The Solitary Broom Tree

A Gospel of Suffering

2011-10-19T13:38:00.000-07:00

For the Greatest Generation, the defining question may be, “Where were you when you heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor?” In my parents’ generation, the question is, “Where were you when President Kennedy was shot?” I had thought that my generation’s question would be, “Where were you when the space shuttle Challenger exploded?” But I was wrong. As it turns out, the question that has been on everyone’s mind has been, “Where were you on the morning of September 11, 2001?”

There are at least three different kinds of Psalms in our Bibles: psalms of praise, psalms of thanksgiving and psalms of lament. The first kind, the psalm of praise, is a song inviting others to praise the Lord for some specific reason: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever.” The second kind of psalm, the psalm of thanksgiving, thanks the Lord for his help in some kind of trouble: “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”

The twenty-second Psalm is a song of lament. Lament psalms are marked by some very specific characteristics. There is a first-person address to God, a petition to be heard and helped, a description of the trouble, an appeal to God’s better nature, a statement of trust in the Lord, and a vow of sacrifice or praise if and when God comes to the psalmist’s aid.

The reason Psalm 22 sticks in our minds and is probably the most excellent example of lament as far as Christians are concerned is that Jesus quoted it while hanging on the cross. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Why are you so far from helping me? Perhaps it was while on the cross, bleeding, dehydrated, and in gruesome agony, that Jesus felt the most separated from the God—felt the most human. O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.

Walter Brueggemann, the venerated Old Testament scholar and professor, describes lamentations like Psalm 22 as psalms of disorientation, because they show that the psalmist’s previous theological orientation has been disrupted by life circumstances, leading the psalmist to demand an explanation and rescue.

We know what it’s like to suffer. We, as a nation, have suffered greatly over the past ten years, largely as a result of the attack of September 11, 2001. And yet, it is but one example of how human existence is a constant struggle. The words of the psalm ring in our ears: God, where are you? Have you forgotten us? Why do you seem so far away? We have been taught—and we believe—that you are a good God… so where are you now? Where were you when we needed you most? The man in the poem Footprints, the man who had the dream, has to ask God, “Where were you when I needed you?” not because he didn’t believe in God’s goodness, but because he hadn’t felt it. In the poem, God’s response, which strikes me as trite and unhelpful, is “It was then that I carried you.”

“It was then that you carried me?” the man might have replied. “I sure didn’t feel carried.”

Part of the twenty-second psalm’s beauty—and part of its agony—is that it is so intimate. It doesn’t start out by saying, “O God, O God, why have you forsaken me?” It says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is a psalm written by someone who has a personal, intimate relationship with the Lord. This makes God’s absence even more shocking and inappropriate.

The psalmist speaks with a voice so much like our own, not just as a damaged, frightened American people, but as individuals too: My hands and feet have shriveled; I can count all my bones. All my bones are out of joint, my mouth is died up like a potsherd; you lay me in the dust of death. Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion!

And suddenly in the Psalm, there is a profound silence. For a time, no one speaks. When the psalmist continues, he does so having experienced something amazing, something remarkable, something life-saving. You have rescued me, he says, I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you. You who fear the LORD, praise him! For he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him. What could fill this writer, who only a few lines before was begging for the merciful salvation of God, with such joy? What is done, but not spoken of in that long pause of silence? As we shake our fists at the sky and shout in righteous rage, “Where were you? What good God could allow such a thing as this? Where were you?” what can God do to turn us from despair to joy?

Psalm 22 offers an opportunity for deeper, more genuine reflection on God’s perceived absence, and apparent presence, in human suffering than any Footprints poem. It is more like the song One Last Breath by Creed, by any measure a modern-day psalm of lament. In it, lyricist Scott Stapp writes:

Please come now I think I'm falling / I'm holding on to all I think is safe
It seems I found the road to nowhere / And I'm trying to escape
I yelled back when I heard thunder / But I'm down to one last breath
And with it let me say
Hold me now / I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking
maybe six feet / ain't so far down

I'm looking down now that it's over / Reflecting on all of my mistakes
I thought I found the road to somewhere / Somewhere in His grace
I cried out heaven save me / But I'm down to one last breath
And with it let me say

Hold me now / I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking
maybe six feet / ain't so far down

Sad eyes follow me / But I still believe there's something left for me
So please come stay with me / 'Cause I still believe there's something left for you and me

Hold me now / I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking

This song, perhaps more than any other I have heard, captures the angst and fear of the Psalmist’s soul in Psalm 22. I yelled back when I heard thunder, I cried out, “Heaven, save me!” But we’re down to one last breath, so with it, let us say, “we still believe.”

The story, often attributed to Elie Wiesel, is told of a group of young Jews who approached some rabbis who were imprisoned with them. “Rabbi,” they said, “are we not God’s chosen people? Did God not promise to protect us and to never leave our presence? Why, then, is this happening?” The Rabbis held a court of law, appointing one rabbi to represent the children of Israel, and another to represent God. God was charged with the crimes of breaking the covenant of protection and of abandoning his chosen people. The trial lasted for some time, and in the end, God was found guilty.

Perplexed, the people asked the rabbis, “What do we do now?”

The rabbis responded, “Now, we pray.”

“Now we pray”—and to whom? The God who remained so silent? The God who seemed so far from helping, so far from the words of their groaning? Like the lyrics of Scott Stapp’s song, the Rabbi's comment gave voice to a similar theology: we’re down to one last breath, and with it, let us say, “hold us now; we still believe.”

And then, in the psalm, there is silence. Have our words fallen on deaf ears? Is God truly so far from the words of our groaning that they are never heard? In Psalm 22, half way through verse 21, something miraculous apparently happens. What is the mysterious response of God in that long pause of silence? What has God done in that silence to turn the psalmist’s suffering into joy, his groaning into shouts of exaltation?

In 2001, my life was assaulted and challenged by external events. I had been a pastor for all of two weeks (and not even ordained yet) when, on September 11, the United States was attacked by Al Qaeda terrorists, killing three thousand Americans in Manhattan, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania. I happened to be serving as an associate pastor in a bedroom community for Manhattan, and there was a great deal of near-panic as the pastoral staff worked to track down congregation members. Luckily, no members of our congregation were killed.

Incidentally, I was married just four days later, on September 15th. In January of 2002, my father-in-law, William Ryan Spence, who was a 52-year-old Marine reservist, who had been trained to fly helicopters during his years of active service, and who had parlayed those skills into his dream job as an medical emergency helicopter pilot, died in a sudden, accidental crash as he lifted off the roof of a Cleveland hospital, en route to a rescue, and his helicopter crashed on the front lawn.

It was two months after his funeral, at the end of March, that I was preparing for what was only my second sermon since being ordained: a sermon for Good Friday. The lectionary text was Psalm 22.

Preparing for this sermon, I reflected upon how shattered I felt. Three thousand Americans had been mass-murdered and our nation was living in a fear it hadn’t known in generations. Members of my congregation, especially its young people, were turning to me for theological insight in the face of this atrocity. On the heels of this, my own father-in-law died heroically but unnecessarily, and I found myself forced to wrestle with my own grief as well as that of Diane and her family. Reading this psalm, being asked to preach on it, in the context of so much pain, suffering and perceived God-forsakenness seemed like an impossible task. And yet, as I prepared for the sermon, this text ministered to me; the prayer of the psalmist became my own prayer. I was given permission by the author to ask hard questions from a position of faith, rather than doubt.

So I asked myself, what happened in the middle of verse 21? What happened that caused the psalmist to turn from lament to thanksgiving? Something transformational took place in that break, and when it occurred to me that the “break” was the lynch pin upon which the message of the entire psalm turned, I found myself asking, “What was Jesus telling the crowd of onlookers by invoking this psalm on the cross?”

Commentator James Mays suggests that by quoting Psalm 22, Jesus “joins the multitudinous company of the afflicted and becomes one with them in their suffering. In praying as they do, he expounds his total identification with them.”

God entered our suffering, knew the heartache and pain, the sorrow and apprehension, and anguish and fear of human existence, and died. Finally, God understood and experienced God’s own curse on humanity, “out of the ground you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” In the long silence of Psalm 22, in the break in the story, in the void where the mystery of God’s action took place, God spoke God’s Word. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God took the curse which God had uttered against humanity in Genesis, and experienced it for Godself.

In the death of Jesus on the cross, God died our death; God experienced and reversed the curse of human existence, so that we might live life more abundantly in the certain knowledge that God knows us, knows the human condition completely. Only after being equipped with this knowledge could God conquer the curse of death, defeat the wages of sin. To know death and defeat it, God had to die.

And so, brothers and sisters, like the Psalmist, whose cries of anguish were heard by God, we, too, must tell of God’s name to others. We, too, must praise God in the midst of the people, for God did not hide his face from us; he heard us when we cried out. Like the psalmist, we must vow to share our stories of anguish, of turning to God in our despair. And we must tell of God’s response to our groaning in the ministry of Jesus Christ, who took our curse and died in our place. The great mystery of Psalm 22 is the great mystery of faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. The great gift of a lament psalm like Psalm 22 is one in which the words of the psalmist become our words, and are answered by God in Jesus’ saying in response, “Me, too.”

Jesus, Son of the Father

2011-05-13T11:46:00.000-07:00

Matthew 27
(This entry is a first-person narrative.)

I thought it had to be a mistake. A case of mistaken identity or something. The crowd loved me, of course, because I was one of them. I was a Jew who had made a strong case for resistance to Roman authority. I had attracted quite a number of followers, and in the end, I was betrayed by a friend and imprisoned on charges of sedition.

The Roman guard approached my cell and removed my chains. “Follow me,” he said, and I was sure I was being led away to my death. Imagine my surprise when I found myself standing in a balcony overlooking a large crowd of people, next to Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, and some other fellow I didn’t know.

Pilate raised his hands to quiet the crowd. When there was silence, he spoke to the people, his voice ringing out in a courtyard that had been built to amplify his voice. “It is your custom that a prisoner be released in honor of your Passover holiday,” he said. I found this odd. I had never heard of this custom before, and I was wondering what he was playing at. “I present you with a choice,” he continued. “Whom shall I pardon? Jesus, the Son of the Father, or Jesus, your so-called Messiah?”

He was asking the wrong question; it was bound to cause confusion! Even I didn’t know who he was talking about! My name is Jesus, that much is true, and because I was a leader who preached resistance to the Roman establishment, I had been declared the Messiah by some of my followers. That was why I was arrested. But the mistaken identity concerned my last name. See, I was known as Jesus Bar-Abbas, which in Hebrew means “Jesus, Son of the Father.” So was I the messiah Pilate mentioned, or was I the son of the father? I gathered that the other man standing beside Pilate was the other Jesus, but I never talked to him, so I couldn’t get his story.

In retrospect, I don’t think Pilate wanted the other Jesus killed at all. First of all, he tried to talk the crowd out of it. When he first asked the question, “Which Jesus do you want?” the crowd seemed confused. “Do you want the Son of the Father, or do you want the Messiah?” I know I was confused. It seemed to me that I was both. As we stood there, a messenger came with word from Pilate’s wife that he should steer clear of the righteous man, because she’d had some kind of dream about him. Now, if you ask me, I would call myself a righteous man. I wasn’t a violent criminal or anything—I was just trying to win Israel’s independence from Rome. But I knew Pilate’s wife meant the other Jesus. The Romans were pretty clear about what they thought of insurrectionists like me, and she’d never have described me as righteous!

While this was going on, I noticed members of the Sanhedrin working the crowd. Pharisees, temple priests… those sorts. I don’t know what they were telling the people, but the crowd got worked up about something. The crowd, in their confusion, hadn’t given Pilate an answer yet, and I suspect that the members of the Sanhedrin were coaching them on their response. After dismissing the messenger, Pilate turned back to the crowd and shouted, “Well? Which will it be?”

And the crowd shouted back, “Give us the Son of the Father!” The other fellow looked relieved, which only made me more confused. Was this guy also a messiah, or were there two guys named Jesus Bar-Abbas in Jerusalem? If he was a messiah, I had never heard of him. But why the crowd’s asking for Bar-Abbas would make him feel relieved is beyond me, unless that was his name, too.

This apparently wasn’t the answer Pilate wanted to hear, which only added to my confusion. Pilate wanted me dead, no doubt about that. The crowd had asked that Jesus Son of the Father be released. I took it from Pilate’s hesitance that they meant me, and that Pilate wasn’t happy about their decision. But then, that meant the other Jesus was the messiah who would be killed. That should have been great news for me… so why did the other Jesus look relieved? Was he as confused as I?

“Then what should I do with the Jesus you call the messiah?” Pilate asked.

Everyone said, “Let him be crucified!”

“Why?” Pilate asked. “He hasn’t done anything!”

“We don’t care!” they crowd responded. “Just give us the Son of the Father!” The crowd started pressing in on the palace a little then. There were plenty of guards surrounding the grounds, but you could just feel the energy of the throng of people, and I was becoming nervous that things could get nasty.

Pilate stalked into the antechamber inside, and then reemerged with a bowl of water. Making sure that every eye in the courtyard could see what he was doing, he washed his hands in the bowl and wiped them with a towel. “You’re not going to pin the messiah’s death on me!” he shouted. “I wash my hands of the whole affair!”

“Fine!” the people shouted. “The messiah’s blood will be on us and our children!” I started feeling panicky, my palms were sweating, my heart was racing. I looked over at the other Jesus, and he was just standing there, looking calm, though he seemed to have tears in his eyes. I think he thought he was about to be released—after all, hadn’t they just condemned me, the Jesus known as a messiah?

Pilate muttered something to the guard standing behind him; I didn’t catch what it was. But then the most shocking thing happened. The guard approached me, unlocked my shackles, and led me down to the courtyard below, where I was released.

The confusion continued. My friends and followers were clapping me on the back, all smiles, but there were many in the crowd who looked mortified, as if some terrible wrong had just occurred. They kept looking from me to the other fellow, still in the balcony. They seemed to think the wrong man had been released! As for me, what did I care? I’d just had my death sentence commuted—I was saved!

When I turned and looked up at the balcony, it was empty. Pilate and the other Jesus had disappeared. Word spread that he’d been taken to the back of the palace to be flogged. I should have left; I should have been rejoicing with rich foods and fine wines! But I felt sick to my stomach, and I followed the crowd, who had begun moving around the building to watch the goings-on.

We got around to the back, and there was the other Jesus, tied to a post, being whipped by guards. I jumped with every crack of the whip, and I had to stop watching long before they’d finished. And to think, it should have been me tied to that post. It should have been me being whipped. I was the one who had broken the law, not that guy!

They finally finished beating him, and they dragged him back inside. When they came back out again, Jesus was dragging a huge cross, and they headed out toward Skull Hill. I couldn’t watch as they nailed him down to the wooden cross and then hoisted him up into a hanging position, but I heard the hammer and the sound of his screams as they drove the nails. When they were finished, I wandered closer to have a look. They had stripped him; I don’t know what happened to his clothes. It didn’t take long for him to die—a few hours, maybe. Honestly, that’s a mercy. A lot of people hang for a long time before they die; it’s part of the fun for the Romans. As they started pulling his cross back down, and wrenching the nails out of his arms and legs to be reused on another day, I broke down in tears. There was his mother, and some woman who I heard someone call Mary, and a young man whose name I didn’t catch. They had been standing there the whole time, talking to Jesus and trying to reassure him as he hung there. I’m surprised they had the stomach for it. When they claimed his body, they treated it with such reverence, such love. I have loyal followers, but none of them love me as these folks loved him.

Long after it was over, and the crowd had gone home, I continued to be haunted by the look on Jesus’ face when the crowd asked for Bar-Abbas. I still think there was some confusion—certainly the crowd seemed angry when I was released instead of the other Jesus! I was the criminal; I was the wanted man; I was the one who had broken the law. According to the law, I deserved death for what I had done. But that other Jesus died on the cross that had been reserved for me. He didn’t protest, didn’t put up a fight, didn’t point out to Pilate that there must be some mistake! He just sighed and looked at me, as I was led away and given my freedom.

Some time later, I heard a fellow preaching in the courtyard of the temple, and talking about a crucified Jesus. This caught my attention, and I stood close and listened as he taught that Jesus had been crucified to glorify God and as a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the world. This Jesus had died in the place of sinners, the preacher said. “He died for you, and he died for you, and he died for you, so that washed in his blood, you might be forgiven for your sins and be reconciled to his Heavenly Father.”

His Father. He’d called himself the Son of the Father! Then all my worst fears were true! The wrong man had been released! The crowd had been calling for him, and not me! I remembered the words of the crowds as they rejected the so-called messiah, “Fine! The messiah’s blood will be on us and our children!” They were assuming responsibility for what they thought would be the crucifixion of a criminal, but then I’d been released. I thought of what the preacher said: that it was by his blood that the people’s sins were forgiven. They had no idea the truth of what they said, when they shouted, “His blood will be on us!”

As the preacher continued to speak about Jesus as the messiah foretold in scripture—even foretold by David himself—I called out to the man, “Brother, what should we do?”

The preacher looked at me and said, “Repent and be baptized in Jesus’ name, so that you may receive the Holy Spirit. He died for your sins, brother.”

I looked at him in stunned silence for a moment, and then all I could say was, “You have no idea.” And I stumbled away, weeping.

The Resurrection IS the Life!

2011-04-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

John 11:1-45

Today's scripture reading is, in a way, the climax of the gospel according to John. I know the final act is not yet played: the arrest, the trial, the crucifixion, the resurrection. I know that the story of Jesus isn’t even close to finished, and that the greatest miracles are yet to come. And yet, somehow the raising of Lazarus is a climax all its own.

I say this for two reasons. First of all, the raising of Lazarus is, according to John, the reason the Jewish leadership decides that Jesus has to die. Right after Jesus raises Lazarus, a group of witnesses runs to the Pharisees to report what had happened. A council meeting is convened, and it is decided that in order to stop Jesus’ miracle-working from bringing unwanted attention from Rome, Jesus would have to be sacrificed for the sake of the nation. It was also decided that Lazarus would have to be captured and killed, since he had become such an attraction, and so many Jews had begun to believe in Jesus because of him.

But there is also a second reason why the raising of Lazarus is a kind of climax to the Jesus story. In spiritual terms, this is the story in which faith finally becomes more important than miracles. It’s ironic that on the occasion of Jesus’ greatest miracle—the raising of a man who had been dead for four days—the emphasis of the story is not on Lazarus, but on Martha.

It was Martha who met Jesus on the road to Bethany and chastised him for taking so long: “If you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died!”

“Your brother will rise again,” Jesus said.

“Yeah, yeah. He’ll rise on the last day; I get it," she snarked. "But in the meantime, he’s dead.”

“Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though the die, will live. Do you believe this?”

Do you believe this? Jesus wasn’t only asking Martha. As far as John is concerned, Jesus is asking us as we read, too. In previous stories, people come to have faith in Jesus because they see him perform miracles. His first disciples believed in him because they knew he had turned water into wine in Cana. The Samaritan woman believed in him, because he was able to tell her everything she had ever done. The man born blind confessed that Jesus was the Son of Man, because he had been healed. But Martha had not witnessed these miracles, and Jesus showed up too late to help her family. Jesus had not come, and her brother had died. She had likely lost everything—a woman without a man to protect her was vulnerable in those days and in that culture. If anyone in John’s gospel had a legitimate reason to turn their back on Jesus, Martha did. “If you had been here,” she said, “my brother wouldn’t have died.”

Then, in the midst of her grief, her pain, her disappointment, Jesus asked her an impossible question: Do you believe?

“Believe?” she might have said. “Believe? I believed you could help when I sent messengers to find you five or six days ago! I believed you would show up in time to save your friend! Now he’s four days dead! In what, exactly, am I supposed to believe, now?”

But if these thoughts raced through her mind, if these doubts raised angry storm clouds in her spirit, she never said so. I imagine there was a long pause. I imagine that Martha stood in the road, staring at Jesus for a long time, before her anger gave way to the truth that she saw before her. “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

She had no reason to think that confessing faith in Jesus Christ was going to save her brother. He was four days dead, and nothing was going to change that. As far as she was concerned, Jesus had screwed up. If there was anything Jesus could have done, he should have done it at least four days ago. And yet she believed in Jesus. No miracles. Just faith.

In this way, Martha showed greater faith than the Samaritan woman at the well, more faith than the blind man who was given his sight. They experienced Jesus at his best—a great teacher, a great healer. Martha, who had already been friends with Jesus, and who might have been justified in expecting a little urgency on his part when she’d sent for him, had received nothing from Jesus—no great teaching; no miraculous healing for her brother. Yet she believed.

Of course, Lazarus was raised, though Martha didn’t see that coming. It wasn’t a resurrection like Jesus’. Lazarus would still grow old, perhaps get sick, and certainly die again. While church tradition has assumed that the disciple who Jesus loved was John, the author of the gospel, it had only suggested this because, at the time, the church believed that the Gospel of John had actually been written by the apostle John. “Maybe this was John’s way of writing himself into the story,” people once argued. The problem is that it’s almost impossible for John to have been written by one of Jesus’ apostles, because it began circulating too long after Jesus’ earthly ministry for it to have been written by an eyewitness. When Martha sent a messenger to track Jesus down, the message she sent was, “He whom you love is ill.”

When Jesus finally showed up, his spirit was deeply disturbed by the scene and he began to weep. The onlookers marveled, “See how he loved him!” And after his resurrection, while conversing with Simon Peter, Peter pointed to the disciple whom Jesus loved and said, “What about him?” Jesus responded by saying, “Even if I told you he was going to remain until I returned, what difference would it make to you? Follow me.” And because of this, people began to believe that the disciple who Jesus loved couldn’t die. Could this speculation have been because Jesus had raised him? I think that what happened was that Lazarus did die again, and it caused people to question what they’d come to believe. So "John" added the conversation between Jesus and Peter to the end of his gospel to explain that while Jesus said, “What difference would it make to you, even if I decided he should live until I return?” that didn’t necessarily mean that Lazarus would never die.

This makes one wonder what this experience would have been like for Lazarus. We know that he had been sick—sick enough to die, in fact. Are we sure he wanted to be raised? I have known people who were so sick, or in so much pain, that they were looking forward to the relief of death. What if, in death, Lazarus had finally found the rest he’d longed for, and being raised was an unwelcome interruption of his eternal rest?

More interestingly, what would being raised from death have meant for Lazarus? We have heard people say that because they didn’t die when they probably should have, they felt like God was giving them a second chance in life. Near death experiences are often occasions of religious awakening, as people seek to make sense of why they are alive when they should be dead. Well, no one had more cause to speculate about this than Lazarus, who had been dead so long he was starting to rot, when suddenly he heard his name being called. There is evidence that Lazarus continued to be a faithful disciple of Jesus. A couple of chapters later, Jesus is seen eating dinner at Lazarus, Martha and Mary's house. At the last supper, Lazarus—assuming that he is the one who Jesus loved—is seen reclining at the table with Jesus and asking, “Who is it who is going to betray you?”

And as Jesus hung from the cross, the small cluster of faithful disciples who dared to stand nearby to watch included Jesus’ mother, his aunt, Mary Magdalene, and Lazarus—the one whom Jesus loved—into whose care Jesus order his mother after his imminent death. Lazarus, then, might have been quite a confused soul. He became responsible for caring for Mary, he was still palling around with the other disciples after Jesus’ resurrection, and despite the fact that local officials wanted Lazarus dead, rumors were going around that Lazarus couldn’t die. But most confusing of all—the most heartbreaking part of Lazarus’ story—is that he was the reason Jesus was killed. Jesus had literally laid down his life for Lazarus, setting in motion the official action that would lead to his crucifixion, and all because Jesus loved him.

Maybe not everyone at the table knew what Jesus meant when he said, “no one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13) But Lazarus knew. And for Lazarus, taking up his life was in some strange way also a laying down of it, for surely he could not have gone back to “business as usual” after this! Surely knowing he had been the cause of Jesus death, however unintentionally, placed a burden of responsibility on him that he could not easily have shaken! Church tradition suggests that Lazarus went on to become a bishop in the early church, so he apparently remained a man of faith and of calling. How could he have done anything else?

I am reminded of the movie Saving Private Ryan. The movie opens with an older gentleman and his family searching a military graveyard for the marker of Captain John Miller. Upon finding it, Private Ryan recalls the mission that Captain Miller and his men undertook in order to rescue Ryan from behind enemy lines. As the climactic battle reaches its end, and although reinforcements have arrived that will ensure victory, nearly all of the American soldiers sent to save Private Ryan have been killed, and Captain Miller, himself mortally wounded, beckons Private Ryan close, saying, “Earn this. Earn it.”

The retired Private, weeping in the graveyard, turns to his family and stammers, “Tell me I have led a good life. Tell me I’m a good man!”

I have to think that Lazarus would have felt much the same way. Jesus was hunted down and arrested, because he raised Lazarus from death. His life, from that moment on, had to be lived in a way that made such a sacrifice meaningful.

The old Wesleyan hymn, “And Can It Be” is allegorical and deeply personal, and yet it also could have been written from the perspective of none other than Lazarus himself:

And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood? 

Died He for me, who caused His pain—for me, who Him to death pursued? 

Amazing love! How can it be, that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night; 

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; 

My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

I have preached on numerous occasions about the crucifixion of ministry—the idea that we have to stop thinking of our ministry as our ministry, and start thinking of ourselves as participants in Christ’s ministry, seeking to do his will rather than our own. More to the point, we must be willing to lay down that which we cherish, in order to embrace what the Lord cherishes. The follow up to the crucifixion of ministry, then, is the resurrection of ministry. For Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life.” As Lazarus could surely tell us, the resurrection is the life!

The resurrection is the life in that without Christ’s redemptive, resurrection ministry, we have no life, no light, no hope! We are dead and in the grave—food for the worms, just as Lazarus was—if not for Christ’s ministry of resurrection. Just as Wesley’s hymn describes, and just as Martha learned while speaking with Jesus on the road to Bethany, the resurrection is more than just a future hope. “I know that he will rise again on the last day,” Martha said. But Jesus said, “No, Martha. I am the resurrection, I am the life!”

“Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chains fell off, my heart was free; I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.”

The resurrection is the life. When we die to ourselves and live for Jesus—when we are enjoined to Christ by the power of the Spirit—the old life has gone and a new life has begun! We are raised from sin and death to live in the light. As Christ gave his life in order to raise Lazarus, so he has done the same to give us new life, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

He has freely given his life for ours, and our salvation is secured—we cannot earn it, and our resurrection, though not yet accomplished, has, at the same time, already taken place. But forgive me for feeling as though Jesus has said to me, as Captain Miller once said to Private Ryan, “Earn this. Earn it.”

Let Your Light Shine!

2011-02-08T10:19:00.000-08:00

Isa. 58:1-12
Matt. 5:13-20

I spent the last two weeks at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, taking the first two classes of my doctoral program. The experience was profound, in part because the other members of my cohort turned out to be fascinating people and gifted pastors, and we were able quickly to bond into what truly turned out to be a foretaste of the Beloved Community of the Kingdom of Heaven. I also found the professors to be exceptional thinkers, teachers and caregivers in their own right. Most strikingly, though, I came away from my classes with a more profound understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ and a new lens through which to read scripture.

Dr. Andrew Purves, professor of Pastoral Theology, has been influencing my life for several years, even though I’d never taken a class with him, or even read one of his books until just a few months ago. The reason for this is that as I spent the years between my associate pastorate in New Jersey and my call to West Virginia wandering in a vocational wilderness, a friend of mine—who had taken several classes with Dr. Purves while in seminary—taught me the very basics of Dr. Purves’ theology. It was a very great comfort to me, because it helped me to understand that four years of working outside of the church was not a sign of God’s displeasure, but an opportunity to learn something transformative about my life and my Lord.

On most Wednesday evenings, I can be found reading scripture with a small group of congregation members. Following the reading, we spend time praying together—for friends and family, for our congregation and its members in need, and for the world. I shall let you in on a private little secret about some of those prayers. Not always, but often, one or two members of the prayer group ask the Lord to “bless Matt and his ministry here.” My secret is that every time I hear that prayer, I cringe just a little, and pray in the Spirit, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing!”

I don’t mean that to sound terrible! I am, in fact, blessed by the prayers of others and humbled by the sentiment of these prayers. But I cringe because I have come to understand ministry differently, but hadn't—until recently—taken the time to explain my understanding. In an act of God’s providence, the lectionary provided me a brilliant opportunity to do this, only three days after Dr. Purves’ class ended!

Those of us in his Doctor of Ministry class spent the week studying a series of lectures that theologian Karl Barth had given back in the 1930s on the Scots Confession—one of the most brilliant documents found in the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s Book of Confessions. In these lectures, Barth returns again and again to teaching what Dr. Purves calls the Christology of vicarious agency. Barth calls Jesus the “Judge judged in our place,” (not in the Gifford Lectures, but elsewhere), and that is one aspect of Jesus’ “vicarious agency,” one way in which he takes our role as sinners in need of redeeming. He replaces us, suffers our punishment and dies our death. However, because he is not only the Man Jesus but also God incarnate, death cannot contain him, and so because he rose from the dead, we too shall rise from the grave to His glory!

But we can’t stop there, can we? Jesus’ resurrection is not the end of the story. Jesus not only rose from the grave, but also ascended into heaven; in so doing, Jesus also vicariously carried our humanity into the presence of God! In Jesus, then, the Word became flesh and humanity was exalted by coming into the presence of our Heavenly Father! As Barth wrote, “God alone possesses divine glory, but alongside His glory there exists a glory which belongs to the world and to [humankind]… they do not possess their glory from themselves, but receive it from God, and do not possess it for themselves, but in order that the glory of God might be the greater thereby.” (Barth, The Gifford Lectures, p. 35-6)

This is what we celebrate around the communion table—that we commune with Christ, become one in Christ, and join ourselves to Him in such a way that we participate in the life and love of the Trinity. We enjoy this communion not because we deserve it or have earned it by our faithfulness, but because Jesus Christ deserves it and has earned it for us—prepared it for us—by his faithfulness.

And so we come, our Gospel reading. Jesus says to a great cloud of listeners, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” (Matt. 5:17-18) Humanity is bound to the law because it is God’s righteousness—it’s what it takes to be worthy of God’s love. But we can’t fulfill it. We can’t fulfill it. We can’t fulfill it.

And yet we try, don’t we? You know how I know we try to accomplish this on our own? Because we feel guilty when we fall short! The law convicts us of our sin, and we realize that we have fallen short of the glory of God. If our salvation were up to us, not a single person on earth would ever be found worthy. But our salvation is not up to us. Our Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, fulfills the law for us in an act of vicarious agency. “I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill.” It was God’s plan, God’s eternal decree from before the creation of the universe, that all things should be reconciled unto the love of the Trinity—that the whole law would be fulfilled perfectly—even if that meant that God would have to do it God’s self.

This is the freedom we have in Jesus Christ—the freedom to give God our best without ever fretting over whether or not our best is “good enough.” Of course it’s not good enough! But if we feel guilty for our shortcomings, we deny Christ’s vicarious agency, don’t we? If we feel guilty for our sins, it is because we’re afraid that Christ’s atonement might not cover it; we delude ourselves into thinking that God hadn’t anticipated this particular sin and already forgiven it! If that were true, Christ would have to be crucified over and over and over again, every time one of us sinned. But Paul declares, “Unlike the other high priests, [Jesus] has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for those of the people; this he did once for all when he offered himself!” (Hebrews 7:27)

I believe this truth, the vicarious agency of Jesus Christ, is what Jesus was talking about when he said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” (John 8:32)

The realization of this truth leads to two things. First, this leads us to fall upon our knees in praise and adoration of the God of our salvation! For though we could never be worthy of God’s love, the Word of God, from all eternity and by the power of the Holy Spirit, draws us into His communion with God the Father! How could anyone who realizes this truth, and the easy yoke and light burden of freedom in Christ, not worship the Lord with a heart overflowing with gladness?

