! God can cure AIDS, feed the millions who are hungry, stop war and injustice. It is a convenient excuse for us to avoid being called by God. Just let God do it!

Jesus said to the disciples and Jesus says to us, “they need not go away; you give them something…”

But, how can we hang on to our own little piece of bread, sit in the crowd with despair all around us, and be responsible for the world? “God is in charge” works just fine for us. But it doesn’t excuse us from sharing what we have does it?
No, it does not excuse us, not then and not now. Jesus said, “they need not go away; you give them something…” Jesus is clear, we are to stop looking for someone else to solve the problem, to stop waiting for a miracle and participate in one instead. We create a miracle by bringing what we have. Jesus began with what he had, five loaves and two fish.

George MacDonald, the Scottish poet, pastor, and storyteller who inspired C. S Lewis, said, “The same God who is in us…also is all about us—inside, the spirit; outside, the Word, and the two are ever trying to meet in us.”

Jesus expects the something we have to give is really not something, it is someone. God, trying to meet in us, is the something we are being called to give, the someone who Jesus is asking us for. They need not go away, we can give the world all it needs if we will only help our God.

But we act so often like the disciples and think we have nothing or no one to share. So, in response to our doubt, Jesus said, “Bring them here to me…” the hungry, yes, and ourselves too, our resources, our scarcity and our plenty, our talents, our gifts, and our passion. These are the things we start with, whatever we have. We bring them and ourselves to Jesus and he offers to bring us to God. He blesses us and breaks us and we are fed by the grace of God that we may then be one with God sent out into the world to feed the unfed.

It is a curious thing, this giving of ourselves. Wendell Berry, in a poem titled “Amish Economy” offers these lines;
“It falls strangely on Amish ears,
This talk of how to find yourself.
We Amish, after all, don’t try
To find ourselves. We try to lose
Ourselves – and thus are lost within
The found world of sunlight and rain
Where fields are green and then are ripe…
And the people eat together by
The charity of God, who is kind
Even to those who give no thanks.”

Our trying to lose ourselves can be the most sincere, honest, hardworking giving imaginable. We dedicate ourselves to our work, to our family, to our community, even to our church. We take on a career, we provide a needed service, and we do our best to change people’s lives, to make life more comfortable. It is a curious thing. This call from God to give to those in need. Asking nothing in return “You give them something…”, he says.

Yet, I wonder. Are we perhaps short changing the one to whom we should be giving the most. God almighty. We are really busy with life. Our puritan work ethic is a strong and driving force in our lives. There are these fascinating tapes we play over and over in our head. We have to be busy doing something, we tell ourselves. To get things done, we have to be busy, it’s just good common sense.
Yet, Jesus is throwing us a great big curve this morning. There is something we can give that defies common sense. That we cannot work hard enough for. It is our humbled selves. It is what we find in ourselves that makes us human and Christian. Our compassion, our love for one another, our love for Christ and our passion to live the good news.

Have we been too busy with other things? How much does our busy life teach us about the food for our soul that only comes from the Lord’s table? How much does our busy life teach us about the food Jesus is telling us to give to the hungry crowd in this desert place where the hour is all too late. Not much I would say.
Yet we only have something to give them if we have first received it and we may truly miss receiving it if we are too busy doing other things. The hardest thing for us to agree with this morning may not be this clear message that we have what it takes, that there is within our heart and soul God given knowledge, skill, abilities, and passion which God intends us to use.

No, it just may be the hardest thing for us to agree with this morning is we think we have nothing to give because we are too busy to notice. Too busy and unable to spend more time alone with Jesus. The truth is Jesus expects us to live our entire life where his spirit and his word meet in us, in our heart and soul and mind. But do we?

Begin today. Is this hour in church on Sunday the only time you spend with Jesus? And when you are here are you on autopilot? Do you let the liturgist and the worship leader speak to God for you? When was the last time you took time to be alone with God, just you and God? Think you have nothing to offer, think again. When we spend time alone with God, God is very likely to show up. Just remember, God expects that we bring what we have, nothing more, and nothing less, for that is where we will begin with God. However little we have, that is the something Jesus is asking us to give in service to him. That is enough to begin with, that is enough to begin with to get a miracle started.

We really don’t know how the miracle with the bread and the fish happened, how that small amount of bread and those few fish could feed so many. But what Jesus has been saying to his followers forever he is saying to us today; They need not go away, you give them something to eat.” Our giving takes us to bring them and ourselves to Jesus where we come together as family, where all are fed the bread of life and the cup of salvation and all are filled. Filled with the miracle of the oneness in Jesus Christ.

For “…the people eat together by the charity of God, who is kind even to those who give no thanks.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever . Amen

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24 July 2011Discovering Joy Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

2011-07-25T17:04:00.001-07:00

24 July 2011 Discovering Joy Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Six times in these readings Jesus tells us what the kingdom of heaven is like. Yet, even after six examples, I’m not sure I really know what I am supposed to know.
I know what a mustard seed is and what yeast is. I can imagine a treasure hidden in a field. A merchant in search of fine pearls sounds reasonable, and I know what a fishing net is.

To say that God’s kingdom is like these things confuses me. Each is so very different. They seem to have nothing in common. How can they all be like the kingdom of heaven?

If I take this claim literally, then God’s kingdom may be these everyday things. Seeds, yeast, treasure, pearls and fishing nets. God’s kingdom, if normal stuff, must be a here and now place and not something we would call heaven or someplace ‘out there’ in another world.

If on the other hand I remember these are parables and that parables have a deeper meaning, then the kingdom could just as well be here or in heaven or “out there” in another world.

Theologians, folk who study about God, seem to think the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven as Matthew calls it, may be a sort of ideal utopian place very different from this world. They say this worldly existence has too much pain and suffering sadness and sorrow to be God’s kingdom of love and happiness. If this is the case the kingdom surely must be a kingdom to come in the future. Others, as we might imagine, disagree as they point to Jesus’ own claim that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near.

I don’t know, this world or another world, the future or now. Do we hear our deafening confusion or is it just me?

Perhaps knowing the truth about a location or time for the kingdom of heaven is illusive for a reason. Perhaps this ideal utopian kingdom is, like many other wonderful truths about God, a mysterious reality. A reality true enough, but a mysterious one.

Actually a mysterious reality may make the most sense. We are after all talking about the kingdom of The Sovereign Monarch, God. There really is no other kingdom on earth to compare to God’s and we’ll have to wait to know about heaven. At best we dream up an analogy of a kingdom and try and apply it. It is common for us to create our own prescripted kingdom world isn’t it. We’ve been known to do that once or twice a day. But the truth is an analogy will never be like the real thing.

Or might we study a parable and consider the only one who really would know its meaning is God. That is what we should do. Let God teach us.

In Matthew’s gospel reading this morning, Jesus gives us several examples of what the kingdom ‘is like.’ I think I missed that. Jesus says this is what the kingdom ‘is like’, not what it actually is. Close, but not exactly. The mystery stays in play.

The first two parables, the ones about the mustard seed and the yeast, are different from the others. In these parables something of surprising size or substance is found to produce unexpected results. The mustard seed, the smallest seed, becomes the greatest of shrubs and then even becomes a tree. The yeast, a catalyst for leavening, is mixed with a lot of flour until it all becomes leavened. In these examples the kingdom of heaven is like a known quantity with unpredictable or unexplainable results.

We begin life thinking we know who we are, with a clearly perceived purpose, no different than everyone else and then we find ourselves in love with Jesus and our life is flipped on its head with unpredictable or unexplainable results.
Kingdom living begins with our intention to discover what God is about. Like the parent proud of their adventurous child, God smiles at our efforts. God smiles and God actually encourages our seeking, our quest for discovery. All along the way God is filling our world, each of our lives, with grace, for we too become sought after.

Rick Warren, author of the popular book, “The Purpose Driven Life”, reminds us, “the purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind or even you happiness.” The truth is God seeks after us solely for God’s purposes and so often we find ourselves living a life we never expected.
The next two parables, the ones about the treasure hidden and the pearl merchant, are also different. In these parables something of surprising value is found. Having found, our been found in this way may bring us to new places of beauty. Surprising us with treasures hidden, pieces of life that, once found, produce great joy.
So, the kingdom of heaven is now like a surprising discover, expected or unexpected, that brings great joy. We may be on to something now. Joy is a good thing. Joy brings smiles, relieves worry, and produces a good night’s sleep.
The discovery of joy is so powerful though we are often moved to desire it at all costs, to even sell all that we have. Sounds unlikely doesn’t it? To sell it all for a life of joy and hope for what at times seems like at best an elusive kingdom. Surprising what we will do when searching for kingdom living.

It has been said many times, our Christian faith depends on our believing in the impossible. Otherwise our human imagination, our human expectations may limit the possibilities of the kingdom at hand. To overcome these limitations requires nothing less than unyielding faith in the impossible. Perhaps, a miracle.

Don’t be fooled, life is not really about treasure or pearls. But we know that’s not the point. We have our own weaknesses, our own treasure or pearl we would give everything for. We know what it is. We work extra hard for it, we give up things to have it, we cannot stop ourselves. We will even go into debt for it!

Scripture is right about these things though, it is not the object of our affection that drives us as much as it is the result of having it, the surprising joy it gives. You have all heard the story, the two happiest days for a boat owner, the day the boat is bought and the day it is sold. Joy to have it, joy to not have it. Joy is the constant feeling we search for. All else is changing. Discovering the one joy that never changes jut may be what Jesus is teaching in these parables. Discovering the one joy that will always bring joy sounds very much like kingdom language to me.
There is a story in the gospel of John of a wedding in Cana of Galilee. “And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’” We know Jesus’ response. He performs his first miracle turning water into wine. Here during a wedding, during a time of joy and celebration and gladness Jesus’ first act of kingdom building. It was not our grief, but our joy that Jesus first visited with a miracle. Surprised? Isn’t that how Jesus helps us find the purpose in our life? By surprising us in our discoveries about his kingdom.

The final parable, the one about the net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind, is also different. In this parable we hear a story that predicts for us how faithfulness works for God. The fish are drawn to shore and separated. The good fish are placed in a basket and the bad are thrown out.

There is a strong ethic in the kingdom of heaven about what is good and what is bad and judgment will separate the two. The good go in the basket, the bad are thrown out. The good are kept for a future meal, not so the bad. They are not invited to the feast.

The deeper meaning becomes personal when we consider how we are living our lives. How do we know what we do is right or wrong? Knowledge of the good will allow us to be kept, to be placed in the basket, to join in the surprising feast of the kingdom. Knowledge of the bad is equally important. It allows us to avoid being thrown out of the kingdom. Knowing the rules profoundly affects how we live our lives, what we do with our lives, who we worship in the process, and who we become. The faithful, in God’s eyes, live the good life. Choosing the righteous life, they reject evil and become a child of God.

Jesus teaches these things and much more. In addition to the here and now truth about God’s kingdom Jesus also predicts our future. At the end of the age angels will come and separate the righteous from the evil. The end of the age will catch us in its net and the angels will separate, they will judge. Will we be in the basket or not?
To help us Jesus asks, “Have you understood all this?” Why, no, not of our own wits have we. We need a whole lot more than just our own discernment. God offers us knowledge of the ultimate, absolute source of wisdom about the kingdom. God offers deeper meanings of God’s truth that can only come with the help from one true source. That help, that source is our Lord, our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ, through whom or what else might we understand what is good and what is evil. Jesus Christ, through whom or what else might we be surprised by great joy. Jesus Christ, with whom or what else might we discover the kingdom of heaven?

Tom Currie, pastor at our home church in Brenham before he left to pastor in Kerrville, says, the joy of discovery of the Kingdom of Heaven in our midst “sustains those who undertake the risk of… (Living)…the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Undertaking the risk of living the gospel of Jesus Christ we discover the Kingdom comes from the master of the household, our God, alive in our life through the power of the Holy Spirit. Our kingdom joy is the discovery that leads us to our God, who is the source of the only wisdom that matters at the end of the age. For it is then that the master of the household brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.

To undertake the risk of living the gospel of Jesus Christ will do this to us. When we reach into the Bible and pull out a text so old that “ancient” doesn’t begin to cover it. The text of scripture rises and unfolds into the air something ancient no more. The ancient treasure of joy lies in its uncanny ability to be resurrected in us to new life. To a new life where we undertake the risk of living a gospel which will become written on our human heart.
The gospel of Jesus Christ, written on our hearts, where through Jesus we understand surprising results, where through Jesus we are surprised by our faith in the impossible, where through Jesus we discover unchanging joy.

That sounds a lot like Kingdom language to me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
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17 July 2011 “What Do You Expect?” Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

2011-07-17T06:36:00.001-07:00

When we lived in the country in Washington County we lived near a small farming community called Greenvine. You have to love that name, Greenvine. Just hearing it gives you a sense that this broad area of farmers and ranchers produces an abundant crop. Green must be the vine and everything else that grows their.
I particularly enjoyed two times in our growing season there on the farm. First was when it was time to prepare the soil and plant the seed and second was the time for the harvest.

In between there was the usual need for watering and weeding and waiting. I anticipated with great expectation as I watched for the new growth I hoped would come. But I really enjoyed the bounty, the harvest.

Actually the whole family enjoyed our little time for harvest heaven. Small though it was in comparison to some, we loved that time in our garden there at the farm. Harvest time for us was a full on family affair.

I remember we grew corn, black eyed peas, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, melons and even okra a few times. With the call for help with the picking there came a rush and scurry and a great slam from the back porch screen door. You remember those don’t you, screen doors?

Everyone had their job and we would gather pails and bags and grubbing hoes and whatever the crop of the moment required. Potatoes were probably the most fun to dig for. It was as if every turning of the fork brought up candy or something sweet. The kids thought it was the best. I can still see their bright faces as I turned up the next potato plant for them to dig under. Sometimes there were 4 or 5 potatoes, sometimes many more. We always had a contest to see who would find the biggest one. The digging was ferocious! I often could not keep up!

Corn was fun too. The trouble with corn was the surprise of a worm or two when you pulled the shuck away! We could always count on worm inspired squeals when we shucked the corn!

The parable of the weeds growing with the wheat we read this morning follows last Sundays parable of the Sower and his seeming waste at slinging seed everywhere at once. These parables are in a greater section of Matthew detailing the conflict between Jesus and his opponents among the leaders of Israel. To our first century brethren there is special meaning in these stories for at the time they felt their future was being threatened by hostile opponents. Evil lurked in their midst.

It is not difficult for us to connect to these same stories known so long ago. We find comfort in them for they are the stories of everyday life. We too have lived them.

Our first century brethren had planted good seed before and they knew about growing crops. They also knew, no matter how careful they were with their soil preparation and planting, weeds would come. Through these recognized and common experiences Jesus was adept at teaching special deeper meanings. He teaches that if we will open our eyes to the obvious, to the familiar everyday life that is around us, we will experience an amazing truth. We will have a glimpse of the kingdom of God.

