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
Monday, June 27, 2011
19 June 2011 Trinity Sunday “He is With Us”
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
061911.gpc
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
061911.gpc
Sunday, June 12, 2011
23 May 2010 “A Pentecost Problem” Acts 2:1-21
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.
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.
Monday, June 6, 2011
05 June 2011 “The Voice” John 17:1-11
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
060511.gpc
Additional resource:
“Lectionary Homiletics,” Volume XIX, Number 3, pages 32-39.
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
060511.gpc
Additional resource:
“Lectionary Homiletics,” Volume XIX, Number 3, pages 32-39.
Monday, May 30, 2011
29 May 2011 “Dependents” John 14:15-21
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.
052911.gpc
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.
052911.gpc
Monday, May 23, 2011
22 May 2010 Knowing the Way John 14:1-14
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
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.
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