Secondly, the realization of this truth leads us to ask the question, “What then must we do?” If we’re free in Christ because Jesus does the heavy lifting for us, why obey the law at all? Is this question not similar to the ones the Israelites asked in Isaiah: “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” Why bother, the Israelites were asking, if it isn’t going to change anything or improve our status in God’s sight?

And God replies, saying, “Aha! See? Right there! You serve your own interests with your acts of piety, thinking that you can show up for church on Sunday, and then go on oppressing your workers on Monday! You fast before me, only to quarrel and fight amongst yourselves when you think I’m not looking! Paying lip service to your religion isn’t going make your voice heard on high!” Indeed, nothing we do makes our voices heard on high. It is only Jesus Christ, who intercedes for us as our great High Priest who makes our prayers his own, and who redeems our sins even before we commit them!

And so God continues, saying, “If you want to know what I want, I’ll tell you: loose the bonds of injustice! Undo the thongs of the yoke! Let the oppressed go free! Share your bread with the hungry! Bring the homeless poor under your roof! Clothe the naked!”

And so one might now say, “But, Matt, didn’t you just say that our best efforts fall short, and that we cannot earn our salvation? Didn’t you just say that only Christ’s sacrifice, once and for all, is perfect and worthy of God?” Yes! But God isn’t commanding the Israelites to follow the law in order to earn their salvation. Here is the reason he gives for worshiping God with our righteous behavior: “If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.” (Isa. 58:9b-10) In other words, we shall show forth God’s glory in what we do. By doing these things, we participate in God’s ministry, in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. We become a part of what Jesus Christ is doing in the world! We become the salt of the earth, we become a city on a hill, we become the light of the world, because Jesus Christ is the salt of the earth and the city on a hill and the light of the world!

And that, brothers and sisters, is why I cringe when someone prays for “Matt and his ministry.” Because I don’t believe it’s my ministry at all! It’s Jesus’ ministry; I’m just along for the ride, trying to discern how Jesus would have me respond to the needs I see around me, hoping that I get my response right, and trusting that the Holy Spirit will correct my mistakes. If I thought that the burdens of ministry were mine, I could never do it! In fact, I could only become increasingly depressed over my own shortcomings and ultimately fail to serve Christ faithfully. That is exactly what happened to “my ministry” in New Jersey. Because I toiled away as though it was my ministry, God had no choice but to shove me out of the way until I was able to learn—only after I had left New Jersey and only through a slow and painful wandering through the wilderness—that I was not called to be just any minister. I was called to be a minister of the Word—and the Word is Jesus Christ!

Andrew Purves calls it the crucifixion of ministry, and many have experienced it (and not only pastors). The crucifixion of ministry means allowing something we cherish—an idea, a belief, an institution, an assumption that we are right and others are wrong, or even our own prideful egos—to die, so that Jesus Christ can take its place, just as he took our place on the cross.

The lives we live in obedience to God are lives lived in gratitude for God’s having taken His righteous judgment upon Himself. In the Sermon on the Mount, of which this Gospel reading is a part, it is only after Jesus declares that he has come to fulfill the law that he tells us what we should do. The same is true of the Ten Commandments. God begins the Ten Commandments with the preamble, “I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery”! God does not issue the law—even to the Jews!—without first saying, “I have saved you, and made you my people.”

In liturgical language, God puts the assurance of pardon before the prayer of confession (as did I this past Sunday). We confess because we want to be better; we confess because we want the Holy Spirit to amend our lives and enable us to be ever more worthy worshipers of God with the way we live our lives. But we confess knowing that God already knows us completely, and that when God turns his righteous gaze upon us, he sees his own sons and daughters!

In the freedom of Christ's vicarious agency, let your light shine, so that God, our Creator, our Redeemer and our Sustainer, may be glorified!

Take Up Your Cross

2010-11-02T08:36:00.000-07:00

Mark 8:34-38

Today's reflection will be brief, because it will be a departure from my usual posts. Ordinarily, I edit and reorganize a recent sermon to share with those who faithfully sojourn beneath the boughs of the Solitary Broom Tree. Today, though, I share with you a very brief reflection on something the Holy Spirit gave me to mull over this morning.

Today, a brief word of scripture was opened to me in a new way. Forgive me if God has already revealed this to you -- at least you will have read this and witnessed the spiritual growth of a brother in Christ! The passage is from Mark, linked above (and also paralleled in other gospels). After this morning, the old phrase "we all have our cross to bear" has lost its more banal, generic meaning, as the Spirit has revealed a more faithful interpretation of Christ's words, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."

This is not a statement about "personal struggles," for Jesus was not struggling through trials for his own sake, but suffered unto death on a cross for our sake -- for the sake of us, his neighbors. His cross was not His burden, it was ours, but he bore it for our sake. How can we then think that "bearing our cross" means shouldering some personal burden? Often the cross is allegorized to mean that we must stop self-identifying, and begin identifying with Christ -- to deny our own ego in favor of identity in Christ (certainly this is the point made by Oswald Chambers when he writes,

"He puts absolute annihilation of my right to myself and identification with Himself—a relationship with Himself in which there is no other relationship. Luke 14:26 [the Lukan parallel of our passage from Mark] has nothing to do with salvation or sanctification, but with unconditional identification with Jesus Christ."

That is all well and good, but a Reformed Christian (and I am one) knows that one cannot separate what the heart knows from what the hands do. Therefore, to "take up our crosses and follow Him" must necessarily mean shouldering the burdens, struggles and trials of others. We must deny ourselves, which means denying that the world revolves around us and our personal problems, and realize that we are never closer to Christ -- and never nearer to Christlikeness -- than when we take our cross (which is the pain and hardship of our neighbor) and follow Him by carrying it ourselves. It is, in effect, the realization that we must stop being "goats" and start being "sheep." (Matt 25:31-46)

The late Dr. Howard L. Rice (who died in August), professor of ministry at San Francisco Theological Seminary, wrote in his seminal work, Reformed Spirituality, "We become more Christlike as we take up the cross of those around us and assist in the bearing of it."

If all of us were thus burdened by the hardship of others, because we see that each and every person is made in the image of God, many hands would make light work indeed of the world's woes.

Blessings, friends.

And the Angels Danced

2010-10-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

1 Tim. 1:12-17

Luke 15:1-10

Let me just start with this: I question Jesus’ understanding of good stewardship.

I mean, let’s be frank. If I were a shepherd with 100 sheep, and one turned up missing, the last thing I’d consider prudent is leaving the other 99 sheep defenseless in the wilderness while I search high and low for the wayward sheep. In fact, that’s just flat-out irresponsible! The smart money is on protecting the remainder of the stock! Besides, the other 99 sheep are bound to make more sheep to replace the one that was lost, right? And yet Jesus starts his parable by asking, “who wouldn’t leave their 99 sheep and go searching for the lost one?” I guess my answer is “I wouldn’t.”

The second parable is also problematic. Here, Jesus describes a woman who had ten coins. One turned up missing, and she begins a search for it. Now, this story is much more plausible. Mathematically, the shepherd lost 1 percent of his stock. Assuming that all the coins were of the same value, the woman lost ten percent of her holdings. Ask me what I’d do if I lost ten sheep, instead of just one, and I’d at least have to stop and consider! I have, in fact, gone searching after lost coins – and who hasn’t? You’re even more likely to find me searching for a lost TV remote, but that’s another parable for another day. The idea of a woman searching for the ten percent of her money that has gone missing is not surprising. She’s even careful and methodical about it. First, light a lamp – maybe the coins will gleam in the light. When that doesn’t work, move things around and sweep carefully under the furniture until it turns up. All that makes very good sense, and we can see the woman doing these things in our minds and think to ourselves, “If I were down to ten coins, and then one got lost, I’d do the same thing.” What makes this story bizarre is what happens at the end. Having found the lost coin, she invites all of her friends and neighbors to her house for a party. In the gospels – especially in Luke – rejoicing implies eating. Food is an important part of celebrations in Judean culture (which, in that respect, is not so different from ours). We can understand the concept “if you’re going to have a party, you have to serve food.” But who among us, if we were so desperately poor that the loss of a single coin would have us sweeping out the house and crawling around on our hands and knees, would celebrate its recovery by spending money on a party? Jesus asks, “Who wouldn’t bend over backwards to find the coin, and then spend it to throw a party for their friends upon its recovery?” I guess my answer is, “I wouldn’t.”

The context of the parables this morning is what the Pharisees have observed about Jesus. He attracts tax collectors and sinners like road kill attracts flies. They seem to find him irresistible. The Pharisees start grumbling about the company Jesus is keeping, as if he’d hand-picked the crowd that had come to him. While he had personally called the Apostles, most of his followers came along without a personal invitation. Sure, he had called the tax collector Levi to follow him – but he was an Apostle of the inner circle. And later, Jesus will invite himself to supper at the home of Zaccheus, a tax collector. But all Luke says about the crowd surrounding him on this particular day is that “all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.”

Jesus’ response – the telling of two parables – is his way of saying, “I know, right? Tax collectors and sinners! And so you should be glad! I’m finding lost sheep and redeeming lost coins. After all, of what value is a lost sheep? Of what value is a lost coin? None! But if you find me surrounded by the very people you religious types find distasteful, shouldn’t you celebrate?”

The attitude of the Pharisees is common enough in the Church. We joke about whether or not the church’s roof fell in when a “sinner” walked into it. When someone who doesn’t “seem the type” decides to go to church, our first reaction is to ask, “Did lightning strike the church while you were there?” There are so many people who feel as though they can’t come to church, can’t be in the presence of God, because they’ve been given the impression that they either aren’t “good enough” to worship, or that they wouldn’t be made welcome by other church-goers. This is tragic – tragic – because it flies in the face of everything the Church is supposed to stand for. The Great Commission says to make disciples and teach them all that Jesus has commanded, but we can’t if they don’t feel welcome enough to listen to the message! Jesus “new commandment” is “love another as I have loved you,” and yet people feel so unloved and even openly resented by church folk that they’re afraid to darken a church’s door. The despair that such people must feel – there’s a longing in their heart to know God and to be known by Him; there’s an aching need to come and be soul-tended and spirit-nurtured! And yet the one place where that might happen appears closed to them, because of the attitudes of those already inside.

Meanwhile, Jesus says, “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” This, too, is an odd thought. We modern Christians have been indoctrinated by many centuries of Christian theological development. And we Reformed church members are especially aware of the depravity of human kind. We lament that we are all sinners in need of grace, but rejoice that we have received grace to help in our time of need. But for Luke, the theological landscape was different. There were those who were sinners, and then there were the righteous. And I don’t just mean the presumed righteous, or the self-righteous, or even the self-declared righteous, but rather people who really were considered righteous. Look, all of humanity is in need of redemption, to be sure, but having been justified by Christ and continuously sanctified by the Holy Spirit, we are righteous! We need a relationship with God, and we need the Holy Spirit to help us amend our lives (because we will never be perfect), but we are good. Of people like us, Jesus said, “Heaven gets more excited about one sinner repenting than it does over an entire congregation who prayers a prayer of confession without really needing to.”

Norman Vincent Peale once told about addressing a Methodist conference in Atlanta, Georgia along with a fine preacher, and a much-loved local pastor. In his message Peale said that he believed that Jesus Christ could come into a life and change it, no matter how hopeless it seemed.

After the service, when he and the other guest preachers were gathered in the minister’s office, they were told that a man wanted to see them; a somewhat disreputable-looking man, they were warned, “unshaven, unwashed, poorly dressed.” When the man did come in, he was reeking of alcohol, but his mind was full of the message he had just heard. “Do you really believe that Jesus can help me?” he asked.

“Without a doubt,” Peale replied. Then the man asked if they would pray with him.

So the three ordained ministers prayed with the man. When he went out, one of the preachers said, a bit wistfully, “If that man changes, we’ll all be surprised, won’t we?” There it was: a flicker of doubt – from a good man – that change is really possible for some people.

Six months later, Peale said he was sitting in the lobby of a hotel in Clearwater, Florida, when he saw a man coming toward him, leading two little girls by the hand. The man was immaculately dressed, and his daughters were exquisite children, attractive and well-behaved. At first Peale didn’t know who he was, but as he came closer, he recognized the former derelict from Atlanta. There was a smile on his face, and he was humming “Amazing Grace” as he held out his hand in greeting. Peale said it was one of the most emotional and unforgettable encounters of his life. And, according to Jesus, the angels danced.

The love of God is indescribable, but an old Jewish legend tries hard. The legend says God received the counsel of the Angels that stood about his throne before creating Man. The Angel of Justice said; “Create him not -- for if you do he will commit all kinds of wickedness against his fellow man; he will be hard and cruel and dishonest and unrighteous.”

The Angel of Truth said, “Create him not -- for he will be false and deceitful to his brother and even to Thee.”

The Angel of Holiness stood and said; “Create him not -- he will follow that which is impure in your sight, and dishonor you to your face.”

Then stepped forward the Angel of Mercy, who said; “Create him, Heavenly Father, for when he sins and turns from the path of right and truth and holiness, I will take him tenderly by the hand, and speak loving words to him, and lead him back to you.”

In fact, this is what Jesus Christ does for each one who turns to him. The gift of the Holy Spirit makes transformation possible, helping those of us who live unjustly, untruthfully, and impurely to continue our journeys of faith toward communion with God. Would not the angels – even those of justice, truth and holiness – dance in celebration when the mercy of God in Jesus Chris transforms the life of a sinner into a new creation, able to stand before God?

A mentor of mine, a great pastor with more than 25 years of experience, once told me the story of a time he had run afoul of his congregation. Believing that he was following the example of Christ, he had been welcoming of a person whom the congregation felt was unworthy of welcome in the church, even agreeing to officiate at the person’s marriage in their church. Some in the congregation became so angry that he began to fear for his job, and he even saw dirty looks and angry stares around town, as news of the rift in the congregation became known in the community.

One day, the most respected Elder in the congregation – a great pillar of the church – asked the pastor to lunch. “Oh no!” my friend thought. “This great pillar of the church is going to dress me down for the company I’ve been keeping!” And he began at once to prepare his defense.

When they arrived at the restaurant, the Elder asked to be seated at the table in the center of the room. After they had placed their orders, the Elder stood up, and in a voice loud and clear enough for the whole restaurant to hear, he said, “I want everyone in this restaurant to hear what I have to say! The man seated with me is my pastor and my friend, and I don’t care who knows it.” And then he sat down. From that day forward, the pastor was never hassled about his welcoming attitude again, and in retrospect he realized that he was given exactly the same gift of grace that he had been accused of giving to someone “unworthy.

My brothers and sisters, I ask you the question that Jesus asked his listeners: “who wouldn’t do such a thing?” Who wouldn’t defend a pastor’s decision to offer the love of Christ to one whom the world deemed unworthy? Heaven gets more excited about one sinner repenting than it does over an entire congregation who prayers a prayer of confession without really needing to. The people for whom the Church exists the most are the ones who attend it the least. How can we, then, make those same people feel unwelcome or unworthy of God’s presence?

Let us reach out into our own community and extend hospitality to those we would ordinarily avoid. Let us be willing to strike up a conversation with people we’ve previously been afraid to be seen with. Let us put our reputations at risk, like my pastor friend, or like the Elder who redeemed him in the community, to befriend the friendless, to give hope to the hopeless, to associate with the disassociated. If we become the hands and feet of Jesus, and do all things with the mind of Christ, then those deemed unworthy by others will come to believe that they are worthy of God’s love and care. They are our brothers, our sisters. They are precious sheep of God’s flock. God is as heart-sick for them as you would be if your own child went missing! Who wouldn’t throw caution to the wind in order to seek and save a lost child?

It’s what Jesus did when they came to him, regardless of how it reflected on his own reputation. And the angels danced.

The Best Laid Schemes

2010-10-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

Luke 12:13-21

Robert Burns, the celebrated 18^th century bard of Scotland, was plowing his field one day in November of 1785, when he noticed that he’d disturbed the nest of a little field mouse. As well a poet might, Burns found himself deep in thought about what he’d done, and penned one of his best-known poems, entitled “To a Mouse.” The original is written in a Scots-English dialect that almost reads like a foreign language, but when translated into something more decipherable, it goes like this. (You’ll notice, towards the end, a line quoted all over the place, but rarely attributed to the Scottish bard.)

Small, sleek, cowering, timorous beast,

O, what a panic is in your breast!

You need not start away so hasty

With hurrying scamper!

I would be loath to run and chase you,

With murdering plough-staff.

I'm truly sorry man's dominion

Has broken Nature's social union,

And justifies that ill opinion

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy poor, earth born companion

And fellow mortal!

I doubt not, sometimes, but you may steal;

What then? Poor beast, you must live!

An odd ear in twenty-four sheaves

Is a small request;

I will get a blessing with what is left,

And never miss it.

Your small house, too, in ruin!

It's feeble walls the winds are scattering!

And nothing now, to build a new one,

Of coarse grass green!

And bleak December's winds coming,

Both bitter and keen!

You saw the fields laid bare and wasted,

And weary winter coming fast,

And cozy here, beneath the blast,

You thought to dwell,

Till crash! the cruel plough past

Out through your cell.

That small bit heap of leaves and stubble,

Has cost you many a weary nibble!

Now you are turned out, for all your trouble,

Without house or holding,

To endure the winter's sleety dribble,

And hoar-frost cold.

But Mouse, you are not alone,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best laid schemes of mice and men

Go often askew,

And leaves us nothing but grief and pain,

For promised joy!

Still you are blest, compared with me!

The present only touches you:

But oh! I backward cast my eye,

On prospects dreary!

And forward, though I cannot see,

I guess and fear!

It’s a sad little poem, apologizing first for the disturbance that Burns caused to the poor wretched mouse, and then reflecting more deeply on the existential condition of the mouse: all that toil for nothing! Now the poor mouse has no place to live, with the harsh winds of winter coming soon! And finally, Burns compares the mouse’s experience to his own, and realizes that they’re not so different. "The best laid schemes of mice and men often go askew, and leave us nothing but grief and pain, for promised joy!" Sometimes, all the careful planning in the world can’t prepare us for what we cannot foresee. And then the promise of a bright future is dashed, like a man’s plough blade through a mouse’s nest.

Jesus reflects a similar sentiment in this parable. In response to an anonymous person’s request that Jesus intervene on behalf of someone hoping to get his hands on a portion of his family’s inheritance (and, incidentally, a portion to which he was probably not entitled, according to Jewish custom), Jesus warns against “all kinds of greed.” Life, Jesus reflected, was about more than the accumulation of “stuff.”

And then he went on to tell the parable that is commonly titled, “The Rich Fool.” The so-called fool finds himself the fortunate recipient of God’s unexpected blessing when his land produces a bumper crop. Looking around, he realizes that he doesn’t have room in his barn to store this bounty, and so be makes plans to tear down his barn and replace it with one large enough to store his goods. Then, he figures, he can kick back and relax, believing that his future is assured.

As so often happens with Jesus’ parables, I didn’t immediately understand what was wrong with this guy’s plan. Look, it’s possible that he worked his tail off to get these crops, though, since Jesus doesn’t say so, it’s safer to assume that it was an unexpected blessing. So what’s the proper response to a windfall? We’ve all heard stories of people whose lives were ruined by winning the lottery, because they simply don’t know how to handle the windfall. For all their millions of dollars, they wind up in financial trouble, because they invest it poorly or spend it all frivolously.

My father-in-law, William Spence (my son's namesake), was killed when the helicopter he was piloting crashed in the front lawn of a hospital in Cleveland as a result of mechanical failure. This occurred in January of 2002. After this, a long, protracted court battle ensued, as my mother-in-law, as well as other victims, sought restitution from the builder of the helicopter. When the settlement came, my mother-in-law gave to Diane what was, to us, a large sum of money. Some of that money went to pay off our debts, which were drowning us, and with the rest we bought beautiful furniture for the baby we were expecting, a much-needed new computer, and a vacation with my family to the Outer Banks. After all, the world was our oyster, and hadn’t we done the prudent thing by spending some of this windfall on paying off debt before treating ourselves?

Then I unexpectedly lost my job. Suddenly, I wished I had every penny of that windfall back, because we might have survived this unexpected turn of events with more grace and less dependence on our family to help us out. “The best-laid schemes of mice and men often go askew, and leave us nothing but grief and pain, for promised joy.”

Something even more tragic befell the man in Jesus’ parable. After setting himself up right proper, God said to him, “You fool! You’re going to die tonight! And to whom will belong everything that you have prepared?”

This parable sprang to mind one day, early in my tenure at the Washington City Mission. I had driven to one of the largest, nicest homes I had so far been called to visit with the donation truck. It was explained to me that the very wealthy owner had died, and all of the items in the finished basement were being donated to the Mission, including three walk-in closets full of very beautiful clothing as well as large piles of other items. There was so much to collect I had to call for backup, and who rode to my rescue? None other than my pastor friend Keith. We set to work collecting the mountain of clothing and possessions, and somewhere around my twentieth trip up the stairs with my arms full of clothing, I said out loud, “You fool! This night your life is being demanded of you!”

And without even having to finish the quote, I heard Keith behind my exclaim, “Amen!” This person had spent a lifetime acquiring a large and beautiful home and so many possessions that it required multiple walk-in closets and two Mission trucks just to haul away the donations. That wasn’t the last time I had a call like that; and every time a whole house clean-out like this came along, I reflected anew on the seeming futility of toiling for a lifetime to acquire possessions we can’t take with us when the Lord comes to demand our life.

What is interesting, though, is that Luke’s is also the gospel where the Prodigal Son demands his share of the inheritance (which, again, he had no real right to), and squanders it – like one of those wide-eyed lottery winners – until he is ruined by an unexpected famine. Here, a so-called “rich fool” does just the opposite: he has squirreled away his possessions to guard against whatever may befall him in the future. Isn’t this the prudent thing to do?

Alas! The best-laid schemes of mice and men often go askew.

Jesus – especially as he is revealed to us by Luke – has remarkably little use for prudence. To do the prudent thing means “playing it safe,” but Jesus (and Luke) are not concerned with playing it safe. Luke is always challenging us to take risks for the sake of the gospel. Interestingly, Luke follows this morning’s reading with words that Matthew inserts into the Sermon on the Mount: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing.” By putting this statement after the parable of the Rich Fool, Luke has used it to make clear the point of the parable. Hoarding God’s blessings does not insure your future, for who knows? Today might be the day that God demands your life of you, and what good will your hoard be to you or anyone else then? Instead, share your blessings with others, trusting that God will provide for you in your hour of need! If God feeds the birds and clothes the lilies, will he not care for you all the more richly?

Still [little mouse] you are blest, compared with me!

The present only touches you:

But oh! I backward cast my eye,

On prospects dreary!

And forward, though I cannot see,

I guess and fear!

That last couplet of Robbie Burns’ poem, “And forward, though I cannot see, I guess and fear!” spells out precisely our fear of a future we cannot see. The path of discipleship is full of twists and turns – twists and turns around which we cannot see. When the road bends, we know not where it will lead. The rich fool, unconsciously fearing that the Lord would not provide, and believing that he needed to rely upon his own resources and his own cunning, stopped walking down that winding road, and built a house right there at the bend. He stopped journeying, seeking to do the prudent thing and “play it safe.”

But Jesus doesn’t want disciples who “play it safe.” Jesus wants disciples who take risks for the sake of the Gospel. He wants people who dine with tax collectors and hug prostitutes. He wants people who will work beside drug addicts, and shake the hands of lepers. He wants people who will drop their nets – their livelihoods, their families and everything that gives them roots and an identity – and follow him. He wants people who are able to throw themselves into the arms of a God who loves them and provides for their every need! Make all the plans you like, says the Lord, but remember to “trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding! In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; but fear the Lord, and turn away from evil… Honor the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine!” (Prov. 3:5-10)

Remembering Their Spirit of Sacrifice

2010-06-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

Matt. 26:6-13

Rom. 5:1-5

Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick once related a story from his own childhood days. His father had said to his mother, upon leaving the house one Saturday in the morning hours: “Tell Harry that he can cut the grass today, if he feels like it.”

Then, halfway down the walk, his father turned once more to add: “And tell Harry that he had better feel like it.”

There is a difference between knowing we are supposed to do something, and “feeling like” doing it. There is a difference between a sense of obligation and a sense of generosity. There is a difference between obedience and desire. The one of those weighs us down, while the other lifts us up.

We Presbyterians are good at a lot of things, but sometimes I wonder how good we are at being in relationship with God. If we know GOD only as a figure of authority over your life, then we don’t really know Him. If our belief that “God is a God who cares and loves,” is merely an intellectual axiom, and not borne of personal experience, then we don’t really know Him. Unless both His authority and His love captivate us from within, so that we live knowing the truth of it for ourselves, we don’t really know Him. Unless discipleship is borne out of an “attitude of gratitude” and not an obligation imposed on us by the Church, or by the fear of death, or by anything else, we do not really know the God who is God for us, who is God with us, and who has called us his friends.

Such cannot be said of the woman with the alabaster jar, who apparently knew her Lord very well, and related to Him in a way that none other ever has. When she approached our Lord and anointed him with costly perfume, his disciples became angry, (and notice that in Matthew, it was all the disciples who become angry, not merely Judas, as other Gospels have it) because they though that such luxuries would have been better utilized raising money for the poor. “Why are you bothering her?” Jesus asked. “She’s done something really nice for me, of her own volition. She’s prepared me for my burial, because while the poor will always be around, I will not. Wherever the gospel is proclaimed, anywhere in the world, she will be remembered for what she has done for me.”

Jesus saw her anointing as an act of sacrifice and love. In pouring out her love and gratitude upon him, she was revealing something both about her character and what she perceived Jesus’ value to be. In her view, Jesus was worth the cost and, to steal a phrase, it was reckoned to her as righteousness.

But her action wasn’t what she was supposed to do. It was what she felt like doing. What she was supposed to do, to hear the disciples tell it, was fulfill her obligation of discipleship by selling the perfume as a fundraiser to feed the hungry. What she felt like doing was honoring her Lord through a generous act of personal sacrifice.

On Memorial Day, the nation takes some time off. Carved out of the busy calendars of business, finance, politics and education, a day is set aside as a memorial honoring those who have made generous sacrifices of self in service to our nation, its way of life, and its universal principles. It also offers us the opportunity to consider afresh what our sacrifices say about our character.

The Apostle Paul, writing to the Romans, says that as believers justified by faith, we not only endure but even boast in our sufferings, “knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” In one sentence, Paul affirms the modern-day proverbs, “That which does not kill you makes you stronger,” and “suffering builds character.” (Though I have to say the latter probably comes as a distillation of Paul's writing.) If one suffers for the sake of a life of discipleship, as Paul’s intended readers were apparently doing, their suffering would produce endurance – it would strengthen them in faith and lead to an enrichment of character.

In my lifetime, America has fought numerous enemies on the field of battle, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia, Somalia, and even Panama. But most often, Memorial Day causes us to remember those veterans and fallen heroes of wars long past: World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Meanwhile, we are still battling Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan in what is often called “the forgotten war.” In 2009, 316 American soldiers died in what was the deadliest year of that war to date. Over the course of nine years, the total number of American soldiers killed as a result of that conflict is 1007, and those wounded number 5725.

I have never considered myself cut out for military service. I recently received a brochure from the U.S. Army, touting the virtues of a life of service as an Army Chaplain. It gave me pause to consider the military life in a way that I never had before, viewing the suffering, hardship and sacrifice of military families from a more spiritual perspective. Although I planned to go to college after high school, I was willing to humor a military recruiter when I was a senior. He’d called my home and asked me if I’d be willing to come and hear more about what the military had to offer me. I made an appointment to meet him at the recruiter’s office. As I left the house, my mom called after me, “Don’t sign anything!”

She needn’t have worried. But as I think back to that experience, I’m taken aback by what the recruiter had said in his invitation. He wanted to tell me more about what the Army had to offer to me. Wasn’t that completely backward? There can be little doubt that a life of service to one’s country produces endurance and builds character. And the recruiter undoubtedly pointed this out during our interview, as do the services' television commercials that suggest that joining the armed services will make a better man or woman out of you. The old recruitment jingle in my day went, “Be all that you can be. Find your future in the Army.” If hope is all about the future, then in a way, that jingle is the very essence of what Paul meant. Be all that you can be; find your future. Character produces hope.

But self-sacrifice like that of the woman with the alabaster jar, like the sacrifices of our service men and women and their families, like that of Jesus for the salvation of humanity, is a generous act of love. They are gifts given. They can be neither compelled, nor bought.

Paul again says, “Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Cor. 9:7) While the sacrifices of those veterans who we remember on Memorial Day might not have been exactly “cheerful,” they were certainly willing. As we honor their memory, also taking the opportunity to examine our own spirit of self-sacrifice, it occurs to me that the question that anyone in such a position must answer is, “Is this worth the cost?”

We ask ourselves this question every day. Is that loaf of bread worth the cost? Is buying this new car worth the cost? Is coming to the aid of a neighbor worth the cost? Our servicemen and women make the decision that freedom is worth the cost – even the cost of their own lives. And like the woman with the alabaster jar, this personal sacrifice – given because they feel like it, and not because they have to – is an act of love. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13)

This service to our country serves as a kind of model to us as well. As we declare our citizenship in the Kingdom of God, assuming, of course, that we count our Lord and Savior worth the cost, are we as willing to give our lives in service to God? I don’t mean dying on the battlefield, or even as martyrs in a Roman coliseum, though certainly Paul’s congregations faced such life and death decisions when responding to God’s call. Rather, are we willing to die to this world and live out Kingdom values? Are we willing to serve God with gladness – not out of a sense of obligation, but out of love and gratitude – and take our orders from the Holy Spirit, following where we are led, and serving as our neighbors have need? That kind of willing personal sacrifice – call it suffering, if you will – is rarely easy. But ask yourself: is it worth the cost? If we endure all trials in the faith, if we learn to go to God in prayer and to suffer with greater gladness, then our suffering for the sake of the gospel becomes not a burden but a source of hope, because, after all, it builds character.

Our Common Language

2010-05-27T12:43:00.000-07:00

Genesis 11:1-9
Acts 2:1-21

In 1951, when the linguist Richard Pittman produced a list of the known languages of the world, his “ethnologue,” as he called it, identified 46 languages. Today’s massive 15th edition of Ethnologue documents 7,299 known languages, including 103 languages that were unknown as recently as the year 2000. From A Fala de Xálima, which is spoken in Portugal, to Zyudin, a dialect of Komi-Permynk spoken in the Ural Mountains of Russia, Ethnologue has distinguished itself as the best single source of information about all the known languages of the world (including 497 languages threatened with extinction because they have fewer than 50 speakers).

The authors of Genesis imagined a time when all of humanity spoke just one common language. Granted, there would have been far fewer people then, and less scattered across the globe. It is often suggested that there were four great “cradles of civilization” as early hunter-gatherers began to congregate into villages and cities with the advancement of both agriculture and writing: Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China. It is plausible to believe that all the people who lived in the Mesopotamian “cradle of civilization” spoke a common tongue. When that earliest of known human civilizations – one whose legend was apparently still remembered with a certain awe by those who wrote the book of Genesis, came to its end and the people began to scatter to the four winds, we moderns might expect their language to devolve into varying dialects, and then eventually into completely different languages altogether.