Opening our eyes to this morning’s parable we learn many things.
First, we learn there are two plantings. Both the wheat and the weeds are the result of an intentional activity that brings them to stand together in the field.
Second, we learn it is only when the disciples are alone with Jesus that they ask what the parable means. And he teaches them. The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest will come at the end of the age, and the reapers, the harvesters, will be angels.

Third, we are reminded first to not judge fellow members of our community, those we presume to be weeds. Then we are commanded to leave them alone. The separation of authentic members of the covenant community from false members is God’s business. Jesus almost seems to view the world as a field for conflict with competing claims by two kingdoms, one good and of God, the other evil and of Satan.

Finally, we learn the harvest time is critical to the bounty.
In the parable the servants want to begin immediately pulling the weeds. Their master forbids it. They may do more harm than good, he tells them. Wait, he commands. Wait until the harvest and at that time another group, the reapers, the angels, will gather the grain and separate the weeds for burning.

A good lesson, taught by the garden, is to learn when the potatoes are ready to harvest. You cannot know just by looking at the surface, you have to dig deeper. It is at the deeper level we find sustaining and lasting nutrition from the harvesting.
What then might we be missing about this morning’s parable? There is, after all, an enemy in our garden. It is as if Jesus is presenting us with the haunting question, “Why does evil exist?”

Jesus tells us that the enemy has come and gone. The enemy need not hang around. But it is clear, evil exists. Why evil exists is a tricky question. When life is rocking along and things are going well we seldom give evil a passing thought. But, up close, shaken by the evil in our world, immediate and sustainable answers elude us.

Ever our patient teacher, Jesus may help us see God’s deeper meaning.
…Perhaps there is evil because it is difficult to decide what is wheat and what is weed and our response should be to allow weeds every chance to change and become wheat.

…Or perhaps evil exists because weed and evil occasionally serve a purpose? I know how impossible this seems. But it is true; many of us have learned valuable lessons when bad things have happened.

…Perhaps it is simply that the weeds remind the wheat what it is and what it is not. Can you think of a really good “bad example”, a person who has done something bad and through their evil decision you were motivated to make a good decision.
Martin Luther, the great leader of the protestant movement, said that we are “at the same time saint and sinner.” We are wheat, indeed, but sometimes we act just like weeds.”

One of the ways we do that is in our persistence to point out the weeds, the evil or bad behavior in other people. We are quick to judge when, in our view, someone is good and when someone is bad or evil.

One of my favorite stories about judgment was told by H. A. Ironside in his book “Illustrations of Bible Truth.” It is the story of a man called Bishop Potter, who was headed for Europe on a great ocean liner. When he boarded the ship he discovered that he was to share his cabin with another passenger. After meeting his new roommate, the bishop went to a crew member to ask is he could place his valuables in the ships safe. He shared, in confidence of course, that judging from the appearance of his roommate he was suspicious of the man’s trustworthiness. The crew member accepted the bishop’s valuables and said, “It’s all right Bishop, I’ll be very glad to take care of them for you. The other man has been up here too, and left his for the same reason!”
The moral of the story is that we are all weeds to someone else! Don’t you know we all have a severe reputation in the eyes of another?

Jesus’ deep rooted parable message to us this morning is that it is not the church’s task to uproot weeds and equally it is not our task to judge one another.
After all, Jesus did not bring justice upon the evil one. All he needed to do was sow the weeds – and pretty soon the wheat gets confused about what it is to be wheat and starts acting like a weed. Luther’s words ring true, we are “at the same time saint and sinner.”

If this were not enough, Jesus reminds us our duty is to do nothing when the weeds grow higher and higher in our lives. We are not to pull them. What we are to do is much harder. Perhaps it’s the most difficult thing a Christian is to do.
We are called by God to forgive, to forgive, and forgive yet again. While the deeper message of this parable tells us to do nothing in RESPONSE to evil we are clearly to do something to PREPARE ourselves for it. We must never relent in our efforts to do good things. Our good seed will keep growing if we tend them until the time of glory, the harvest.

We tend them as we receive the life giving water from our baptism. We tend them as we nourish them with the bread and the cup that feeds our souls with the presence of God during the Lord’s Supper. We take these preventative actions all with an eye to making it more difficult for the enemy to sow the seed that looks like wheat among the good wheat of our lives, our families, our congregation, and our world.

Let us not forget, it is up to God to harvest the good and burn the evil, not us.
Dear ones, we are called to reach out, to love, to be patient with, and to show tolerance toward our enemies. We are called to bring justice and right living in the face of evil as best we can. But we cannot nor will we ever absolutely overcome injustice and violence and pain and suffering. But God can. And God will, in God’s time of course.

The poet, Theodore Roethke, says this about weeds;
“Long live the weeds that overwhelm
My narrow vegetable realm!
The bitter rock, the barren soil
That force the son of man to toil;
All things unholy, marked by curse,
The ugly of the universe.
The rough, the wicked, and the wild
That keep the spirit undefiled.
With these I match my little wit
And earn the right to stand or sit.
Hope, look, create, or drink and die:
These shape the creature that is I.”

The deeply rooted message in today’s parable is a message to forgive the weeds and go about the business of being wheat and bearing fruit and listening to God. For God has complete control. God controls wheat and weed alike and God is in control even when bad things happen. The ultimate victory in this tug of wills belongs to God, and just like the victory of the resurrection following the crucifixion, the ultimate victor is God.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

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Additional resources:
“Pulpit Resource”, Volume 36, Number 3, 2008, pages 13-16.

10 July 2011 The Sower and the Seed Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

2011-07-10T12:15:00.001-07:00

10 July 2011 The Sower and the Seed Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

It was my grandfather who showed me how to use and reuse wire, old inner tubes, various nuts and bolts, clips and pins, used boards, old car parts, discarded bits of carpet and any other used but useful piece of refuse that with a bit of luck and good old fashioned ingenuity might fix just about anything. He would not buy something new or even reconditioned until he tried to fix it or repair it or get around it or do without it.

My brother Jim and I helped on more than one occasion re-roof the house my grandfather built. We spent a fair amount of time out in the garage rooting around in a bucket or a box looking for the right thing to fix something.

Granddaddy hated waste. Like lots of people of his generation who grew up during the Great Depression, long before we became environmentally sensitive, he loved to recycle things. He lived the motto of not wanting, not wasting.

I am reminded of a poster from that time, an advertisement that was put out by the Green Giant Food Company. The poster showed a well-cleaned plate, just after someone had eaten the food on the plate and licked it clean. Over the plate were the words, “The plate of a patriotic American.” Some of you may remember it. We had a war on. There were shortages. Eat you peas. Clean your plate for the good of the war effort was the message.

My grandmother lived by that philosophy too. I moved in to live with them when I was fourteen or fifteen. We always had plenty of food, but we were expected to eat our plates clean. A clean ‘happy’ plate was a patriotic plate!

Most of us have this nature about us. We don’t like to be wasteful. When we are properly motivated we will take the time and make the effort to take care of our physical, mental, and spiritual resources. It is the faithful thing to do, to respect and use with reverence all that God has given us. Wasting just may be a sin.
Certainly, there is no eleventh commandment about being wasteful. But, how often do we find, in scripture or in life, expectations of a disciple that seem to run counter intuitive to our very sensibility? At times, we are not so naturally inclined to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Many aspects of our personality make discipleship somewhat of a reach for many of us. And this parable in Matthew’s gospel this morning of the sower speaks to one of them. We are by nature efficient. We don’t like to waste anything.

But then there is Jesus. In today’s scripture he tells the story about a man who went forth to sow. A farmer went forth to sow seed as farmers have done for centuries. But this farmer had to be one of the most inept farmers who have ever sown seed.

Jesus says the farmer goes out to his field. We know what should come next. The farmer carefully removes all the rocks and weeds. He plows the soil into neat, straight furrows. And then he puts the seed in the furrows, carefully covering up the seed with about a quarter of an inch of soil, each seed about eight inches from every other seed. Like us, the farmer deftly follows the directions on the Burpee Seed package!

Well, no, he did no such thing. Jesus says the farmer simply goes out and with no preparation or care starts slinging seed!

Once the seed germinates, and it is time for harvest, the harvest is rather disappointing. Most of the seed has been wasted. Of course, you would expect this with this kind of farmer!

Some of the seed has been thrown onto the roadside. What on earth did the farmer expect by that? Much of the seed has been eaten by birds where it was not sufficiently covered by the soil. Other seed thrown into clumps of weeds has been choked out by the weeds.
The amazing thing about this is that Jesus says there was a miraculous harvest. About ten percent of the seed actually germinated. Jesus enthusiastically calls this an amazingly rich harvest, one that brought the farmer great joy.
Don’t you find it interesting that the sort of farming we would call a failure Jesus calls a success? He sure looks at things differently than the way we look at things.
In the name of efficiency and the greatest good for the greatest number, the modern world has stacked people on top of each other, piled human beings together, forced us into large groups – the herd. Jesus appears to point to another way in which, though a minority of the seed actually germinated and bore fruit, it is considered to be a wonderful, miraculous event.

Certainly with this formula there is a great deal of waste in the kingdom of God. Our way of figuring things would surely say so. A great deal of seed is being put at risk with this sort of sowing. A lot of otherwise good seed is going to be wasted.
But then we think about how God created the world. Why didn’t God create just one species of flower, for example? That ought to be miracle enough. But God didn’t stop there. God created a lot of flowers, all different colors and sizes and shapes. Few of the world’s flowers are actually seen by many people. Why did God continue and waste so much beauty? There does seem to be a sort of extravagance built right into the grain of the universe. A great deal of waste. God is effusive, or we might say, wasteful. Jesus calls it something different; he calls it a divine wonder.

Much of the great good that this God does is unseen by the world, unacknowledged, and unnoticed. Few of us will ever read through the entire Bible; much less comprehend all of it. God has just said too much to us, on too many different subjects, on too diverse occasions. So we hire preachers, to plow through the Bible, and then reduce what we have read to four spiritual laws, or three basic principles, or six fundamentals. We human beings acts as if it is our job to comprehend all of God, but in order to do that we have to considerably reduce God, bring everything down to the lowest common denominator, something that you can put on a bumper sticker. “Jesus saves” or “My boss is a Jewish Carpenter”, or one I saw yesterday, “Real men love Jesus.”

But then we are reminded that God is bigger than all of our reductions and generalizations. There is a great deal more to be said and thought about God than we can say or think.

Sometimes people emerge from church mumbling, “I didn’t really get anything out of that service today.” It’s true, let’s be honest here.
Am I supposed to take that as a criticism? Well, usually I don’t. Perhaps the sermon was focused on people who are going through times of difficulty and trial. Maybe that person is experiencing smooth sailing right now, no problems. So naturally they “didn’t get anything out of it.”

The point is that church is not simply the efficient, individual and personal answer to “what do I get out of it?” Maybe the point of church is more often, “what does my neighbor get out of it?” In church, a great deal is wasted. More is said than we really need to hear. Many times we sing a hymn that does nothing to uplift our heart. But maybe that hymn uplifts the heart of our neighbor. And Jesus has made our neighbor, and our neighbor’s needs our problem too.

So maybe we should say that to be a good disciple we have to have training in how to sit through a lot of church, a great many worship services that are wasted.
Waste isn’t reserved just for a few. Some folks actually complain that their pastor is disorganized and the he/she doesn’t use church time well. Sometimes it is true. We are working not just for the church, but also for Jesus. When a pastor wastes an entire afternoon with a troubled person this may not be the most efficient use of the pastor’s talent, training, and time, but are these the only measures for what is at the heart of the reign of God?

In fact, I have had folk say to me, “I don’t get about 90 percent of what’s said in your sermons.”

I might be concerned about this low percentage of comprehension. But then I hear, with a twinkle in the eye, “But the 10 percent I do understand keeps me coming back, Sunday after Sunday, and gives me quite enough to chew on the rest of the week.” Sometimes only about ten percent of the seed actually germinates.
The Methodist Bishop, William Willimon tells the story of a woman, a graduate of John Hopkins University, who went on to Duke University where she earned a graduate degree in nursing. She did so well academically that the faculty asked her to stay on and be a professor of nursing.

Bishop Willimon did not meet her until she was in her 60’s. By that time she had left the nursing faculty and she was working in an inner-city health center, a volunteer, for those who had AIDS. One afternoon, talking to her and her friend, the Bishop was saying that he had so much respect for the work she was doing, for the way she was using her gifts.

Her friend said, “Do you? Frankly, I consider it a waste. When I think of all the good she could be doing and I consider the brilliant career that she simply tossed away, I consider her story to be sad, rather than inspiring.”
What a waste? That Jesus came to us reaching out to us in love. He told us the truth about ourselves and our world and the truth about God. And we responded by rejecting him, abandoning him, nailing him to a cross, where his life blood drained out of him. What a waste.

Even there, he kept reaching out to us, embracing us, forgiving us. And then when God raised him from his death, he came back to us again, back to the very people with whom he had failed so miserably. He came back to the very ones who betrayed him and promised us, “I will never leave you.” No, no matter what. No matter how you waste your life. I will never leave you.
What a waste.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

Additional resource:
“Pulpit Resource”, Volume 36, Number 3, 2008, pages 9-12.

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10 July 2011 The Sower and the Seed Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

2011-07-10T07:03:00.001-07:00

10 July 2011 The Sower and the Seed Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

It was my grandfather who showed me how to use and reuse wire, old inner tubes, various nuts and bolts, clips and pins, used boards, old car parts, discarded bits of carpet and any other used but useful piece of refuse that with a bit of luck and good old fashioned ingenuity might fix just about anything. He would not buy something new or even reconditioned until he tried to fix it or repair it or get around it or do without it.

My brother Jim and I helped on more than one occasion re-roof the house my grandfather built. We spent a fair amount of time out in the garage rooting around in a bucket or a box looking for the right thing to fix something.
Granddaddy hated waste. Like lots of people of his generation who grew up during the Great Depression, long before we became environmentally sensitive, he loved to recycle things. He lived the motto of not wanting, not wasting.

I am reminded of a poster from that time, an advertisement that was put out by the Green Giant Food Company. The poster showed a well-cleaned plate, just after someone had eaten the food on the place and licked it clean. Over the plate were the words, “The plate of a patriotic American.” Some of you may remember it. We had a war on. There were shortages. Eat you peas. Clean you plate for the good of the war effort was the message.

My grandmother lived by that philosophy too. I moved in to live with them when I was fourteen or fifteen. We always had plenty of food, but we were expected to eat our plates clean. A clean ‘happy’ plate was a patriotic plate!

Most of us have this nature about us. We don’t like to be wasteful. When we are properly motivated we will take the time and make the effort to take care of our physical, mental, and spiritual resources. It is the faithful thing to do, to respect and use with reverence all that God has given us. Wasting just may be a sin.
Certainly, there is no eleventh commandment about being wasteful. But, how often do we find, in scripture or in life, expectations of a disciple than seem to run counter intuitive to our very sensibility? At times, we are not so naturally inclined to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Many aspects of our personality make discipleship somewhat of a reach for many of us. And this parable in Matthew’s gospel this morning of the sower speaks to one of them. We are by nature efficient. We don’t like to waste anything.