Cultures all over the world have myths describing how their god scattered people from a common locale and a single language. The Tower of Babel is just one version of the story among many, and is situated in the very “cradle of civilization” that the Hebrews would identify with: Mesopotamia, which they called Babylon, after the empire that existed there at the time of the writing of Genesis, and which we would call Iraq.

Genesis describes this early civilization as using new technologies for the first time, such as “bricks instead of stone and tar for mortar.” (11:3 TNIV) With bricks they could make greater buildings, more cheaply and more efficiently. Soon their attention turned heavenward, and they realized that, having gathered together into a civilized city, they could accomplish a greatness that had been unattainable when they’d been wandering nomads. “Let’s build a great city with a tower reaching toward the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the earth.”

There is both safety and strength in numbers, and the people of Babel understood that centralizing their resources and power would make them into something great: something like a city-state, which would have been an entirely new concept at the time. But this first effort at centralization was thwarted. Historically, we have no idea who the story of Babel depicts. The earliest known civilization in the world, Sumer, rose in precisely that area, but was remarkably successful. Other cultures can be said to have migrated away from Sumer, though – including the Hebrews, when Abram left his ancestors in Sumerian Ur to follow God’s leading to Canaan.

It is interesting that in the preceding chapter, following the great flood, the descendants of Noah are instructed to multiply and fill the earth. Filling the earth is a part of God’s plan for creation. But here in chapter 11, we see that people are afraid to spread out, and decide instead to build a great city center. The author seems to have seen this as a resistance to God’s purpose for creation. The tower being built is not so much an effort to self-aggrandize or to “reach heaven” by building a skyscraper, but a self-serving attempt at unity where God would rather not have it. The author of Ephesians states that the mystery of God’s will, purposed in Christ, is “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.” (Eph. 1:9-10) How, then, could it have been God’s will to scatter the people of Babel, destroying their unity as a people and their ability to cooperate?

Walter Brueggemann, professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, suggests in his Interpretation commentary on Genesis that there are two kinds of unity.

“The unity willed by God is that all of humanity shall be in covenant with him and with him only, responding to his purposes, relying on his life-giving power. The scattering God wills is that life should be peopled everywhere by his regents, who are attentive to all parts of creation, working in his image to enhance the whole creation… This [idea] does not presume that different families, tongues, lands, and nations are bad or disobedient. They are a part of his will. And the reason God allows for that kind of differential is that all parts of humanity look to and respond to God in unity.”

There is great beauty to this reading of the Tower story, because it requires more than a simplistic “pride is bad, so God punished Babel” reading. Instead, we have three ideas working together to form the story. First, the unity desired by the people is resistant to the will of God, which he described in the previous chapter as the dispersion of humanity over all the earth. Second, the scattering that was feared by the people is carried out by God as punishment. But third, there is a unity willed by God, based on their loyalty to and love of Him. Now matter how diverse humanity may become, our unity lies in having been created in the image of a loving God. We should neither seek to make ourselves God-like through homogeneity, nor conclude that scattered humanity does not belong to a single whole. If you want an idea of what such unity-in-community looks like, remember that we’re created in the image of a Triune God: a single God, in three distinct persons. Just as humanity is simultaneously scattered and gathered, so God is three-in-one and one-in-three!

As we Americans know all too well, your accent can betray you. Identifying a person’s regional dialect can tell you a lot about them (though many of those things have more to do with stereotype than fact). We would probably make certain assumptions about someone who came into our church and spoke with a British accent, a French accent, a Latino accent, a Russian accent. People abroad can identify Americans as soon as they open their mouths, because so many people around the world watch American movies and television. Even more nuanced once you’re in the States, we can distinguish between the redneck slang of the deep south and the aristocratic drawl of “high society” types in Charleston, South Carolina. Going to seminary in New Jersey introduced me to several northeastern and East Coast accents – none of them pleasant. And, it is certainly the case that no matter where we are – even if we were walking the streets of Paris – any one of us from the Pittsburgh area could identify a fellow Pittsburgher as soon as he opened his mouth and said, “Could yinz direct me dahn to the nearest cheese shop n’at?” I had a friend in Seminary who was a native of Ireland, and had a very thick, rural Irish accent. Any time one of us couldn’t understand what she was saying and asked her to repeat herself more than twice, she would speak her piece in a stereotypical, American southern drawl, which, of course, we understood very easily! Sometimes even when we speak the same language, communication can prove difficult.

For the Church, Pentecost is perhaps the third most important date on the calendar, after Easter and Christmas. We celebrate it as the “birth of the Church,” because on that day, the followers of Jesus were given the power and authority of the Holy Spirit to minister to the world, as Immanuel – God-with-us – had done. This sharing in God’s work of creation might have been thwarted by the diversity of the people witnessing it. But the Spirit’s arrival brought with it the ability to speak and be heard in a multitude of languages, as if everyone were speaking the same tongue. What God had made impossible in scattering the peoples in Genesis, God now made possible in gathering those diverse peoples together into one body.

This is not just a case of God’s changing His mind about what happened in Genesis, or reversing a curse on humanity. Rather, God was prospering the kind of human unity He had always sought: unity in love and worship of God. While the people of Babel were scattered because their fear led them to seek self-reliance rather than reliance upon God, God united the people who witnessed the indwelling of the Spirit at Pentecost in order to help them realize and then accomplish their unity of purpose.

The Body of Christ is truly diverse, with its many denominations and cultural variance, but within this amazing diversity, we are still one, unified body. Brueggemann seems to agree, in his reading of Genesis, that the diversity of humanity – and, by extension, the diversity of theology and practice across Christian denominations – is not a bad thing. But while we needn’t necessarily seek unity of theology and practice in order to please God, we should be unified in purpose. It’s fine that there are subtle distinctions between the theologies and practices of various denominations – that kind of diversity provides space for more and more people to acknowledge and worship God! To seek complete unity of theology and practice would squash the beauty of the Body of Christ. On the other hand, the whole body of Christ should have one purpose and one purpose only: the glorification of God!

Among the earliest followers of Jesus, strife emerged when Greek-speaking Jews complained that the Aramaic-speakers overlooked their widows and orphans in the distribution of food (Acts 6). A thousand years later the Latin-speaking, Catholic west and the Greek-speaking, Orthodox east divided in the Schism of 1054. During the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church banned the translation of scripture into the everyday vernacular of the nations, so that people who did not read Latin could not read the Bible.

Acts 2 tells of those who, while seemingly drunk with the new wine of the spirit, actually understood one another’s native languages. To be sure, the Christian church is embodied in thousands of languages. And yet, in our shared experience, we also share one common language – a language of love and hospitality that requires few words while still communicating the truth of the Gospel.

In 2000, I was a small group leader for two weeks at the Montreat Youth Conference. The preacher that week was the Rev. Jeff Peterson-Davis. I enjoyed getting to know Jeff during the week we were on the leadership team together, but the reason I will never forget him is because of what he did at the end of the conference. Worship on the last day of any Presbyterian youth conference includes communion, and this was no exception. But I have never attended a communion service like this one. Jeff came out wearing the black wardrobe and white and black face paint of a mime. Standing at the communion table, Jeff officiated over the entire sacrament without ever uttering a single word. By his hand gestures and his facial expressions alone, he communicated every word of the prayers, the liturgy and even the “words of institution”. And because we all shared the past experience of having attended countless communion services before, we were able to hear every word of the liturgy being spoken to our spirits, even though no words were used. I believe that I could walk into any Presbyterian church in the world – whether Spanish-speaking, Native American or Korean – perform the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper in English, and still be understood by those who listened, as the words and motions of the liturgy, and the experience of communing together do the work of translation for me. That is the power of sharing a common language of faith.

Delving even deeper, what if we saw, in the story of Pentecost, a parable for listening to one another’s viewpoints? In just a few weeks, the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s General Assembly will be meeting in Minneapolis. They have a multitude of things to prayerfully consider; some are mundane, while others could literally alter the landscape of American Presbyterianism. As delegates from around the country gather together to be in prayer for the denomination and to seek God’s will, let us all pray that by the power of the Holy Spirit of Pentecost, their ears would be open to one another’s beliefs, viewpoints, hopes and fears, and so honor one another as they deliberate together. Let us pray that they, and we, will celebrate our unity in Spirit, even as we glorify God in thousands of diverse ways.

An Idle Tale, or God's "Miraculous Nevertheless?"

2010-04-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

Luke 24:1-12

Springtime has come at last (and this week has almost felt like summer)! The grass is greener, daffodils are splashing the landscape with bright yellows, and I hope that soon our dogwood will sprout its white blooms. When the birds begin their morning songs these days, we imagine that the sounds they make are Easter music served up by nature, as the church’s most important holy day coincides with the symbolic rebirth of creation.

So effortless is this mental connection between springtime and Easter that it is east to succumb to thinking that resurrection is as natural a thing as grass coming up green, as eggs cracking open to reveal chicks, as butterflies crawling out of cocoons! As beautiful as the coincidence of Easter and Spring is, there is something deceptive about it too. It behooves us to remember that there is nothing about resurrection that is “natural.” While some theologians try to brush off the seeming impossibility of resurrection as merely a “spiritual metaphor”, I would remind them that, first of all, nothing is impossible for God, and that, secondly, their apparent distaste for anything they can’t wrap their intellects around leaves little if any room in their religion for faith, which the Bible defines as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

Yesterday, a pastor friend of mine gave me this poem by John Updike, entitled, "Seven Stanzas at Easter":

Make no mistake: if he rose at all
It was as His body;
If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes
The same valved heart
That—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then regathered
Out of enduring Might
New strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.

And if we have an angel at the tomb,
Make it a real angel,
Weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
The dawn light, robed in real linen
Spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance

The line that fair leaps off the page is "Let us not mock God with metaphor." Indeed, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is, of necessity, so much more than this.

As one commentator pointed out about Luke’s account of Easter morning, there are a lot of “buts” in the story. In fact, our reading began with one, “BUT on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared.” But is a tenacious little conjunction that dares to declare, “you only thought you knew the facts! You only thought you’d heard the whole story – BUT wait! There’s more!”

See, prior to this reading, Jesus had died, been laid in a sealed tomb, and those who had been attending to the details of his burial had gone home. It might have been the end of the story. BUT... it wasn’t. And the women returned on Sunday morning to finish the work of preparing Jesus’ body for eternal rest. When they got there, they found the stone rolled away from the tomb – not necessarily a big deal. After all, they were going to need the stone rolled aside anyway, if they were going to do the work they’d come to do!

BUT! “When they went in, they did not find the body”! Well, here’s an unexpected twist in the story! And that tenacious little conjunction helps it to leap off the page. The women were perplexed. They had seen Jesus’ body laid in this tomb on Friday – they’d been there to watch it happen. BUT… where was he?

“Suddenly, two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground.” Already confused and perhaps frightened by the apparent disappearance – or, even more disheartening, the theft – of Jesus’ body, they were now confronted by two men who, according to Today’s New International Version of scripture, wore “clothes that gleamed like lightning”! Egad, and wouldn’t I throw myself on the ground as well, if I saw this terrifying apparition – especially in a tomb?

BUT! “The men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?’” You ladies are wandering around in a graveyard looking for the corpse of someone who isn’t dead. Don’t you remember when he told you that the Son of Man would be crucified and resurrected on the third day? And, come to think of it, they did seem to recall something about that!

So the women set off to do what they knew must be done: they ran to the rest of Jesus’ followers-in-hiding to tell them what they had seen. BUT! “These words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.”

Doubt happens either when something we think should be happening isn’t, or when something that shouldn’t be happening is. In the first instance, you could take as your example those early Christians who began to express doubts about Christ’s return, because, decades after his ascension, he hadn’t returned. Christ should have returned by then, but he hadn’t. And it bred doubt amongst some of the congregations addressed by the epistles in our scriptures.

On the other hand, we have the kind of doubt that springs up – just as understandably – when something is said to have occurred that just isn’t supposed to be possible. Remember when the three visitors to Abraham’s tent declared that the 90-year-old Sarah should expect to bear a son? Her response was to laugh – laugh right out loud, because such a thing was so unnatural that the very idea was preposterous! I can imagine the gathering of disciples laughing, too, when a group of women came bursting into the place where they’d been hiding and began babbling about empty tombs and men clothed in lightning and something about Jesus having risen from the dead. Ah ha ha! As today’s young people might say, “ROTFLOL!” (Which means ‘Rolling On The Floor, Laughing Out Loud!’) Are you kidding, Mary and company? Risen from the dead you say? And they dismissed it – as might we all – as an idle tale.

BUT! “Peter got up and ran to the tomb”, saw that everything was just as the women had claimed, and “went home, amazed at what had happened.” While we might have though that the dismissal of the story as an idle tale marked the end of the story – the cessation of sharing the Good News – Luke inserts yet another “But!” into the story, and we learn that Peter, overcome by curiosity, investigated the story and, while not seeing Jesus or any dazzlingly dressed men, nonetheless saw that the tomb was empty but for Jesus’ burial shroud. He walked away amazed. That completely understandable doubt, born of something’s having happened that just shouldn’t be, had begun to give way to belief.

There is nothing natural about resurrection. Believe me, I am as aware as you are of stories of people who died on the operating table and were revived by doctors. I’ve seen the TV episodes about patients who expire in the ambulance en route to the medical center, only to be restored to life by medical professionals. But Jesus? He’d been dead three days. Not three minutes – not even a mind-boggling three hours. Three days. It shouldn’t have been possible. The very idea is laughable – an idle tale cooked up by some movie producer to sell tickets.

BUT! If Jesus Christ really did rise from the dead, then his is the power to raise us up from whatever is dragging us down, drowning our faith, quenching our spirits, separating us from God. His is the power to complete what we can’t complete by ourselves. It means that the hopeless story of human sinfulness and death is, in the end, not the end at all. Good Friday certainly seems like the end of the story. The hero was born, lived, and died. Any attempts by Jesus’ followers to extend his story any further may seem like an idle tale. BUT! What gets proclaimed from the empty tomb is a rebuttal so dramatic, so unnatural as to serve as the very hinge of history by which we divide all of time!

Easter – the resurrection of our Lord – is God’s ultimate and eternal exclamation of that tenacious little conjunction: BUT!

Humanity rebelled against God and fell into sin – BUT!

All we like sheep have gone astray. There is no one who is righteous – not even one. BUT!

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. BUT!

"The wages of sin is death. BUT! The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

The gospel, as my favorite theologian, Karl Barth, once put it, "is not a natural therefore but a miraculous nevertheless.” Easter is the conjunctive, Almighty “BUT!” that changes the direction that human history " headed and appends to that story an epilogue that says, “humanity is not doomed! God has provided for us a Savior! All of creation is being reconciled to God in Jesus Christ. There is no other name by which we can be saved! Jesus is Lord, and he is risen!” Alleluia! Amen.

Caught Up In the Conspiracy

2010-03-23T09:41:00.000-07:00

John 12:1-11

It was all my fault, really. Well – it was and it wasn’t. It all gets pretty complicated. See, I’d gotten sick, and while it seemed at first as though I was going to pull through just fine, I took a sudden turn for the worse. My family started to panic, and my sisters tried to get through to someone who could help, but by the time help had arrived, I was dead.

I know, that sounds like the end of a tale. Actually, it was the beginning – well, the beginning of this particular episode, anyway. I’d known Jesus for a while, having been introduced to him by my sister Mary. She and Martha, my other sister, were major benefactors of his preaching ministry. He stopped by the house from time to time, when he was passing through Bethany, and the girls would feed him and his friends and try to help them out with some money when they could. I couldn’t object, he seemed like a pretty likeable fellow, and always treated Mary and Martha with a respect rarely found between men and women in those days.

Eventually, we became close friends. I would even go as far to say we were best friends. I loved Jesus, and he loved me. He was like a member of the family, especially after he had been run out of his own hometown up in Galilee. After that, he spent more time in the south, and we saw him more often.

Anyway, Jesus was staying in Trans-Jordan, though back then we called it Perea. It’s around where his cousin John had maintained his baptism ministry, before he died. We were always hearing reports about something he’d said, or where he was last seen. Word was, he was impressing folks over in Perea, which was a couple of days’ walk from Bethany. When I took that bad turn I mentioned earlier, I asked the girls to send a message to him, hoping that he’d come and have a look at me. After all, he’d given a blind man his sight, so I had no reason to doubt that he could help me as well.

After a lot of bed rest and my sisters’ constant, careful nagging, I began to improve. I thought that perhaps the worst was behind me, and that I would be well before Jesus ever arrived. If things continue to improve, I thought, I’ll be able to host a dinner for him and his followers when he arrives.

That night, I was seized violently by my illness. My health spiraled downward, and by noon the next day, I was on my deathbed. I remember Mary kneeling beside my mat, reassuring me that Jesus was due almost any time. Just try to sleep, she said. Take some broth to increase my strength, she said. Meanwhile, Martha paced around the yard in front of our house, or nervously cleaned a kitchen that needed no cleaning. She was always worrying herself with busy work around the house.

And then, late that night, with both of my sisters by my side, Mary mopping my brow with a bit of cloth, Martha spinning fine wool for a tunic she planned to weave, I breathed my last. Jesus hadn’t come.

As I would later learn, Jesus not only didn’t show up on the fourth day, as we expected, in fact, he didn’t show up until the eighth day – four days after I was dead and entombed. Martha, of course, was furious. Hell hath no fury like a type-A, obsessive-compulsive, busybody scorned (or so I think I read somewhere in the Talmud). She met Jesus on the road when she heard he was coming and gave him the what for. “What took you so long?” she asked. “If you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t be dead!” I suppose she thought her words would sting him somehow – breaking the news like that, when he perhaps thought he was coming to the family’s rescue. But she later said he didn’t seem at all surprised by her announcement. He only said, “Your brother will rise again.”

Have you ever lost someone dear to you, someone you loved with all your heart, and had some well-meaning person say something like “This is all a part of God’s plan,” or “I guess God needed him more than we did,” or some other drivel? Well then, you can probably imagine how Martha took to the idea that my death was no big deal, because I’d rise again someday. I’ve heard that your scriptures record her words as, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection of the last day.” What your Bible redacted was the follow-up: “But how the hell does that help me?” And then she stormed off, wailing in her grief.

Jesus caught her by the arm and said, “But Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. Even if those who believe in me die, they’ll live. And those who believe in me and are still living at the resurrection will never die. Do you believe this?”

She stood looking at him, searching for truth in his eyes, and must have found it, because she said (or so she told me), “I believe that you’re the Mashiach.”

Then Mary came to meet Jesus, and the grief on her face was overwhelming. It didn’t help, maybe, that a crowd of professional mourners had followed her, and were keening at the tops of their lungs and sprinkling dust on their heads. It made for a lot of noise and a lot of muddy faces, as the dust mixed with pre-paid tears. But it’s how we did things then, and I was touched by my sisters’ tribute. Jesus asked where my body had been lain, and followed her to my tomb. The whole thing was so disturbing that he nearly collapsed with grief, shuddering with cries of anguished. I’d have been touched, but I was dead.

The Jews congregated nearby said, “Wow, look at him. He must have really loved Lazarus!” But others said, “Well, if he loved him so much, why didn’t he do anything to save him? He cured that blind guy, and Jesus didn’t even know him.”

Well, this ticked Jesus off, and kind of got his hackles up. So he approached the tomb and told some guys to roll the stone away that was sealing the entrance. Martha, keeping in mind that I had been in there for four days already, fretted over the fact that no matter how much Febreeze she used, that tomb would never really smell fresh again, tried to talk him out of it. But Jesus insisted, so the stone was moved.

Now I remind you that almost all of this story has been purely anecdotal to this point, since my role in this drama was the part of “dead guy on a cold slab”. But I can tell you what happened next. A pinpoint of light, so far off in the distance that I wasn’t sure I was really seeing it at all. I was surrounded by total darkness, but for that tiny point of light. I thought I heard my name being called, but I couldn’t respond. I heard it again, and the light… grew. Or swelled. Or moved closer. I’m not sure. But when I head my name being called a third time, I saw that the light had taken the form of a slanting beam of sunshine, and was pouring from the entrance of the tomb. Carefully, I stood up and, still wrapped in a burial shroud, I shuffled to the mouth of the cave and stuck my head out.

Pandemonium ensued! Anxious cries of exaltation, ululations of joy, and hands. Everywhere, there were hands, clapping together with joy, touching me, grasping me, embracing me. But all I could see was Jesus. He stood a distance away, watching the others surround me in their astonishment. He was laughing, and wiping away the tears that streamed from his eyes. His face was full of… was it relief? Or perhaps resignation. Not far from where he stood were the Jews who, astonished though they were to see me up and around, were eyeing Jesus with concern. They had witnessed a bona fide miracle, but seemed more nervous that anything.

I was disappointed when Jesus said he was leaving that same evening, but I understood. One of Jesus’ followers came rushing into the house just before dinner to warn him that there was talk in the streets of a plot to capture and kill Jesus. There were mutterings about Jesus attracting, “the wrong sort of attention.” Taking this as his cue, he gathered up his followers and moved on, headed for Ephraim, from what we heard, though we weren’t certain.

We didn’t hear from Jesus again until just before Passover. We assumed we wouldn’t see Jesus for the festival. With people on the lookout for him, coming so close to Jerusalem seemed foolish to us; but, six days before the Passover was set to begin, there he appeared, with his full entourage in tow. We invited him to stay with us, and were having what we hoped was a quiet, “Thanks For Resurrecting Me From the Dead” party, when Mary came in with a jar of nard. I don’t know where she got the stuff, but before we knew what she was doing, she’d upended the bottle and poured it all over Jesus’ feet, and then wiped them dry with her hair.

I watched as Judas turned several shades of crimson, muttering under his breath something about wasting money that would have been better spent feeding the poor. I knew darn well Judas didn’t give a rodent’s hindquarters about the poor. He just couldn’t bear the thought of the price of that perfume, that might otherwise have gone into the purse Judas carried on behalf of the group.

Jesus defended Mary, saying, “Leave her alone! I’m honored that she would do something so extravagant!” Later, Jesus would repeat her gesture – though without the expense of the perfume – when he washed his disciples’ feet. When I saw it, I felt proud that my own little sister had given him the idea. Jesus said, “Judas, the poor will always need your help. I, on the other hand, won’t always be around.” Martha, always the practical one, said, “I guess if she was going to pour the perfume on someone, then, it might as well be someone who expects to die soon. Wish she’d done that to Lazarus. I still can’t get the stink of death off him!”

It was true. I did stink.

Well, it turned out that once Jesus showed up at my house, crowds of people swarmed the place. I realized that they weren’t just coming to see Jesus – something they’d always done, as long as I’d know him, I think – they were coming to see me! Suddenly, I was a celebrity, because my walking around was proof to so many people that Jesus was who he said he was. Unfortunately, this had also occurred to the Pharisees, and within hours, messengers were bringing us word that the temple elite planned to kill not only Jesus, but me. Somehow, having gone from a corpse on minute to a living-breathing sign the next, I got caught up in the conspiracy of the Pharisees.

So, like I said in the beginning, it was all my fault, really. Well – it was and it wasn’t. I mean, I didn’t exactly ask to be resurrected. But since I was, Jesus had a price on his head. See, a lot of people were proclaiming that Jesus was the Mashiach because of me. I imagine that makes sense to you all, but at the time, being a Mashiach was a dangerous gig. If the Romans caught wind of someone claiming to be the righteous King we Jews had been waiting for, well, they’d march right down on Judea and wipe the whole place out. The Pharisees figured they’d be heroes: kill two men and save a nation. It didn’t seem to frighten Jesus in the slightest. He waltzed right into the city, riding on a donkey like it was a parade float!

I wasn’t so cavalier. Your scriptures never mention my name again, but there are places in the story where I still made appearances. I was with Peter after Jesus was arrested, and even helped him get into the courtyard where he was being interrogated. I was at the foot of Jesus’ cross, even after all of Jesus’ other disciples had gone into hiding. I figured, what did I have to lose, right? I’d already died once! Jesus asked me to take care of his mother after he was gone, which, of course, I did. I was also the first one (other than my sister Mary, of course, who was the only person more devoted to Jesus than I was) to arrive at Jesus’ tomb, after Mary told us that she’d spoken with him, although I let Peter go into the tomb to check it out. After spending four days dead in one of those places, you never really feel like spelunking again.

I was with Peter and some of the others when Jesus appeared to them during a fishing expedition. I stuck with the group for quite a while, though as you can tell even from your own scriptures, everyone stopped calling me by my name. Like I said, the Pharisees wanted me dead. If they could get to Jesus, I was easy pickings, so the group protected my identity as best they could. I was always referred to as “the disciple – you know… the one Jesus loved?” Everyone was always curious about me, because they didn’t know what it meant that I had already died once and was alive again. I overheard Peter asking Jesus once, after the resurrection, “What about him?”

And Jesus just smiled and said, “What about him, Peter? If I want him to live until I return, what’s it to you? Just focus on what I need you to do.” Peter was always like that – so concerned about what everyone else was doing, yet never really paying attention to his own work.

Being resurrected – getting a second lease on life – gives you a certain perspective. The apostles went on to great things, of course, but I ended my life – my second life, that is – as a bishop in Cyprus, myself. I didn’t have the same acclaim that they had, but then again, I was keeping a low profile, wasn’t I? But I had something that they couldn’t have had: an appreciation for exactly what Jesus’s being the resurrection and the life really meant. And Jesus can resurrect each an every one of you, as well, if you’re of a mind to ask him. You see, we’re all dead in our sins. We can’t possibly live the life God intends for us as long as we lie in our spiritual tombs, the suffocating stench of sin permeating our very being. But if you hear Jesus call your name, if you see a faint but growing point of light in the darkness, promise me you’ll rise up and walk towards it! Promise me that if Jesus calls your name, you’ll answer by poking your head out of your sin and into the light of new life!

Jesus’s death and resurrection broke the power of sin and death over us. When he shared that with me, his plan became a conspiracy! Now I’ve shared this good news with you, and you’re caught up in the conspiracy yourselves. Now the question is: who will you tell?

From the Back Deck to the Front Porch

2010-03-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

Luke 15:1-3,11b-32
2 Cor. 5:16-21

The beauty of a really good parable is that it is universally appealing and instructive, not just in its own time, but across thousands of years. It’s beauty is in its undeniable truth, and in the fact that each and every one of us can relate to it somehow. But the problem with really good parables – and the Prodigal Son is perhaps the best of all – is that we hear them so often we can recite them by rote, and we assume that we’ve already leached every last morsel of nourishment from its verses. Our eyes glass over as soon as we hear the title, because we think the instruction of this parable is as elementary as 2-plus-2.

But the reason why the parable is so good – the fact that we can all relate to it – is also a part of what’s wrong with it. In 21st Century America, there is nothing the least bit foreign about the story of a young man striking out on his own to make his way in the world. This story seems so American that we fail to keep in mind that this boy is not from Suburbia, USA. The “rugged individual” is an American icon. The younger son did what young men are born to do.

We’re all familiar with this story about the vastness of a father’s love, available to a wastrel son who returns home with true repentance in his heart. The way most American Christians interpret it, it is about our individual relationships with God. As Barbara Brown Taylor retells it, "When we decide to go home and say we’re sorry, we too can be sure that a banquet awaits us -- the improbable feast given in our honor by a heavenly Father whose divine grace exceeds all human reason." Glory, hallelujah!

Here’s the problem with that interpretation: the prodigal son was not a 20th Century American. (And I say 20th century, not 21st century, because it is rather well documented that an increasing number of young men in our society actually make a lifestyle out of not striking out on their own to make their way in the world, but rather mooch off of their parents until they’re in their thirties or later. In 21st century America, it might be argued that the prodigal son is the 30-year-old who lives in mom’s basement, because it’s easier than becoming his own man and being a productive member of society.) But according to the 20th century model – the model that most of us still think of as a “normal”, societal expectation – a young man finishes his academic career and then leaves the nest, finding a career and a life partner, and eventually becoming the head of his own household.

That is entirely different from the societal norms of Judea in the time of Jesus. His world was mostly agrarian, meaning that the majority of people survived through subsistence farming in a rural setting, not urban or suburban lifestyles. Imagine the American Midwest during the 1920s and ‘30s, and you’d have a somewhat closer idea. Nine out of ten of Jesus’ listeners were probably rural farmers, just like the family in the parable, which is why so many of his parables are about planting, sowing, harvesting, etc. Their land was their livelihood. They received it in trust from their ancestors and they held it in trust for their children. A great deal depended on being and having good neighbors. You counted on your neighbors, the same way they counted on you. You invited them to your parties and they, in turn, invited you to theirs. More often than not, your children probably married their children, strengthening the bonds between your families. In the world where Jesus lived and preached, an individual had little meaning apart from his or her family. Who you were wasn’t nearly as important as whom you came from. One was judged not only by one’s own accomplishments, but also by the reputation of one’s family.

When the younger son asked for his share of the family property, he dealt his father a terrible blow. He not only meant to break up the estate; he also meant to abandon his father, who counted on both of his sons to care for him in his old age. There was no Social Security. Without children to care for you in your old age, you were as good as dead. That’s why parents had eight or nine children, instead of two or three. And if there was a mother upstairs listening from behind some bedroom door, then she was as good as dead, too. When her husband died, his entire estate would go to his sons, not to her. She needed both of her sons to insure her survival. But the younger son was not thinking about his mother, his father, his family’s honor or the well-being of his village community. He was thinking about himself—what he needed, what he wanted, who he hoped he may turn out to be. Being in relationship with others was not high on his list of priorities; “being his own man” was.

Besides, in Jesus’ time, being a patriarch – the oldest ranking male in your family – was a different affair than being a father today. Patriarchs did not try to be their children’s “friend”. Patriarchs were people of dignity; he would never be expected to “run” to greet anyone. And even more importantly, patriarchs did not plead with their children; rather, patriarchs told their children what to do, and were obeyed – every time. So, told in the context of that kind of culture, this parable wasn't that of The Prodigal Son, but rather the parable of The Dysfunctional Family—a story about a weak patriarch with an absentee wife and two rebellious sons he seems unable to control, who is willing to sacrifice his honor to keep his community together. The father is happy that his son has returned to help the family, and doesn’t care one whit about what the son has learned from his mistakes. It’s a parable about the high cost of reconciliation, in which individual worth, identity and rightness are all thrown out the window so that those as good as dead in their division may yet live together in reconciliation and peace. It's not a story about redemption, then, but one about reunion. Relinquishing individual freedom for the sake of one’s community? Why, that sounds downright un-American!

There was a time in American history when our society had much more in common with Jesus’ community than it does today. This past Friday, a church Elder and I traveled around the area, bringing communion to some of the folks from our congregation who aren’t able to make it to church anymore. Several of those stops became trips down memory lane, and I learned about who lived near whom, and how everyone used to know everyone else. During one of these conversations, the Elder said, “I don’t know who you’re talking about. Once you move out to the country like I did, you stop meeting people on the street, so you aren’t able to keep up with their lives anymore.”

When you look at the houses on the main streets of Chester, West Virginia, where I currently serve, you can tell that they were built in a bye-gone time, because they almost all share one common architectural artifact: a front porch. Back in the day, when this nation was being built and towns like Chester were flourishing, community mattered. People knew their neighbors and could count on their help in time of need. Back then, houses were built with front porches, because families would sit out on those front porches to have fellowship with one another and watch the world go by in the cool of the evening. And since your front porch was only a few feet from your neighbor’s front porch, conversations were struck up, neighborhood kids played together, mothers looked out for each others’ children, and the successes and failures of each family were the success and failures of all of them.

Have you had occasion to look at the houses being built today? Perhaps you even live in one! Houses – especially in so-called “neighborhoods” built by developers, out in the suburbs – no longer have front porches. Instead, they have back decks. And these back decks are surrounded by what they call “privacy fences”. They’re not the property demarcation lines of the old days (a bush here, a tree there), or even chain-link fences to keep the dog in the yard or the kids hemmed in for safety. They are seven-foot high, opaque barriers that scream, “Don’t look at us! We don’t want to know you! What we do is none of your business!”

It’s not that back decks and privacy fences have caused us not to know our neighbors, either. It’s the inverse that’s true: we build privacy fences and back decks so that we don’t have to interact with our neighbors. America’s sense of community has seriously degenerated, and we are the worse off for it. Once upon a time, the “rugged individual” was the subject of tall tales and was hero-worshiped by a society that marveled at their achievements while at the same time continuing to hunker down in the safety of their neighborhoods. Striking out on one’s own was not the norm, and so when it happened, it struck society as something of a marvel.

But the days of the Bedford Falls Savings and Loan have been replaced with online banking in such a way that you never have to interact with a human being. You can open your account online, direct-deposit your paycheck, manage your account on the bank’s website, and even pay your bills electronically. Just as we don’t seem to need paper money anymore, we also don’t seem to need the man or woman who used to hand it to us at the teller’s window. Even at Wal-mart and grocery stores, we can scan our own purchases in self-service lines, ensuring that we never have to interact with people.

But look at small towns in America today. By and large, young men and women no longer stay home -- or even return home after school – to live and work in their hometowns, anymore. Church congregations have dwindled, in part, because we’ve lost whole generations of “go getters” who have ventured out into the world to “do for themselves.” And we applaud them, and are proud of their making something of themselves... And then we plead with them to come home for a weekend, because we need their help putting up our privacy fence in the back.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is not just about one man’s reconciliation with God (a very 20th Century American way to read the parable), but also about a community’s reconciliation with itself. In his day, the young brother in Jesus’ parable would have become the scorn of his community – no longer welcome in the village, because of the way he abandoned his family and his neighbors in a selfish act of self-actualization. “Great men never run in public,” Aristotle said. When the Prodigal Son returned home with nothing, it may be that his father ran to meet him in the road, because by embracing his son in the full view of his entire community, he was rescuing his son from the lynching his honor-based society might have felt he deserved. If the father could get to his child before the village did, then he could save his son from being cut off. He could save his relationship with his son and his family’s relationship with the village all at the same time. This reconciliation would cost him his honor—his greatness in others’ eyes—but that was a price he was willing to pay. By embracing the prodigal boy, he put his honor on the line to save his child.

And because the father threw a feast for his beleaguered son – a feast to which every neighbor in the village would have been invited – he ensured that his son would be reconciled not only to himself, but to the entire community. The prodigal was saved by being restored to relationship with his father, his family, his clan, his village—who were also saved by the father’s willingness to be a really poor patriarch, because acts of reconciliation heal wounds on both sides of a separation. The reconciliation of his community meant more to him than his own honor. And isn’t that the God we know?

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us… For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

God debased himself in Christ – cast aside his own honor – in order to reconcile the whole human community, not only to himself, but to one another. In Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection, God tore down the privacy fence around the back deck that kept us from knowing him, and stepped out, the Word-made-flesh, onto the front porch, becoming an approachable member of our human community. As Christians, who, as Paul reminds us, have been entrusted with the message of reconciliation, we, too, must leave behind our back decks and our privacy fences, step out onto our front porches, and build the relationships that make for a caring, loving, just society.

Tended by the Gardener

2010-03-09T11:54:00.000-08:00

Isa. 55:1-13

Luke 13:1-9

Why is it that people insist on the belief that God is wrathful and petty? I’m not talking about a certain category of people – I think I may actually be talking about everyone. One of the most commonly discussed theological conundrums – the question of theodicy – asks “Why do bad things happen to good people?” We’re appalled by world events such as the two earthquakes that have rocked our hemisphere in recent months. How could God allow so many innocent people to suffer?

Even worse than the idea that God “allows” such things to befall the innocent is the belief, held by certain Christian “leaders” who, most unfortunately, have a media outlet through which to spew their drivel, that the people who have suffered and died in these natural disasters deserved their fate. The same was said of New Orleans following hurricane Katrina. Such people suggest that “Bad things happen to bad people.” Whatever they’ve done, God knows of it, and is apparently punishing them.

I don’t believe it for a second. But I can’t deny that we have, at least in the back of our minds, this notion that God is not above a little smiting if he finds himself displeased with out behavior.

But we rarely, if ever, ask the inverse question: why do good things happen to bad people? After all, if good things happen to bad people, then either God is completely arbitrary and perhaps even nuts, or God is unrelentingly evil. How could Christians who smile and proclaim that “God is love” or that “God is good all the time” on Sunday mornings (while their pastors are watching), sit in their homes or places of work and fret over the nagging thought that maybe God isn’t good at all, but punishes the good while rewarding evil?

Spiritual direction is the practice of helping others discern God’s will, action and direction in their lives. I have a spiritual director that I see once a month. I would go so far as to say that every pastor ought to have one. After all, whether we’re trained in spiritual direction or not, there is a certain extent to which all pastors are called upon by others to do that sort of work, at least from time to time. And just as every therapist has a therapist, and every doctor has a doctor, every pastor should have a pastor. In our Gospel lesson, Jesus points out just how bad people are at interpreting the work and will of God in their lives. As he was teaching his followers, some who were present told him about a group of Galileans who had met a terrible fate at the hands of Pilate. Was it because they were bad people? “No!” Jesus said, “they were no worse than you – but if you don’t repent of your sins, your end will be no better than theirs, either. Remember the group of people who were killed when the tower collapsed and crushed them? Do you think their sins were worse than anyone else’s in Jerusalem? Of course not. But unless you repent, you, too, will perish.”

Is it simply human nature to assume that if bad things happen to people, it’s because they have done something wrong? Logically, no. If we all assumed that, we’d never ask “why do bad things happen to good people?” because we’d have to assume that they weren’t good people. That was the assumption of Job’s friends, who argued repeatedly that if Job was suffering, it must be because he’d sinned; there was simply no other explanation. (God refuted this assumption not by saying that it wasn’t true, but simply by saying, “what makes you think you could understand my ways, even if you tried?”) Notice that Jesus not only responded to his followers’ question about Pilate’s cruelty, but also commented on a second incident. In so doing, he is able to comment on tragedy that is caused by human hands and tragedy that happens naturally or accidentally. On both counts, he outright dismisses the notion that the victims are being punished by God for their misdeeds. The Galileans who were killed by Pilate were no worse than any other Galileans, and the eighteen who died when the tower of Siloam collapsed were not more guilty than the other citizens of Jerusalem. It’s not like God had cooked up these means of dispatching with a few sinners. Rather, according to Jesus, anything can happen to anyone at any time, not because they are selected, but because that’s the nature of the world we live in. In other words, Jesus’ profound theological statement in today's reading was to say, perhaps with a shrug of the shoulders, “It is what it is.”

Whether from an intruder’s gun, a hurricane, an earthquake, or the growth of a tumor, people die on this planet for no other reason than because they are mortal, and that’s how the world works. Given this, Jesus teaches, is it not better to “get right with God and others” sooner rather than later, just in case?

Thankfully, Jesus also softens the blow of his matter-of-fact teaching about the nature of things by reminding us that God is good all the time. While the fig tree has never produced fruit – never really been good for anything – the gardener working the vineyard talks the tree’s owner into giving the tree another chance. The owner agrees to allow it the chance to grow into what it was meant to be: a producer of good fruit. Likewise, our God, full of grace, has not given up on any of us. In Jesus Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, God continues to work on us. It is true that in this world, given the way it works, we might die at any time. But in the meantime, God keeps working – giving us more time, giving us more chances, fertilizing us with spiritual food in the hopes that his work will produce growth and maturity.

Our reading from the prophet Isaiah is the perfect complement to the idea that despite our deep concerns about the nature of God, and our misgivings about our place in a fallen and broken world, God is good, and has plans that far exceed our feeble efforts to understand the machinations of the cosmos. Just as Jesus taught his followers “unless you repent, you will all perish as they did” – not because God targets the unrighteous, but because when death comes as it comes to us all, you don’t want to be caught with your pants down – so the Lord exhorts his people through the prophet. “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, so that he may have mercy on them… for he will abundantly pardon.” Even here, in the words of an Old Testament prophet, God is revealing his desire to pardon, his eternal hope that we will want to be reconciled to the God who loves us. He’s just hanging around, hoping that we’ll want to have a relationship of love and trust with him!

Why should we? Given how screwed up the world appears to be from our perspective, why should we entrust ourselves – our lives, our love, our plans – to a God who, from our perspective, can seem distant and arbitrary?

A little boy was playing with his toys on the living room, when he looked up at his mother, who was seating on the couch with an embroidery hoop in her hands, working on a counted cross-stitch project. Looking at his mother’s work, he was wholly unimpressed.

“Mommy, what are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m making something beautiful for you,” she said.

“It just looks like a knotted-up mess to me,” he replied.

“Well,” she said with a warm smile, “from where you’re sitting, you can’t see what I’m seeing. But when I am finished, I will take you in my arms, and pick you up and put you on me knee. You will able to see my work from my point of view. And then you will see how beautiful my work is, and understand how important all of those knots and strings were to my work.”

In Isaiah, God says, “my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways… For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Just wait until my work is done! the Lord says. Then I will show you the beauty of what I have wrought, and you will understand that my plans are not only different than yours, they are infinitely better.

God is accomplishing this marvelous work with all the care and grace of a master gardener. Just as the rain and snow water the earth so that it brings forth and sprouts, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so does the Word of God accomplish God’s purposes and succeed in the thing for which God sent Him. And what is it that God works to accomplish? Wholeness and joy – not just for some, but for all the earth and everything that is in it. “You shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace, and the mountains and the hills will break forth in song before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands!” Joy and shalom, the peace which passes all understanding – the peace that comes with wholeness, fulfillment and the absence of all struggle. That is what God is achieving in Jesus Christ, the work of the Gardener tending to each and every one of us. While it happens in ways that seem messy and arbitrary, God is not the perpetrator of every evil that befalls us, it’s just the way the world works. One day, we shall “know fully, even as we have been fully known,” and God’s work of reconciling all things unto himself will be accomplished to shouts of joy and praise from all of creation!

More Than Mere Flattery

2010-03-04T18:54:00.000-08:00

Phil. 3:17-4:1

Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky,

Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky, And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers, And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky, And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky And they all look just the same.
There's a green one and a pink one And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky, And they all look just the same.
(Malvina Reynolds, 1962)

It is often said that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. After all, if we find ourselves mimicked by others, ought we not to feel flattered that our ideas, tastes and whatnot are so highly prized and appreciated? There is a new social science that is gaining a lot of attention called Memetics, which is the study of how single units of cultural ideas, symbols or practices are transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. In other words, it is the advanced study of fads. Cultural phenomena that “catch on” and are transmitted across social strata are the social equivalent to genes, which transmit data across generations, and are equally susceptible to Darwinian notions of natural selection. For instance, let’s say I make up the word “Ishkabibble,” in the hopes that it will “catch on” and gain common usage in everyday speech. There’s a chance that this word will gain acceptance and be spread around the world, much like a virus. And, like a virus, both its pronunciation and its meaning may mutate over time. Eventually, it will either become completely pervasive in human culture, or it will “go extinct.” Memetics, then, really is to sociology what genetics is to biology, and, like the gene is the basic building block of life, the meme is the basic building block of cultural constructs.

Why is this important? Why did someone even come up with this theory?? Well, one need spend very little time on social networking Internet sites like Facebook to see memetics at work. Someone comes up with an idea for a personal status update. Next thing you know, people are reposting it all over the place. Over time, one might see several friends post the same phrase our thought as their status update, and even witness minor changes that show how this short-lived meme has mutated or evolved.

This seems like it should be a new field of study, based largely on the speed-of-light information age and its ability to spread such cultural constructs around the world in the blink of an eye. But the theory that gave birth to this new science was first written about in the 1970’s. While memetics may be more relevant than previously understood because of the speed with which information is shared today, memes have always been the most basic unit of cultural construction. If you mention Alka-Seltzer to my parents or grandparents, they may launch into a rousing rendition of “plop-plop, fizz-fizz, oh what a relief it is!” But if you sing that song to a teenager, he’ll probably look at you like you have two heads. The reason? Because that meme – that cultural construct that lived for years in our social consciousness – has, in recent times, gone extinct.

Believe it or not, our scripture reading from Philippians is about the science of memetics. The Philippians to which Paul was writing were apparently concerned or confused about how the Christian faith ought to direct one’s life. It was the third decade of the Christian movement, and Christians were asking what their faith meant for the character of their lives. To some who delighted in the law of the Jewish heritage and found it saving, the teachings of Jesus Christ enriched the Law. Legalistic and ascetic Christians were able to add new requirements to the old Law, making it even more strict (Gal. 3:1-5; Phil. 3:2). To still others, the gospel meant freedom. They had come to believe that salvation was not the result of their obedience to the law, but the free gift of God’s love, and what mattered now was a faith that worked through love (Gal. 5:6).

And among those who celebrated this good news of freedom were persons who neglected this positive use of faith’s freedom to do works of love, and instead held that “all things were lawful” (1 Cor. 6:12) and celebrated as “freedom” the license for a self-indulgent, prodigal and uncaring life. Each of these was an interpretation of what Christ and the “Christ event” meant, but surely they couldn’t all be right!

Paul posits two possible options for living in response to Christ. The first, mentioned in verse 17, is that the readers ought to live according to the example they had in Paul and the other Apostles. The second option, found in verses 18 and 19, is to live “as enemies of the cross of Christ.” While the right choice seems rather obvious, in verses 20 and 21 Paul indicates why he believes his readers should (and did) pursue the first option, saying, “Our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Those labeled “enemies of the cross of Christ” are those whose minds are set on earthly things. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame. They are people concerned only with consumption and with satisfying their own urges. They are people who heap shame upon themselves before God in their effort to achieve earthly glory, claiming all the while that it is their “freedom” in Christ that allows them to behave in these ways. Salvation is by grace, through faith, Paul would argue, but while nothing is required of us, much is expected.

And so, Paul teaches, a better interpretation of the Christian life is called for. How might one learn to live the Christian life? By imitating Paul of course! He uses the Greek word from which we get words like mimic, mimeograph, mime, and the name of that new science: memetics.

What Paul was arguing was that new Christians do, and should, learn how to live the Christian life by observing and imitating the actions and attitude of older, more mature Christians. While he couldn’t have known that an entire science would one day develop to study the phenomenon, Paul was advocating the development and spread of Christian cultural memes – actions, beliefs, teachings, liturgies, hymns, and all manner of other cultural artifacts that would cause Christianity to spread from person to person, family to family, community to community, nation to nation. Because of his advocacy of memetic development, the Christian faith became a basic building block of Western Society! Without his prolific writing and teaching, any memes the early Christian community developed might have failed to spread, causing Christianity to go the way of the Dodo bird. Still not sure if cultural constructs like religion can go extinct? How many Druids do you know? How many worshipers of Zeus? Or Athena? Or Venus?

Philippians isn’t the only place where Paul’s grasp of memetics is evident. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” he wrote earlier in Philippians. “Be imitators of me,” he wrote to the Corinthians, “as I am of Christ”. Like Jesus, they were not to regard equality with God as something to be grasped. Rather, they were to empty themselves of their selfishness and live their lives out in service to one another; “to the point of death, even death on a cross.” What warrants imitation here is not a new list of rules for behavior, but of a new perspective. From this perspective, one approaches life motivated not by “selfish ambition or conceit,” but by a concern that “looks. . . to the interests of others.” This perspective Paul calls the “same mind.” It is a mind like that of Jesus Christ, and is worthy of imitation. In fact, over the course of two chapters, Paul outlines this point: Don’t be like the enemies of the cross, who call themselves Christians but who are self-indulgent, self-important people; rather, empty yourself and live for others, imitating Christ, who utterly emptied himself for us.

Bishop Fitzgerald, in his book How to be A Successful Failure, tells the story of a young man, barely twenty years old, who was caught one day stealing sheep. He was charged and convicted. As a penalty, the villagers decided to make an example out of him. They took a branding iron and branded his forehead with the letters “ST”, meaning, of course, “Sheep Thief.” The brand was a permanent and constant source of shame to the young man. Penitent, he turned to God. He asked God for forgiveness. He asked God to help him overcome his label. He was determined not to be remembered as a thief.

With courage and with God’s help, he began to live in a new way, giving to others, helping others in every way. He performed endless small acts of kindness for everyone. He was thoughtful, helpful, compassionate, caring, generous and always dependable. Years and years went by, and he became an old man. One day a visitor came to the village. He saw this elderly man and wondered about the letters on his forehead. He asked the people of the village what the “ST” on the man’s forehead stood for. Strangely, no one could remember anymore, but they suggested that perhaps the “ST” was an abbreviation for the word “Saint”.

The ultimate goal of the Christian faith – the very reason for Christian discipleship – is to attain Christ-likeness: to have the same mind that was in Christ. We learn Christ-likeness by the study of scripture, yes, but how much more so by the passing of our faith from generation to generation, and by the example that mature Christians provide for immature ones! From great hymns of the faith that teach us the essential tenets of theology, to Advent candle lighting, to the prayers we say before meals as a family, these memes that communicate our faith get passed from person to person, family to family, community to community, and around the world, ensuring that faith in Jesus Christ, our only Savior and Lord, never goes extinct.

Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes all the same.
And the people in the houses All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes And they came out all the same,
And there’s doctors and lawyers, And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky, And they all look just the same.

Imitation may be the greatest form of flattery, but we’re not talking about imitation for the sake of flattery, or for the sake of fitting into a cookie-cutter Christian faith. Imitation that flatters is for the self-indulgent, self-important “enemies of the cross” who believe that Christ has set them free from social responsibility. And the imitation of a cookie-cutter faith is for those who love the Law so much that they need to discipline themselves and others to abide by its strictures – even if the homogenous Christian community they create in doing so is made out of nothing but ticky tacky, and they all look just the same.

On the night of his arrest, Jesus said to his disciples, “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example, that you should do as I have done for you… As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13) The imitation of Christ communicates the gospel through acts of faithful discipleship, as we empty ourselves for the sake of others, just as Christ did for us.

Move That Ball!

2010-02-15T09:48:00.000-08:00

1 Cor. 15:1-11

Luke 5:1-11

(With gratitude to John A. Stroman for inspiring this football analogy with a sermon of his, which was based on a different scripture reading and which went in an entirely different direction!)

I don’t know if you heard, but last week was Superbowl Sunday. I managed to not watch a single playoff football game this year, because the Steelers didn’t make the tournament. And although I felt as though the “Big Game” was completely inconsequential for me – and frankly the entire world – because the Steelers weren’t in it, nonetheless I gathered together with people from all over the world in a kind of communion: the cultural phenomenon that is the Superbowl Party.

At such a communion, every favor that a wife asks of her husband is answered the same way: “Wait until this next play is over.” And most people would rather get up for more food during the game than during the commercial breaks, for fear of missing the one everyone will be talking about tomorrow. American football has a hold on our psyche and culture in a way that other sports just don’t. In early September, a husband says to his wife as he turns on the television for the first game of the season, “Dear, do you have any final words before the season begins?” One wife, who'd had all she could stand of football, turned off the television, stood in front of it, and crossed her arms, saying to her husband, “I believe you love football more than you love me.” The husband thought about it for a moment and then said, “But I love you more than volleyball.”

The sport of American football has evolved a great deal since its early days. Innovations like the forward pass changed the game from a boring, rugby derivative into a blood-pumping source of excitement and highlight reels. The most significant change over the years has been the deployment of two separate teams, one for offense and one for defense. In its formative years, it was not uncommon for a player to play the entire game, on both sides of the ball. Today, the modern football player is either an offensive or defensive specialist. Even the cheerleaders have a set of cheers for each team. When the defensive team is on the field they shout, “Hold that line! Hold that line!” But when the offensive teams takes over they yell out, “Move that ball! Move that ball!”

According to Luke, when Jesus met his first couple of disciples, he was already a sensation, having previously begun a preaching and healing ministry. It was while walking along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, a crowd of followers pressing in to hear from him, that Jesus leapt into the boat of Simon, a man he had recently met when healing his mother-in-law. Rowing a little way from the shore so that he could be seen and heard apart from the pressing crowd, he sat down and began to teach.

Jesus then turned to his fishermen friends and asked to be rowed into deeper waters. “Put out your nets for a catch,” he suggested.

“But we’ve been fishing all night – working ourselves to the point of exhaustion – and haven’t caught a darned thing,” Simon replied. “The fish just aren’t biting. But,” he said with a shrug, “if you say so…”

No sooner had they dropped their nets than their nets were beginning to break with the strain of so many fish! They had to call to their friends in another boat to come and help haul the catch in, and ended up filling both boats will so many fish that they began to sink! Simon fell to his knees before Jesus, saying, “I can’t have you near me, Lord. I’m too sinful to be in your presence!”

“Don’t be afraid,” Jesus replied. “Stick with me, and you’ll soon be catching just as many people.” Thus, Jesus began to assemble his team, and would spend the next few years preparing them for the “big game.” The gospel accounts make it clear that the disciples didn’t know much about the game: they seemed confused about offensive schemes, sometimes they didn’t know whether they were on offense or defense, and Simon – who, like Chad Ochocinco, would change the name on the back of his jersey (to Peter) – was particularly prone to fumbles.

After Jesus’ death, the team these men played for began to franchise, chartering a league filled with various teams in locations all over the place. The teams varied in character and in strengths, some had better records than others, some employed different schemes. But one thing remained essentially true of all of the early teams the Apostles franchised: they were all offensive powerhouses.

The saints who came before us were offense oriented. They knew that their mission was to move the ball down the field. First there were twelve, then, in the Upper Room 120, then 3,000 at the day of Pentecost, after Peter preached his first sermon. In fact, for the first four hundred years, the Christian fellowship was a dynastic juggernaut!

Every “big game” needs an MVP, and in today’s reading from 1 Corinthians, Paul makes a case for his nomination. In retrospect, we know Paul as a hall-of-famer, but at the time he was writing to the Corinthians, there was no guarantee that, with the game on the line, the team would be able to pull out a victory. Just as today’s players seem to have the uncanny ability to recall every play of a game as if they were etched forever in their memory, Paul remembers every play of the game he played as quarterback. He starts by talking about setting the rhythm of the offense with a hand-off: “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.” (15:3) What makes Paul’s journey to the hall of fame all the more compelling is that he wasn’t even a starter! “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” (15:8-9) Noting the adversity through which he had to work, Paul sums up his game-winning drive: “On the contrary, I worked harder than most – though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or the whole team, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.” (15:10b-11)

But something happened in the centuries that followed. The Church started to resemble a team who had run up the score and then only wanted to run out the clock. A malaise came over the church. It became defensive, producing a fortress mentality, a kind of spiritual protectionism. Even today, there is a widespread desire to hold, protect, and keep what we have by avoiding risk. The cry is, “Hold that line!” and we have lapsed into a prevent defense in the hopes that we can hold on, run out the clock, and receive our trophy when the Commissioner takes the field.

But football buffs know all too well how weak the prevent defense really is. It allows the opponent to make short gains while attempting to contain big plays. In the end though, allowing those short gains can be enough to lose the game. What we need to do is stop the clock, call a time out, huddle up, and do some serious thinking together. Let’s consider the same important question that the Steelers will be asking themselves in the off-season: how did we get here? How did the Superbowl champions grow so complacent that they allowed the playoffs to drift out of reach?

We have to start with the first point of the question: we were the defending champions! We got to where we were because the saints before us were willing to carry the ball forward. J.B. Phillips in the introduction to his book, The Young Church in Action, says of the early church:

Here we see Christianity, the real thing, in action for the first time in human history. The young church is appealing in its simplicity and single-mindedness. Here we see the church... valiant and unspoiled -- a body of ordinary men and women joined in an unconquerable fellowship never before seen on the earth... There is someone at work here besides mere human beings... never before has any small body of ordinary people so moved the world that their enemies could say with tears in their eyes, that these men and women “have turned the world upside down.”

We got to where we were because of the readiness of these saints to believe, to obey, to give, to suffer, and if need be to die, in order to establish a community of believers united in love and faith. They pursued a life of relationship with God that is almost unknown to us today. And their rallying cry was never, “Hold that line,” but always, “Move that ball!”

Today, we need to honestly assess ourselves as a church. Is my denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA), shouting, “Move that ball!” or has it grown content with “Hold that line”?

Declines in PC(USA) membership and worship attendance are noteworthy. Down nearly 200,000 members in the five years between 1999 and 2004, the PC(USA) experienced a five-year net membership decline larger than any other mainline denomination. The PC(USA)’s five-year percentage decline in membership (8%) was at least double that of the other two large mainline denominations for which membership figures are available (ELCA, down 4%; United Methodist Church, down 2%). In the five years since, mainline denominations such as our own have continued to decline in membership, and every person who is asked has an opinion about why. Some say we’re too liberal, caving to pressure from the prevailing culture and abandoning the confessional nature of the faith we inherited. Others argue that we’re too conservative, no longer living out the love that Christ calls us to, and therefore, the world no longer sees us as a place of welcome.

The truth as I see it is that it has nothing to do with whether our denomination is conservative or liberal (in fact, in our denomination, there is a church for you regardless of your personal leanings, if you’re only willing to look). Rather, our problem is the same as that which has paralyzed the U.S. Congress: party politics in which both sides feel as though winning victory over one another is of greater importance than the great commission. For the Congress, the "great commission" is to govern responsibly for the greatest benefit of the American people. Because of ridiculous, counter-productive political wrangling, that rarely happens.

The same, unfortunately, has been true in the church. Millions of dollars and some 15 or 20 years of our time have been spent arguing over who should be allowed to sleep with whom in our denomination, while what Jesus commissioned us to do is “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” (Matt. 28:19-20)

As a result of political infighting and a lack of zeal for evangelism, the PC(USA) has spent the past fifty years in constant and dramatic decline. Our rallying cry has been “Hold that line!” and yet we find that we cannot even do that. The have to stop telling ourselves that if we just hunker down we’ll be able to scrape by and keep our doors open. Instead, we need to go on offense. We need to “Move that ball!” We need more Presbyteries to do what Pittsburgh Presbytery and the Upper Ohio Valley Presbytery have done – form administrative commissions to plant new churches (which, research shows, grow at exponential rates, even when other churches of the same denomination already exist nearby). We need more congregations to push more chips onto the table in order to fling wide our doors and find ways to reach out to meet the needs of our immediate community. Our mission is not just to send preachers to Ecuador or Ghana or Romania; our mission is to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with the throngs of people in our own local communities who have never seen the inside of a church before! We need to stop “holding that line,” out of fear of dying, and start “moving that ball,” putting our hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, who continues to say to us, “Don’t be afraid! Come, follow me, and from now on you’ll be catching people.”

No More Kidding Around!

2010-02-02T08:33:00.000-08:00

Jer. 1:4-10
1 Cor. 13:1-13
Luke 4:21-30

When I graduated from high school, I was the same height that I am now – about 5’ 11” tall – but only weighed between 135 and 140 pounds. I basically looked like a lollipop – a stick for a body with a big, round head on top! So I went off to college that way, not realizing that although I didn’t remember thinking of myself as a “late bloomer” back in middle school, I was, apparently, a “late finisher.” I know everyone goes off to college and puts on the “freshman fifteen,” but I put on the freshman twenty, and then went back the following year to put on some sopho-more. By the time I graduated from the College of Wooster, I weighed in at about 180 lbs. Forty pounds more than I’d weighed in high school, and yet I still wasn’t fat. The reason is that when I'd graduated from high school, I'd still had the body frame of a little boy. My shoulders didn’t broaden in the fashion of a typical man until half way through college. I would come home from college and my mom would say, “Well, didn’t you look at how your clothes fit and realize that you were growing?” And I’d say, “Well, since I do my own laundry at school, I just assumed that everything had shrunk!”

We have not one, not two, but three scripture readings this week, and all of them are about, as Paul puts it, "putting away childish things." Jeremiah was a prophet who was apparently somewhat more youthful than the average prophet. Honestly, you can’t blame the kid for not wanting to be a prophet. It was a tough gig. No one ever liked what you had to say; you were always preaching doom and gloom in the name of the Lord, usually to someone like the king, who could have you killed by any number of imaginative means. Like pretty much every prophet, when Jeremiah was called by God his initial response was to protest. Moses was called out by the burning bush and his attempt to get out of the job was to say, “Me don’t talk good.” But God saw through that charade and said, “Alright, well we’ll have your brother Aaron do the talking, then.” And so Moses was stuck. Isaiah was sitting in worship one day and seraphim suddenly appeared on the scene. Now, Isaiah seemed to know what the Seraphim were there for, so he started in the with excuses right away: “Don’t look at me, I’ve got a dirty mouth!” So a seraph took a red-hot coal from the fire and burned Isaiah’s mouth with it and then said, “Any more complaints… prophet?” And then the voice of the Lord said, “whom shall I send?” And Isaiah, through burned lips and probably still staring in shock at the angel who’d just traumatized him, “I’m here, Lord; send me!”

And so now, here’s Jeremiah. Young kid, probably sleeping through the sermon. And the word of the Lord came to him saying, “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb, I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Now, that’s heady stuff – before he’d even been formed in his mother’s womb, God had known him and had already chosen him as a prophet. That is some serious predestination! In fact, this is one of those passages that is often pointed to during conversations about election and vocation.

So Jeremiah’s complaint – because every prophet has one – was, “Oh I can’t help you, God. I’m just a kid, and I never took public speaking in high school.” Now, this is a lame excuse for two reasons. First and foremost, being young does not mean that you have nothing to contribute to the building of the Kingdom. In a church where I served as Associate Pastor of Youth and Young Adult Ministry, the congregation elected teenage deacons and elders every year. The congregation recognized that as full-fledged members of the congregation, they not only had a stake in the leadership of the church, but also had an important perspective to contribute, and special gifts to offer.

Secondly, of course, Jeremiah’s objection was lame because lack of preparation is no hindrance to the will of God whatsoever. We need to keep in mind that God rarely (if ever) calls the equipped; God equips the called. God doesn’t need what we have – but we need what he gives us in order to accomplish anything good!

I used to really relate to Jeremiah. I was still in college when I first heard God calling me to the ministry; I, too, felt too young and woefully unprepared. But as God responded to Jeremiah, God likewise said to me, “You let me worry about that.” So applied and was accepted to seminary. The summer between college and seminary, I served as an intern at my home church, planning a mission trip for the teenagers, planning social outings for the rest of the congregation, and traveling with youth from my Presbytery to a major youth convention in Indiana. At the end of the summer, as was customary for ministry interns, I was invited to preach. That’s when I stopped feeling like Jeremiah, and started feeling like Jesus must have felt in today's reading.