But then there is Jesus. In today’s scripture he tells the story about a man who went forth to sow. A farmer went forth to sow seed as farmers have done for centuries. But this farmer had to be one of the most inept farmers who has ever sown seed.

Jesus says, the farmer goes out to his field. We know what should come next. The farmer carefully removes all the rocks and weeds. He plows the soil into neat, straight furrows. And then he puts the seed in the furrows, carefully covering up the seed with about a quarter of an inch of soil, each seed about eight inches from every other seed. Like us, the farmer deftly follows the directions on the Burpee Seed package!

Well, no, he did no such thing. Jesus says the farmer simply goes out and with no preparation or care starts slinging seed!

Once the seed germinates, and it is time for harvest, the harvest is rather disappointing. Most of the seed has been wasted. Of course, you would expect this with this kind of farmer!

Some of the seed has been thrown onto the roadside. What on earth did the farmer expect by that? Much of the seed has been eaten by birds where it was not sufficiently covered by the soil. Other seed thrown into clumps of weeds has been choked out by the weeds.
The amazing thing about this is that Jesus says there was a miraculous harvest. About ten percent of the seed actually germinated. Jesus enthusiastically calls this an amazingly rich harvest, one that brought the farmer great joy.

Don’t you find it interesting that the sort of farming we would call a failure Jesus calls a success? He sure looks at things differently than the way we look at things.
In the name of efficiency and the greatest good for the greatest number, the modern world has stacked people on top of each other, piled human beings together, forced us into large groups – the herd. Jesus appears to point to another way in which, though a minority of the seed actually germinated and bore fruit, it is considered to be a wonderful, miraculous event.

Certainly with this formula there is a great deal of waste in the kingdom of God. Our way of figuring things would surely say so. A great deal of seed is being put at risk with this sort of sowing. A lot of otherwise good seed is going to be wasted.
But then we think about how God created the world. Why didn’t God create just one species of flower, for example? That ought to be miracle enough. But God didn’t stop there. God created a lot of flowers, all different colors and sizes and shapes. Few of the world’s flowers are actually seen by many people. Why did God continue and waste so much beauty? There does seem to be a sort of
extravagance built right into the grain of the universe. A great deal of waste. God is effusive, or we might say, wasteful. Jesus calls something different, he calls it a divine wonder.

Much of the great good that this God does is unseen by the world, unacknowledged, and unnoticed. Few of us will ever read through the entire Bible, much less comprehend all of it. God has just said too much to us, on too many different subjects, on too diverse occasions. So we hire preachers, to plow through the Bible, then reduce what we have read to four spiritual laws, or three basic principles, or six fundamentals. We human beings acts as if it is our job to comprehend all of God, but in order to do that we have to considerably reduce God, bring everything down to the lowest common denominator, something that you can put on a bumper sticker. “Jesus saves” or “My boss is a Jewish Carpenter”, or one I saw yesterday, “Real men love Jesus.”

But then we are reminded that God is bigger than all of our reductions and generalizations. There is a great deal more to be said and thought about God than we can say or think.

Sometimes people emerge from church mumbling, “I didn’t really get anything out of that service today.” It’s true, let’s be honest here.
Am I supposed to take that as a criticism? Well, usually I don’t. Perhaps the sermon was focused on people who are going through times of difficulty and trial. Maybe that person is experiencing smooth sailing right now, no problems. So naturally they “didn’t get anything out of it.”

The point is that church is not simply the efficient, individual and personal answer to “what do I get out of it?” Maybe the point of church is more often, “what does my neighbor get out of it?” In church, a great deal is wasted. More is said than we really need to hear. Many times we sing a hymn that does nothing to uplift our heart. But maybe that hymn uplifts the heart of our neighbor. And Jesus has made our neighbor, and our neighbor’s needs our problem too.

So maybe we should say that to be a good disciple we have to have training in how to sit through a lot of church, a great many worship services that are wasted.
Waste isn’t reserved just for a few. Some folks actually complain that their pastor is disorganized and the he/she doesn’t use church time well. Sometimes it is true. We are working not just for the church, but also for Jesus. When a pastor wastes an entire afternoon with a troubled person this may not be the most efficient use of the pastor’s talent, training, and time, but are these the only measures for what is at the heart of the reign of God?

In fact, I have had folk say to me, “I don’t get about 90 percent of what’s said in your sermons.”

I might be concerned about this low percentage of comprehension. But then I hear, with a twinkle in the eye, “But the 10 percent I do understand keeps me coming back, Sunday after Sunday, and gives me quite enough to chew on the rest of the week.” Sometimes only about ten percent of the seed actually germinates.
The Methodist Bishop, William Willimon tells the story of a woman, a graduate of John Hopkins University, who went on to Duke University where she earned a graduate degree in nursing. She did so well academically that the faculty asked her to stay on and be a professor of nursing.

Bishop Willimon did not meet her until she was in her 60’s. By that time she had left the nursing faculty and she was working in an inner-city health center, a volunteer, for those who had AIDS. One afternoon, talking to her and her friend, the Bishop was saying that he had so much respect for the work she was doing, for the way she was using her gifts.

Her friend said, “Do you? Frankly, I consider it a waste. When I think of all the good she could be doing and I consider the brilliant career that she simply tossed away, I consider her story to be sad, rather than inspiring.”
What a waste? That Jesus came to us reaching out to us in love. He told us the truth about ourselves and our world and the truth about God. And we responded by rejecting him, abandoning him, nailing him to a cross, where his life blood drained out of him. What a waste.

Even there, he kept reaching out to us, embracing us, forgiving us. And then when God raised him from his death, he came back to us again, back to the very people with whom he had failed so miserably. He came back to the very ones who betrayed him and promised us, “I will never leave you.” No, no matter what. No matter how you waste your life. I will never leave you.
What a waste.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

Additional resource:
“Pulpit Resource”, Volume 36, Number 3, 2008, pages 9-12.

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26 June 2011 “A Disciples Reward” Matthew 10:40-42

2011-06-27T18:25:00.001-07:00

26 June 2011 “A Disciples Reward” Matthew 10:40-42

Today is an exciting day for me personally. Today I celebrate the anniversary of my ordination to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. It was June 26, 2005. In the history of our church there have been installation services as new pastors have been called, and I expect we have ordained a few. We certainly have held many such services for elders and deacons. All who are ordained have a right to be proud.

I labored faithfully through seminary and those of you who are ordained, which includes many of you, have labored faithfully learning the faith, worshiping and being God’s ministry to one another and to the world. The remembrance of our dedication of service to our God is of great importance for the faith, the life and witness of this church, and we can be mighty proud of our work thus far.
Ordination is the act by which the church sets apart persons who have been called, through election by the church, to service. In our Presbyterian tradition and according to scripture, we call them presbyters.

The worship service for ordination is actually rooted in our baptism, which “is the basic Christian ‘ordination’. In baptism, we are individually claimed as God’s own beloved sons and daughters and grafted into the body of Christ – the community of faith – the church. It was in our baptism that we were made disciples of Jesus Christ and called to serve others as if we were serving Christ himself.
All worship takes this stance, we are made disciples for service and it is right and fitting that from time to time we remind ourselves of our personal call to be servant discipleship in Jesus Christ.

It is to this reminder that today’s scripture turns us. We hear it in Matthew’s gospel at the end of chapter 10 in the form of a call to welcome those doing God’s work and to hear about their reward.

Listen to it again:
“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.

“Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous;

And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

There is a powerful affirmation in this scripture. We have been doing God’s work, you and I, and it is now time to hear of our reward!

Welcoming the Word of God connects us to God, and being connected to God connects us to the reward of God’s salvation. That is what the reward of the righteous is. Our reward is found in being in a right relationship with God. God grants salvation through Christ’s cross, this is God’s atoning act of righteousness.

So, welcoming the Word of God connects us to God and connects us to the reward of God’s salvation. This is a beautiful truth to remember. It is the sort of good news we want to hear. This is our day to celebrate who we have been as a church and as the faithful, who we are now and who we will become. We will celebrate this day being ordained, all of us, being set apart, and knowing God’s truth for each of us. This day we receive the reward for our faithfulness.

Yet, something doesn’t seem right. Perhaps we have gone too far if we become the center of attention in today’s call for celebration and reward.

Ernie Hinojosa began a new congregation in San Antonio. The place was doing so well, far better than Pastor Ernie had dreamed, one day he found sanctuary in his office and prayed a lament to God: “ I’m too young, I’m not strong enough to do this!” to which God very clearly replied, “Ernie, what made you think it was about you? It’s not about you; it’s about me. This is my work.”

I am so struck by that line, “What made you think it was about you?” I have written that phrase in my journal and wish I could burn it in my psyche because I need to be reminded of that truth every day.

In the midst of an American culture that seems at every turn to tell us what we deserve, it is truly difficult to believe we are not the center of the universe. We deserve the best car, the biggest house, we owe it to ourselves and our families, why, just ask your doctor, Celebrex is right for you… there is no question, it is about us!

Is it possible we are surrounded by false prophets who tell us what we want to hear?

Jeremiah thought so. We heard this morning of Jeremiah’s response to the prophet Hananiah. Hananiah was preaching and prophesying what the people wanted to hear. The people of Israel were in exile in Babylon. They wanted to go home, to their land, their temple and their old way of life. Hananiah was telling them what they wanted to hear. He assured them, all the temple vessels would be returned to Jerusalem. He assured them they were about to be set free from their exile. Jeremiah hoped so. He truly did. He wanted to go home too. But, that was not happening. The words Hananiah was saying had not come true. He preached exactly what the people wanted to hear, rather than taking the route of God’s truth, which was what Jeremiah was all about.

There is another prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, who also decided to not preach what the people wanted to hear. Instead he preaches the Way of God’s truth. Jesus says exactly what God wants him to say, even when it is not what we want to hear.
In Matthew’s tenth chapter, Jesus has called his disciples and he sends us with them to do God’s work.

Today we hear about our real rewards for now we know the real truth. The cost and reward of being a disciple is that we must surrender to the fact that it is not about us. Ouch. Good by celebration!

About this passage, Barbara Brown Taylor has said, “What the Bible tells us over and over again – what our lives tell us – is that the only reward for doing God’s work is doing God’s work. Period.”

Susan Langhauser, another great preacher, says, “Let’s face it; our question, ‘What’s in it for me?’ is not a biblical question!”

Brother Lawrence, a humble 17th-century monk, having no possessions in this world, found himself quite well off, which he attributed to the fact that he sought only God, and not Gods gifts. He was not interested in Langhauser’s question, “What’s in it for me?” He believed that God is much greater than any of the simple gifts God gives us. Rather, he chose to look beyond the gift, hoping to learn more about God alone. It actually became his desire to avoid receiving any reward, so that he would have the pleasure of doing everything solely for God.
Barbara Brown Taylor is right, the only reward for doing God’s work is doing God’s work. Period.

God has placed within our hearts a desire to be in relationships. And when in a genuine relationship we do not ask, what is in it for me. A true relationship should not be about us. We know we are in a true relationship when we cannot distinguish the individual. Two in a relationship become one as they become friends, as they fall in love, as they become parents, or as they become the right thing they have done. It is not about us as an individual. We die to self, remember, and are born anew.

There is a wonderful story of a women’s Bible study group who had chosen to study Malachi 3:3, which says that God “will sit as a refiner, a purifier of silver.” Not really understanding that concept, one of the women volunteered to go discover the process of refining silver. She made an appointment and on arriving at the silversmith’s shop, was escorted to the place of refining. The smith held the piece of silver right in the center of the flame. The woman thought about what that might say about how God deals with us, and she asked the smith, “Do you have to hold the silver in the hottest part of the fire?” “Oh yes, “he replied. “If I look away for a moment it could get too hot and be destroyed. If I don’t let it get hot enough, it will not become pure and therefore workable for my purposes.” “But how do you know when it is refined?” asked the woman. The silversmith replied, “When I can see my own image in the silver, I know it is pure.”

This is Gods’ truth; God sits as a refiner, a purifier of each of us. Our baptism, our individual refinement as God’s own beloved sets us apart for service to God. The reward of doing God’s work is simply and powerfully doing God’s work.
Our celebration this morning is not about you or about me; it is about God, and it is about our relationships. Yours and mine and ours with God and all that God has created.
Today is a day for celebration. Today we remember our ordination, our baptism, our calling by God to join together along the route of God’s truth. Our calling to a journey of true faith in Jesus Christ for those being sent to do Gods’ work.

We will know we are on the right path to that work when our Creator’s image can be seen in us and all we say and do. When we love widely and care deeply for those around us Christ’s image can be seen in us and we will then know for certain, this life of ordained service to our God is most definitely not about us.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

062611

19 June 2011 Trinity Sunday “He is With Us”

2011-06-27T17:29:00.001-07:00

19 June 2011 Trinity Sunday “He is With Us”

It happens every year about this time. There is a frenzy of activity associated with it. Everyone closely associated with it feels its pressures. The community holds its collective breath until it is finally done. Families, I suspect, are affected by it most.
It may have all the high drama of a crime scene investigation show on television. There are elements of frenzied and panic filled climactic activities followed by finality, a sudden abrupt end to it all, and it may take the experts some time to sort out what really happened there.

It is that time honored, much anticipated end of the school year. Teachers and administrators and students long for it with every breath left in their worn out bodies. Parents, on the other hand, are panic stricken. What will we do now that the kids will not be in school? Summer is here, it’s going to get mighty hot. How long till school starts again? What about their grandparents? They will be around to help keep the kids, won’t they???

While school has ended, we here in the church are marking a transitional time too. It began with the extended Easter season where we walked with Jesus following his death and resurrection, next was the Day of Pentecost with our celebration of the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church. Today is Trinity Sunday and then we move into Ordinary time.

The Church, you see, follows a rhythm of seasons which orders life and influences our worship. Pentecost is typically seen as the end of the liturgical year. The first Sunday of Advent being the beginning.

We find a fair amount of calendar time between Pentecost and Advent. During that time we take summer vacations, find a cool place to go in Colorado, or enjoy the beach or our favorite swimming or tubing place in our own river region. Summer can become a perfect time for rest and renewal.

It is in this spirit, this time of rest and renewal, that the church brings us Trinity Sunday. It seems strange we would begin to slow things down with a story about the Trinity. The Trinity is a complex, thick doctrine. Can we imagine such a difficult concept as Trinity, God in three persons. Our rich experience of the diversity of the one true God is a hard concept to communicate.

In Matthew’s words to us this morning Jesus helps our understanding in a very practical way. Previously in the gospel, an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone covering the tomb where Jesus was buried and sat on it. The angel said to Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, who were at the tomb, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place were he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, He has been raised from the dead.”

There is nothing in literature to compare to the dramatic meaning of this story. Jesus, the Messiah, has risen from the dead. Jesus, the savior of humankind, has appeared to his disciples. Jesus, God’s own son, has brought them and us to a great commission. A commission to go into the entire world and preach the gospel making disciples of all nations.