You see, I was given the privilege of the pulpit, but no instruction about how to handle the power and responsibility that came with it. All I knew was that pulpits were for preaching, so that’s what I did. I preached a sermon titled, “And Do Not Hinder Them.” The sermon lasted for 35 minutes. (Among other things, I didn’t know how long a sermon was supposed to be – I just figured I’d write until I ran out of things to say, which I did… about 15 pages in.) And my scripture, of course, was Jesus saying of the children surrounding him, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to them belongs the Kingdom of God.” My sermon was a 35 minute complaint and tirade about the church's draconian worship style and the obvious disenfranchisement of the youth in my home congregation. Over the course of 35 long minutes of smug, arrogant condescension, I systematically explained how my beloved family of faith was destroying the faith of its young people.

While what I had to say was right -- and the congregation did need to hear it -- my tone and delivery were very wrong, and the congregation was not spiritually equipped to hear it. I wonder if Jesus didn't know just how that felt after preaching in Nazareth. He was invited to preach to his home congregation, too. He carefully chose a passage that he knew his congregation needed to hear, and his message was right on the money. But his message (your God is too small) was not well received at all. At first, “all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” (Luke 4:22) The same thing happened to me. “Oh, Matt, thank you so much for giving us your perspective on the youth ministry here. We need more young leaders in the church like you. We’re so proud to be sending you off to seminary!” (In retrospect, perhaps I should have heard that last as "We're so glad you'll be leaving town soon!")

And then the real grumbling began. “Wait a minute. We’re talking about Joseph’s boy, here. Who is he to preach to the people who raised him, like he knows something that we don’t?” Next thing Jesus knew, the crowd was beginning to turn on him, and he began to realize that the old proverb was true: A prophet is not without honor, except in his own hometown.

When leaders in my congregation started to turn on me, offended that I’d called them out from the pulpit, I came to understand the truth of that proverb myself. It can be very difficult to speak hard Biblical truths to people who’ve known you since you wore diapers – especially when, as was the case with me, you still have a lot of growing up to do.

Perhaps the reason I was always hesitant to "grow up" was because I’m told that growing older is a little like a lady goes to the bar on a cruise ship and orders a Scotch with two drops of water. As the bartender gives her the drink she says, “I’m on this cruise to celebrate that today is my 80th birthday.”

The bartender says, “Well, since it’s your birthday, this drink is on me."

As the woman finishes her drink, the woman to her right says, “I would like to buy you a drink, too.”

The old woman says, “Thank you. Bartender, I have another Scotch with two drops of water.”

As she finishes that drink, the man to her left says, “Let me buy you one, too!”

The old woman says, “Thank you, friend. Bartender, I want another Scotch with two drops of water.”

As he gives her the drink, he says, “Ma’am, I’m dying of curiosity. Why do you order the Scotch with only two drops of water?”

And the old woman replies, “Sonny, by the time you’re my age, you’ve learned how to hold your liquor. Holding your water, on the other hand, is a whole other issue.”

At the end of the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul concludes his “love chapter” by saying, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I am fully known.” (13:11-12) All of those analogies point to the same thing: maturity. I once saw a sign hanging up in a business that said, “Teenagers: Tired of being harassed by your stupid parents? Act now! Move out, get a job, and pay your own way while you still know everything!” Teenagers – and even 22-year-old, seminary-bound summer interns – get a glimpse of the truth, and foolishly and arrogantly believe they know everything. But Paul says they're looking into a foggy mirror. They get the sense of things, but they aren’t seeing things clearly, yet.

“When I was a kid, I thought and acted like a kid,” Paul was saying. “But then it comes time to stop kidding around.” Being young is no excuse for not living a life of discipleship, offering your gifts and talents to the building of God’s Kingdom, or sharing your faith with others. But we must also guard against the arrogance that an immature faith can breed, when we begin to think we know all we need to know, or “understand the faith” better than someone else. While each of us is on a path to God, we all walk it differently. Maturity of faith doesn’t automatically come with age, like the broadening of a young man’s shoulders, over which he has no control. Instead, faith is more like a muscle: it develops with discipline and use.

I pray that when God calls upon you to serve his Kingdom, you won’t cite the immaturity of your faith as an excuse, like Jeremiah tried to do. Remember, God doesn’t need what you have – but he will give you everything you need to serve him.

I pray that when God calls upon you to serve his Kingdom, you won’t glimpse the Kingdom as in a foggy mirror and then speak of it with arrogance that belies spiritual immaturity, as I did before my home congregation all those years ago.

Instead, I pray that when God calls upon you to serve his Kingdom, you will have journeyed down the path with sufficient discipline that you can say, “No more kidding around, now. Here I am, Lord; send me.”

The Law, With Interpretation

2010-01-26T09:21:00.000-08:00

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Luke 4:14-21

A story is told about Fiorela Laguardia, who was mayor of New York City during the worst days of the Great Depression. He was a color character, who used to ride the New York City fire trucks, raid speakeasies with the police department, take entire orphanages to baseball games, and whenever the New York papers were on strike, he would go on the radio and read Sunday morning comics to the kids.

One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and assumed the bench. Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She told LaGuardia that her daughter’s husband had deserted her, her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving. But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges. “It’s a real bad neighborhood, your Honor,” the man told the mayor. “She’s got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson.” LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said, “I’ve got to punish you. The law makes no exceptions – ten dollars or ten days in jail.”

But even as he pronounced the sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into his hat, saying, “Here is the ten dollar fine, which I hereby remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.” So the following day, the papers reported that $47.50 was turned over to a bewildered old lady who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren, fifty cents of that amount being contributed by the red-faced grocery store owner, while some seventy petty criminals, people with traffic violations, and New York City police officers, each of whom had just paid fifty cents for the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.

One of the features of the Revised Common Lectionary is that a pastor can choose from among as many as four different passages for any given Sunday, sometimes giving him or her some choice in terms of subject matter. At other times, though, it becomes obvious that the passages were chosen to evoke a specific theme. The lectionary readings for this morning – every one of them – had something to do with the Law of God. This being the season of Epiphany (at least, in some denominations), the implication is that the Law of God is one of the ways that God has revealed himself to humanity.

In the Psalm this morning, we read that the law of the Lord is perfect, sure, right, clear, pure, true, more to be desired than gold and sweeter than honey. Moreover, by the precepts of God, his servants are warned as well as rewarded. And actually, the law has three uses: it convicts us of our sinful nature; it restrains us from sinfulness; and it guides us in an appropriate lifestyle of gratitude for God’s saving work.

Starting with the conviction of sin, this use of the Law reveals to us our need for God’s grace, because no one is able to be justified by their adherence to the Law. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23) If we never heard “love your neighbor as you love yourself,” we would have no basis for judging our own actions and realizing that we fall short.

The Flagship Hotel in Galveston, Texas, is built next to the water. Large plate glass windows adorn the ground-level dining room. Occasionally, guests used to come up with the “brilliant” idea of fishing from their balconies, located directly above the dining room. Using heavy sinkers, they would cast their hook and bait into the water. Unfortunately, the lines were sometimes too short, and the leaded sinkers would swing down and shatter the $600 windows. After spending large sums without solving the problem, the hotel management finally stumbled upon a simple solution. They removed the “No Fishing From Balcony” signs from the rooms. So, while the law usually reveals to us how our behavior falls short of God’s desires, sometimes it can open our eyes to sins we’d never have come up with on our own!

Second, the Law acts as an external discipline, necessary to restrain us in our temptation to sin. Ben Roethlisberger was the youngest signal-caller ever to win a Super Bowl, and has already done so twice. He’s an NFL superstar with any number of endorsements. Despite all that, he gained a new perspective on freedom in June of 2006, just months after winning his first Super Bowl, following a near-fatal accident when he was riding his motorcycle without a helmet. Prior to his accident, in July of 2005, ESPN reporter Andrea Kremer asked Roethlisberger to explain his decision to ride his motorcycle without a helmet.

“It’s not the law in Pennsylvania to wear a helmet. [But] Why don’t you wear a helmet?”

“Because you don’t have to,” he replied. “It’s not the law. If it was the law, I’d definitely have one on every time I rode. But it’s not the law and I know I don’t have to. You’re just more free when you’re out there with no helmet on.”

Unfortunately, Big Ben’s accident occurred less than a year later. When a driver failed to yield at an intersection in Pittsburgh, Roethlisberger was thrown into the windshield of her Chrysler minivan. His bike was totaled, and emergency surgeons spent over seven hours repairing his broken jaw, a fractured skull, missing teeth and several other facial injuries.

After being released from the hospital, Ben apologized to fans, his family, and his team for risking his life and health unnecessarily. In another interview, he was no longer so focused on taking advantage of his individual freedom: “In the past few days, I’ve gained a new perspective,” he said. “By the grace of God, I’m fortunate to be alive.” He also added that, if he ever did ride a motorcycle again, “it will certainly be with a helmet."

Ben’s accident raised questions about motorcycle helmet laws in Pennsylvania, and there is a theological analogy here. We have mandatory seatbelt and cell phone restriction laws for motorists in order to keep people safer on the roads; why not helmet requirements? Just as the civil law might restrain us from recklessness by imposing codes of conduct, so God’s Law restricts us from sin by proscribing bad behavior and imposing divine wrath upon those who refuse to obey.

Third, the Law acts as a standard for those who are saved, to help them in living in accordance with God’s will. Ideally, Christians act freely, out of love for God and gratitude for our salvation.

Rev. H. A. Ironside, in his book entitled Illustrations of Bible Truth, once told this story:

Some years ago, I had a little school for young Indian men and women, who came to my home in Oakland, California, from the various tribes in northern Arizona. One of these was a Navajo young man of unusually keen intelligence. One Sunday evening, he went with me to our young people’s meeting. They were talking about the epistle to the Galatians, and the special subject was law and grace. They were not very clear about it, and finally one turned to the Indian and said, “I wonder whether our Indian friend has anything to say about this.”

He rose to his feet and said, “Well, my friends, I have been listening very carefully, because I am here to learn all I can in order to take it back to my people. I do not understand all that you are talking about, and I do not think you do yourselves. But concerning this law and grace business, let me see if I can make it clear. I think it is like this. When Mr. Ironside brought me from his home, we took the longest railroad journey I ever took. We got out a Barstow, and there I saw the most beautiful railroad station and hotel I hae ever seen. I walked all around and saw at one end a sign, ‘Do Not Spit Here.’ I looked at that sign and the looked down at the ground and saw many had spat there, and before I thought what I was doing I spat myself. Isn’t that strange when the sign said, ‘Do Not Spit Here’?

“I come to Oakland and go to the home of the lady who invited me to dinner today and I am in the nicest home I have been in. Such beautiful furniture and carpets, I hate to step on them. I sank into a comfortable chair, and the lady said, ‘Now, John, you sit there while I go out and see whether the made has dinner ready.’ I look around at the beautiful pictures, at the grand piano, and I walk all around those rooms. I am looking for a sign; and the sign I am looking for is, ‘Do not spit here’, but I look around those two beautiful drawing rooms, and cannot find a sign like this. I think ‘What a pity when this is such a beautiful home to have people spitting all over it – to bad they don’t put up a sign!’ So I look all over that carpet, but cannot find that anybody has spat there. What a queer thing! Where the sign says, ‘Do not spit’, a lot of people spat. Where there was no sign at all, in that beautiful home, nobody spat. Now I understand! That sign is law, but inside the home it is grace. They love their beautiful home, and they want to keep it clean. They do not need a sign to tell them so. I thin that explains this law and grace business.”

As he sat down, a murmur of approval went round the room and the leader exclaimed, “I think that is the best illustration of law and grace I have ever heard.”

In this morning’s scripture reading, the Levites, as priests, function as interpreters of the law as it is read. The law, even though portrayed in this passage from Nehemiah as something of great antiquity, needed fresh interpretation in a new context, a fresh application to the present world, taking into consideration the new social, economic, and political system, and the new religious context in which the Jews who had returned from exile now found themselves. The same sentiment is present in the Gospel reading for the day. Jesus began to teach in the synagogue of his hometown of Nazareth. On one occasion, he reads from Isaiah 61. While in Isaiah these words were those of an anonymous servant, Jesus interprets them, according to Luke, in relation to himself. The prophet didn’t write the words in Isaiah 61 as if they only applied to some distant, future figure named Jesus. Rather, he was interested in the liberation of captives in his own day. Jesus saw the word of Isaiah ‘fulfilled’ in his own concern for the liberation of captives and the recovery of sight to the blind. So, too, in the reading of the ‘Law of Moses’ in Nehemiah 8. The old law was understood afresh, in the context of the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. In the continuous proclamation of the Word of God, what is old and familiar is heard afresh as it speaks to a continually changing context.

It is important to note the response of the people to the Word. In Psalm 19 the psalmist celebrates the Word of God. It is sweeter than honey, more desirable than fine gold! That same love of the law appears in Nehemiah. It is the people who first love the law. They urge Ezra to read the law, they are attentive, and they build the platform for Ezra to use for his reading. Ezra doesn’t force this law upon them; they desire to hear and understand it. While the people are grieved over the reading, because it reveals their sinfulness and because they are convicted of their neglect of God’s Word, both Ezra and the Levites entreat the people to let their grief give way to joy. On this holy day, the “joy of the Lord is the people’s strength.” The way in which the law is relevant and applicable to the people of Ezra’s time is part of the joy to be found in it. Similar joy is found in the psalmist’s exquisite words of praise for the law, and in the amazement of the people who heard Jesus’ proclamation.

Today’s readings are about both the faithful proclamation and interpretation of that word to the people, and the joyous, faithful reception of God’s word seen in the people. It is a word for both congregation and preacher. It is from this awesome combination of the preacher’s faithfulness and the congregation’s joy that the worship of God flows. The Word of God comes to life. It’s not about some abstract reverence for the ‘law of Moses’. It is about the life-giving, renewing, releasing, freeing, sight-giving nature of God’s Word, the joy that it can engender, and the joy of wanting to hear it! Let us therefore celebrate the Epiphany of God in His Word, and commit ourselves anew to the joy of its reading and interpretation!

The Best for Last

2010-01-19T07:02:00.000-08:00

John 2:1-11

It must have been one heck of a wedding. Upwards of 180 gallons of wine, after the first batch had given out?! How the guests were still standing, let alone drinking, is beyond me! Now granted, weddings were a different affair in ancient Judea than they are today. You have undoubtedly seen at least the old movie version of Fiddler on the Roof, if not a stage production. Once you got past the "Sunrise, Sunset" part – the part which bears some resemblance to weddings we've all attended – we move to the reception; the "L’chaim!" part of the show. Suddenly there are wild dances, couples being carted around on chairs, singing and hollering. Come to think of it, we have the same kind of wedding: a solemn ceremony, followed by a festive reception. But in Jesus’ time, the typical reception could last for up to seven days. So having a lot of wine on hand would have been essential.

At the wedding that Jesus attended in Cana, there was all the joy and revelry one would expect… but then a problem developed. There was a shortage of wine. Not only was that a social embarrassment, but if the wine ran out, the festivities ended early and it was a bad omen for the marriage.

Mary approached Jesus and asked him to do something to help. His response was something akin to “Why come to me? Do I look like a caterer to you?” That may sound harsh, but remember that Jesus, to this point, had never performed a single public miracle. He was thirty years old, only recently began turning his thoughts toward his ministry, and had just gathered together his disciples. He knew that if he performed a miracle in public, the public would notice. Pandora’s Box would be opened. A clock would start ticking and it would not stop until he got to Calvary. Crowds would flock; investigators would be dispatched. Was this wedding really the appropriate time to touch off that course of events? Ultimately, his mother’s certainty left him with little choice. Turning to the stewards at the reception, she said, “Do whatever he tells you.” While the wedding at Cana is traditionally described as the scene of Jesus’ first miracle, I have no reason to think that’s actually true. I think it was the scene of his first public miracle. Certainly, Mary knew exactly what her son was capable of. And so, feeling the gaze of the stewards resting on him, even as he stared in disbelief at his mom, he began to utter his orders.

It is interesting, I think, that according to the Gospel of John, the guests at the wedding reception never learn where the wine came from – even the head steward is oblivious, astonished by the fact that the host would keep the better wine in reserve, rather than serving it first like most people would.

How could something so divinely revelatory happen, and leave so many cold? I think that, at times, we’re all oblivious to God’s work in the world. We travel through life, happy to stop for a glass of wine without asking where it came from, recovering from illness or injury without acknowledging the work of the Great Physician, even receiving clarity about a life issue in a conversation with a friend without discerning the work of the Spirit in their wise words. So much in our walks with God is about being spiritually aware enough to sense God’s presence with us – to have an epiphany that reveals God’s work in our lives. At the wedding in Cana, though, a whole lot of people missed the show.

What an odd way for Jesus to make his presence known. Granted, we’ve already seen how his mother’s influence may have played a part in the decision. Maybe Jesus had grander plans for his first miracle, but got sucked in by his mom’s insistence that he do something. In the end, this was nothing compared with parting the Red Sea. It had none of the pizzazz of calling down fire from heaven to consume a water-soaked altar of sacrifices. It wasn’t even as interesting to read about as Elisha’s summoning bears to maul forty-two neighborhood brats for making fun of his receding hairline! (2 Kings 2:23-25) Instead of a public spectacle, Jesus quietly turned 180 gallons of water into wine, and then went about his business. No teaching, no moral lesson, no allegorical parables and, in all honesty, remarkably few converts. Jesus’ first miracle, the one that revealed to the world that the Messiah had come, simply corrected a bit of poor planning on the part of the wedding caterer.

John ends the episode by writing, “In this, the first of his miraculous signs, he revealed his glory.” Really? His glory was revealed? I’ve turned a casserole meant to serve six into a soup that could serve three times as many, but I certainly don’t think of myself as a miracle worker. What made this admittedly minor miracle the definitive revelation of Christ’s glory? As Philip Yancey wrote in his book, The Jesus I Never Knew:

“John notes that the wine came from huge jugs that stood full of water at the front of the house, vessels that were used by observant Jews to fulfill the rules on ceremonial washing. Even a wedding feast had to honor the burdensome rituals of cleansing. Jesus, perhaps with a twinkle in his eye, transformed those jugs, ponderous symbols of the old way, into wineskins, harbingers of the new. From purified water of the Pharisees came the choice new wine of a whole new era. The time for ritual cleansing had passed, the time for celebration had begun.”

In other words, this simple, quiet miracle was what John repeatedly refers to as “a sign.” The “signs” of Jesus are miracles that, without necessarily including words of instruction, exhortation or explanation, nevertheless convey some truth about Christ’s mission in the world. When you see a yellow sign depicting a vehicle with wavy lines underneath it, you don’t need anyone to tell you the road gets slippery when wet. The sign told you that without a word. In John, Jesus performs signs: miraculous acts that teach us something about God’s action in the world. Words are unnecessary, because the act itself is the message. In turning water reserved for Pharisaic purification rituals into the wine of celebration, Jesus fulfilled the prophetic utterances of the past: “Behold, I am doing a new thing!” Without a word, the act of turning water into wine reveals to the world that the old ways no longer hold. Far from the Fiddler On the Roof’s loud acclamations of "Tradition", Jesus cast aside old teachings, old ways, old understandings of what God expected of his people, and even the old social custom of serving the best wine first, while everyone was still sober enough to appreciate it. Instead, Jesus revealed to the world, God had saved the best for last.

This past week, I received my latest issue of The Presbyterian Outlook, a bi-weekly magazine devoted to news and issues in the PC(USA). It has a whole new look – it’s gone from a two-color publication to brilliant full-color and did so for a lower printing cost. It is also now a remarkably green publication, using only recycled paper, and environmentally friendly inks. Here was a staid institution doing a new thing, and I was impressed.

Then I opened the magazine and was enjoying the new format, when I stumbled upon an article by a dear seminary friend of mine, the reverend John Sawyer, associate Pastor of Northminster Presbyterian Church in Macon, Georgia. The article, entitled "RIP, Frozen Chosen", was a eulogy of sorts, celebrating the life and death of a fictional character that John called “Mr. Frozen Chosen.” He writes:

“Frozen Chosen’s first accomplishment was to firmly establish a mindset in the church that it was created to be an immovable object… ‘If God is all powerful, can God create a stone that God cannot lift?’ Well, Frozen Chosen used to ask, ‘Can God create a people that God cannot move?’ At times, it seemed so. Change occurred at a snail’s pace, and… the church would do the same old thing the same old way for hundreds of years.”

He concludes his article by saying, “Whatever people call us, let us call ourselves sisters and brothers – children of the living God – who can get on with our new life in Christ Jesus. May we embrace this new life. May we turn to God in an unfrozen manner, with willing and hopeful hearts. May we look to god with joyful expectancy and say, ‘What’s next?’”

That is precisely what Jesus, in the sign of the Wedding at Cana, conveys to the world! “I AM what’s next!” The old ways no longer make sense in a world where God is revealing something different in Christ. The Christian faith – Christian discipleship that seeks to draw ever nearer to Christ-likeness – is a progressive faith that looks forward, that looks ahead, that continually asks the question “Who does God want us to love next?”

You’ve probably heard the story of a woman who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and had been given three months to live. As she was getting her things “in order,” she contacted her pastor and had him come to her house to discuss her final wishes. She told him which songs she wanted sung at the funeral, what scriptures she would like read, and what outfit she wanted to be buried in. The woman also requested to be buried with her favorite Bible.

Everything was in order and the pastor was preparing to leave when the woman suddenly remembered something very important to her. “There’s one more thing,” she said, “And this is very important. I want to be buried with a fork in my right hand.” The pastor stood looking at the woman, not knowing quite what to say.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said the pastor. The woman explained: “In all my years of attending church potluck dinners, I always remember that when the dishes of the main course were being cleared, someone would inevitably lean over and say, ‘Keep your fork.’ It was my favorite part because I knew that something better was coming... like velvety chocolate cake or deep-dish apple pie. Something wonderful, and with substance! So, I just want people to see me there in that casket with a fork in my hand and I want them to wonder ‘What’s with the fork?’ Then I want you to tell them: “’Keep your fork... the best is yet to come.’”

More than anything else, Christ’s glory is revealed in the sign at Cana because it is in this sign – the revelation of God’s new relationship with his people – that people are able to put their hope. For people in our time who feel trodden upon by their life’s circumstances, Jesus’ first sign at Cana is proof that God wants something different, something other than what has been. Old rituals of cleanliness? Forget them! Old assumptions that sinners cannot come to God? Thrown out! Old beliefs that stigmatize members of our society for being different? Hereby declared unjust!

Let us set aside our Pharisaic judgmentalism and discrimination. Let us relieve ourselves of the spiritual burden of feeling like our salvation rests in ritual and cleanliness. Let us sit down together at the Table, that great foretaste of the wedding feast of Christ and his bride, with all whom God has called and celebrate the sign, reminding each other, “God has saved the best for last! Keep your forks! The best is yet to come!”

To quote another Broadway musical, Godspell, “We all need help to feel fine: let’s have some wine!”

Fire and Water

2010-01-11T05:38:00.000-08:00

Isa. 43:1-7; Luke3:15-22

“The Lord was pleased, for the sake of his righteousness, to magnify his teaching and make it glorious. But this is a people robbed and plundered, all of them are trapped in holes and hidden in prisons; they have become a prey with no one to rescue, a spoil with no one to say, ‘Restore!’ Who among you will give heed to this, who will attend and listen for the time to come? Who gave up Jacob to the spoiler, and Israel to the robbers? Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey? So he poured upon him the heat of his anger and the fury of war; it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand; it burned him, but he did not take it to heart.” (Isa 42:21-25)

These are the words that precede our reading from Isaiah, and they put the promises of God in a stark context. Here Isaiah describes the desolation of the Israelites, who have lived in exile, exploited by their captors. “They have become a prey with no one to rescue, a spoil with no one to say ‘restore!’” Worse yet, Isaiah explains who caused this calamity: “Who gave up Jacob to the spoiler, and Israel to the robbers? Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey?” The exile was a divine judgment upon the people of Israel and Judah in retribution for their sinfulness, described by Isaiah as “the heat of his anger and the fury of war.”

And then today’s reading begins with the words, “But now…”

“But now” breaks the devastating silence that has haunted God’s people through generations in exile. This new prophetic word announces an end to judgment and proclaims the promise of redemption from captivity and death. Like the book of Genesis, Isaiah moves from a panoramic view of God’s universal providence to focus on the radical particularity of God’s love for Israel. The 43rd chapter of Isaiah is particularly relevant today, because in it, God says to his children, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. (43:1-2) My congregation celebrated the sacrament of baptism this past Sunday, because it was also the Sunday when we remember the baptism of Jesus, as retold in our Gospel lesson from Luke.

John the Baptist, perhaps the last in a long line of prophets, shared his prophetic message even as he prepared his hearers for baptism. He proclaimed that the coming Messiah would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire, separating the grain from the chaff and burning what is useless with unquenchable fire.

Baptism was extremely important in Jewish culture during the time of Jesus. Many houses had what were called mikvahs, large Jacuzzi-sized basins filled with “living water” (that is, water that is moving, not stagnant) in which they bathed frequently in order to remain ritually clean. You may also recall the episode in which the Pharisees criticize Jesus’ disciples for not washing their hands before they eat. The word “baptize” comes from the Greek word which simply means “to wash,” though for John, it was not merely a physical washing to remove dirt, but a metaphorical, spiritual washing to remove the stain of sin.

But that still begs the question: why did Jesus feel the need to get baptized? Aside from a little road dust from his walking everywhere, what could he have needed to be cleansed of? Even John himself said that it was Jesus who ought to be baptizing him, not the other way around. Perhaps for Jesus, as for we Reformed theologians, baptism was about more than just “washing away sins.”

Baptism, one of two sacraments shared by Protestant denominations, is nonetheless a source of division in the Church. Generally there are two views on baptism; one tends to be exclusive, and the other is more inclusive. The exclusive view, held by anabaptists and the denominations related to them, is that baptism is only for those who make a conscious profession of faith. Thus, persons below a certain age are excluded, as are adults who make no clear articulation of faith. This view does have its strengths – such as the understanding that baptism is not just a “rite of passage” that “everyone goes through.”

I’m reminded of the story of a priest, who, before performing an infant baptism, approached the young father and said solemnly, “Baptism is a serious step. Are you prepared for it?”
“I think so,” the man replied. “My wife has made appetizers and we have a caterer coming to provide plenty of cookies and cake for all of our guests.”
“I don’t mean that,” the priest responded. “I mean, are you prepared spiritually?”
“Oh, sure,” came the reply. “I’ve got a keg of beer and a cask of whiskey.”

My difficulty with exclusive baptism is that baptism is not seen as God’s activity. Instead, baptism is a human activity – a human response to an invitation to “choose God.”

The inclusive view is that virtually all who request the rite for themselves or their children are to be admitted. It is this more inclusive view that Presbyterians inherited from our European forbears, which is why we baptize infants.

In the early church, baptisms were for adult professors of faith only, and signified entry into the body of Christ. This made sense at the time, since the decision to become a Christian was a choice to become a part of an ostracized and persecuted movement. The rite was usually associated with Easter, since it symbolized death and rebirth through the waters of baptism.

By the second century, it became common practice to baptize children, because baptism was viewed not as a personal, human choice, but a celebration of God’s activity – of God's having chosen us. When we baptize a child in our church, we do so in celebration of the grace shown to that child by God in Jesus Christ. Whether or not they later “confirm” God’s activity in their life through a profession of faith is left up to them. In short, all Christians acknowledge a covenant between God and humanity. The exclusive view of baptism focuses mostly on the human side of that covenant – baptism is viewed as a human act of personal faith. The inclusive view focuses mostly on the divine side of the covenant – baptism is viewed as an act of God, and symbolizes God’s action, not ours.

It is true, of course, that these two theologies of baptism rarely exist in their purest form, and both often exist even within a single denomination. Certainly, I have baptized both adults and teenagers making professions of faith and – more to the point – we still generally expect at least one of an infant’s parents to be a committed Christian who can be counted on to nurture the child in the faith. It’s not as though we taking baptizing anyone and everyone lightly. And anabaptists have been known to baptize children who, while certainly not babies, are still a far cry from being old enough to make a life decision such as a commitment to Christ. They also show a graceful willingness to baptize individuals who may not fully understand the faith, because they believe that God will continue his work in the person’s heart.

A drunk man stumbled across a baptismal service one Sunday afternoon down by
the river. He proceeded to walk down into the water and stand next to the Preacher.
The minister turned and noticed the old drunk and said, “Mister, are you ready to find Jesus?”
The drunk looks back and says, “Yes,Preacher. I sure am.” So, the minister dunked the fellow under the water and pulled him right back up.
“Have you found Jesus?” the preacher asked.
“No, Sir, I didn’t!” said the drunk.
The preacher then dunked him under for quite a bit longer, brought him up and said, “Now, brother, have you found Jesus?”
“No, I did not Reverend.”
The preacher, in disgust, held the man under for a long time this time, brought him out of the water and said in a harsh tone, “For the love of God, have you found Jesus yet?”
The old drunk wiped his eyes and said to the preacher... “Well… are you sure this is where he fell in?”

So while there are two different theologies surrounding baptism in the Christian church, there is enough wiggle room in both theologies to suggest that we realize we have something to learn from one another. But we’re still left with the question, “Why was Jesus baptized?” Clearly, Jesus was not a sinner in need of cleansing or redemption, and his baptizer argued against the rite, declaring that Jesus didn’t need it. But we inclusive baptizers of the Reformed faith don’t understand baptism as a sacrament just for repentant sinners, but a sacrament celebrating God’s grace upon all of humanity. For Jesus, baptism was an opportunity to self-identify with sinful humanity. Though not a sinner himself, in his baptism he clearly took his stand beside us. “He shared the fate of evil men,” declared the prophet Isaiah (53:12). At the Jordan, we should see Jesus taking his stand with sinners, making their remorse his own.

Luke says virtually nothing about Jesus’ baptism, except that it happened and that the Holy Spirit descended upon him afterward. In Matthew, however, we get a fuller description of John’s baptism of Jesus. The baptisms that John performed symbolized repentance, and he saw this as inappropriate for the One he knew to be the spotless Lamb of God. Jesus responded that it should be done because “it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). Christ was here identifying Himself with sinners. He will ultimately bear their sins in his body on the cross; His perfect righteousness will be imputed to them (2 Corinthians 5:21). Therefore, this act of baptism was a necessary part of the righteousness He secured for sinners. We are “baptized into Christ” in that through baptism we die and are raised to newness of life in Christ. This act of divine grace is made possible to us because of Christ’s participation in it – just as eternal life is God’s gift to us because Christ lives eternally. Jesus needed baptism by neither fire nor water. However, Jesus emptied Himself (Philippians 2:7) and relied upon the fire of the Holy Spirit’s power. Jesus’ baptism and reliance upon the Holy Spirit is an example that we are to follow in our own lives. In a sense, just as we are baptized into Christ, Jesus, at the hand of John the Baptist, was baptized into humanity, identifying himself with us, so that he could carry the full depth and breadth of human frailty onto the cross.

Was it not the Lord, against whom we had sinned, in whose ways the people would not walk, and whose law we would not obey? So he poured upon us the heat of his anger and the fury of war; it set our world on fire all around, but we did not understand; it threatened to burn and consume us, but we did not take it to heart.

“But now,” says the Lord, “in my baptism, into which you, too, are baptized, and in my resurrection, by which you, too, will be resurrected, do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”

Fatherhood

2010-01-05T07:44:00.000-08:00

Jeremiah 31:7-14; Eph. 1:3-14

Happy New Year, everyone! We’ve entered into a new year, a new decade, even. And it seems as though we should be turning over this new leaf with great anticipation about what lies ahead. And yet the church’s liturgical calendar insists that this is still “the season of Christmas.” Nothing about new years or new seasons – just a reminder of our recent past. This may be a surprise to many of you. I mean, Christmas is a December holiday and is the climax of the Advent season, right? In most churches around the country, the Sunday after Christmas is traditionally the single worst-attended Sunday of the year – especially since it was only a couple of days after our Christmas Eve services. In many Presbyterian congregations around Princeton (and probably around Pittsburgh, too), the Sunday after Christmas is referred to as “Seminarian Sunday,” because all the pastors want the week off, giving the poor seminarian intern a rare shot at the pulpit. Too bad no one is there to hear them.

At this point, kids (and even more so their parents) will be thinking more about going back to school than the excitement of Christmas from well over a week ago. Others will be more concerned with the beginnings of a new year and may be thinking about those New Year resolutions that may already seem more daunting than they realized. Then again, some of you may have attended worship this week precisely because of just such a resolution. I hope you’re still resolved to attend next week, too!

The signs of Christmas disappear so quickly. The very day after Christmas, Boy Scout Troops host Christmas Tree recycling drives. After all the preparations for Christmas, people seem ready to get rid of Christmas and get on with their lives. Christmas lights begin to disappear just as quickly as they first materialized back in November. I only wish the holiday pounds would vacate my waist as quickly as my nativity set will disappear from my hearth.

But if the good news of Christmas is God-with-us, then this good news isn’t just for one night, for twelve days, or even just one liturgical season. It continues throughout the year, and as we are already beginning to get back into our normal schedules and routines, it seems appropriate to remind ourselves that God-with-us means that God is still here.

In the book of Ephesians, it is as if the author is swept off his feet with euphoria, exhilaration, elation. It is full of poetic rhetoric, rather than dogmatic theological terms. It’s an overarching vision, rather than nuts and bolts. I think I like Ephesians, because its author thinks the way I do: in grand strokes, rather than in minute detail. The author has experienced and seen the riches of God’s grace, the riches of his mercy, the lavishness of God’s generosity, and he is overwhelmed by it all, using words like lavish, abundant, immeasurable. The mood of this letter reminds me of a young man or woman who has fallen in love for the first time. When you fall in love the first time, it is so good, so beautiful, so euphoric; but when you fall in love the fourth time, it is ok but not so grand as the first experience. When you have your first child, there are those feelings of euphoria, elation, the thrill of a lifetime; but by the time you have had your third child, the event is still happy but not so elated as the first time. Ephesians reads like the product of a first love.

It is amazing to those of us who are parents that God would give us the precious gift of a small child, and not give us a user’s manual on how to raise her. If you buy a computer, you get a manual. If you buy a car or a DVD player or even a toaster, you get a user’s manual. But with the most intricate and complicated gift in the world, a human infant, there is no manual. Having children is not for the fainthearted. As somebody once put it, “Children may be deductible, but they are also taxing.”

I appreciated the story of one mother with four small children at home. A friend gave her a play pen, and in her thank-you note she wrote, “I love it! I sit down in it in the middle of the living room, and the children can’t reach me for hours!”

America’s favorite father, Bill Cosby, wrote a book almost 25 years ago entitled Fatherhood. The first parent, according to Cosby, was not Adam or Eve. The first parent was God. And even God had trouble with his kids.

The first thing that God said to his kids was what most parents say to their kids, “Don’t.” And Adam replied, “Don’t what?” And God said, “Don’t eat the forbidden fruit.” And Adam said, “Forbidden fruit? Really? Where is it?”

Bill Cosby says, “That’s beginning to sound familiar isn’t it? You never realized that the pattern of your life had been laid down in the Garden of Eden.”

“It’s over there,” said God, wondering why he hadn’t stopped after making the elephants. A few minutes later God saw the kids having an apple break and He was angry. “Didn’t I tell you not to eat that fruit?” the first parent said. “Uh-huh,” Adam replied.

“Then why did you?” God asked.

“I don’t know,” Adam said.

“Right, then, get out of here; go forth, become fruitful and multiply,” said God. And we all know from our own experience that this was not a blessing, but a curse. How many of us can remember being told by our parents when we were young, “I hope you have kids just like you someday!” Bill Cosby suggests that this is precisely what God meant when he told his own children to go forth and multiply. God’s punishment was that Adam and Eve should have children of their own!

The prophet Jeremiah describes a relationship between God and humanity that very much resembles a parent and his child. As parents, we give our children guidance and discipline while they are young, in the hope that when they are older those values will be manifested in responsible behavior. Here, too, is God, who has created man and given him an external law, “you shall not kill, you shall not steal, etc., etc.,” to guide his behavior. But, says God, there is a day coming when humanity will not need external laws, for his law will be written in our hearts.

The law that God puts on the hearts of his children, we in turn instill in the hearts of our own children, in the hopes that they will grow not only in stature, but in spiritual wisdom. The first thing that God taught us that we, in turn, teach our children is to listen. We all want our children to listen, right? Mostly what we mean by that is “I want my children to listen to me,” to be obedient. While God desires our obedience as well, listening is more than just obeying when told. We want our kids to learn to clean up after themselves without having to be asked. We want our kids to make their beds without being told. As they grow up, what we hope we’ve instilled in them is a sense of inner direction. Call it a conscience, call it the voice of God, but when our children become youth, we hope that they’ll remember not to experiment with drug use without you having to stand over them. By then, we hope they’ll be able to listen to the voice of God telling them that certain things ought to be avoided, rather than listening to external sources, such as their less-conscientious friends, popular movies and music, or whatever else might lead them astray if given too much consideration. We quite literally want them to do what the voices in their heads tell them to do! And we want to make sure that from an early age, those voices are ours and God’s. God leads our hearts like a father as well, to walk a straight path, as he says through the prophet Jeremiah: “With consolations I will lead them back, I will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble; for I have become a Father to Israel.” (31:9)

Secondly, we want our children to grow up with a concern for others rather than being concerned only for themselves. While some parents teach their kids to “look out for number one,” Christ (and Paul, incidentally) clearly teaches us to care for others above ourselves. The first thing a newborn baby does is cry to have his own needs met. The hardest lesson a toddler has to learn in life is how to share. Watch my kids for half and hour, and I guarantee you’ll see one child hog a favorite toy, and then the other child crying, “I want to play with that toy! I had it first!” The hardest lesson in life, and the greatest mark of maturity and self-differentiation according to developmental psychologists, is the movement from self-centeredness to other-centeredness; to truly love your neighbor as you love yourself. Even as we teach our young children the importance of sharing, we adults need to be reminded, too, of the importance of sharing with one another in acts of love of neighbor.

The esteemed psychologist Eric Erickson told us many years ago that the primary task of childhood is the development of a sense of trust. The ability to walk through life with confidence and conviction out of a sense of inner security and peace, is the greatest spiritual gift that God gives the believer. We, in turn, must impart this same value to our own children. If confidence and trust are the marks of maturity, then the confidence that comes from trusting God is the very “peace which surpasses all understanding” that Paul promises, if we can refrain from being anxious about anything, and offer everything to God in prayer and supplication.

Fatherhood is by no means easy. It hurt the first parent, God, and it can be painful for us as well. We’re required to make lifelong sacrifices, endure the trials of our children’s shortcomings, and pray fervently that “I hope you have children just like you someday” will come out of our mouths as a blessing, and not a curse. But parenthood is worth any cost if and when we get to see them developing appropriate values, learning to care about others and developing trust of us and of God.

And of course, the life long pursuit of those same values is what our Father in heaven wants from each of us as well. I often say that all of scripture is summed up in the phrases “Love God; and love your neighbor.” As a Good Father might say to His children: “Trust me; and play well with others.”

'Tis More Blessed to Receive Than to Give

2009-12-29T09:29:00.000-08:00

Luke 2:1-20

It's probably happened to all of us at least once, and almost always during this time of year. Probably all of us have had the experience of receiving a gift from someone we really don’t know all that well. The gift often turns out to be pretty nice: something that we didn’t know we wanted but are glad to have. A good gift from someone who really isn’t a good friend.

Now what?

Social convention seems to dictate that our next move should be to try to come up with a gift to give in return. Of course, we won’t be doing it out of gratitude! After all, we didn’t ask for their gift in the first place! And we’re certainly not buying a gift out of friendship, because we hardly know this person! We go out last-minute gift shopping for this person, because we feel indebted.

It happened to me last Christmas, when my boss at the mission unexpectedly presented me with a Christmas gift. It was a simple box of chocolates – nothing fancy, elaborate or expensive – and yet it threw me into a panic! We were supposed to be exchanging gifts?! How did I miss the memo?

I left work that afternoon, and drove straight to the store. Finding that they sold the gift she had bought me, I peeked at the price tag, noting its value, and then proceeded to buy her a gift of similar value. Thankfully, because she had given her gift on the second to the last day before Christmas break, I still had the next day to present her with my gift. All was well the next day, Christmas – and the world – and my job – were saved!

One of my favorite TV sit-coms is a show called The Big Bang Theory. It’s about two extremely intelligent (and outrageously nerdy) academic physicists, Leonard and Sheldon, whose apartment is across the hall from a beautiful blonde waitress with theater aspirations, named Penny. Over the course of the series they have befriended each other, as Penny has managed to overlook their social ineptitude.

In last year’s Christmas episode, entitled “The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis,” Penny comes over to Leonard and Sheldon’s apartment to bring them Christmas presents. Leonard shows the appropriate gratitude, simply saying, “Oh, Penny, you didn’t have to do that!” Sheldon – so socially awkward he is virtually incapable of normal human interaction, and sees no logic in most social customs – decries the present as no gift at all, but an obligation. Penny disagrees, saying that she was trying to be nice, and Sheldon doesn’t need to feel obligated to return the favor. Sheldon replies, “The essence of the custom is that I now have to go out and purchase for you a gift of commensurate value and representing the same perceived level of friendship as that represented by the gift you’ve given me. Ah, it’s no wonder suicide rates skyrocket this time of year.”

At Christmas, of all seasons, we don’t want to be beholden to someone. Gifts such as these, as Sheldon pointed out, seem to lay a claim upon us, especially when it has come from someone we barely know. It’s uncomfortable; it’s hard to look the person in the face until we have reciprocated. By giving us a gift, this person has power over us, because they’ve seemingly demonstrated themselves to be more generous, more resourceful or more thoughtful than we are.

At Christmas, the so-called “season of giving,” we enjoy thinking of ourselves as basically generous, benevolent, giving people. That’s one reason why everyone, even the non-religious, loves Christmas. Christmas is our opportunity to put our supposed generosity on display. The newspaper keeps us posted on how many needy families we have adopted. The Salvation Army kettles enable us to be generous while buying groceries for ourselves or gifts for our families. People we work with who usually balk at the collection to pay for the office coffee fall all over themselves to give to the cause of “making Christmas” for someone they don’t even know. We love Christmas, because we like to think that Christmas brings out the best in us. Everyone gives on Christmas, even the stingiest among us. Charles Dickens’s story of Scrooge’s transformation has probably done more to form our notions of Christmas than tonight’s scripture reading from the Gospel of Luke! Whereas Luke tells of God’s gift to us, Dickens tells us how we can (and should) give to others. A Christmas Carol is more in keeping with how we like to view ourselves. Dickens suggests that deep down, even the worst of us can become generous, giving people.

It may well be, as Jesus said, more blessed to give than to receive. But receiving can be much more challenging. Haven’t we all blushed or stammered with embarrassment when someone has given us a compliment? We believe that we should give, and we’re even proud of our giving. But we are lousy at receiving. We are better givers than receivers, not because we are generous people but because we are proud, arrogant people. The Christmas story – the one from the Gospel of Luke, not the movie about a kid named Ralphie – is not about how blessed it is to be givers but about how essential it is to see ourselves as receivers.

We’d rather think of ourselves as givers – self-sufficient, capable people whose goodness motivates us to offer gifts to benefit others, especially the less fortunate. But that is a direct contradiction of the biblical account of the first Christmas. According to Luke, we are not the givers we wish we were, but the receivers of a gift whose value cannot be calculated or repaid. Luke goes to great lengths to demonstrate that we – generous though we believe we are – had nothing to do with God’s work in Jesus Christ. What God accomplished was totally beyond the bounds of human imagination, requiring angels, pregnant virgins and stars in the sky to get it done. All we can do is receive it. The first Christmas was a gift to humanity from a God we hardly even knew.

Though we live in a world filled with darkness, God has promised us that the darkness would not overcome the light of Christ. Sin is, at its core, human arrogance – our steadfast belief that we know what’s best for us, that we know how to make the world work, that we know how to care for one another and ourselves, that we are in command of our own destinies. Many of us, in our arrogance, even believe that doing the right things will earn us a room in our Father’s house; that being generous givers will help us get to heaven, or at the very least build a kingdom worthy of God’s name here on Earth. But what is required of us is not a giving spirit, but a receiving spirit. And a receiving spirit is a spirit not of arrogance or pride, but of complete humility.

Among the most familiar Christmas scriptures is a reading from the prophet Isaiah: “The Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (7:14) Less well-known, however, is its context: Isaiah has been pleading with King Ahaz to put his trust in God’s promise to Israel rather than in alliances with military powers like Syria. “If you will not believe, you shall not be established,” Isaiah warns Ahaz (7:9). Then the prophet tells the fearful king that God is going to give him a baby as a sign. A baby. What Ahaz needed was a good army! Not a baby.

But that is the way God loved us. He gave us a gift we didn’t know we wanted, couldn’t admit we needed, but are glad to have. This strange, unknowable God came to us, blessed us with a gift, and called us to see ourselves as we are – empty-handed recipients of a gracious God who, rather than leave us to our own devices, gave us a baby.

Some of you attended worship on Christmas Eve because you couldn’t imagine being anywhere but church on the night of our Lord’s birth. For some of you, a Christmas Eve church service is about singing your favorite carols and gazing at the flickering candles. For others, it’s your annual or semi-annual “dose of God,” and you can’t imagine going back again before Easter at the earliest.

Regardless of what brings us – tradition, sentimentalism, habit, obligation, or God’s personal leading – we must consider carefully how we will respond now to the gift that God has offered. “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not: for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’

“That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

Captured so beautifully in the beautiful hymn “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” the gift of God, the fulfillment of God’s promise to bring light to our dark world, is described in this way:

O little town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep The silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years Are met in thee tonight.

How silently, how silently, The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts The blessings of His Heaven.
No ear may hear His coming; But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him, still The dear Christ enters in.

So I ask you: are you sufficiently humble of spirit to lay aside your need to give, and gratefully receive? Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in! If you have never before opened your heart to receive him, won’t you do it now? Are you able to humbly open your empty hands and receive the promised gift of everlasting light? If you need to accept the gift of God’s love, the gift of God’s life, the gift of God’s Son for the first time, I hope that you’ll bow your head, open your hands, and pray with me right now. Let us pray together.

O holy Child of Bethlehem, Descend to us we pray!
Cast out our sin and enter in, Be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels The great glad tidings tell;
O, come to us, abide with us, my Lord, Emmanuel!

A Mother's Love

2009-12-21T12:51:00.000-08:00

Luke 1:39-55

As a user of the online social networking site called Facebook, I am able to keep in touch with, reconnect with, communicate with and even play games with friends, old and new, scattered around the world. Because I am in constant contact with so many people – especially people in my age bracket, I have come to realize that I know a lot of pregnant women!

And if you count recently pregnant women, then the number grows even more, including my own wife, as well as another woman in my congregation. I have spent a lot of time around pregnant women over the past few years, and a lot of time lately reading about their status updates, every emotional tremor, every physical discomfort, every hormone-induced homicidal thought, and even watched their tummies grow through the wonders of time-lapsed photography! Here we are, in the closing days of Advent, awaiting the arrival of God’s own bundle of joy, and our scripture reading is about the interaction of who? Two pregnant women! Mary and Elizabeth could be seen as two ordinary, pregnant women except that their stories take place during the most extraordinary of times and circumstances. Motherhood (not altogether different from Fatherhood) is daunting to every woman, probably especially the first time around, and these two women have found themselves pregnant under most unusual and unexpected terms. One is well past the age to conceive, and the other is pregnant though still a virgin. So, like the women I see constantly chattering with one another on the internet, grateful for the opportunity to share the experience with other pregnant women in every time and place, Elizabeth and Mary spend time together, keeping each other company, learning and praying and perhaps laughing together, as they face first-time childbirth and motherhood.

Advent, like pregnancy, is a time of waiting and expectancy, a time pregnant with hope. Today's scripture reading is one wherein two women, great with child, are overcome by the Spirit of God and utter prophecies and songs of exultant praise! While they sing of mighty ones brought low, these two women embody the meek and lowly being exalted by God. The new life promised in Mary’s pregnancy, of course, is what the Gospel of Luke is ultimately about, as it fulfills promises to all humankind.

In his book, The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey, celebrated theologian and author Henri Nouwen provides a thoughtful reflection on the encounter between Elizabeth and Mary. “Who could ever understand?” he writes. “Who could ever believe it? Who could ever let it happen? But Mary says, ‘Let it happen to me’, and she immediately realizes that only Elizabeth will be able to affirm her ‘yes’. For three months Mary and Elizabeth live together and encourage each other to truly accept the motherhood given to them.” As Nouwen reads this story, neither woman had to wait alone for the extraordinary events to unfold: “They could wait together and thus deepen in each other their faith in God, for whom nothing is impossible. Thus, God’s most radical intervention into human history was heard and received in community.” That worldwide community – the sisterhood of child bearers – exists to this day.

As we await the final fulfillment of God’s promise of love, we, too, do so in community. As the Church of Jesus Christ, we hold each other up when one of us needs encouragement or support. We search together for meaning, rejoice together, walk the path of discipleship together. Just as Elizabeth and Mary shared the common experience of motherhood, and helped each other prepare for what was to come, so do we help one another to live faithfully. Sometimes, especially during times of tragedy or sadness, we can do little more than sit together in silence, trusting in the promises of God. At other times, we lift one another up in prayer, praise and rejoicing, as Elizabeth and Mary did.

Upon hearing what is about to transpire in her life, Luke tells us that Mary “immediately” jumped up and traveled to the home of Elizabeth. The author didn't conjecture about why, or give us a clear sense of what was running through her mind when she made the rash decision to make a difficult and dangerous journey to another town and spend three months with Elizabeth. We read nothing in scripture about Mary’s parents – with whom she presumably lived at the time, as an unmarried woman. Many of us had a favorite older relative when we were growing up – an aunt or an uncle, someone we felt close to, could talk to, whose name wasn’t “mom” or “dad”. Perhaps Elizabeth was Mary’s older family confidant, an older woman with womanly wisdom. I imagine Mary felt she needed such wisdom in such confusing and wondrous circumstances. Remember, too, that she was pregnant and unwed – a very dangerous combination for a woman in her time. But the young girl doesn’t have to explain her situation to Elizabeth, or ask her questions in search of answers, or even to ask for acceptance. Is it any surprise, then, that after her sudden, unannounced arrival, having been told that Elizabeth’s own baby leapt within her at the approach of Mary’s baby, that in her relief and joy over this statement of love, and social acceptance, Mary began to sing?

“My soul magnifies the Lord,” she exults, and this young girl, inexperienced and sheltered, sings about God’s blessings in her life, and of God’s vision of a world set right. As a young mother, she was singing to her child, and to Elizabeth’s child; but ultimately, she was singing words of hope and love to each and every child of God.

In her series of novels entitled Christ the Lord, author Anne Rice novelizes the life of Jesus, starting with his early childhood in Alexandria, Egypt, where she imagines Joseph took his family when fleeing Herod. Who, with a unique understanding of the meaning of his birth, sheltered the boy, raised him, and nurtured his early spiritual formation? His mother, of course, as is the case with children. Rice imagines that much of what Jesus taught to his disciples as an adult, he first learned from the wisdom of Mary, his mother. After reading the song that she sang in the Spirit, one must wonder if Jesus learned from Mary that God does not tolerate the injustice and greed of our world.

We all long for a time when suffering will end and everyone will have enough, when nations and families will live in peace, and the earth will be restored and healed of the damage that has been done. This is a vision for the future, but we live in the present, putting our faith in the promises of God. But Mary didn't sing her song as though she was longing for God’s promises to be fulfilled in the future. Her lyrics read as though these promises had already been fulfilled: “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy…” Each of these statements declares not what God is doing, or what God will do, but what God has already done.

William Willimon, the former dean of the chapel at Wake Forest Univsersity, tells the story of a college student talking to him about how the virgin birth was just too incredible to believe. Willimon responded, “You think that’s incredible, come back next week! Then, we will tell you that ‘God has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.’ We’ll talk about the hungry having enough to eat and the rich being sent away empty. The virgin birth? If you think you have trouble with the Christian faith now, just wait. The virgin birth is just a little miracle; the really incredible stuff is coming next week!”

And, indeed, Willimon hit the nail on the head. People who have a hard time accepting the tenets of the Christian religion often cite things like the virgin birth as stumbling blocks – how could anyone be born of a virgin? And because they walk away from so minor a miracle, they never get to hear the stuff that’s really hard to believe. Casting down the mighty from their thrones? Filling the hungry with good things? Sending away the rich empty? Ridiculous! And yet that is the song of hope with which Mary announces God’s love for the world’s lowly. Those are the instincts of a mother singing songs of hope and love to all the children of the world.

Motherhood is a special station in life to which not all women are called, and to which all men are flatly disallowed. And it is in this exclusive sisterhood that so much of the world's wisdom is generated, nurtured, shared and disseminated for the sake of humanity. Above every other attribute, when asked about motherhood, we think of love. In this final week of Advent, we celebrate the love of two mothers, Elizabeth and Mary, and their prophetic words of God’s love for each of us and all of us. Let us, as recipients of God’s steadfast and abounding love, share that love with our brothers and sisters in the world.

The Promise of Joy

2009-12-16T13:20:00.000-08:00

Zeph. 3:14-20
Phil 4:4-7

“Rejoice in the Lord always! I’ll say it again! Rejoice!” Paul sounds like an exuberant cheerleader, banging the drum of encouragement, and full of something like the Christmas spirit. It could read like some lame platitude – something you see printed on a plaque in a pastor’s office, something you sing in a choir anthem without much thought. Rejoice in the Lord? Of course we do – it’s Christmas!

Except that we’re told to rejoice in the Lord always – and it’s not always Christmas. Sometimes it’s Ash Wednesday. Sometimes its Good Friday. Sometimes it’s any given Monday. “Rejoice in the Lord? Not before my second cup of coffee!”

There are times when rejoicing is down right easy – when finding joy in the Lord is almost a natural response. We receive good news about the health of a loved one, and we praise the Lord. We get reacquainted with an old friend we haven’t seen in years, and we rejoice in one another’s company. Our family arrives for a visit, and we rejoice in their safe travels.

And then there are those times when rejoicing seems harder. When the Steelers lose five straight. When I realize that I screwed up my crochet pattern two turns ago, and now have to rip an hour's worth of work back out and do it again. When the line I get into at Wal-Mart turns out to be the wrong line – again.

And finally, there are those times when rejoicing seems counterintuitive – almost insulting or inappropriate – like when a loved one dies. Or when they receive dire news of a terminal illness. Or when we learn that our position in the company is being eliminated, and we’ll be out of a job. Or when someone we care about is convicted of a crime and sent to jail. What is there, at times like these, to rejoice in?

Late last winter, my best friend's father died. He had been in poor health, and his death was not particularly surprising. Bill was a man of great faith who, even after losing his God-given gift of song when his intubation during a hospital stay did irreparable damage to his vocal folds, greeted everyone he met with a smile. “How are you, Bill?” I would ask. And his answer was always, “Vertical!” The man knew how to rejoice, even after losing the ability to sing, which was the one thing he loved doing more than anything. A lesser man would have been bitter and depressed, but not Bill. Bill rejoiced in the fact that he was still alive, and still vertical!

His funeral was unlike any funeral I had ever attended. It was filled with great, soaring anthems and swells of organ music, as well as laughter and joy. Joy! My friend's family, as a witness to their faith in the promises of God, celebrates death. Not in a macabre, gothic sort of way, but in a joyful expression of their loved ones’ entry into the joy of their Master. That funeral stands out for me as a shining example of what it means to “rejoice in the Lord always.”

And then there’s my friend Keith who can say “Thank ya Jesus” at the most ridiculous of times. I’ve referred to it as his “annoying habit of gratitude.” That’s great for Keith, and I’m happy for my friend and her family. But I’ve never thought that I was wired that way.

Never, that is, until this past week, when the Steelers dropped their fifth straight, going from a record of 6-2 to one of 6-7, and – worst of all – losing to the Cleveland Browns. I stayed up to watch the whole game, of course. And when I went to bed, it was with the realization that my beloved Steelers probably wouldn’t be making a playoff appearance this year. The next day I woke up and posted a status update on my facebook page that said, “I think that the Steelers, in a remarkable show of good sportsmanship and Christmas spirit, have decided to make all of the worst teams in the league feel better about themselves. With more Super Bowl wins than any other team, they’ve realized that they are blessed to be a blessing. (That’s what I choose to believe.)”

Many people liked this comment, but a conversation ensued that I wasn’t anticipating. A friend of mine commented on my post, saying, “I love it. Thanks! I wish I could be as positive as you. I love reading [The Solitary Broomtree] and stuff because it always puts me in a better mood. I don’t know how you do it, Matt! I guess there is good in everything, you just have to look for it!”

I responded by saying, “No one who knows me would argue that I’m always positive, or even always in a good mood. But I’ve learned that negativity never helped anyone. And sometimes you have to look really hard, but there’s usually something to be thankful for.” It was then that I realized that I was illustrating the sermon I hadn’t yet written for this passage. “Rejoice in the Lord always,” Paul instructs us. That’s easy for him to say – he wasn’t a Steelers fan.

Actually, when Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians, he was becoming increasingly feeble and slow in movement, advanced in years, showing signs of physical weakness, and was in prison writing during the last years of his life, as he faced impending execution for his association with the Jesus movement! Compounding the problem, he was writing to the Christians in Philippi, few in number, adherents of a decidedly unpopular religion. A church filled with doubt and fear in the midst of a crooked and depraved generation and an aggressively evil environment, facing dissension within and opposition without. And yet Paul forcefully exclaims, “Rejoice in the Lord always. In fact I’ll say it again: rejoice.” This repetitive refrain of joy, sixteen times in four chapters, might add up to a painful rebuke for today’s believers, when people – even Christians – see religion as a source of goodness but not gladness. Is the Christian faith really a source of joy?

Rejoice is the verbal variant of the noun “joy.” While joy is a Christian virtue, happiness is the virtue of the world. Happiness is corporeal, an emotional response to external stimuli, especially the things we have or can acquire, things like money, power, or fame. These things are external to ourselves, and when they go, happiness goes. Joy, in contrast, is a spiritual state, independent of your environment and potentially persistent through any and all circumstances. While happiness relates to the physical world, joy relates to the spiritual world.

But if the trappings of life that make us happy can disappear, leaving us unhappy, what could possibly fill our spirits with such joy that it can persist even in the face of tragedy and loss? Paul makes the answer abundantly clear. While possessions and people, events and circumstances can make us feel profoundly happy, we rejoice in the Lord. Always. We may rejoice because of life, or we may rejoice in spite of life. But either way, we rejoice in the Lord. To “rejoice in the Lord” is to rejoice that we are the Lord’s. In the Lord we enjoy: peace with God, help in temptation, the assurance of God’s companionship in times of suffering. Most of all, we rejoice in the hope that is ours in Jesus Christ.

The Greek word for "always" in this case is an emphatic, active imperative. We are to rejoice and keep rejoicing! Few of us find it easy to follow the advice Paul gives. He says, “do not be anxious about anything,” but we find ourselves worrying about everything. Our attitudes can exhibit the very opposite of the trust Paul described, when he said, “in everything, in prayer and supplication, make your requests known to God.” And yet, we must remember that even as Paul wrote these words, he was sitting in prison! Still, he had no reason to be anxious, because he rejoiced in his relationship with God. Perhaps your life is filled with tragedy and hardship. Certainly, there is plenty to go around for those who are mourning the loss of loved ones, for parents agonizing over wayward children. Plenty, too, for those dealing with or having dealt with divorce. More than one’s share for those families with children disabled with physical, emotional, or mental disorders. An abundance for those who find themselves struck with a debilitating illness. In such circumstances, does the Lord really expect us to rejoice? Yes, and here’s why: our joy because of the Lord makes possible our joy in spite of our life’s circumstances.

Rejoicing in the Lord isn’t about finding a treasure in life’s trash heap of bad news. It’s about being joyful because of our relationship with God. It’s about giving thanks for the hope that we have in God’s love for us, proven in Jesus Christ. If all of our hope is found there, and “the peace which surpasses all understanding” emanates from Him, then we will be filled with joy in the Lord regardless of our present circumstances. It is that joy in the face of death that enabled my friend and her family to celebrate her father’s homecoming. It is rejoicing in the Lord that makes gratitude in the face of trials possible, like how I’ve learned to be grateful when God teaches me a lesson in humility or patience by showing me how little of each I have! It’s living your life in such a way that someone will tell the whole internet, “I wish I could be as positive as he is! I don’t know how he does it! Somehow once I find the positive, I knock it back to doomed reality.”

My response to this online comment, which will make me sound like a mountain-top yogi or a Jedi master is this: “Let the positive be your reality.” And no, I’m not saying “think positive and everything will turn out alright." And I’m definitely not saying, “think positively, and the universe will give you whatever you want in life.” The essence of “let the positive be your reality” means that regardless of life’s circumstances, remember that you are known and loved by God. Or, to put it much more succinctly: “Rejoice in the Lord. Always.”

We've Got It In Us! (The Kingdom of God, I Mean!)

2009-12-07T11:09:00.000-08:00

Malachi 3:1-4
Luke 3:1-6

Today, we use a calendar which, while loosely zero-based on the birth of Christ (but which is off by probably several years), has lost any such meaning to the billions of people who use it every day. In fact, in scientific writings, the term “A.D.” is no longer used to denote “the year of our Lord,” but has been replaced by the more innocuous “CE” or common era. We share, then, a common calendar which, as far as anyone is concerned nowadays, has nothing to do with the Advent of Jesus, but is a throwback to a time when Jesus mattered to people. Luke does not count time from the birth of Jesus, but from the advent of Tiberius’ reign as emperor. It was, Luke tells us, in the 15th year of this Caesar’s reign that “the word of God came.”

Under Tiberius’s judgment seat sat the lesser rulers: Pilate up in Jerusalem; the Herod brothers in Galilee and elsewhere. Annas and Caiaphas were in their appointed places as well. Luke seems to be pointing out that when “the Word of God came”, it came down into this world; it came into our world, the world of political, economic and religious power and intrigue; the world of the Caesars. In the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, the lyricist asks, “why’d you choose such a backward time in such a strange land?”

We may think of Israel in 4 BCE as a backward time, but we do so only out of arrogance. What makes us on the cusp of 2010 think we’re any more enlightened? What makes us think our world and our society needs the light of Christ any less?