We hear in this passage the echo of the Genesis reading for this morning. In the creation story God said, ‘let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.” This is not a command to make us into the physical image of God. It is rather that we are created in God’s image to live together in love and freedom – with God, with one another, and with the world. We are created to be loving companions of others so that something of God’s goodness may be reflected in our lives.

We are reminded in this morning’s scripture that we have been given this specific command from Jesus. We have been charged with a particular function, to go and make disciples, to baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, there’s the Trinity again, and to teach obedience to everything Jesus has commanded.

I must confess, when I hear this expectation from God I find myself on the side of all who cry out, why me Lord? I am weak, without knowledge, and prone to human temptations. Surely, you don’t mean us? We cannot agree on so many things, how in the world are we to go and make disciples, baptize them, and teach them obedience when we don’t always obey? Do you see the folly in this Lord? We just cannot cut it as disciple makers.

Are we so bold to think we can refuse God on this? Have we forgotten the story of Jonah? Jonah was a prophet, one of God’s special messengers. One day he heard God speaking to him. “I want you to go to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire,” “I have seen the wicked things that go on there. I know how disobedient the people are. I want you to go there and preach my message. But Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh. Instead, he ran in the opposite direction. He found a ship that was sailing away from Nineveh, paid his fare, went aboard and hid himself. That’s what we all too often do. We hide ourselves.
It did Jonah no good. A storm came up, the boat was sinking, he was found and it was discovered he had run from God. So the crew of the ship threw him into the sea. As soon as Jonah hit the water, a huge fish rose up and swallowed him whole. He was frightened and cried out to God. Help me Lord; I know that you are able to save me.” Suddenly Jonah felt himself being thrown forward out of the fish’s mouth. As you might imagine, Jonah couldn’t wait to be in Nineveh!

You see, Jonah was commissioned by God to go and make disciples, to baptize them, and to teach them about obedience to everything God had commanded. Who better to teach about obeying everything God has commanded than one who has refused to follow what God commanded and with such dramatic results!
Despite his disobedience, Jonah discovered that God never left him. God did not leave him alone in the belly of the fish, and God did not leave him alone in Nineveh. Jesus does not leave us alone either.

I see in this ending of the seasons a time to reconnect to our roots. Our Christian roots, grounded in the Holy Trinity and our call to go, to baptize, and to teach. This is not just a call to pastors, or elders, or the most faithful believers. It is a call to each of us.

When my brother, Jim, was about to have life threatening surgery he made his confession to a priest. He prayed, “Bless me Father for I have sinned, it has been 30 years since my last confession.” Jim didn’t surprise God. God already knows about us. God knows that we have sinned and not lived God’s commandments; we have not lived by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. God knows that we have not lived for the love of God and that we have not lived in union with the Holy Spirit.
We don’t surprise God. God is infinitely patient with us but God doesn’t have different expectations of us if we worship daily or 30 years go by without a word.
The Holy Spirit may lay dormant in our soul but we are never alone. Remember, Jesus said, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Jesus did not add a warning, I am with you always... if… These promises God makes with us are unconditionally binding for all times and places.

David Livingston, when asked what had sustained him in all of the perils of his pilgrimage in Africa, answered by quoting this same verse. It is said that when his wife died in Africa he helped with each step of her burial, he opened his New Testament and read this text, turned to his African associates and said, “Jesus Christ is too much of a Gentleman not to keep His word; let us get on with the task.”

Let us go on with the task, Dr. Livingston said, making disciples, for that is what we are called to do. We may wonder if that includes us all. Must we not have special energy, special skills, something special. Being so ordinary, how, pray tell, might we make disciples?

The same way Jesus did with those he came into contact with. He loved them, he blessed them, and he helped them, all of them, even though some of them did not care. He loved them none the less. That’s how we have been treated by God. We are loved even when we ignore God, even when we forget about or become disinterested in God and the grace God has for us. We are blessed abundantly and helped by God in ways we do not often recognize.

It is no accident that God loves us. God created each of us. God is still providing for each of us. God’s goodness, God’s grace you see is not a one time gift.
We will proclaim again this Sunday our faith in the Trinity. We proclaim it in our profession of faith when we recite the Apostles Creed. We believe all that is promised in the gospel and a summary of our belief is found in that Creed.
God promised us, remember, he is with us always, to the end of the age! God promised us his son Jesus is the Savior of the world and we are to entrust ourselves completely to his care, giving thanks each day for his wonderful goodness.
God promised us we are enabled to faithfulness and holy obedience by God’s presence within us in the person of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to love, know, and serve Jesus Christ.
It is the Holy Spirit who nurtures, corrects, and strengthens us with the truth of everything God has commanded of us.
He is, praise God, with us, until the end of the age.

May the grace of God, the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen

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23 May 2010 “A Pentecost Problem” Acts 2:1-21

2011-06-12T06:05:00.000-07:00

23 May 2010 “A Pentecost Problem” Acts 2:1-21

If you are like me, the possibilities of a day like today, Pentecost, with the notion of divided tongues resting upon us while being filled with the Holy Spirit of truth, creates a healthy round of honest skepticism and a stream of unanswerable questions. Then again, you may not be like me.
Through the prophet Joel we learned of God’s promise when God said, “In the last days it will be that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh…”
Being good and faithful folk and taking into account the weight of the evidence for the Trinity and the effects our faith will have, we generally accept this to be true. At the same time, we have rarely stopped having questions about God.

What exactly does this pouring out of God’s Spirit upon our flesh mean? What will it look and feel like? Or more importantly, what will we look like or feel like after this happens? Will we still be who we are or will we be changed into some unrecognizable spirit filled somebody who answers to our name. After all, there are good spirits and bad spirits flying around aren’t there?

Let’s be well informed here. A lot is at stake. Perhaps it should be prayers that we pray and not questions that we ask. Yet, we persist. Exactly what sort of Spirit does God have in store for us, and what difference might that Spirit make in our lives if we are to be poured upon, that’s what we want to know.

Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest, has written a wonderful summary of the Acts 2 passage we read this morning. She says, “If you believe the Bible, then there is no better proof that Jesus was who He said He was than the before and after pictures of the disciples. Before Pentecost, they were dense, timid fumblers who fled at the least sign of trouble. Afterwards, they were fearless leaders. They healed the sick and cast out demons. They went to jail boldly, where they sang hymns until the walls fell down.”

I believe we may fairly ask, how did this change occur in them and is this the difference such a change will make in our lives. The last thing Jesus told his disciples to do before He ascended into heaven was to go back to Jerusalem and wait there for God’s promise to come true. They would be baptized by the Holy Spirit and they would be clothed with power from on high.
With little or no idea what any of that meant, they did as they were told. They went back to Jerusalem and there they waited in an ordinary room in an ordinary house, along with the women who had come with them, including Jesus’ mother and his brothers.

For the most part they prayed while they waited, and I expect at least some of them were asking God to tell them a little bit about what they were waiting for. After all, how would they know when the power had come upon them.

They did not have to wait long for the answer to their prayers. On the day of Pentecost, a Jewish festival set fifty days after Passover, they were all together in one place when they found themselves in the midst of a crash course in God’s power.

First there was wind, then there was fire, then they were filled with the Holy Spirit and overflowed with strange languages: one spoke Parthian while another spoke Latin, and two others were speaking Egyptian and Arabic.
They may not have known what they were saying, but the crowd they drew did. Devout Jews from all over the world stood in the doorways and windows, listening to a gaggle of Galileans tell about the power of God in their own tongues so that no one was left confused.
And still it baffled them all, the speakers as well as the listeners. They were in the grips of something that bypassed reason and some of them could not bear it, so they started hunting for a reason. “They are filled with new wine,” someone said. But Peter said no, it was only 9:00 in the morning.

Then Peter got up and delivered a sensational sermon, based on the second chapter of Joel. “In the last days, I (meaning God) will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”
Peter tells them that is what is happening now. The Holy Spirit of God is being poured out on them and this is how it looks with wind like the wind that revived the valley of dry bones, with fire like the fire that led Israel through the desert, and with tongues like the tongues that erupted at Babel, but in reverse this time. At Babel, God confused human speech so that people could not understand each other anymore; at Pentecost, God reverses that curse. What sounds like babble is intelligible speech, and best of all, it is the gospel truth.
According to Acts, three thousand people were baptized that day. It was the birthday of the Christian church, when a dozen fallible human apostles received power from on high and proceeded to turn the world upside down.
All this happened by the power of the Holy Spirit, which the Bible talks about in at least two ways.

First, as the abiding presence of God in Christ, with all the safety and comfort that relationship promises. Then, secondly, perhaps not so comforting, as the presence of the Spirit that blows and burns into our lives, howling down the chimney and even turning all the lawn furniture upside down.

Ask Job about the whirlwind, or Ezekiel about the chariot of fire. Ask any of us who have felt caught up in the Holy Spirit this way and whether it is something we would like to happen every Sunday morning!
Given this natural tension with the presence of the Holy Spirit, it may seem surprising that in John’s gospel, beginning in chapter 7, we hear Jesus, on the last day of the festival, cry out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart will flow rivers of living water.’ And John 14 lifts up Jesus’ promise to us, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid…the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do…”, even greater.
From Acts we heard: In the last days it will be that God will pour out God’s Spirit upon all flesh. And again from John, “On the last day… Jesus cried out, Let anyone who is thirsty come to me.”

Two bottom line last day truths are evident in Jesus’ Word to us this morning. First, in seeking refreshment from our thirst for life and our thirst from life, life without the soothing relief of life giving waters, we who believe will also be filled with the presence of God almighty, Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit. And second, to exchange these conditions of life, having thirst for the Spirit filled, unbounded, uncontrollable, life changing and life giving power of God may be more than we bargained for.

“Only a fool would pray for the Holy Spirit,” says Allan Jones, Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco, “only fools for Christ do.” He goes on suggesting that the Spirit is most present in three open spaces in our lives, “in the unpredictable, in the place of risk, and in those areas over which we have no control.”

All too often we find our lives in one of these places. Life is unpredictable, risk seems a frequent reality and having control is truly the grandest illusion of all. It’s ok then to pray for God’s gentle spirit at such times. It is ok to pray for the living water Jesus offers. It is ok to admit our thirst for truth and justice, for peace and love, for hope and grace, for forgiveness and eternal salvation. It’s ok to admit we feel like we’ve reached the end of our rope, that we are living our last days, that God has abandoned our lives and pray our faith be restored.

It is proper and right that we pray our faith be restored, to increase life’s predictability, not as we would predict it of course but with God’s blessing, and to reduce life’s risks, not as we would reduce them of course but with God’s grace, and to give complete control of our lives to God, as only God will control it, with God’s love.

Then, praise God, God will pour out God’s Holy Spirit upon us. Then we who are thirsty for the hope of God’s life giving grace will come to Jesus for life giving waters. Then our sons and daughters will prophesy, our young men and women will see visions, and our old men and women will dream dreams and in our new lives we will become the vessels filled to overflowing with God’s grace, God’s love and God’s blessings so people around us may be filled too.
This is the change we can expect - filled with joy and peace, love and hope, our hearts will not be troubled. This is what our world will feel like - filled to be God’s eyes and ears, hands and feet, words and heart to the world. Bringing thirsty folk everywhere God’s Holy Spirit, overflowing from us, from you and from me, so others will experience their own Pentecost, and not be afraid.

Let anyone who is thirsty come with hope to Jesus and receive Gods’ life giving Holy waters, God’s Spirit, poured out upon all flesh.
Jesus promised us, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”
Our eternal peace is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the answer to our Pentecost prayers.

Jesus Christ is the powerful difference our lives feel when we are Holy Spirit filled.

The time for questions has passed, the time for prayers is on hold, it is time to approach the font of baptism and to be poured upon again.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen 061211.gpc

Additional resource:
“Lectionary Homiletics”, Volume XIX, Number 3, pages 40-48.

05 June 2011 “The Voice” John 17:1-11

2011-06-06T17:18:00.000-07:00

05 June 2011 “The Voice” John 17:1-11

With great anticipation and hope we spent the whole of the Lenten season waiting for Jesus’ resurrection. We’ve lived enough Easter’s to know on that same Sunday each year Jesus leaves the tomb alive. He leaves the tomb and he doesn’t just run off to heaven. No, Jesus stays around for a while. He hangs out at the tomb waiting for his disciples, he walks with them along the road, he appears with them around a table. Where ever they may be, we find Jesus has been with them. Perhaps we may have missed the obvious, for these past seven Sundays of the Easter season Jesus has been hanging out with his disciples. Jesus is still risen!
For our part, the church wants to hang on to Jesus, we don’t want to tell him good bye. Here on the pulpit and draped over the cross and there where the choir sits we are still wearing the white of the Easter season as proof. What might not have seemed so obvious at first should be crystal clear this Sunday. We aren’t ready for Jesus to go.

I expect it’s really his fault. These past seven weeks Jesus has been teaching us his most amazing truths about his love and his kingdom and the place he has there for us, his children. We like it when someone tells us they love us. And for Jesus to be that one, well, we were smitten at first but now we are head over heels in love. The really good news is that Jesus loves us back! He wasn’t kidding when he told us about himself from the beginning. Jesus has come to save the world and to save each of us with his love.

For much of the time since Easter we have been reading from John’s gospel. Central to John is his unique and unprecedented message of access to God. As John makes it clear, Jesus shares in God’s character and in God’s identity. In John 1:1 we are told, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It is as the Word made flesh that Jesus brings God fully to the world. From John 1:14 we read, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a fathers’ only son, full of grace and truth.”
During these post-resurrection days we are being reminded of Jesus living among us. We are being reminded that he has prepared a place for us. A place not found by taking a path or a road, not found in a book or a special place or even our strong and loud declaration of faith. No, our way is found with a man who lived like us, Jesus Christ. A man who calls us to come and risk the impossible life of faithfulness to him .

Knowing this truth, knowing even the risk, our only desire is to be with Jesus each moment of each day, to hear his voice again, to never let him go. We are so like the early disciples, we desire to have the physical, mental, and spiritual presence of the risen Christ alive in our lives always.
Jesus knows this, he wants us to never feel alone, to never feel abandoned by our God, so he promises to send us an advocate, someone to be with us in his absence, the Holy Spirit, who will be in our heart and mind and soul forever. What a comfort, our God will always be with us in the presence of the Holy Spirit, our personal advocate.
Yet, in the midst of our chaotic lives it seems we rarely feel God’s presence this way. We find ourselves thinking if the Holy Spirit is supposed to be living in us, why, the Holy Spirit must be taking an extended nap.
Where is the Holy Spirit when we pray we need all the Godly help we can get to just make it through the day? Where is the Holy Spirit when we pray Jesus will show us how to live a faith filled life so we can be sure about his promises? We just wish Jesus would show up for us. We wish we could hear his voice speaking again to our heart, our soul. Where could he possibly be? Jesus is so difficult to recognize, isn’t he?

Listen again to the promise from the good news of John 17 in verse 11;
“And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”
Jesus’ last words to his disciples are this prayer. It is a prayer made directly to God on our behalf. Notice how Jesus prays the way we pray. Holy Father, protect them. Holy Father, guard them. Holy Father, keep them. Then he prays for something only Jesus could pray, it follows today’s scripture. “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.”

What a strange thing to say. How can we be in the world, but not of it? Perhaps Jesus’ point is we, his disciples, folk who believe in him, folk who trust in him, wish we could just live in obedience and love him and not have to struggle with the real world. After all, we do not belong to this world, we belong instead to Jesus’ world, the place for which he died, his kingdom. Yet, here we are.

Faced with this dilemma, how do we live knowing we belong to another world, to another person?

I have read of a family that has given up television. They want to remind themselves and their children: this box does not own us!
I have heard it said there are people who designate one day a week as their “car-less” day. They won’t drive, or accept a ride in anyone else’s car. If they need to go some where, they walk or ride their bike. They want to remind themselves: this gasoline does not own me!
A colleague knows a family that keeps a supply of homemade paper sack lunches in the trunk of the car. The children wrap up peanut butter sandwiches, and then pack them with pieces of fruit, granola bars, cookies, and such. If they see a person asking for assistance on the way to school, they stop the car. The children offer a paper sack lunch and a smile. They want to remind us: this myth of scarcity does not own us! This love less world does not own us!

I hear about a pastor who takes himself on an ‘artists date’ once a week. He sets aside two hours to do something completely different, like walking around an art gallery, or going to see a foreign film, or sitting at the bus station and just watching the people who get off, to see life in different ways. The practice feeds his soul, and rejuvenates his spirit. It gives him energy to manage his overloaded calendar. He wants to remind himself: time or the lack of it, does not own me!

We see these responses to life all around us. People volunteer at the hospital or at hospice. People help out in the schools or at the library. People volunteer at church to help feed the community, to help bring fellowship to a gathering of the faithful, to visit with a sick friend, an aging parent, to help a stranger, a foreigner, a widow, a child. People are living and speaking the voice of love. We want to remind ourselves: this world does not own us! God’s love does!

Jesus says this is to be our way, we are to be in the world, loving as we go, but not of it! These things do not own us. God’s love does. We belong to God and God alone.

We have experienced this truth in this church. We have heard this voice from God in the form of the love that is here. At this pulpit, as some of you read our blessed texts, we have heard the voice of love. From this choir loft; in these pews; at fellowship hour and when we meet in committees or gather for Sunday School, we have heard the voice of love. At session meetings and congregational dinners and impromptu gatherings around town, again, truthfully, we have heard the voice of God’s love.
This real life person, Jesus Christ has brought us his voice, and it is one of love. A voice teaching us who we are, a voice teaching us to which world we belong. It might be one of those things we don’t realize until someone points it out, Jesus’ 33 years on earth was not a once in a lifetime incursion into our lives. No, Jesus has continued to hang around with us.
In a certain way of speaking, the body of Christ is still with us because we are that body. We are the body of Christ alive today to the world. We are the believers the apostle Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians when he affirms, “We are Christ’s body.” Literally, the body of believers, like the Communion Eucharist we will take this morning, is the Body of Christ in an organic way. We believers are not a mystical reality, not something that represents Christ, we are something that is him.

This truth has tremendous implications for our lives and the life of the world. The Holy Spirit dwells in each of us and we have become one with Christ. We have become one with God almighty. And we Presbyterians believe that in this holy union, in this Holy Communion, we are called to salvation and to service. To salvation beyond this world, to service in this world.
Ronald Rolheiser, in his book “The Holy Longing”, says “if it is true that we are the Body of Christ, and it is, then God’s presence in the world today depends very much upon us. We have to keep God present in the world in the same way as Jesus did. We have to become, as Teresa of Avila so simply put it, God’s physical hands, feet, mouthpiece, and heart in this world.” (pg. 80)

Don’t we see this truth in one another? Don’t we recognize the gifts of each person here this morning that are evidence of God’s hands, feet, words and heart opened to us and to the world saying, you are not alone, God loves you, Christ Jesus is here with you, the Holy Spirit has come to live in your very soul. Bringing the good news that you belong to God, and God alone.

And while we do live in this world, you, me, all who believe, we do not belong to this world. We are called today to say to the world, world, you do not own us. We have discovered a better way with the one who has given his life that we may live and that way is Jesus Christ.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

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Additional resource:
“Lectionary Homiletics,” Volume XIX, Number 3, pages 32-39.

29 May 2011 “Dependents” John 14:15-21

2011-05-30T17:00:00.001-07:00

We gathered, as scheduled, here at the church at our usual place in the kitchen and then the library a few Sundays ago. We come together this way on the third Sunday of the month for fellowship and the session to meet.
We gathered, as planned, in the kitchen a few Saturdays ago. We held our usual gathering of the faithful men of the church for a breakfast and spirited conversation on a variety of topics. I’ve met former members and friends of the church at those third Saturday breakfasts and while we haven’t solved any of the world’s problems, it’s never been for lack of trying.
We gather in our church, we gather because we can and because we love being together doing the Lord’s work.

To his small country church in the mountains of north Georgia, Fred Craddock once preached a sermon called “It doesn’t get any better than this.” That’s true about us too. When we gather together, it’s never better.
That Georgia congregation’s new sanctuary was, like the road in the Wilshire Wood neighborhood, under construction and far behind schedule. Their planned opening and dedication had to be postponed and everyone was disappointed and Fred wanted to cheer them up a bit.
In his sermon he proposed they plan a trip to the Holy Land. He knew many of them had talked about it in the past and his thinking was to create a diversion and a little excitement and see such a trip as more grand than even a new sanctuary.

Along the way they could stop in Switzerland for that is the mother land for Presbyterians. They could stop in Greece to visit some of the places were Paul preached. Then on they would go into Israel itself, visiting all the places the Gospel speaks of where Jesus lived and taught and died.
As he talked things out he realized not everyone could get off from work or away from other commitments, that some would be worried about who would take care of the dog, who would take care of the yard, who would take care of the business, pick up the mail, and on and on. So, he offered a plan B.

Plan B was to go to a different sort of Holy Land. His plan was for everyone to get on a bus together and visit all the churches where everyone in the congregation had been brought up.
Many of you have spoken to me in the past about the churches where you grew up. Some were small churches and some were large ones. Some churches were just a few blocks from here, some in different parts of the state, some even in less exotic places than Texas.

But, as he thought about it, Fred was worried even this plan may be a bit much. There may be too many churches to try and visit.
So Pastor Craddock suggested Plan C. Plan C wouldn’t require elaborate foreign travel planning. It wouldn’t be necessary to charter a bus and get off and on at church after church after church which would have been a true labor for some and a bore for others.

No, plan C would not require unusual or uncomfortable travel at all. Plan C was for all to gather at the church, not for a regular worship service, but just for an evening of conversation and fellowship. He told them it would be a trip to their Holy Land, just to come and share and enjoy one another’s company.

Fred reminded them they were truly a remarkable group of faithful folk. He reminded them, and he reminds us, we all come from different backgrounds, but it is a blessing to see how, despite our differences, we worship and fellowship together. Often we forget how blessed we are and Fred’s story should help us remind ourselves to celebrate what we do well in this church.

Two obvious things get us started on our long list of things we do well. We do music well and we eat well. Both are true! Our choir is tops, whether they sing in the choir loft here in the chancel or out there in the pews their leadership in singing is remarkably spirit filled and downright fun to be a part of. Those of us with voices that challenge the very idea of singing stand next to our best choir voices and we become one blessed and joyful voice of praise and worship to our Lord, our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Our dinners together are legendary. Be it an informal fellowship with snacks and sandwiches, or our formal potlucks with casseroles, meats, side dishes and desserts, we excel. I have been asked by guests when we eat next. They don’t want to miss our full and sumptuous table. Folk often comment they want to come back because they have never tasted food so good or felt so warmly welcomed by any other congregation.
There is passion in what we do. With our Sunday school class, our many loyal friends who share our campus, our Presbyterian Women, our various mission interests, we express our love for God and our desire to welcome and serve all people which celebrates our feeling as a family, as a church family.
Fred Craddock need not plan a special trip with his church and we need not schedule one with ours. The point to be made in celebrating the life of the church is to create special times just to be together and experience life together as Christians. Like this morning. Genesis Presbyterian Church has come together, as scheduled, as planned, this morning to be with one another and to be with God.
To this end we gather around this scripture reading, this gospel from John. I invite you to take your Bible and later today, or this evening, find someplace where you can be alone, sit quietly, without distraction, preferably outside, and read today’s text, John 14:15-21.
In this passage, Jesus was talking about leaving his disciples, and this text is a part of his farewell speech. Earlier Jesus told them, “Trust in God, trust in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. I go to prepare a place for you.” His disciples knew he was leaving them and they were desperate. What would they do with Jesus gone? Who could they turn to for peace and comfort and the honest truth about life and, yes, even death?
Jesus knew these would be their questions and he knows they are ours too. Where will we go to find our savior? Who will be our comfort in times of trial and sadness? Where will we find true joy and blessings in this life of certain uncertainty?
Jesus knows us well. So he gives us words of comfort: wherever we are, no matter how far from home, no matter how dark and foreboding, we will always be in the Holy Land. Jesus assures us he will ask his Father, and his Father will send us an advocate, another helper, an intercessor. Jesus may be gone, but God will send another comforter, the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth, who will never leave us. “The Holy Spirit will be to you as I have been to my disciples,” is Jesus’ promise. There will be no loss of Jesus’ power or presence in our lives, for wherever we are, the Holy Spirit will be with us. Always.
We struggle sometimes with this possibility, that God is always with us, involved in our lives. We particularly notice it when we pray to God with a very specific prayer, a prayer for help with a personal issue, or we pray for someone we love who we sense needs God’s intervention in their lives, or when we pray for a moments peace, free from worry or pain or loss or confusion or loneliness.

We pray God will tell us what we are to do only to know silence and feel time, day after day, mute with no answer. Perhaps we are the reason for the days of silence. Perhaps we are not ready yet for the answer to our prayers. Perhaps we have forgotten we are to pray and to then let God be God with God’s answers for us. Answers which we may not expect or which we may reject. Answers which may require that we change the ways we consider our faithfulness to God, relying on God alone for our salvation.
Instead of waiting for answers we might take the ultimate leap of faith and say, “Take me Lord, use me Lord to bring about the peace and joy and grace you have in mind for this place, this church, this Holy Kingdom on earth.” Take me Lord, for I trust you with my life.

God’s desires that we be formed and transformed over and over again to become who God has created us to be. We know this is the case. The scripture is clear about God’s intention. It is ours that is often in question. We may honestly desire to be united within Jesus Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, one with the other and in holy communion. It’s just we may not remember which meeting it is we go to for such a transformation. Third Sunday. Third Saturday. A Wednesday night perhaps?

Truly, we all have some work to do. But finding God’s desire for us and our desire for God isn’t about meetings or successful church life. No, being changed to become God’s children is about faithfully living the truth. That truth is Jesus Christ. Being changed to be children of God is about service to someone else, someone or some group or some stranger we would rather not serve. Being faithful to the truth of Jesus Christ is about making their life better, fresher, and more abundant through our love.
The first step we take is to show up, to gather. Isn’t that often the hardest part? To show up, reach out, walk over to the stranger, the unforgiven, the one who brought so much pain, and then offer ourselves, offer our presence. To then listen and let them tell us what they need us to do, who they need us to be, how they need us to love them. These things are so easy and yet, so difficult.

If we love Jesus, we will keep his commandments…serve others and one another, here in this church, during scheduled times and not, serving faithfully, speaking and living truthfully, praying every day, simplifying our lives, and leaving everything else to God, prayers will be answered.
We don’t have to catch a plane, we don’t have to rent a bus, we don’t even have to get into our cars and come to church. What we have to do is to listen to Jesus’ promise. He has sent another helper to us. He has promised us, my Father and I will come and take up a room in your lives.
What has been made abundantly clear to us this morning is that we, we here in this humble temple, we are the Holy Land. We are the kingdom of God. God lives in each of us. God is in
our love, our love for God and our love for one another and this church.
It is for this love we gather as we do as Christians and as a church family.
For then truly, all else can be left up to God.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
Additional sources:
“Lectionary Homiletics,” Volume XIX, Number 3, pgs.25-31.
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22 May 2010 Knowing the Way John 14:1-14

2011-05-23T17:25:00.001-07:00

It was the funeral for President Gerald Ford where I first realized the importance of what this passage from John’s gospel was saying. There were former Presidents and other world leaders at the service and there were these words being spoken more powerful than the most powerful man in the world. Those words of promise, spoken in that atmosphere of power and influence, held greater value because of their simplicity and the intimately personal meaning they held for the one to whom they were directed. In this case, the President of the United States of America.

The truthful meaning of that promise drew the air of worldly influence right out of that gathering, Jesus has gone before us to prepare a place for us in heaven. Jesus has gone before us to prepare a place for us where we will be with him forever.

The extremely good news of these words and Jesus’ promise is that he has extended his power to include all of us, the highest and the lowest, Presidents and paupers alike. We all have a place with God in heaven. God’s power gives eternal life, and gives it abundantly.

John gets directly to this point in this morning’s gospel. “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” Getting directly to the point in this case is comforting. Jesus tells us, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” Do not let your hearts be troubled, no matter what happens, we have a place with God.

Growing up, all of us grandkids spent time living with my grandparents. It was the place God had prepared for us by the one who was looking out for us. It was such a safe place to be. When troubling waters began to swell at home our parents struggled with the gut wrenching feeling of separation, but they knew we would be safe with my grandparents. God had prepared that way for us.

There in Dickinson we always had a good and wholesome place to go, we always had a safe room where we slept, we always had food, clothing and a place to be where we knew we were unconditionally loved. We all needed that, unconditional love, because sometimes we could be little toots, as my grandmother would say. Despite being kids as kids will be, with my grandparents, we were free from all the hurtful drama life can bring. God had prepared our way and that is a very good thing for children, to be in a place safe and secure.

Not only was it a safe place to be, it was a safe place to grow. We all made it through our teenage years relatively intact. We learned quickly that with our grandparents everybody in their house had to work, everybody had to follow the rules, everybody had to carry their weight. We learned to live the right way. Did I tell you we were loved and safely cared for.

In her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek the author, Annie Dillard shares her childhood memory:

When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. It was a curious compulsion; sadly, I’ve never been seized by it since. For some reason I always “hid” the penny along the same stretch of sidewalk up the street. I would cradle it at the roots of a sycamore, say, or in a hole left by a chipped-off piece of sidewalk. Then I would take a piece of chalk, and starting at either end of the block, draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions. After I learned to write I labeled the arrows: SURPRISE AHEAD or MONEY THIS WAY. I was greatly excited, during all this arrow-drawing, at the thought of the first lucky passerby who would receive in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe.”