We find ourselves in a time of political gamesmanship, in a period of increased financial disparity between rich and poor, and in an era of decreasing faith, hope and love. I am convinced that there can only be peace where there is faith, hope and love – as though they were the essential ingredients for making peace. Peace is not merely the absence of war, but something much greater, and much harder to attain.

As we approach the winter solstice on December 21, the darkest day of the year, we are reminded of what a cold, dark place our world still is, even almost two thousand years after Jesus’ resurrection. In the second chapter of C.S. Lewis’ book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, little Lucy stumbles through the back of an English wardrobe into the land of Narnia. Though it’s summer in England, it’s winter in Narnia. Shivering in the cold, Lucy meets a faun named Tumnus, who tells her that in Narnia, wintertime is perpetual – the result of the dark magic of someone called the White Witch. “It’s she who makes it always winter,” Tumnus explains, “Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!” Lewis had struck on the very notion on which I blogged last week: a world that views itself in Pre-Christmas terms, where Christ has not entered in. Of course, if one knows more about the history of Narnia, he or she knows that it was not always this way. Narnia was once a land of prosperity and peace for the creatures who lived there. But when the white witch began her reign of oppression, the warmth of the and was swallowed by her perpetual, wintry spell. In the end, the triumph over the white witch comes when Aslan the Lion sacrifices himself to redeem the land of Narnia, and break the bonds of evil. Such is the power of Christ’s breaking-in to human history.

Today’s Gospel lesson is a common Advent story and is, in fact, the story of an advent in its own right: the advent of John’s ministry. Foretold by the prophet Malachi who said, “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me,” John is the prophet sent by God to proclaim to Israel that the Messiah is on his way, using the words of Isaiah: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of the Lord.”

They were words of warning and judgment, but they were also words of hope depicting images of justice and peace. Valleys being exalted, mountains being brought low – it’s all imagery indicating that the last shall be first and the first shall be last. The crooked will be made straight and rough roads will be made smooth. By justice, John and Isaiah proclaim, there will be peace.

The human means of attaining peace are seldom peaceful. National leaders have utterly forgotten the wise proverb of Benjamin Franklin, who said, “There was never a good war or a bad peace.” Instead, they all tend to share the view of his contemporary, Thomas Jefferson, who said, “Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace.” Such is the attitude of the nations, who constantly prepare for war under the illusion that such preparations will create space for peace.

“Peace will not come out of a clash of arms but out of justice lived and done by unarmed nations in the face of odds,” Gandhi wisely noted. Mutual Assured Destruction as a means of avoiding war is faulty human wisdom, because it is from the same school of wisdom that teaches us that peace is the absence of war. The world cannot attain peace if it is only concerned with preventing war. War is the logical outcome of a way of life that requires the devouring of resources and impoverishing of whole nations in order to achieve the enriching of others. If we want not only to prevent war but to attain true peace, we have to change that way of life. Celebrated rock musician Jimi Hendrix once said, “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” And his musical contemporary, John Lennon, said: “If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.”

Jesus taught us to pray together, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The second sentence explains the first. We pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, which is the definition of the Kingdom of God. The prayer goes on to ask for nothing more than what one can expect in God’s kingdom: enough to sustain us each day, and the forgiveness of our sins. In other words, justice and righteousness.

Praying “give us this day our daily bread” is a prayer for justice in that we do not pray, “give us this day our daily bacon-wrapped filet mignon with bleu cheese crumbles.” We’re not asking to be lavished with rich gifts – only that we receive what we require to be sustained each day. If our attitudes and actions reflected the reality of that prayer, world hunger would end. I know from the first-hand experience of working on the staff of a homeless shelter that people living hand-to-mouth, those who have learned not to assume that they know where their next meal is coming from, are profoundly grateful for the gift of daily sustenance. They know not to expect more than their due. The Christian faith teaches us to humbly accept the gift of God’s providence. But that is not the faith that we profess with our way of life. Capitalism teaches us that to the victor go the spoils of the free market – even in the most genteel, mundane and capitalist of ways. The problem with capitalism is that while its founding principle is the creation of wealth, in order for some to be enriched, others must be impoverished. Yet I say again, if we want not only to prevent war but to attain true peace, we have to change that way of life, and seek justice rather than personal wealth.

The ancient theologian named Origen tried to simplify the meaning of Advent and Christmas in this way: Suppose there was a statue so large that the human eye simply could not take it in with one look. How, then, could we hope to grasp the essential form and substance of this statue? Would it not be wise to make a small copy to an exact scale but much reduced? Then humanity could see what the greater statue looked like. This, Origen explained, is what God has done in Jesus Christ. He shows us what He himself is like, within the bounds of our human ability to see and comprehend. We, as disciples of the Lord Jesus, must look to him for instruction about how to share God’s love in a holistic manner. He didn’t just tend to people’s souls, he also provided for their physical needs through miraculous healings and feedings. But he also didn’t just do acts of social care of concern, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked – he also talked to people about their faith, and invited them to follow him. Christianity – especially here in America – has been divided for several decades. On the one hand are old, mainline denominations like the Presbyterians, who have long fought for social justice, been activists for peace, and participated in ministries of caring for society’s outcasts. But we fall short of the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed, because we’re generally lousy at evangelism. We’re happy to feed the hungry, but then we feel as though we’ve given all we can, either forgetting that we possess the greatest gift, or feeling uncomfortable sharing it for unexplained reasons.

On the other hand are denominations or congregations whose sole mission is to “win souls for Jesus.” They’ll talk to anyone about the Good News, and ask if you know their friend Jesus. They count their successes by the number of people they’ve converted, praying with them and then sending them on their way, assuring them that because they have Jesus, life will be sweeter. Occasionally, these Christians feed the hungry, but only after the sermon. And in a few extreme cases, only after the hungry have accepted Jesus as their savior.

The peace that God promises in Advent, when God’s Word is made to dwell among us afresh, requires a fresh approach to individual and corporate ministries. We need a more holistic approach to mission and ministry, and to support and participate in mission work that ministers to people in both body and spirit. Providing for those less fortunate is incredibly important – as we are reminded by red Salvation Army buckets this time of year. Just as important is sharing the good news of salvation in Christ with those who have not yet received Christmas' true gift.

Ultimately, when I read Jesus words about the Kingdom of God – described everywhere by Jesus as a reign of justice and righteousness for the poor and oppressed – I see the words, “The Kingdom of God is within you,” (Luke 17) and I hear him saying it more colloquially. “Thy kingdom come? Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven? You’ve got it in you!”

We’ve got it in us to build the Kingdom of God, to share the world’s resources with everyone, to be content to receive each day our daily bread, and be grateful both for God’s gifts, and for the knowledge that all people will enjoy them. This may seem like a backward time of perpetual winter, but we’ve got it in us to build the Kingdom of God! God promises us peace, and showed us, in Jesus Christ, how every valley will be exalted, and every mountain made low.

Jesus is NOT the "Reason for the Season!"

2009-11-30T09:11:00.000-08:00

Jeremiah 33:14-16

Previously, I reflected on the fact that All Saints’ Day seems to fall on the church calendar at just the right place to lessen the perennial mourning during the holidays of the loss of loved ones by setting aside a time to honor our ancestors before the holiday season begins.

The cycle of the church calendar, then, is probably full of meanings and mercies if one stops to consider. Take, for instance, Advent. On the first Sunday after Thanksgiving, a Sunday for which I deliberately chose my favorite Thanksgiving hymns, our congregation also lit the first Advent candle. So which is it? Was it Thanksgiving Sunday, a day when we’re still looking forward to going home to one more turkey sandwich and to say goodbye to the loved ones who visited for the long holiday weekend, or the first Sunday of Advent, when we should be scrutinizing the deep meaning of the Word made flesh, and waiting expectantly for the fulfillment of God’s promise to humanity?

If you ask an ad executive, she might tell you that this is the “Pre-Christmas” season. From Black Friday on, it’s all about the run-up to the big day, and the five week period when (we hope) companies will see their ledgers switch inks from red to black before the end of the fiscal year. I can’t assume that anyone outside of the Church has any idea what the word “Advent” means, or to have ever really heard of it. To a non-Christian, “Advent” is as mysterious a season as Lent or the Muslim month of prayer and fasting called Ramadan. Advent certainly makes some sense – a period for reflecting upon our great expectations and the fulfillment of our hopes? Sure, that sounds like the thing to do before Christmas. Doesn’t every American child participate in this as they carefully choose their hopes from the Toys R Us catalogue and then send their prayers in a sealed envelope to the North Pole?

But while secular, consumerist rituals such as these do, in a warped sort of way, reflect the spiritual exercises of an Advent well spent, equating Advent with “Pre-Christmas” is way, way, way off the mark. If Christmas is the day Christ was born – the day that the Word of God was made flesh and dwelt among us, the day that God’s will was revealed to us in the most naked and earthy of all possible ways – then it would be folly for any Christian to think of Advent as “Pre-Christmas," as "Pre-Incarnation of God's Word in my life".

If we were to treat the coming days as “Pre-Christmas,” then we would be denying the incarnation of God in our lives. Now, I can’t deny that this happens everywhere we turn anyway. After all, we Christians congratulate ourselves for all the things we don’t do. “I don’t lie, cheat or steal; and I’ve never killed anyone.” Some of the more sanctimonious denominations would go even further: “we don’t smoke, we don’t drink, we don’t dance, we don’t gamble, and we don’t vote Democrat.”

I would argue that this condescension – of which we are probably all guilty on some level – is a “Pre-Christmas” attitude. Jesus spent much more of his time telling us what we should do than he did condemning people for what they did do. When the rich young ruler proudly stated that he had kept the whole law since his youth, Jesus didn’t (and presumably couldn't) condemn him for anything he’d done – he pointed out what he had left undone. “You haven’t sacrificed anything and everything for the sake of your neighbor,” he said (and I'm paraphrasing). “Follow me.” If the living God is incarnate for us, if the Word of God dwells within out hearts, then self-righteous attitudes about how adept we are at fulfilling the Law should not exist within us, because we are both lying and being disingenuine about what Christian discipleship means. If such self-righteous attitudes do exist within your heart, then ask yourself, “is the Word of God dwelling within me, or is my faith in a state of Pre-Christmas?”

The holidays are a time to reunite and celebrate with our families, to be surrounded by loved ones, and to show our friends and families how much we love them. But, to echo the words of Christ, “does not even our secular, consumerist society do this, (by equating their love for one another with the price tag on the gifts they give)? But what if you gave a gift to one who hates you, and prayed for them?” Jesus, the Word of God incarnate, was a champion of love, but not just of the usual sort. Jesus’ radical instruction to his followers about love included loving those who hated or persecuted them. (Matt. 5:44) Again, if the Word of God dwells within you, you will strive at every opportunity to love your enemies and pray for them. If the thought has never even occurred to you (or rarely does), and your attitude doesn’t leave you any room to even try, then you are still living a life that is Pre-Christmas.

I roll my eyes when I hear people (read: blowhard pundits on TV) exclaim that there is a “war on Christmas,” or that our society has somehow taken a sacred holiday and turned it into a secular one. It would be easy to point out to them that, in fact, holidays of gift-giving and mirth-making, of celebrating birth during the coldest, darkest time of the year have existed around the time of the winter solstice since long before the birth of Christ. It’s a point of historical fact that while Christmas is, for Christians, a sacred holiday, the notion that it was “stolen” from Christians is bunk. In fact, we stole the ancient festivals of pagans – festivals that included Yule logs, decorated evergreen trees, boughs of holly and mistletoe, great feasts and gift-giving – and claimed it as our own in an effort to Christianize pagan society. (For an interesting History Channel video on the subject, click here.) Therefore, what Christians lament is not the way society has taken Christ out of Christmas, but rather the fact that our campaign to put Christ into this holiday season is flagging. Whose fault is that, really?

I started this entry by suggesting that the season of Advent might be a great mystery to anyone not acquainted with the church calendar. The reason for this is that they don’t know Jesus Christ – the Word-made-flesh that we anticipate and contemplate during this season. While somewhere deep within they understand that their holiday (called Christmas for reasons they only vaguely understand) is a celebration of gift-giving and life in the face of death, what they don’t know is that the gift given is not from Best Buy, but from heaven, and that the promise of life they celebrate during the deadest time of the year (symbolized by all the evergreen decorations during a season when other trees appear dead), is the promise of eternal life entering into a world of darkness and promised annihilation! But again, I ask you: whose fault is that?

If we are unable to live in our hearts (in the world) what we confess with our lips (in our worship), then ours is a Pre-Christmas faith. Conversely, if we are unable to profess with out lips (in the world) what we know in our hearts (in our worship), then ours is also a Pre-Christmas faith.

While Advent, which simply means “arrival”, is a season for contemplating just what the arrival of Christ means, it should be, for disciples of Jesus Christ, a season for doing something about it. Christian faith is a belief. Christian discipleship is a plan of action. As a disciple of Christ, I feel called to ask myself (and, apparently, you) what am I (or what are we) supposed to do about the arrival of the Word-made-flesh?

The Church calls this Advent, while the world calls it “shopping season.” The Church looks with anticipation for the fulfillment of God’s promises to humanity, while the world looks with anticipation for the fulfillment of their wish lists. The difference between a secular understanding of the season and a sacred understanding of the season stares back at us from our own calendars! While the world celebrates “Pre-Christmas,” a Christian disciple celebrates Post-Thanksgiving.

A Christian is thankful for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ – hope of salvation and eternal life over the power of death and the annihilation of the soul. The pagan symbol of evergreens is powerful and beautiful – the promise of continued life despite the surrounding specter of death. It is the very same promise that we see in our nativity scenes, loving placed beneath our Christmas trees. There is no war on Christmas – there is only a lack of appreciation and understanding of what all of its symbols mean, and how Jesus Christ, the “righteous branch that sprung up for David”, is the fulfillment of God’s promise to humanity.

Jesus is not the “reason for the season”! Jesus is the reason for the hope that we have, the gratitude to God that we Christian disciples feel, and the reason for the “Post-Thanksgiving” attitude that turns faith into action.

“The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” (Jeremiah 33:14-15)

That promise is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, a ruler of justice and righteousness that sprang up for David’s throne. He reigns with justice and righteousness, and as Christ’s Church, we too are responsible for executing justice for the poor and the oppressed, and righteousness in our daily living. Our mission, as disciples of Jesus Christ, is to bring Jeremiah’s message of hope to a world that has no hope.

Look again at your calendars, and see it not from the perspective of the retail industry, but from that of the disciple of Jesus Christ. This is not the season of Pre-Christmas. It is the season of Post-Thanksgiving! In this season, our hearts and our lips must agree, our faith and our action must both bear witness as an act of thanksgiving for the hope that we celebrate in this first week of Advent.

The Shroud that is Cast

2009-11-24T09:27:00.000-08:00

Isaiah 25:6-9

All Saints' Day is a traditional church feast day for remembering those who have died and for celebrating both their terrestrial sojourns and God’s promise of their heavenly dwellings. It is, in effect, the Christian Memorial Day: an opportunity to remember those who have gone before, and honor what they accomplished for the Kingdom of God.

It’s almost the holiday season. Thanksgiving is just days away, followed by Advent and Christmas, and then the festivities of New Year. So many festivals crammed into a period of six weeks, all of them full of family traditions, entirely too many calories, childlike anticipation, house decorating, and a cup or two of egg nog. It’s a time of year that children anticipate with joy and wonder, and adults with the anxieties of shopping lists, food preparations and cards to send. More energy – and more money – is expended during this six weeks than during any other time of the year.

But not everyone looks forward to the holidays. There are those who are estranged from their families, and those who have lost loved ones, who feel as though the holidays are a cruel reminder of what they have loved and lost.

My blog thus far has offered God’s Word proclaiming hope in Jesus Christ in the face of a world bent on envy, strife and discord; hope in Jesus Christ through prayers of supplication and intercession as God’s royal priesthood; hope in Jesus Christ when the suffering of this world makes God seem distant or disinterested; hope in Jesus Christ, the Son of God whose only ambition was to serve as a ransom for many; hope in Jesus Christ, even when our spiritual blindness makes it difficult to see how God is working in our lives. In a sense, the Word of God is always about the hope we have in Jesus Christ, because he is the fulfillment of God’s promises of reconciliation with God and one another, the reason for our justification, and the source of our sanctification. But this passage from the prophet Isaiah is about a different kind of hope than, say, that of Job, who hoped for an end to his own troubles. Job’s hope was also limited to solutions to his problems in this life, and his prayers are of the sort that we can all relate to. Job doesn’t seem to have had any vision of a new life, a fresh start, a better existence beyond death; instead, his hope was for a reversal of suffering in this world. But Isaiah’s vision shows us hope in its largest dimensions. Isaiah hopes for an end to the suffering of all people, for all time. Isaiah hopes not just for an end to misfortunes, but for an end to sorrow itself - even an end to death. Isaiah hopes for a day when all people will be reunited with God and one another and share a great feast to celebrate God’s victory. Isaiah hopes for nothing less than a whole new world.

Christians believe that Isaiah’s hope has been fulfilled, as are all our hopes, in Jesus Christ. Jesus called it the kingdom of God, the fulfillment of God’s promises and the advent of God's perfect reign. We have all entered that kingdom through our baptism into Christ. On All Saints’ Day, we celebrate our citizenship in God’s kingdom as well as the sainthood of all our fellow believers, past and present. And at the same time, we read about our hope for the age to come, the great feast of rich food and well-aged wines that God is preparing for us, and we find ourselves caught between the Kingdom of God as it has already come, and the Kingdom of God that we all continue to hope for.

“On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast,” Isaiah proclaimed. “He will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations, he will swallow up death for ever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces.” All peoples, all nations, all faces. This is a wide open feast. Everyone is invited, not just a chosen few. That all sounds quite lovely, doesn’t it? A heavenly feast with God and all the saints, a new day when there won’t be any death or sorrow or tears. The problem is, we don’t see it. Where is it? When is it going to happen?

When Isaiah wrote this passage, God’s people, exiled to Babylon, had been waiting a long time for God to fulfill his promises to them. The Christian church has been waiting nearly 2,000 years for our Lord to come again. Life, it seems, is more waiting than anything else: waiting for a baby to be born, waiting for Christmas to come, waiting for a doctor to bring life-or-death news, waiting for health to return, waiting to meet Mister or Misses Right, waiting for the safe return of a loved one who’s far away, waiting for our hopes to be realized.

The life of God’s people is a life of waiting, but it’s waiting for a future we have already seen. We’re given glimpses of the future in the fellowship of the Lord’s Supper, which we call a “foretaste of the great wedding feast,” a sample of God’s heavenly banquet. And on the Feast of All Saints, we remember all those who have already entered the Kingdom of heaven, and in remembering and celebrating them, we glimpse the victory that awaits all of us.

“It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (v. 9)

We can have hope only when we can see the real possibility of its fulfillment. Anything else is wishful thinking. I wish I could win the lottery, but since I don’t play the lottery, I have no hope of winning! When we hope for good health, it’s because we can glimpse a future of good health. When we hope for Middle East peace, it’s because we get a glimpse of the weariness and wariness of both Jews and Palestinians, and have reason to believe an end to hostilities is yet possible.

Isaiah was waiting for the day when all the people of the earth might sit down in peace together, a hope that appears vain in view of the turmoil that exists throughout the world. The change in human nature that such a hope would require seems hopelessly beyond possibility. Surely Isaiah was speaking of a reality beyond this time and place. Surely, of all that this great prophet said, these words must propel us into the promise of the new covenant, sealed in Christ’s blood. So Paul would write: “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised, and if Christ has not been raised then ... your faith has been in vain.” (1 Cor. 15:13-14)

A high school quarterback was preparing to lead his team in the final game of a winning season, when word came that his father, who had been blind, had died. The funeral was scheduled to take place in the distant city of his father’s birth on the day of the big game. The reserve quarterback was called up to lead the team, but the star quarterback showed up for pre-game. The coach said, “But your dad has just died and is being buried, surely you don’t plan to play today?”

“Coach,” the boy replied, “you don’t understand. My dad was blind for many years, so this will be the first time he’s ever been able to watch me play.”

When we hope for the removal of the shroud of death that is cast on all people, this may sound like wishful thinking, and not hoping for a future within sight. But those of us who have communed with our Lord and with all the saints of every time and place know that we have glimpsed the coming of the Kingdom, and have even enjoyed the hors d‘oeuvres before that great heavenly wedding banquet.

Because of this hope – the certainty we have in the promises of God because of their fulfillment in Christ – we are able to celebrate and honor the memory of those that have passed from this life not with sadness, but with joy, knowing, through our communion with the saints, that the Kingdom of God is at hand.

What the Blind Man Saw

2009-11-16T13:20:00.000-08:00

Mark 10:46-52

It happens in shopping malls and grocery store lines every day. I’ve seen it countless times, and there is really nothing more obnoxious. And in recent months, this obnoxious behavior has infiltrated my own family’s household. I’m talking, of course, about temper tantrums. They’re called the “terrible twos” for a reason – and I’ve been assured on more than one occasion that the threes are even worse. And yet, in a very real way, toddlers are mastering a technique that, though it will become considerably more subtle, will serve them the rest of their lives. After all, do we not say of adults, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease?” Jesus even advocated this sort of behavior when he taught his disciples,

“Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” (Luke 11:5-9)

Granted, our Lord was referring to prayer, and he certainly wasn’t advocating temper tantrums, per se. But he did teach the value of persistence.

When Bartimaeus calls Jesus “the son of David", you get the sense that he sees quite a lot for a blind man – that he recognizes in Jesus something that Jesus’ own disciples have failed to see. Would we recognize Jesus if we “saw” him? Where are the places and situations in our lives where God is at work, and yet we don’t recognize it?

Walter Brueggemann provides a jarring assessment of where we are in the church:

“I think much of the church has lost its way. We worry about rules, and morality, worry about members and dollars, worry about culture wars and church splits, worry about imposing our way on others in order to get everyone in the right on morality or doctrine or piety or liturgy…all as though we have not received mercy.”

How this thought resonates with this passage, where Jesus’ followers try to keep Bartimaeus quiet and marginalized, as though their own discipleship of Jesus were not an act of God’s grace!

Pastor Stephen Albertin writes,

“In my church secretary's office there hangs a modernistic picture composed of a maze of colors and shapes. I know these sophisticated, modern, and abstract pictures are supposed to contain some profound artistic or philosophical message, but I have never been able to figure it out. It just looks like a jumbled mass of confusion. If there is a message there, I am blind to it.

One day while I was standing in the office, waiting for the copier to warm up, one of the congregation’s kindergarten-age boys, Adam, stood beside me and said, “Do you see what I see?”

“Do you see something in that picture?” I asked the boy. “I sure don’t.”

Adam looked at me with glee in his eye, “Pastor, can’t you see him? It’s Jesus hanging on the cross.”

I stared as hard as I could, until my eyes actually hurt from staring. I wanted to believe Adam and that there actually was the image of Jesus hanging on the cross hidden somewhere in that mass of color and shapes, but I couldn’t see Jesus anywhere. “Adam, I'm sorry but I must be blind. You will have to help me see.”

Directing his finger to a mass of color in the center of the picture, Adam said, “There, Pastor. Do you see what I see? There is Jesus, his face, his arms outstretched on the cross.”

And then, like an epiphany, the image began to appear. Yes, there hidden somehow “behind” the colors and the shapes was the barely visible image of Jesus, hanging with arms outstretched on the cross. “It’s amazing, Adam. You have helped one blind pastor to see Jesus. Yes, I can see what you see, Adam!”

Ironically, it is from those places and people we least expect it that God often makes his most stunning revelations to us. God uses shepherds, kindergarten boys, blind Bartimaeus, a crucified carpenter’s son from an out-of-the-way place and an out-of-the-way time, a sip of wine and morsel of bread, the caring hands and firm embraces of ordinary Christians, to help us to see what is ordinarily hidden. God uses them to help us see the most important thing in the world: his love for us in Jesus.

No wonder all those in the crowd rebuked and ridiculed Bartimaeus. He claimed to see what no one else saw: the Son of David, the Messiah. Bartimaeus believed that this Jesus the Nazarene, this wandering preacher and seemingly ordinary son of Joseph, the carpenter from that little hick town up north, was in fact “the Son of David.” To call Jesus “the Son of David” was Bartimaeus’ way of proclaiming that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, the descendant of King David, the king of Israel, who would finally fulfill all the hopes and dreams of God’s people.

The very next scene in Mark’s gospel is Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, full of palm waving and shouts of “blessed is the coming of the kingdom of our ancestor, David!” The crowd had figured Jesus for the Messiah, but they got a little help from a blind beggar along the way.

Jesus began his journey toward Jerusalem back in Chapter 8 of Mark’s Gospel. There, he healed a blind man. It didn’t go particularly well – he had to try twice before it worked. And when he’d finished, he sent the man away, ordering to keep silent about what had happened. Following this, Jesus began to teach his disciples about the suffering he was marching toward, telling them on three separate occasions that his purpose was to suffer, die and rise again for the sake of humanity. His disciples never made sense of what he was trying to tell them. As recently as my last entry, Jesus' dimwitted disciples were trying to jockey for cabinet positions in his coming political administration, because they still failed to understand the servant leadership he was embodying.

Now, book-ending his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus heals another blind man, this one called the Son of Timaeus. Timaeus is a significantly chosen name on the part of Mark, because the name was associated with Plato, the great philosopher! In a dialogue written by Plato, a presumably fictional teacher named Timaeus expounds upon cosmology and theology, arguing that sight is the foundation of knowledge. Certainly, our own Bartimaeus, literally translated as “a son of Timaeus” could argue exactly the same thing after his encounter with Jesus!

Mark really knows how to pour it on when he’s tying up loose ends and drawing his readers’ minds back to a previous episode! We’ve already been reminded that Jesus has previously healed a blind man. But this time, Jesus restores sight not with mud and spit and second attempts, but with merely a word. Jesus's closest followers prove themselves every bit as spiritually blind as Bartimaeus is physically blind. Recently, a rich young man had approached Jesus and asked him what he must do in order to inherit eternal life. Jesus instructed him to sell everything he had and “come, follow me.” Here, after healing Bartimaeus, Jesus tells him, “go on your way.” One man is explicitly invited to let go of what holds him back, and to follow Jesus, but he declines in great sadness. This other man is freed of what holds him down or keeps him out, and he decides, presumably with great joy and gratitude, to “come, follow” Jesus, even on the way to the suffering death that will come before glory. The rich young man asked what was required of him, and then couldn’t rise to the challenge, because he had so many possessions. Bartimaeus, in contrast, “threw off his cloak” as soon as Jesus took notice of him. The one and only possession he had, he threw off his back without even being asked, so that he could come to Jesus.

When Jesus asked the blind man the exact same question he’d earlier asked James and John, “What is it that you want me to do for you?”, the answer could have been the same in both cases. After all, the disciples betrayed their own blindness in my last submission. Relieving them of this affliction will apparently take a miracle, too, it seems. The disciples will have to travel the road to the cross, too, and they’ll do it in their own ways. Jesus, living out the things he’s been teaching his followers about true discipleship, “serves” the needs of the blind man, and as a result Bartimaeus feels utterly compelled to follow his Lord.

“Give us what we want,” the Sons of Thunder demanded.
“What is it that you want me to do for you?” And their answer betrayed their blindness. “You don’t know what you’re asking,” Jesus replied.

“Son of David, have mercy on me!” Bartimaeus shouts, and shouts, and shouts until Jesus finally stops his entourage in the middle of the street.
“What is it that you want me to do for you?” And despite his blindness, a loud, obnoxious beggar reveals to Jesus’ sighted insiders what they had been too blind and too smugly self-centered to see.

“Go; your faith has made you well.”

Greatness Through Service

2009-11-09T09:31:00.000-08:00

Mark 10:35-45

Mary didn't raise a fool! Here was Jesus, marching toward a fatal confrontation with the temple-based establishment. It was time to take his teaching ministry out of the backwoods and into the power centers. Here were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, ready to follow their leader as he marched on the capital, and it occurred to them, as it might to us as well, to start strategizing about their positions in the new administration their foresaw. But when they approached Jesus and said, “Hey, Jesus, do us a favor, wouldja?” Our Lord’s response was not, “Sure, fellas! Anything for you!” But rather, “… that depends on what it is!”

As it turned out, Jesus was right to be cautious. Then again, maybe he saw it coming. After all, he had nicknamed James and John “the Sons of Thunder.” In the gospel of Luke, as Jesus and his disciples passed through Samaria, they are denied hospitality by the Samaritans. Incensed, James and John thunder, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” In his mind, Jesus may have opened up their personnel files, posted little red flags, and scribbled in the margin, “Watch these guys… they’re a little nuts.”

James and John ask Jesus for positions of honor in his coming administration. Perhaps they were hoping to be named Secretaries of State and Defense, or something of the sort. In his sermon titled, “The Drum Major Instinct,” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., remarked:

Now very quickly, we would automatically condemn James and John, and we would say they were selfish. Why would they make such a selfish request? But before we condemn them too quickly, let us look calmly and honestly at ourselves, and we will discover that we too have those same basic desires for recognition, for importance. That same desire for attention, that same desire to be first. Of course, the other disciples got mad with James and John, and you could understand why, but we must understand that we have some of the same James and John qualities. And there is deep down within all of us an instinct. It’s a kind of drum major instinct—a desire to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first. And it is something that runs the whole gamut of life. And so before we condemn them, let us see that we all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade.

We’ve all had hopes and aspirations for ourselves, particularly when we were younger. And even Jesus must have been tempted by the power and authority that might have been his, had he not received other marching orders from God. In fact, in a scene not unlike the one we read this morning, Peter suggested that Jesus might become the revolutionary king of Israel that would overthrow their hated Roman occupiers. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “I won’t be tempted by your human aspirations! I aspire to God’s purposes for my life!”

Now, Jesus turns to James and John. He’s not so angry this time. Maybe this request from the “Sons of Thunder” was less surprising and disappointing than that of Peter. After all, he had already flagged their personnel files. “Cabinet positions? I don’t think you realize what you’re asking,” he said. “Do you really believe you can go down this road with me?”

“We’re with you, Jesus!” they said. Because they had the drive. The had the ambition. In 2003, Jim Hager of Oakland, California, earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. He accomplished this feat by eating 115 M&M candies in three minutes. That doesn’t sound very impressive, does it? I do that every time we buy one of those two-pounder bags at Sam’s Club! So what made Jim Hager special? He ate his 115 M&M’s in three minutes... using chopsticks! Now, I don’t know how long it took Mr. Hager to perfect this invaluable life skill, and I certainly have no idea why he undertook this task, but it is evidence of this: all of us have our dreams.

Dwight Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States, says that when he was a small boy in Kansas, he went fishing with a friend of his. Young Eisenhower confided to his friend that his dream was to one day be a major league baseball player. Eisenhower’s friend said that his dream was to be President of the United States. As Eisenhower reflected back years later, “Neither of us got our wish.”

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, had dreams, ambitions. They, along with Peter, were Jesus’ closest disciples. They were with Jesus for all of the significant events in Jesus’ ministry. When Jesus went up on the Mount of Transfiguration, he chose Peter, James and John to go with him! James and John felt as though they had a special kind of relationship with Jesus; that they’d somehow earned special consideration. Sometimes you and I go to God with that same kind of attitude, don’t we? We’re Christians. We’re Sunday School teachers. We give generously to the church’s work. We deserve for God to listen to our requests and to grant them even though God may have a different plan altogether, right? “Teacher,” James and John said, “We want you to do for us whatever we ask.”