It seems God has been drawing us arrows from the time of creation. Come here, live with your grandparents. Follow this way, find a penny. Follow this way and discover your savior, discover the unmerited gift of God’s grace.

There are many stories in scripture to remind us of God’s unyielding attempts to direct us toward God’s grace, toward God’s providence, toward God’s unconditional love.

For Abraham and the nation of Israel God attempted to direct them to the promised land. As the Old Testament reminds us, Israel had difficulty following God’s directions.

God even sent Moses to lead his people out of slavery, through the wilderness and toward the promised land. Yet, the people had difficulty following God’s direction.

God also sent Moses to give his people his law, yet Israel continued to stray, and found themselves exiled in Babylon.

God sent prophets to speak of a Messiah who would bring new direction to God’s grace. That messiah, Jesus Christ, came with completed directions to God’s grace and even paved our way to it. Yet we still have difficulty following Jesus’ way.

We often forget that Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah was a radical claim in the midst of first century Jewish life. The gospel of John is written by Jewish Christians in a Jewish Christian community. That author wants to leave no doubt, however, that Jesus is the one, chosen by God to invite us and then guide us to God’s grace.

Our text this morning comes with questions from two of Jesus’ disciples. They are fearful and Jesus attempts to calm them and give them piece of mind. Jesus wants them to be at peace about his imminent death, assuring them that he will prepare a place for them also. But Thomas responds, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus promises he is the arrow on the sidewalk that will lead us to God. Jesus promises us he is not only the arrow pointing that way, he is the grace to which the arrow points. He and God are one.

John is making here a radical claim for Jesus’ divinity. When we know Jesus, we know God, though we are frail and sin filled humans, we can experience God. Such good news comes for us from no other place.

Our life is to be ultimately centered in God’s grace. Jesus first points us in that direction, toward God and then Jesus offers us “the way” to God’s grace. Come and follow me, he invites. Leave everything you have, come and follow me.

This truth in John’s gospel was under attack and John felt it necessary to defend Jesus’ Messiahship. For our part, we need not take up that defense, we need not worry ourselves about defending Jesus, our job is to stay the course, to remain on Jesus’ way. When Thomas says he does not know the way to that place God has for him Jesus offers assurance and reassurance to Thomas and to us, Jesus alone is the way.

Just as Israel discovered the impossible task of following God’s directions, we too will struggle along the way. We too will

rebel and strike out on our own, and just like the Israelites, we too will become lost. Lost in the wilderness and seemingly lost from our God.

But we are never lost from our God. We are never lost from Jesus’ love for us and Jesus shows us his love again this morning as he invites us to redirect our lives to him and to realize his life for us. Jesus invites us to be strengthened in our wilderness of limited time and space and opportunity by being in a relationship with him. “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” he says, “Believe in God, believe also in me.”

God doesn’t give up on us. Even when we make choices that should separate us permanently from God, God forgives. God forgives because God loves us, through thick and thin, in richer or poor, in sickness and in health. God love us.

John’s gospel offers another bold promise. “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”

The Reverend Dan L. Flanagan tells the story of a traveler from Italy who came to the French town of Chartres to see the great church that was being built. He encountered a workman, covered with dust and asked what he did. The man replied that he was a stonemason. He had spent his days carving rocks. A second man responded that he was a glass-blower, and spent his days making colored glass. Still another replied that he was a blacksmith who hammered iron for a living. Finally, the traveler came upon an older woman with a broom in her hand. She was sweeping us stone chips, wood shavings and glass. He asked what she was doing and she responded. “Me? I’m building a cathedral for the Glory of Almighty God.”

In his sacrifice, Jesus prepared “the way” to eternal life, and in his ministry, Jesus showed us how to live more fully. He has given us the ability to do

even greater works than he.

What are we doing, therefore, here at Genesis Presbyterian Church? Jesus would tell us we are building a cathedral for the glory of God. Jesus would tell us we are drawing arrows on the sidewalk to God’s kingdom. It’s time for us to bring out our brooms and our mops and our hammers and saws and perhaps even our sidewalk chalk and begin our work. For we are called by God to hide pennies in sycamore trees and in a hole left by a chipped-off piece of sidewalk and write with bold letters on every sidewalk we see, SURPRISE AHEAD, JESUS THIS WAY.

Come one, come all, to receive in this Jesus and his way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe. The unearned gift of God’s grace, the unconditional gift of God’s love and a heavenly place God has prepared solely for you.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen 051511.gpc

Additional sources:

“Lectionary Homiletics,” Volume XIX, Number 3, 2008, pgs. 22-24.

15 May 2010 “Liberated by the Gate” John 10:1-10

2011-05-23T17:22:00.000-07:00

My difficulty with our scripture from John this morning began with this notion of Jesus being like a gate. I understand about the gate as metaphor.

Yet, as I was reading this week the many possible ways to compare Jesus to a gate, I became confused. I just could not keep up with the examples, or perhaps I didn’t really try. And I missed their point. I know there is so much more about Jesus than his being reduced to a gate. So, I set it aside to give the scripture a chance to find its voice.

In the meantime, I thought about gates. Gates, I must confess, are really interesting. Especially in Austin where, true enough, not everything is weird, but we do find different kinds of gates and some are really pretty strange, adorned like an art car with dolls and rocks and spiked things. I particularly love the solid wood gate that would hang between two massive rock walls. The yard they hide from our view just may be a hint of what paradise would look like. Or, like one of my neighbors, where to hide the old rusty cars and piles of junk.

Clearly, gates speak their own unique language, they tell us different things. An open gate means, come in. A closed gate means, stay out. A closed gate also means, if you ignore the warning and open it anyway, at least close it behind you. Or, open it anyway and be ready to run when you see the porch dogs coming after you!

Some gates are plain and functional, they open and close easily. Other gates are decorative and just for looks so please, don’t open them, they may fall apart and you may never get them closed again!

My personal favorite is the ‘gap’ gate. You know, it’s the one that is made of strands of barbed wire like the rest of the barbed wire fence that you can let down and it always gets tangled into itself and you can never get it closed again as you pull at the top to try and get that loop of wire over it. Now, to compare these examples of gates to Jesus, even as a metaphor, seems wrong on so many levels.

First, Jesus is not plain or simple and he is not decorative. But then Jesus does refer to himself in our gospel story as a functional and necessary gate. He does describe the reason for the gate and himself clearly. He says he is our way to safety from ‘this world’ living. He is like the gate or way that speaks in its openness; “You can come in to my safe place,” he says, “in here, in my pasture, with strong fences all around. Anywhere I am it is safe in the long run.” With this truth before us, Jesus becomes the gate way who separates life from death.

Now I’ve caught myself speaking of Jesus as a gate, finding the voice of the scripture with Jesus as this metaphor. But I don’t think this reduces Jesus in any way. On the contrary Jesus’ explanation of himself in this way may broaden and enrich our understanding of him.

We should feel better now, it is clearly obvious when we look closer at this John passage, Jesus is indeed more than a gate, he may be seen as a threshold, a passageway, marking and calling us to a new life.

But, when he calls, we must listen and then act. When we listen we have the safe pasture, the safe place we need. Our task in life is to faithfully listen to the Christ who guards our going out and our coming in and follow him where he calls.

This truth about our going out and our coming in from the world of terror to the world of safety is clearly about how we are being saved. Saved from our world of sin and desperation by first accepting Jesus’ openness and his invitation to be with him in this life. Being with Jesus, where he is, is how we are saved. Now I’m beginning to love this gate metaphor.

Yet life, life, can be so unyielding. We certainly do venture out on our own, away from the safety of Jesus’ presence outside his gate, his place of rest. We do venture out into the world, moving on to new jobs, new towns and to a different rhythm for our life, a life without boundaries, and it is so natural to be drawn away from Jesus. Often we are so busy or distracted we don’t even notice it. We are so hanging out in a harsh world without any protection; we don’t realize it until it’s too late.

But Jesus is not distracted; he sees us and marks the boundary for us between a place

to venture out, to graze unprotected, and a place of protected rest.

Our faith filled life is like this. We gather with Jesus there inside his gate, we gather there at the end of the day, we rest in the peace and safety of his place free from the wild outside world, we rise in the morning having rested well, free from our fears, because the good shepherd, Jesus our messiah, watches over us. And in the morning we praise him, “good day good and faithful shepherd”, we pray, as we move on to green pastures and still waters.

This way of life is necessary and good, because the places to graze and grow are actually outside Jesus’ protective gate, out here in our world. This movement into the world of our time and place is also necessary as a part of our faithful life of service as Jesus marks for us what we are to do, who we are to become, his apostles.

That movement, that going out into the world and then coming in, coming home, to Jesus is where the saving life is. Here’s the thing though, it is a matter of life and death that we know when it is time to go out and when it is time to come back in. it is a matter of life and death to know when we have ventured too deeply into ourselves and closed our gate to Jesus.

Being honest with ourselves about ourselves will tell us when we are ready and safely equipped to venture out and when we are not. Knowing we have Jesus as our guardian, trusting in him, staying faithful to him, obeying him, we can venture out. But, without the truth of Jesus Christ as our Savior, we dare not tread outside. Behind the gate we create for ourselves we are desperately alone. Alone, we will suffer and die.

It becomes clear to us that we are ready to follow Jesus’ call when we have successfully learned the way of the good shepherd, when we learn Jesus’ truth and when we hear him call, when we open our hearts and minds to his voice alone and cannot live without him.

Only then may we venture out, for then we will be obeying him. It is clear; we are becoming his disciple when we allow his love for us to become who we are, no longer able to follow just ourselves and we desire more than anything else to obey him. Step into my life, come and follow me, he says.

This call to follow Jesus is our personal call to salvation and safety and everlasting life. It is our call to hear and to follow his command to “Go out into the world,” Jesus will tell us. “You are ready. The temptations of life to false safety and security and short lived joy and satisfaction will not consume your life. For now you are ready.”

To live otherwise is to live a life that may never hear Jesus again, one in which we may never hear him when he calls us home. To not hear Jesus’ call is to live a deadly life. Equally dangerous is to hear his call but ignore it or turn against it, to miss being inside, where sheep gather to be with their shepherd. It is to turn our backs on that place where disciples gather to be with their Christ, our Messiah, Jesus. Living in any other place is folly.

Truthfully, seeing Jesus and his relationship with us as this threshold where he calls us in or out may not be so comforting when we are honest with ourselves.

We have at different times in our lives been taught that for those of us who believe, Jesus is like a turnstile. And a turnstile only requires a token or a pass or some ‘thing’ we have or some ‘thing’ we have done that says we can come in, we can go through, we can pass from outside to inside, we have the right thing now or we can pass the right test. And if we pass the right test we can go from mindlessly wandering around to the place of sure destination. We can go home, where it is to be safe, forever.

But if Jesus is different than a place to be tested then everything changes.

The way home is no longer some test we pass, or some material possession, or some place of importance. The way home is no longer open to us when we say the right passwords.

No, the way through the threshold of Jesus Christ sets the will of God at a defining place for our lives. It is the will of God that teaches us we are to live our lives as faith filled disciples of Jesus Christ and it is the will of God that Jesus Christ be our threshold, our way to that new life. Not for our gain, but for God’s.

Our passing through this place that Jesus has marked out for us is critical to our future with God. The right place is like a line drawn in the sand, it is the place where the will of God tells us what we are to do next in our lives!

It is not our job to decide when we are to be on one side of the line or the other. It is Jesus’. And in case we miss his point, it is not our job to say who else can cross over to be saved with Christ, that too is Jesus’. It is our job to listen for his call, to listen for his voice, telling us when it is time to move. It is then our job to faithfully follow.

A well known preacher named David Buttrick has a wonderful phrase he uses about the church and I believe it applies to each of us. He thinks of the church as the being–saved community. Not saved yet, but we are working on it!

If we are being-saved (rather than simply “saved”) then perhaps, as the author Anna Florence says, we are more active in our faith life than static. We move in and out, back and forth with our ministries. We move according to the rhythms of our call. When it is time to worship, we gather at the sheepfold. When it is time to graze and seek and do the work of being a sheep, we spread out over the hills.

But we must always listen for the voice that calls us to the next task. We must live with the possibility that being-lost is a risk each of us takes. Anna Florence reminds us, Jesus cannot protect us from wandering away, but he can call us back before it is too late.

And when he does, we may well be reminded of his call from verse 10 in this morning’s gospel, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

This is no metaphor. Jesus Christ is the way, the way to the truth and the light, the way to eternal salvation. And that way is through his freely given love, and through our freely given love right back to him and then on and on to one another.

He came, dear ones, that we may have life, and have it abundantly.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen 051511.gpc

Additional sources:

“Lectionary Homiletics,” Volume XVIII, Number 3, 2008, pgs. 15-17.

“Pulpit Resource,” Volume 37, No. 2, 2008, pgs. 9-12.

08 May 2011 “The Journeys” Luke 24:13-35

2011-05-23T17:19:00.000-07:00

We are traveling people. Living where we do, we spend a fair amount of time on the road. If you doubt me, look at the mileage on any car or truck in our parking lot. Unless it’s new, you will find clear evidence, we are traveling people.

Janet and I love to take a day trip to eat at our son Kevin’s restaurant in Rosenberg. It’s only 3 hours - one way. Chuck, our other son is in Boerne. That’s only about 2 hours. Janet’s sister, Sue, is in Brenham, another 2 hours, all one way. I’ve heard many of you tell similar day trip stories. Two hours here, three hours there. The hours add up, the mileage adds up, and the fuel costs, they add up too.

This morning, in Luke’s gospel, we have the road story to end all road stories. The road is to Emmaus, an easy day trip of roughly seven miles from Jerusalem, it is a road we too will take sooner or later. The Emmaus story is for us Christians the story of the walk of our life, the walk where we just may encounter Jesus.

The two men in Luke’s gospel were on that road from Jerusalem when the experience of a lifetime began. They were innocently on their way, talking about the things they had heard about Jesus, how he had been raised from the grave. One day, there he was hanging on the cross, then three days later people they know said he had actually appeared to them alive.

Unknown to our two men, Jesus himself came near to them and walked with them, but, according to Luke, their eyes were kept from recognizing him. They were on that road, traveling, and Jesus was there too. They were telling their story, unloading what was on their heart. Yet, they were blind to Jesus’ presence, walking right beside them, right there along that same way they were taking. Their way, as it turned out, was also Jesus’ way.

Of course, this is the way Jesus falls in with all of us. This journey called life is just the place where Jesus wants to be. He wants to be in our hearts, our minds, our souls, traveling along with us. Jesus, we discover, is a traveling man too. He never shies away from the road, from the difficulties encountered there along the way our life follows, in the midst of its straight and narrow and its twists and turns. Jesus goes with us as we unload what’s on our minds and what’s in our heart. He comes near and goes with us along our way listening as only one who loves us listens. And just as honestly, so often, like those same two on the way to Emmaus, we don’t see him either.