Red flags! Sirens and alarms! Bells and whistles and personnel files with scribbles in the margins!

“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus calmly responds.

Now, the rest of the disciples caught wind of this conversation, and they were pi -- cturing themselves in inferior positions, which understandably upset them. Jesus called them together for a teaching moment, saying, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them,” said Jesus, “and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Interestingly, Jesus doesn't condemn James and John for their ambition. The other disciples become indignant, but I have no reason to believe their motives were any purer or wiser. Isn’t it possible that they were angry, not because the Sons of Thunder were ignorant in asking for favors from the “future King of Israel,” but rather because their own ambitions were being railroaded in the asking? It could have been any of them -- none of the disciples seems especially astute where Jesus’ purpose or God’s will are concerned. More important than their indignance, however, was Jesus’ response. “Listen, guys -- what you’re asking for… it’s not up to me.” That’s a far cry from a condemnation. Jesus wants his followers to seek after greatness. Why would we ever think that Jesus wants his people living mediocre lives? The disparity is not one of greatness versus mediocrity, but rather one between two different kinds of greatness. There is nothing wrong with aspiring to be the best we can be at the things we do (provided that they are honorable things). In using God’s gifts to the best of our abilities, we give glory to God. And people who achieve great things in this world, by definition, are ambitious people.

In 1976 motivational speaker Steve Chandler interviewed an aspiring young actor named Arnold Swarzenegger, who was promoting his first film. “Now that you have retired from bodybuilding,” Chandler asked him, “what are you going to do next?”

With a calm voice, Arnold Swarzenegger said, “I’m going to be the No. 1 box office star in all of Hollywood. It’s the same process I used in bodybuilding.” Schwarzenegger went on to explain, perhaps after sensing Chandler's skepticism. “What you do is create a vision of who you want to be, and then live into the picture, as if it were already true.”

But, there is a fine line between ambition and ruthlessness. Or ambition and greed. Or ambition and vainglory. Our economy has been crippled and many people have lost their life savings, because some people chose dishonest means to satisfy their ambitions. Some people will do anything, even to the point of destroying others, to achieve their goals. Jesus had a different benchmark for measuring greatness, and it was service.

If our ambition is to be truly great, we will need to learn the lesson that James and John learned in this reading's “teaching moment”: that to be considered great is to be recognized as great in service to others, rather than to ourselves; to be ambitious in our efforts to care for those around us, instead of serving our own hunger for riches or recognition. It challenges us to seek after a greatness the world simply cannot understand and only rarely recognizes. It is the greatness exemplified by our Master, who lay down his life for all of humanity.

I pray that God reveals to you what he wants you to do to be his servant, in this place, at this time, by showing you how to selflessly serve others. Proverbs 29:18 tells us that “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (KJV) Let us therefore discern a vision of who God wants us to be, and "then live into the picture, as if it were already true.”

Good as Gold

2009-11-03T13:28:00.001-08:00

Job 23:1-17

There are so many among us who might say “Amen!” to Job’s anguished cry when, in time of trouble, it seems that God has abandoned his post. The Psalmist wrote, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, ‘Where is your God?’” (Psalm 42:2-3). We even recall the suffering cry of Jesus on the cross when he cried, “My God, my God, why have you forgotten me?” (Mark 15:34).

Can you imagine the harrowing conversation when Christ returned in his glory to sit at the right hand of the Father? If Christ was God’s reaching down into the human experience in order to sanctify human life through his own suffering, can you imagine what Christ might have said if some report were necessary? “There I was, obeying you perfectly. There I was, in physical torment and utterly scorned by my fellow human beings. And in that suffering, I had no sense, none whatsoever, that you even existed.”

What Job did in this passage was give voice to our longing. What Job wanted was precisely what we have all felt deprived of at some time or other — God’s presence. “What I wouldn’t give,” Job might intone in a more modern vernacular, “to know where to find God.” This longing, this desperate need for at least some sense that God is near, concerned, interested, caring, something, is sure to resonate with anyone who reads it.

We don’t need the specifics of Job’s complaint; we don’t need details, or arguments, witnesses or sworn statements. We can see well enough what is at the heart of Job’s struggle: his perception that God is absent. At the heart of Job’s complaint is neither that he is suffering, nor even that God would allow such a thing, but that God feels distant, absent, unapproachable. A longing for a sense of God’s presence, for God’s attention, is what drives Job’s complaint and dissent.

Job has had a devastating experience, losing all of his possessions and his family. What makes this so difficult for Job is that it does not fit his understanding of God: it has happened as though there was no God. Or, if there was a God, God did not care. This theological struggle is as old as human history itself, and has taken an even more stark and bitter turn in modernity. The American people, after the attack on September 11, began asking itself, “Where was God when this happened? How could God allow the slaughter of innocent people?” all the while forgetting that the very event of Jesus’ birth precipitated the slaughter of infant children in Bethlehem at the hands of a crazy and jealous monarch. Jewish theologian Richard Rubenstein has said that, “God died at Auschwitz,” and Elie Weisel, the Nobel Prize-winning author who has written expensively about Jewish sensibilities after the Holocaust, wrote about putting God on trial for having broken his covenant with his chosen people in the Holocaust. For many, God seems to die in the midst of their personal tragedies and suffering. So much suffering appears senseless, meaningless, unexplainable, and causes many to express their personal lament and anguish by calling into question the goodness, and even the very existence of God. Many have cried out as Job, “Oh, that I knew where I might find him”. (v. 3)

But the Book of Job is not a book about suffering, but rather one about faith. Though in this passage Job voices frustration over the difficulty in approaching God an pleading one’s case, he still also utters words of faith. What makes it possible for Job to even imagine a fair trial in the heavenly court of God is his firm belief that in such a setting, God could be reasoned with and could be depended upon for justice. Job cannot let go of the fundamental belief -- even in the midst of blatant injustices -- that God is just.

Job reassured himself that although he could not see God, God saw him, and God’s knowledge of him would ensure his vindication. He was being tested -- as one tests metal with fire -- and in the end, he would come out of that refiner’s fire as good as gold.

As casual readers of this story, I think we sometimes allow God’s character to become tainted. So often we look aghast at the fact that God seems to be entering into some sort of wicked, inexplicable wager with Satan -- as though God falls right into Satan’s hands -- and we fall back on our favorite human question: why? But Job’s hope in God’s character is not misplaced. Remember that this story does not hinge on Job’s faith in God, but rather on God’s faith in Job. God’s money is on Job, and while everyone around him succumbs to Satan’s test -- his wife and his friends alike, each of whom tries to answer the question why -- Job remains ever faithful to a God that he believes will ultimately vindicate him. As Job himself states, God knows Job, and is assured that Job will prove as good as gold when tested. Those around Job ask the wrong question, the human question: why? But when God finally responds, he doesn’t answer the question why; instead, he answers the question who.

Who is sovereign? God is sovereign. Who is the creator of all things? God is the creator of all things. Who is the author of our salvation? God is the author of our salvation.

There is no stronger indictment of God in the book of Job than the depiction of him in the chapter that follows this morning’s reading. Here is is caricatured as a God of divine indifference in the face of pervasive misery, suffering and injustice. Again -- can we who were born during the most violent century of human history not relate to the horrifying scandal of God’s purported existence? Job embodies my experience that the belief in God and the belief that God is loving, faithful and just are inseparable. And yet I cannot deny the difficulty in proclaiming what I know to be true about God in the shadow of such things as the Holocaust or, more recently, the attacks of September 11, 2001.

A couple of years ago, Time magazine printed a cover story about the private spiritual struggle of Mother Theresa. Even as the world was rushing to canonize her as a saint as quickly as anyone has ever been, it was revealed that her private prayer life was one of anguish. Early in her life as a nun, she enjoyed a robust personal relationship with the Lord, even speaking conversationally with Him in prayer, and journalling the things she heard the Lord saying to her. However, shortly after answering Christ’s call to serve as his light to the poorest members of Indian society, she ceased to sense God’s presence in her life. “Jesus has a very special love for you,” she assured a confidant by letter. “[But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand.” She persevered as an ambassador of Christ for nearly 50 years without ever feeling God’s presence again. She eventually came to believe that, having prayed for the opportunity to suffer as Christ suffered, God has chosen for her what may have been the most excruciating -- and most human -- aspect of Christ’s suffering: the feeling that she’d been forsaken by God.

In his famous book The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis describes human experience as a series of peaks and valleys. In everything that we do, our interest, our ardor, our energy ebbs and flows, rises and falls.

“Now it may surprise you to learn that in his efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, God relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of his special favorites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this… the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of his scheme forbids him to use. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of his presence which, though faint, seem great to them… But sooner or later he withdraws, if not in fact, then at least in their conscious experience… He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs -- to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in this state of dryness are those which please him best… He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away his hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. [Satan’s] cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending to do [God’s] will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of [God] seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

One evening when a pastor was leaving a church meeting, he saw one of his parishioners acting very strangely. As he moved along a tree-lined sidewalk, he was darting around and behind the trees as if he were hiding from someone. The pastor became curious and concerned, so he called his name. When the man heard the pastor calling to him, he quickly rushed over to him and said, “I know you’re wondering why I’m acting so strangely, but I’m following my eight-year-old son and I don’t want him to see me.” He explained that he had allowed his little son to go to the neighborhood store all by himself for the first time. In other words, he was teaching his son to take some initiative in doing something for himself, but he had not deserted his son. He was nearby, even though his son did not know it.

Sometimes when it seems to us as though God has moved and left no forwarding address, it does not mean that God has abandoned us. It may mean -- as Job himself suggests in the above reading -- that even though we may not see God, God sees us. And perhaps God is allowing us room for our faith to grow. In such times, like Job, or C. S. Lewis, or Mother Teresa, we have to keep on seeking God. Faith, as defined in the New Testament, is "a conviction of things not seen." (Heb. 11:1)

The storms of life come to us as they came to Job. We learn what he learned, and we can only and ultimately do as Job did: cast ourselves completely on God, who cradles us in the bosom of God’s love and grace, bringing assurance that God is in control. It is when we feel God’s absence that our prayers best testify to our faith. Amidst all the deep, deep suffering that Job was forced to endure -- even the torture of feeling forsaken by the God he loved -- Job’s continued belief in a just God bore witness to his great faith. It is this faith -- this conviction of a thing not seen, that, when tried, made Job shine as good as gold.

Faith Like a Child

2009-10-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12
Mark 10:13-16

As few as five years ago, this would have been an entirely different submission. Jesus said that we must be like children in order to receive the kingdom of God, and five years ago I would have written extolling the virtues and singing the praises of children. I would have waxed eloquent on how Jesus blessed the children and how children bless our lives every day with their innate goodness, charm and joy.

That’s what I would have written five years ago. But in the past five years, events have taken place that changed my perspective on the subject: I became the father of three children.

Our Lord said, “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child shall not enter it.” That’s rich coming from a guy with no kids. We’re supposed to become like little children if we hope to inherit the Kingdom? Really? When you walk into the bathroom and find an entire, brand-new roll of toilet paper suck to the bottom of the bowl, you can’t help but wonder. When you come home from work to find an entire bowl of dog food scattered all over the kitchen floor, you can’t help but wonder. When you discover half a dozen dyed Easter eggs smashed on the coffee table in the family room because your children was hungry, you can’t help but wonder. And all of that mayhem was caused by Afton, before Liam was even born!

Yes, there are a lot of reasons to wonder what Jesus meant when He said that we must be like children to receive the Kingdom of God. But the truth is, there are many Kingdom values to be found in children, if we only know how to look past the computer monitor that’s been scribbled on with permanent marker…

A retired minister named Robert Fulghum certainly found those values of the Kingdom there in a book titled Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. "Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Take a nap in the afternoon. When you go out in the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together.”

Did we not learn all of that as young children? Think about what the world would be like if everyone had milk and cookies at three o’clock and then lay down for a nap. How much more just and peaceful would the world be if everyone agreed to play fair, not to hit people and not to take what didn’t belong to them? How much cleaner this world would be if people and corporations and nations had a policy of putting things back where they found them and of picking up their own messes. And how much happier and safer would we be if we went out in the world holding hands and sticking together?
Kingdom values in kindergarten. Maybe Jesus was on to something after all. Our roll in building the Kingdom, of course, includes not only looking to our children for examples of the Kingdom life, but also sharing our faith with them.

A kindergarten teacher gave her class a “show and tell” assignment. Each student was instructed to bring in an object to share with the class that represented their religion. The first student got up in front of the class and said, “My name is Benjamin and I am Jewish and this is a Star of David.”

The second student got up in front of the class and said, “My name is Mary. I’m a Catholic and this is a Rosary.”

The third student got in up front of the class and said, “My name is Tommy. I am a Presbyterian, and this is a casserole.”

It is our job – isn’t it – to share our faith and our faith practices with our children in ways that make sense to them and show them the joy of the Christian life.

It does my heart some good to read in Hebrews the author’s words, “But someone has testified somewhere…” (2:6) It happens to me all the time. While in conversation with someone, the Spirit will lay a passage of scripture on my heart. I am able to quote the scripture, but darned if I can remember where I read it! Or take, for instance, a conversation I had recently with a parishioner, who said, “Well, you need only remember Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6.” I stared at her blankly for a moment, and then she said, “Do you remember that passage?” To which I replied, “refresh my memory!” She recited it from memory, and it was then that I realized I had just read that passage quoted in another book earlier the same day! Thankfully, the author of the Biblical book of Hebrews apparently shared the same problem. “Someone has testified somewhere, ‘What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him?’”

And yet, the author goes on to explain, the son of man described by the Psalmist (because while he didn’t know where that scripture was to be found, I can tell you it’s Psalm 8) was none other that Christ himself. Why should humanity – even a human like Jesus – be worthy of God’s notice? Because it is God's desire to be God for us. And so Christ – the Son of Man – became God with us, accomplishing God’s will in affecting our salvation and bridging the gap between deity and humanity. And “the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them” – us – “brothers and sisters.” (2:11) Even as Jesus instructed his disciples to become like children in order to enter the Kingdom, so God became like a child in Christ Jesus himself, in order to establish his Kingdom, for “we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” (2:9) Like an exuberant child throwing caution to the wind, Christ threw himself into human frailty, abandoning deity and willing to die for the sake of creation!

It is trusting, unbridled enthusiasm – that ability to thrown caution to the wind – that makes childlike faith the key to the Kingdom. I think the day a child’s spirit first begins to break is the day he or she learns the proverb, “Look before you leap.” We teach our children to be cautious because the world is dangerous and, yes, they really can be hurt! But our caution is what prevents us from leaping – into the loving arms of God. Our inability to throw caution to the wind is what inhibits our mission initiatives and our evangelistic enthusiasm to share the Good News of God’s great love for humanity with a hurting, broken world. If I had a quarter for every person who has watched my children run around like hooligans, only to comment, “I wish I had that kind of energy!” I could probably personally pay off the national debt. Half the people really mean it – they probably do wish they had that kind of energy. The other half are probably offering a back-handed compliment, and wish my kids would sit down and shut up. But in fact, what I hear is a secret prayer – a tired soul whose for whom the Spirit is groaning with sighs too deep for words, beseeching God for the energy they envy in small children. And how much more would be accomplished to God’s glory – how many more lives would be saved and enriched by knowing our Lord Jesus Christ – if we entered into Kingdom work as a little child would?

Imagine a minister beginning the familiar words of the communion service. She explains, like I do, that this is the Lord’s table and that Jesus invites all those who trust in Him to enjoy the feast which he has prepared. Suddenly a young child who was sitting next to her mother rushes out of the pews and runs up towards the communion table. Her mother, horrified and embarrassed beyond words, comes running after her and catches the child just before she reaches the table. As she carries her squirming daughter back to her seat, the little girl cries out for everyone to hear, “But I want to eat with Jesus! I want to eat with Jesus!”

Just like the disciples in our text, some of the grownups in the church clucked their disapproval at this unruly child and at the mother who failed to keep her in line: “Our children didn’t do things like that when they were young. We had them under control and better behaved than parents do today!”
I wonder how many of those disapproving adults could emulate the spirit of that little girl as she rushed towards the communion table. I wonder how many grownups anywhere are as prepared to receive the bread and cup as this little girl was.

“Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child shall not enter it.”

The Priesthood of All Believers

2009-10-05T08:50:00.000-07:00

James 5:13-20

Previously, I stated that God’s will for us and for the world is accomplished through prayer, noting that Jameswrote, “if you do not have, it is because you do not ask,” and that “you askand do not receive because you ask wrongly,in order to spend what you get on your own pleasures.” (4:2c-3)

James concludes his wise sermon byexpanding upon the importance of prayer in a life of faith. Over the course of his entire letter,he has expounded upon the importance of faithfulness in the face of trials(1:2-18); putting one’s faith into action (1:19-27); showing no partiality tothe rich, but rather living lives of charity and compassion for the poor(2:1-26); mastering one’s tongue in order to speak words of truth and beauty(3:1-12); and choosing God’s wisdom over earthly wisdom (3:13-4:10). And now he underpins all of thesethings with a word about the power of prayer.

The power of prayer should not beunderestimated. James declares,“…The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being just like us. He prayed fervently that it would notrain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heavengave rain and the earth yielded its harvest.” (5:16-18 )

The power of prayer is not aproduct of the person praying, but ratherthe power of the God to whom wepray. The first epistle of Johntells us, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we havewhat we asked of him.” (1 John 5:14-15) Regardless of the person praying, the passion behindthe prayer, or the purpose of theprayer, God answers prayers that are in agreement with His will.

Prayer is a conversation with God, and not just a laundry list ofrequests. If we learn to listen, God will reveal his will. Knowing God’swill then, our prayers can begin to align our hearts with his by praying ouragreement with God. Learning tohear the Lord’s voice isn’t complicated, but many of us (and I speak here forfellow Presbyterians, but I suspect there are other mainline denominations inthe same boat) were never taught how. It requires some discipline to find a quiet place and to allow some timejust for listening. Perhaps thehardest part is clearing your mind. How noisy our lives are, and how difficult it can be to comehome from a busy day of work and quiet our minds enough to pray effectively! With all the noise of life regularlycascading through your mind, it can be hard to hear God’s voice. That is why I got into the habit ofwaking up early in the morning, and spending time in prayer to start my day. It helped me begin my day in the right spiritual state, and also enabledme to pray in a quiet house, with a quiet mind.

Previously, I quoted C. S. Lewis assaying, “I don’t pray because it changes God; I pray because it changesme.” This is especially true whenwe have taken the time to discern God’s will, and then pray to align ourselveswith it. After all, if we hear thewill of God, and it’s not what we hoped to hear, we can’t expect any amount ofprayer to change God’s mind, but we can expect prayer to change our minds, as the wisdom of God supplants our own feebleunderstanding.

When we pray passionately andpurposefully, according to God’s will, God responds powerfully. It doesn’t depend on our choice ofwords or on the length or eloquence of our prayers. In fact, Jesus says, “when you pray, do not heap up emptyphrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard because of theirmany words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before youask him” (Matthew 6:7-8).

If we need an example of a prayer,we need look no further than Matthew 6:9-13, the Lord’s Prayer. Not necessarily intended as a prayer weare supposed to memorize and simply recite to God, it is an example of how to pray and the things that might be included inprayer: worship, professions of faith in God’s providence, requests,confession, and spiritual protection. While we should pray daily for such things, as well as others, we canspeak to God using our own words.

“Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of thechurch and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of theLord.” (James 5:13-14) The Word of God declares that we are “aholy priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5), “a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9), and “akingdom of priests” (Revelation 1:5). Part of our Christian calling is to pray very intentionally for oneanother, lifting one another’s needs before God and seeking his interventionand healing.

The priest’s responsibility is tostand between God and humanity. InOld Testament times, he stood before God to minister to Him with sacrifices andofferings on behalf of the people. The priests stood between a righteous God and sinful humanity, bringingthem together at the place of sacrifice.

Hebrews 7:11-19 explains thedifference between the Old and New Testament ministries of the priest. The Old Testament Levitical priesthoodwas passed on from generation to generation through the descendants of thetribe of Levi. “The Melchizedek priesthood” spoken of in this passage, is the “neworder” of spiritual priests ofwhom the Lord Jesus is the High Priest. It is passed on to us through His blood and our spiritual birth as newcreatures in Christ. Melchizedekwas a mysterious figure mentioned twice in the Hebrew Bible. Melchizedek is mentioned as the King ofSalem, and priest of God Most High, in the time of Abram. He brought out bread and wine, blessedAbram, and received tithes from him (Genesis 14:18-20). Reference is made to him in Psalm 110:4where the victorious ruler is declared to be “priest forever after the order ofMelchizedek.” The Hebrews authorclaims that the Psalmist was speaking about Christ himself. No one knew where Melchizedek had comefrom, and he is never mentioned again after his encounter with Abram. He did not receive his authority to actas priest from any human tradition, nor came by the priesthood by virtue of hisfamily heritage like the Levitical priests. We, like Melchizedek, are a royal priesthood by virtue ofour justification in Christ and our sanctification by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus Christ is our priestly model forintercessory prayer. Jesus standsbefore God and between God and sinful man, just as the Old Testament priestsdid. First Timothy points out that“there is one God, and one mediator between God and humanity, the man ChristJesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). Romansgoes on to say that “It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, whois even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us” (Romans8:34). And finally Hebrews againsays, “Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to Godthrough Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews7:25).

Jesus brings sinful humanity andour righteous God together at the place of his sacrifice for sin. No longer is animal sacrifice necessaryas it was in the Old Testament. Wecan now approach God on the basis of the sacrifice of Jesus for the remissionof sins. Because of the sacrifice of Jesus, we can approach God boldly withouttimidity as we do when we confess our sins and seek God’s mercy (Hebrews 4:14-16).

A father took his children to thecounty fair one day. He bought awhole roll of tickets for the various rides at the midway. As each of his children approached aride, they would hold out a hand to get a ticket from their father. At one ride, after his children hadreceived tickets, a strange boy whom the father had never seen came up and heldout his hand, obviously expecting a ticket. The father drew back his roll of tickets. He wasn’t about to give this boy aticket! Upon seeing this, theman’s son turned and said to his dad, “It’s okay, Dad, this is my friend. I told him you would give him aticket.” And so the father gavethe unknown boy a ticket on the word of his son. The boy had no right to a ticket, but since his son had saidhe would do it, the father honored the request of his son by giving thatstrange boy a ticket.

We, too, once approached God asstrangers, but were given a ticket to ride on the word of his Son. Now it has become our job – not to handout tickets, or even to ask the Father for a ticket for our friends – but topoint to the Son and tell every child we meet in the midway, “if you befriendthat guy, his Father with give you a ticket.”

In intercessory prayer, we followthe Old Testament priestly function and the New Testament pattern of Jesus,standing before God and between a righteous God and sinful humanity. In order to be effective standing“between,” we must first stand “before”God, confessing our own sins anddeepening our own personalrelationships with our creator, which is necessary to fulfill the role ofintercessor.

As Christian believers, we standbefore the Lord to offer up spiritual sacrifices of praise (Hebrews 13:15) andthe sacrifice of our own lives (Romans 12:1). It is on the basis of this intimate relationship with Godthat we can then stand “between” Him and others, serving as an advocate andintercessor on their behalf.

Leonard Ravenhill, one of the mostfamous British revivalists of the lastcentury, once said,

“The church has many organizers, but few agonizers; many who pay, but few who pray; many resters, but few wrestlers; many who are enterprising, but few who are interceding. A worldly Christian will stop prayingand a praying Christian will stop worldliness. That is the difference between the modern church and theearly church. In the matter ofeffective praying, never have so many left so much to so few.” (The Significance of Prayer)

Instant Coffee in the Microwave

2009-09-30T14:36:00.001-07:00

James 3:13-4:8

James, writing two thousand years ago, had something to say even to us, attempting to refute the claims of personal preference and what we might call “moral relativism” by distinguishing between two types of wisdom: that which is “from above” and that which does not come down from above. “Who is wise and understanding among you?” he asks, “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish.” (3:13-15)

“A harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace,” but bitter envy and selfish ambition, James suggested, is the root of all conflicts, disputes and war. “Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it, so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it, so you engage in disputes and conflicts.” While James was speaking to individuals – and believing Christians, no less – the truth of his wisdom is far larger than any one individual’s life. We’ve all heard news reports at some time or another of school children assaulting or even murdering their classmates on the street in order to steal their expensive shoes, clothing, or electronic devices. But you may also recall that one of the reasons why the Iraq war was odious to many people was the perception that our only interest in the Middle East is securing enough oil to keep our economy running. Slogans like “no blood for oil” cut to the heart of the matter: it was perceived that our envy and covetousness were sufficient to drive nation to war against nation.

And for what? So we can keep up with the Joneses? The notion that we want more or need better is woven into the very fabric of our society. You cannot watch television (which needs to have hundreds of channels – and how did I ever live with only four when I was a kid?) or listen to the radio (and not just any radio, but satellite radio or HD radio!) without encountering a commercial pointing out how inadequate we must feel because we don’t have what’s hot this week.

“It is the eyes of other people that ruin us. If all but myself were blind, I should want neither a fine house nor fine furniture,” Benjamin Franklin once said. In an effort to project some sort of burnished public image, we further complicate our lives. And then we grow increasingly envious of people whose “glittering images” are better constructed or gleam a little brighter than our own. We don’t envy who they are – in fact, we likely don’t even know who they really are. We simply covet what they have. Our entire economy is based on the sin of coveting. If we didn’t constantly covet everything our neighbor has, and if we weren’t constantly bombarded by advertisements that encourage this sin, our consumer economy would cease to exist. While this would spell disaster for our capitalist economy, it would mean the rescue of our civil society, our foreign policy, and most importantly, our souls.

We are in constant competition with our neighbors and our own misconception of what will bring us happiness, because we exist in a financial system that instills a Darwinist concept of economics. The strongest, most innovative companies thrive, while smaller, weaker companies fall by the wayside.

Two shopkeepers were bitter rivals. Their stores were directly across the street from each other, and they would spend each day keeping track of each other’s business. If one got a customer, he would smile in triumph at his rival. One night an angel appeared to one of the shopkeepers in a dream and said, “I will give you anything you ask, but whatever you receive, your competitor will receive twice as much. Would you be rich? You can be very rich, but he will be twice as wealthy. Do you wish to live a long and healthy life? You can, but his life will be longer and healthier. What is your desire?” The man frowned, thought for a moment, and then said, “Here is my request: Strike me blind in one eye!”

This is as it should be, we are told – it’s every company, and every man, for himself. And this is good for who? The consumer, who wants more, wants better, and wants it faster. The truth, though, is that it wouldn’t occur to us to want more, want better, or want it faster if companies weren’t spending huge sums of money to tell us what we want.

We want what we want, and we want it now. And that inability to delay gratification – that frustration we feel when the “Express Lane” at the grocery store is the slowest moving, or when having to wait more than three minutes at the counter of McDonald’s makes us question whether or not it still qualifies as “fast food” – is anger misplaced.

Comedian Stephen Wright once equipped, “I put instant coffee in the microwave, and I almost went back in time.” After all, if the coffee can be ready in an instant, and we put it into a device designed to cook things even faster, surely putting the two together must violate the physics of the space-time continuum! Another example would be to build a microwave fireplace, so that you can enjoy a romantic evening by the fire in less than eight minutes!

We want more we want better and we want it faster. But whom does that serve? Not us – for whom nothing will ever be enough, be good enough or be fast enough – and certainly not God, who could think of a million better things for us to do with our time, money and energy.

In my favorite Advent hymn, O Come, O Come Emmanuel, we sing, “bid envy, strife and discord cease; fill the whole world with Heaven’s peace.” How we need to sing that song not just at Christmas, but every day of our waking lives.

The North Wind and the Sun is a fable attributed to Aesop. It is the story of a competition between the North Wind and the Sun to decide who was the stronger of the two. They agreed upon a challenge to decide the matter. The challenge was to make a unsuspecting traveler remove his cloak. The North Wind, seeking to win by brute force, unleashed a gale upon the man, but however hard the North Wind blew at the traveler, the traveler only wrapped his cloak tighter. When the North Wind had blown himself out, it was the Sun’s turn. The Sun shone warmly and brightly and pleasantly. After a while, the traveler was so overcome with heat, he had to take his cloak off. The moral of the fable – since every fable has one – is that kindness, gentleness, and persuasion win where force fails. And James affirms this, saying, “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom… For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.”

How, then, do we get what we want in life? If selfish ambition is the result of worldly wisdom, then what is the “wisdom that comes down from above?” God’s will – for us and for the world – is achieved through prayer. James says, “you do not have, because you do not ask.” God’s will is accomplished through prayer. If you do not have, James suggests, it is because you haven’t prayed.

However, he also puts to rest any thought that God is a genie in a bottle, waiting to obey our every command. He goes on to say, “you ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your own pleasures.” It is time we stop living for the things we want, and start being grateful for already having what we need. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want," is best interpreted, "Because God leads me, I will never lack what I need." If we were grateful for receiving what we need, and nothing more, we would be relieved of the pressure to "keep up with the Joneses," the soul-crushing sin of covetousness, and the (erroneously) perceived inability to share our overabundance with those who have too little.

Prayer can change the world and can change your life, but not if your prayers are nothing more than one more attempt to get more, get it better and get it faster! God cannot be manipulated in this way. When we pray prayers that are acceptable to God – prayers for God’s providence for certain needs or to aid particular causes or people – those prayers are answered because we seek nothing to satisfy our greed. C. S. Lewis famously said, “I don’t pray because it changes God; I pray because it changes me.” We ought never to pray to God for help in keeping up worldly appearances, and James stridently calls this adultery! Adultery, because we’re cheating on God and running around with the world instead of the one to whom we’ve pledged our lives!

“Submit yourselves therefore to God,” James concludes. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” The wisdom of the world is earthly, unspiritual and devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. The conflicts and disputes among us, where do they come from? They come from our own cravings and covetousness. Chasing after them will never make us happy, because we will never be satisfied. Instead, to steal a phrase from Christian financial advisor Dave Ramsey, “Let us live like no one else, so that later, we can live like no one else.”

Why The Solitary Broom Tree?

2009-09-29T11:00:00.000-07:00

Over eight years of the ordained life, I have returned again and again to this chapter in 1 Kings, so fraught with evocative imagery and poignancy, and found echoes of my own spiritual journey. I have read it and found myself in the clinically depressed prophet who "sat down under a solitary broom tree" and asked that he might die. I have read it and found myself in the prophet of God on the run from those who would take his life. I have read it and found myself in the prophet who is unable to discern God's will in all the calamitous noise of the world, but finds it in the "sound of sheer silence."

Most importantly, though, I have read it and found myself in the prophet who, despite depression, threats and distraction, hears God's voice saying, "What are you doing here? Go, return on your way, and do the work to which I still call you."

For some reason, that solitary broom tree, the place where Elijah sat down when his hope flagged and his energy was depleted and he found himself most empty, but where he was also attended by angels and spurred on to his most enduring encounter with God, has become a sacred place for me. I, too, sit beneath that solitary broom tree -- not as a depressed or defeated soul, but merely one seeking God's voice and God's providence. Time and again, as I sit beneath that tree, God comes to me. God moves. I hear his voice, and my soul is filled afresh.

Because it is my sacred calling from God to speak his Word and share the living water of his love with parched human souls, I have created this blog -- with the utmost humility -- to share God's Word with anyone who would set a spell beneath this tree with me and listen.