Yet, from the gospel we know there is hope for us. Though these two men did not recognize Jesus at first, they ultimately did. It happened when Jesus was with them at table. They did not recognize him until he breaks bread with them, then God’s most amazing grace, God’s most thankful miracle, give us this day our daily bread, their eyes were no longer keeping them from recognizing him, they could see and they knew exactly who he was. Jesus, it is our Jesus who is breaking this bread with us! He was here with us all along. Oh, how blind we can be!

It may not be so comforting putting ourselves on that road with the disciples. We don’t need to be reminded of our blindness, our sin, our seeing the world the way we do with our eyes not recognizing Jesus. We’ve been there.

Knowing Jesus’ traveling habits, I wonder how often we’ve missed him. I wonder how often we’ve felt separated from him and felt desperate for his company and he’s been there with us all along. Making the ride in to work with us or stopping at the store with us. Getting home to the chores and jobs that steal our time and attention from him, longing for that day trip to reconnect and finding ourselves even more alone. Missing the bread Jesus has broken and offered to us daily, praying our longings for him and he’s been with us all along.

How would we have known it was Jesus? That’s a fair question isn’t it?

In Luke’s gospel, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him with bread in his hand being offered to them, and thankfully, to us. That is how they knew it was Jesus, but we don’t see our world like that, do we? We seldom see nutrition and sustenance in the dull and mundane. We’re actually left feeling starved time and time again.

But, we do seek after him, don’t we? The scriptures are clear, Jesus is with us always, we’re just not so sure where sometimes. We do know if we will pray and have our attention and our eyes focused on him we open ourselves to at least feel his presence. We’ve all felt the miracle of God’s presence in our lives or what we thought at the time was God’s presence.

It’s just that we don’t wake up in the morning, make it through the first cup of coffee, turn to right our list of things to do and script “See Jesus Today”. Even when we pray for his help and his guidance we finish our prayer and the day takes over and we seldom give Jesus another thought. Where then do we expect Jesus to be while we are so busy with our day? Will he be as others have said, in a sermon, a theology lesson or a book? How about a painting, a piece of music, a drift down our favorite river or a sunset out where there are no city lights to interfere? Or is it when we are held by someone we love? How do we know it is Jesus?

If we accept the possibility that Jesus is with us always, walking along the road we might call our life, here on the road to our Emmaus, here in Austin or where ever we have come from, where ever we are going, we give ourselves a chance to see with opened eyes. Our faith can do that.

It is rightly said, becoming aware of Jesus’ presence changes according to whom we are and where we are. When we are struggling with life, Jesus may bethe friend who walks hand in hand with us and prays with us. When we are walking through the valley of the shadow of death, Jesus may be the woman at the bank who helps us through the red tape of wills, insurance or safe deposit boxes. When we are anxious about a new home, a new job, Jesus may be the one who walks with us to show us where our new store is, where our new work space is. Dear ones, we do not walk alone!

Life will naturally unfold for us in ways unexpected and we will find ourselves thinking, what has happened to me. Like those men on their road, we try and understand about life and our hopes and dreams, especially when something goes wrong. We dissect and re-hash and are in disbelief. How have things become so out of control? What did I do?

These are the times we have a long walk and a long talk with ourselves. These are the times Jesus will have things to say to us. The times Jesus feels what is deep in our hearts and knows what we do not know about ourselves or what we won’t admit to ourselves.

These are the times Jesus shows up in our lives as a friend, a parent, a relative, a sibling, a co-worker, a teacher, a pastor or even a stranger. We will know in our hearts it is Jesus who is with us. It is Jesus speaking through the other, living through the one we least expect, loving through the one loving us back. With Jesus, we never walk alone!

Jesus shows up to be with us in these simple yet powerfully important people, but it is a gesture at this table: bread, broken and offered to us, that is how our eyes are opened to see Jesus in our lives! This bread is the miracle of God’s grace in our lives! This table sacrament fills us for each moment of our lives. Give us this day our daily bread, we pray. Jesus freely gives it.

The road to Emmaus is the road we will walk, sooner or later. We will walk that way more than once. When we aren’t walking it ourselves, we fall in with someone else who is taking their turn. Look around us this morning. See who is here and who is not. We know, without thinking twice, who has had to walk the road of despair, yesterday or today, and we know for some it will be a day trip and for others it will take longer. We know too who needs us to fall in with them so they will not walk alone. Because we love one another, we don’t want anyone to walk alone. So we fall in with one another; you and me, and Jesus.

Some of you may remember seeing the movie Schlinder’s List. It is a powerful and extremely difficult movie about the Holocaust. It is a movie about Oskar Schindler, who was a wartime profiteer, yet for reasons even he apparently didn’t understand Schindler became obsessed with the idea of saving as many Jews as he could by commandeering them to work in one of his factories and he ended up saving some eleven hundred of them.

The movie is filmed almost entirely in black and white like a documentary or an old newsreel, but every once in a while, usually in some crowd scene of children playing or people running or being herded into freight cars, you see, flickering like a candle flame in the seething grayness, one single touch of color in the form of a little girl dressed in red. It might have been better to never have noticed her. We first see her hiding herself, and then again, here, than there, until finally we see her for the last time.

Frederick Buechner tells us he believes “that although the two disciples did not recognize Jesus on the road to Emmaus, Jesus recognized them, that he saw them as if they were the only two people in the world. He believes Jesus also sees each of us like that. In this dark world where you and I see so little because of our unrecognizing eyes, Jesus, whose eye is always on the sparrow, sees each one of us as the child in red. And because Jesus sees us, not even in the darkness of death are we lost to him or lost to each other. Through people obvious or not, Jesus offers us, the way he did at Emmaus, the bread of life, he offers us a new hope, a new vision of light that not even the dark world can overcome.”

As Buechner says, hope “is the word that on Easter Sunday is sounded forth on silver trumpets. And when Easter is past and the silver trumpets have faded”, and we have sung Joy to the World, hope “is the word that flickers among us like a red dress in a grey world.”

This is how we know it is Jesus. Our eyes are opened to the hope he brings, our hearts are filled with his love, our lives are filled with his grace.

He lives in us so we may be the one who walks the road to Emmaus with our sister or brother. He lives in you and me so others will see Jesus as we become the face of Christ for them, so that they can recognize Christ for themselves, there beside them.

When will our eyes be opened? Jesus breaking the bread: that is what did it. Jesus breaking the bread: the ultimate sign of love given, Jesus’ body broken for ours. Breaking the daily bread, feeding our fractured souls: now we see clearly. He is risen, He is risen indeed!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

Additional sources:

Buecher, Frederick, “The Secret in the Dark”, pgs. 256-257.

050811.gpc

01 May 2011 “Seeing is Believing” John 20:19-31

2011-05-02T06:03:00.000-07:00

I invite you to join with me and sing the first verse of “Joy to the World.” We can sing it without the organ or piano, I’m sure we can.

I really haven’t lost my mind, at least not in an obvious way. While it’s true we just sang a Christmas hymn and while it also true we’ve just finished Easter, shouldn’t we sing Joy to the World? Jesus has risen from the grave and shouldn’t we continue our Easter celebration, shouldn’t there continue to be joy in our world? Surely the kids or grandkids aren’t completely out of Easter candy are they? I would imagine their parents are ready for them to come down off the walls. So, perhaps some folks are ready for Easter to be finished more than others.

Yet, Easter brings the hope that stays with us, the hope we have prayed for, the hope that once again Jesus will save us. And he has, with Easter we became resurrection people. But in some ways, the resurrection has been spoken of so often we’ve become immune to the serious theological and practical implications its truth has for our lives.

We are, by nature, curious people. It is not long after we begin to talk that we start to question everything. That desire to know stays with us all our lives. Topics and interests come and go, but by and large we are curious folks who want to know first hand what our world is about. Knowing about resurrection, on the other hand, may have slipped away from our curiosity.

In today’s Gospel story, Thomas was being faithful to his human nature, he was faithful to his personal desire to know the truth about his life, his world, and ultimately, the experiences he was having as a follower of Jesus. Given the recent turn of events, Thomas was not about to stop being Thomas.

Jesus had died, of that he was certain. Now, his friends were telling him, Jesus was no longer dead but was alive and had actually appeared to them and had actually spoken to them. It is not that Thomas disbelieved them, Thomas simply wanted to know for himself, first hand, if these wild accusations were true or not.

When I taught at Blinn College it was always a struggle to help my students understand about life and what was indeed true and real about what goes on in our lives and what might be suspect. Often, I found, we confuse our own view of what we think is true for what everyone else actually knows to be otherwise. Very often, our personal view is just that, our personal view. And just as often, that personal view is not what anyone else would agree to be true. Finally realizing this difference is a humbling experience.

Thomas shows us the right way to understand about life, by asking questions, “Where is your proof?” he wants to know. “Show me”, he says.
Being true to himself, this is exactly what Thomas asked when the other disciples told him they had seen Jesus alive, that information just did not compute with Thomas. He had seen them nail Jesus to the cross. He had seen them pierce his side with a sharp lance. He would have to see the evidence for himself that Jesus was risen from the grave. Otherwise, he was skeptical and in many ways, so are we.

At some point in our lives we may have asked for more proof about God. At some point in our lives we may have realized that just because people we know, people we respect, or even people we love believe certain things about Jesus, they may be wrong. Their faith claims are just that, theirs and they may not be sufficient proof for ours.

So we do what Thomas did, we ask questions, we strike out on our own, we study, we read, we pray, we engage in discussion, we expose ourselves to new and different ideas. Slowly, we begin to define limits for ourselves. We discover what we absolutely do not accept as the truth, and with the same certainty we discover bits of possibilities, truths we do accept in our belief system.

In sort of a routine way we discover one such truth, then another, and before we realize it, a miracle occurs and a faith develops that we hold to be absolute and foundational and solid as a rock with no compromise or wiggle room. These solid truths become strongly held faith and belief certainties that define our Christian way of living.

When it was evening on that day, the disciples were huddled in the upper room – afraid of the religious authorities, afraid of the religious folk who resist the message of the Gospel and its light – preferring instead to hide in the old ways of holy habit.

We Christians may be like this in a sense – it is easier to hide in our old ways, our comfortable clothing of holy habit. In a way, this story may actually be a picture of some churches. We’ve heard the good news of the resurrection, yet we prefer to huddle in safety, where outsiders cannot reach us.

Yet Jesus will not let us huddle safely from the world. When he first appeared to Mary she did not recognize him, so he called her name. Mary. When we first do not recognize him the church, speaking for Christ, calls our name for Jesus.

Like Mary and the other disciples and everyone for whom Jesus died we cannot avoid the relationship Jesus desires to have with us. He has done too much for us to take him lightly. He has come back into the life of the living. He returned from the grave to be with his disciples again and he has returned from the grave to be with us, each of us.

Why would Jesus do this? We aren’t like Mary. Or, are we? In Jesus’ mind we are. In Jesus’ heart we are not different from those he appeared to after his death, after his resurrection. Like them, Jesus loves us so much he comes to find us, to call our name and to send us out into the world. We too have been breathed upon, we too received the Holy Spirit at our baptism, we too have therefore become disciples of Jesus Christ.

Thomas was not there when Jesus came, neither were we. He doesn’t believe until he sees the marks, neither may we – not because we lack faith, we are curious by nature remember. It’s just that our skepticism has kept us safe in the past from making foolish decisions.

Thomas was like us, he wasn’t so different from the others, he wants to see the same thing they saw, he wants to see the same things we want to see, “show me the marks” he says. “Show me the marks,” we may say.
In the same room with the same group, in church, Jesus comes to Thomas and shows him the marks. Then, like John who had entered the tomb and believed, Thomas believes, he says, “My Lord and my God”.

This story does not end with Thomas, it takes on life here in our church and it goes with us every where. We too proclaim to Jesus, “My Lord. My God”! This is clear from Jesus’ blessing on each of us who, though we have not seen, yet we believe. It is from this belief that Jesus embraces us and raises us to be his church.

Our society has many who doubting likeThomas and they want evidence before they believe. They cannot see the marks of the body of Jesus, but they can see the marks on the body of Christ, namely us, God’s church.

Sometime what they see, well, it isn’t so Christian. Society and non-believers and those from non-Christian faiths are quick to point this out. We see you church people! We see what you are doing! Sadly, the marks of today’s Christians do not always convince the many like Thomas in our world who want evidence before they believe.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. You Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Voltaire, the 18th century skeptic said, “If Christians want us to believe in a Redeemer, let them act redeemed.”

Unless I see the marks, I will not believe.

In the history of Christianity there are marks that would help those who doubt like Thomas to believe. The marks we have to show them are many. They include the stories we tell of our Christian witness. There are many we can tell, stories of people like John Calvin or John Knox or others responsible for the Presbyterian tradition finding its way to America.
Voltaire might say, yes, these are heroes; every movement has its hero’s, what about ordinary people?

We need look no further than this church to find ordinary people who are heroes in the faith. We need look no further than the marks left by the real life stories of people in our own church. Founding congregations, founding ministers, chartering families, pastors and families from the past, and even each of you in this place this Sunday. We, in our lives of faith, create the marks those who doubt long to see. Once they see how we are, then they will believe.

People come into this church on a regular basis, they come to our campus often. We are a busy place. When they come, we show them a great deal, and what we show is good. Before they can believe, they want to see what it is that marks us as the body of Christ, they want to see what marks us as Christians who are like Christ, they want to see that we not only believe in a redeemer but that we act redeemed.

People come into this church on a regular basis and they call our name. They tell us, “Unless I see his mark on you, I will not believe!” They come to worship, we greet them during the passing of the peace, during fellowship times before and after worship, we invite them to our table to take communion with us, we invite them to break bread with us in fellowship at our congregational luncheons, we let them see Jesus’ mark on us when we open God’s church to them to give them a place of comfort and love for their school, for their thespian group, for their place to worship, to pray, to study scripture, or to grieve the loss of a loved one.

These are a few of our marks, there are others, you know about them, you know about the wonderful ministry network we have for taking care of one another, for keeping up with one another, for visiting with one another, for loving one another. You know about our Christian marks.

Can we feel good enough about these marks that we will bring others, like us or not, to this church, to see our marks, so they may believe? I believe we can. I believe we can because those who ask to be shown the marks of Jesus on us want to see the marks in a church, in a familiar place, this church. And the greatest truth we can show them would be the boldly lived claim, “See how they love one another”. “See how they love one another.”
Is it any wonder that we sing - Joy to the World!

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, Amen.

“Seeing is Believing” John 20:1-18

2011-04-26T11:16:00.000-07:00

24 April 2011 “Seeing is Believing” John 20:1-18

Being truthful this morning of all mornings I come looking for answers. Perhaps you can help. How exactly do you hold an Easter egg? I know, many of you have the same question. Do we hold it delicately or firmly? Do we hold our Easter egg delicately so we don’t break it or firmly so we don’t drop it? It’s been a year since last Easter and I always forget.

I bring this up because many of you have already held an Easter egg this morning and you could advise us on this matter. But, perhaps latter, for today is a day to set aside such deep and complex problems.

For today we are in high celebration of a different, sort! Today is a day like no other. Amazing grace has filled the morning dawn and today of all days God’s amazing grace has taken hold of us. Being truthful this morning we come looking for that grace. Have you felt it yet today? Have we felt God’s grace? Have we seen God’s grace filling the space around us? It is here with us this morning in our sanctuary.

Look around, who do you see? There, right there in that pew in front of you, God’s grace. There in that pew behind you, God’s grace. There in that person to your right or to your left, God’s grace. God’s grace has filled their hearts as it has yours and mine, and we are radiant this morning! We are all clothed in the newness of life that has come to us in our risen Lord Jesus. We are God’s grace this morning. He is risen! He is risen indeed!

Even the weather is spectacular, it is a glorious Easter Sunday and the world is glowing. The world is outshining itself and just now we have heard this amazing and true story about Jesus. Our Jesus, taken from us so quickly, now has come back. He is risen! He is risen indeed!

In Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have been cleansed of our sin; we are now able to be reborn, resurrected to new life. We have a fresh start where sin may no longer be our sole cross to bear, a fresh start where love may have another chance. Love coming to us from Christ’s dying for us. Love extending from us filling us with grace and joy and blessings and an unbounded desire in our heart to give it all away to the most surprised people. Those whom we least expect, surprising even ourselves.

These past 40 days of Lent was a time for clearing and cleaning and digging out the rocks and thorns and weeds in our lives. These were the days set aside to help us be honest with ourselves and, with God’s help, get rid of the unhealthy life habits we have been holding on to.

With God’s wisdom, space has been cleared that will allow us to tend to a new life, a new garden where we have been planted with God’s love, where we may realize new growth, new beauty and joy.

Space has been made where we may cast our new love upon the world, one person at a time. Space has been made where God’s kingdom will come, where resurrection will bring God’ grace, God’s hope to our life and to all we gather to God.

Through so much of our life God reminds us of God’s grace and Easter Sunday is one of those special times. The kids are excited about the day and the adults are too. There is that egg question after all and that question about God’s grace, and we know today is the day for answers.

In the midst of this excitement, we are drawn to church. Christmas and Easter have this effect on us. They draw us to the church to find our answers and hear once again the stories of God’s truth that ground us IN the world while not grounding us TO the world.

So, the Easter story: Mary came to the tomb early that Sunday morning. The stone covering the tomb had been rolled away. Without looking in, and in shock, she ran to Peter and the others to tell them what she had seen.

For Mary, still in her grief because Jesus had died on the cross, this was too much. She laments, “They have taken the Lord,” his body, they have taken his body from the grave. And I don’t know where they have taken him.”

Peter ran to the tomb to see for sure. Unlike Mary, he entered the tomb searching frantically for Jesus and saw only piles of rags. He and John saw that Jesus was gone and they too were in shock. They have taken the Lord, what are we to do now?

Mary was back now at the tomb, she stood weeping, and she bent over to look into that space where Jesus had been and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. The angels questioned her tears and her sadness, “Woman, why are you weeping?

Don’t you know, she replies, they have taken the Lord, he is not here, he is gone, forever, he is gone from us and we will never see him again. Why don’t you understand? The angels understood, they understood what Mary did not.

She turned around and was face to face with Jesus, but she did not recognize him. She thought he was a gardener. He asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”

Mary was so filled with sadness and hopelessness, sadness that Jesus had been crucified, sadness that she has come to the tomb to prepare his body for burial only to find he is no longer there. She was filled with her fear that Jesus, the one whom she loved, her savior, had abandoned her.

Still believing Jesus to be the gardener, Mary said to him, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” She asked him if he knew where they had taken her Lord. Jesus knew. He said to her, Mary.

Jesus began his new life, his new ministry as the resurrected Christ by calling the first disciple of the new chapter in human history by her name, Mary. Mary recognized his voice and then she understood, this is Jesus, he is not missing after all, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.

Mary has suddenly felt renewed, resurrected from sadness and fear and hopelessness and her lost sense of self. Jesus said to her, “Go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”. With uncontrolled joy Mary ran and told them all, “I have seen the Lord.” Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.

It is fair to wonder this morning what this all means. We understand the story. Jesus, once dead to us, dead so that our sins would be forgiven, is now alive and risen, risen so we will be risen too. We get this. We’ve read it in scripture, we’ve learned it in Sunday School class, and we’ve heard it preached many, many times before. We may even understand what we think this all means. After all, we are intelligent faith filled Christians.

Then, perhaps understand is too strong a word. Saying each of us is to be part of a life of resurrection from the old life of sin to the new life of grace is one thing, knowing how that life would look is another.

Do we have the faith that it takes to honestly believe that the resurrection life, begun in Jesus back on that first Easter Sunday, has become our new life? This is 2011 after all. Do we have the faith to believe we are to live a new resurrection life? Dearest ones, we must.

We must believe our life is a resurrection life if we ever expect to know who God is and what God has in store for us. Believing in the truth of the resurrection and believing, through our baptism, we are included in this new life with Christ takes a leap of faith. But from that leap we see that Jesus Christ has walked from that tomb right into our lives, and if we haven’t heard it, he calls us by our name.

Jesus calls your name and mine this morning no less than he called those early disciples. His call is to come and follow him, to leave the old life behind. He expects this morning that we will finally give him our answer.

That is our real Easter surprise. Jesus wants to hear from each of us this morning. Not about how to hold an egg, but have we felt God’s grace tugging on our hearts and will we accept his call. Dearest ones, we must.

Easter Sunday is the day the Lord has made for you and for me. Easter Sunday is God’s answer to our lives of struggle and pain, confusion and indecision. God’s voice is clear, we are called to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior for we are to be resurrected from our life of separation by sin, separation from our Holy Lord God. In Jesus’ resurrection we are lifted up, saved, to live in God’s kingdom where we become our authentic selves. Disciples of Jesus Christ.

Initiated by God, Jesus came to Mary, and Jesus comes to us. The results of that encounter are dramatic. It changes our lives. We are sought out and we encounter the risen Lord who calls us to follow him giving us a glimpse of who we are meant to be, of who we can become. For we, dear brothers and sisters, are meant to be like Christ. We are created to be like Christ.

Open any egg you may find, peel away any shiny chocolate covered bunny, find the jelly beans, our real treasure this day is Jesus Christ.
He is risen. He is risen indeed. And he is not alone.

"Fetching Donkeys" Mark 11:1-11

2011-04-18T06:58:00.000-07:00

17 April 2011 Fetching Donkeys Mark 11:1-11

We never raised donkeys on the farm at Greenvine. I don’t know why, we raised just about everything else. Maybe it was because of my friend Johnnie. Johnnie raised horses and when we ran on Saturday mornings it was one complaint after another about those horses; they ate too much, they cost too much, they were too much trouble. Then one kicked him in the face. He was lucky it didn’t kill him. I know horses and donkey’s aren’t exactly the same, but Johnnies stories probably had a lot to do with our not having donkeys.

I do have a favorite book about a donkey though. It is called “Platero and I” by Juan Ramon Jimenez. Listen to how the man who loves Platero describes him ( pg.3).

Today’s scripture doesn’t tell us much about the donkey. I say donkey because the Greek will allow a translation of both “the foal of a donkey” and “the foal of a horse.” For me, donkey it is.

We do not know how this particular donkey was chosen over the others. Jesus apparently knew him and the roll he would play and Jesus likely loved him. We do know he was in the village, we know he had never been ridden; he was tied up there near a door, outside in the street.

When this donkey was brought to Jesus his disciples threw their cloaks on him and Jesus sat on him. It appears the donkey never objected to any of this. Though never ridden, he had never met someone like Jesus before. When he did, apparently all went well. All went well with this little donkey who was the chosen one. He was the one chosen from all the rest by Jesus to bear him to Jerusalem.

As the story of that journey is told we can easily imagine those who spread their cloaks on the road, those who spread leafy branches, those who went ahead and those who followed. They might have seen the procession that day and said, as was said of Platero, “Look, He is like steel”.

I wonder, would they have said this about the little donkey or about Jesus?
Clearly, Mark’s gospel reading this morning is of Jesus’ final journey, one that would take him from the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem and to the cross. As Jesus and his apostles were approaching Jerusalem Jesus sends two of his disciples ahead into town. Not to scout things out, not to find lodging, not to set up a meeting between Jesus and those who were out to take his life. No, they are sent on a mission to fetch a donkey.

No other place in scripture has Jesus sending his disciples on what appears to be such a minor assignment. I can only imagine their disappointment. They were with Jesus after all, he had become famous among the people, and they were recognized as his disciples, an important position. It would not be surprising for the people to look at them with the same awe and respect they had for Jesus. They were his crew after all, his advance men, part of his inner-circle, very important people!

They knew Jerusalem was to be a special stop for Jesus. I imagine they were looking forward to a far grander and more noble assignment on this day than that of fetching a donkey. To add to their dismay, they may have felt this particular assignment eliminated all hope of their being known as the greatest disciple. All of the disciples had been jockeying for advantage, angling for glory, arguing about being the greatest. They had asked Jesus, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”
Yet here were these two, not at all in glory, but mucking around a stable, probably feeling like horse thieves, all they while trying to wrestle an untamed and no doubt balky animal toward the olive grove. They might have thought, “For this we left our families and our fishing nets!”

In the gospel of John, Jesus doesn’t send anyone looking for an un-ridden donkey. Jesus enters Jerusalem on foot. The donkey enters the story only after the crowd gets caught up in the excitement of the moment. And in John, Jesus finds the donkey, not his disciples.

This sort of makes Marks telling seem rather trivial doesn’t it? Finding the donkey seems more like a designated chore – sort of like making sure the bathrooms don’t run out of hand soap, or watering the new flower bed or one of a multitude of routine and mundane details of church work that are necessary but may not help us feel like we are being involved in the really important work.

The presiding officer at the ordination of an Elder, a Deacon or a Minister of Word and Sacrament will ask the candidate, “Will you in your own life seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, love your neighbors and work for the reconciliation of the world?...Will you seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination and love?” These words stay with us our entire ordained lives.

At first such language may give us the impression that the nature of any calling to follow God, is a brave, exciting, fast paced, rock star like existence. Calling us into the fore front of life’s experience, working for the reconciliation of the world, where we are the key to helping people regain their lost dignity or something grand like that, lifting folks through their pain filled life experiences and bringing them cheerfully to the promised land, to a life of prosperity where only the best reign with God. Really important work for really important people.

While this rock star picture sounds promising, we all know that’s not how being a disciple really works. Glamour and glitz are not part of our calling. Never once is it mentioned that serving people with energy, imagination and love often boils down to ordinary stuff like ordering bulletin covers, changing light bulbs in the restroom, visiting people in nursing homes who aren’t quite sure who you are, running around town looking for lilies when the florist looses our order, being called at the last minute to set-up fellowship hall for a luncheon and everyone else is out of town or not answering the phone because they have caller ID and they just know you are going to ask them to do something at the last minute. Again!

Or even as two of Jesus’ disciples found out, by finding a suitable donkey at the last minute.

This gospel of Mark sets a tone from the very beginning that is different from the other gospels. Matthew begins with a genealogy, Luke begins with an historical account of the development of the mission of the church as the instrument of God’s purpose in history. And John takes us back to the beginning, the creation, and theological reflection.

Marks’ gospel begins instead with a call to “prepare the way of the Lord.” The beauty of Mark’s message is found in the way we are to go about preparing that way. Not, surprisingly, as grand, powerful, and all knowing defenders of the faith, which is perhaps a blessing in disguise.

No, we are to prepare the way of the Lord just as we are, just as we live, just as we go to work, to school, to church, on vacation, to the store, even as we pay our taxes. It is that time of the year again isn’t it!

We are called this morning to prepare the way of the Lord as we go about living our ordinary lives, staying humble, being obedient, to the point of embracing our routine daily tasks as exactly what God expects of us as we become defenders of the faith.

We see this in the gospel message as a whole, Jesus never asks the disciples to join in the typical power structures of their day in order to have a representative voice in the running of things. No, that is not Jesus’ style. Instead the apostles do ordinary things, they get a boat ready for Jesus, they find out how much food is on hand for the multitude, they find a room and prepare the table for the Last Supper and, of course, they chase down a donkey for the Lord and his entry into Jerusalem.

This call to discipleship ministry is our call to full Christian participation in the gritty details of everyday life; humbly, obediently, with love and genuine caring for God and for one another in our hearts. It is a sign of our mature faith when we embrace these gritty details in the midst of the ordinary and are thankful this is who God has really called us to be. For we are far from being rock stars.

While these words may speak the truth about where we are in our personal walk with the Lord, we know words alone will not save us. Joel Marcus, a Markan scholar, believes Mark understands, “the preparation of the Lord’s way in a rather prosaic manner as the arrangements people make for the ministry of Jesus.”

Perhaps we haven’t understood the Christian life this way, this notion that we are to make “arrangements” in our lives for the ministry of Jesus. It reminds us that we are called to give up control of our lives, to turn our lives over to God and then, the most radical of things, to listen for God to tell us what “arrangements” we are to make to prepare the Lord’s way.

On the one hand, each of us is called by God to help prepare the way for the good news of Jesus’ ministry. God knows us and the roll we will play and God loves us. We are called to be apostles no less than the original apostles, going out to teach the world who Jesus is and to make disciples, to introduce people to the truth that just as the rising sun chases away the night, so God has scattered the power of death in the rising of Jesus Christ! That is what we are to do, live the truth.

But let us be cautious.

Clearly, it is Jesus’ ministry that the world depends upon, not ours, our role is to prepare the way. We are the ones who fetch the donkeys!

Yet our task in crucial, as ones who fetch the donkeys for Jesus, as ones who are called to live through our routine life, the often exhausting and terrifying and mundane life, these very details of our service to the Lord are how we help prepare the way for the Lord. Our faithful service is gathered into the larger truth of Jesus’ redemptive work in the world. Our faithful service is to mirror Jesus’ even as we make arrangements to walk with him to the cross.

Jesus tells his apostles, “Go into the city to a certain man.” First we make arrangements for a donkey, now for a man where we will have our last supper. Then we make arrangements to go with Jesus to that place called Gethsemane where Jesus will be arrested. Then the arrangements take us with Jesus to Pilate who after flogging Jesus, handed him over to be crucified there at Golgotha. Where Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last. Yet, not finished was he and not finished are we.

We are to make arrangements to prepare the way of the Lord. What our preparation of the Lords way looks like is often a matter of speaking a quiet word in a committee meeting, spending time with someone who is incoherent and coming apart at the seams, giving a ride to church, emptying a bedpan for someone we love or scratching a few halting words on a note to someone suffering, in pain, confused, lost, or failing to heal.

In Marks’ world, “preparing the way of the Lord’ usually looks like standing hip-deep in the mire of some stable trying to corral a donkey for Jesus. All the while shouting, “Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Additional sources:
“Christian Century”, April 4, 2006, pg. 18.