The Pulpit

The Call of Samuel, Part 1

2012-01-22T08:39:00.001-05:00

January 19, 2003

I Samuel 3:1-11

I was at the Fellowship of Presbyterians Conference this week. There is concern in our denomination about the future and some churches are looking create a new denomination while others are looking at a new way to relate to the Presbyterian Church, USA. There was talk about the denomination being dead, but not everyone, me included, is ready to jump ship. Maybe it was providential that as I was travelling to this meeting, I was reading Colin Thubron’s book, In Siberia. In the 1990s, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Thubron travelled extensively throughout Siberia, a place that had mostly been inaccessible to those of us from the West during the Cold War. An acknowledged agnostic, he was perplexed by the re-insurgence of religion in the region as churches reopened and rebuilt and the faithful evident. “Why had this faith resurrected out of nothing, as if a guillotined head had been stuck back on its body,” he asked.[1] God has this amazing desire to breathe life back into that which not only appears dead, but in some cases is. “Why had this faith resurrected?” Thubron didn’t give an answer, but I will give a one word answer: “God.”

This week and next, we’ll be looking at the call of Samuel. Today, we’ll examine the call itself, which was one of my favorite passages as a kid. It was reaffirming to know God picked the equivalent of one of my peers for an important task. I thought it was cool how Samuel thought he was being called to finish some chores, only to find out that it was God who needed him. This week we’ll deal with the call and next week, we’ll look at its content and the role Eli plays in the story.

The call of Samuel is, in a sense, the beginning of Israel’s history as a nation. Samuel bridges between the era of judges and kings. To use a relatively modern term, nationalization is occurring. The Hebrew people, this loose confederation of tribes, are about to be united under a king. Samuel will become more than a prophet. He plays a key role in both the religious and political development of Israel. He anoints Israel’s first two kings. At the time of Samuel’s call, the Ark of the Covenant was at a temple in Shiloh, a town 25 or so miles north of Jerusalem. During King David’s reign, Jerusalem will become the political and religious center of Israel, but that’s still a few years off. Samuel, however, helps set things into that direction with the anointing of David. Samuel is the catalyst: a key figure in the Old Testament. Listen to his call… (Read)

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A dark pall hangs over Israel. The word of the Lord is rare and there are few visions. Although the average Joe in Israel may not know it, they are a hopeless people. They are living during a season of drought, for the best-laid human plans are futile without God, the author of life and the creator of all. Without God, there can be no hope, only a foreboding anticipation of the future. I’m sure many of us as individuals have been in such a place in our lives, when things appear hopeless. There are also times in our collective history that we are in such a place.

Our story this morning takes place at such a time in Israel’s history. The Ark of the Covenant is at a temple in Shiloh. This is not the great temple. It would be another generation before David would move the ark to Jerusalem, and another generation after that before Solomon would have his magnificent temple built. At Shiloh, the ark is kept in some kind of building. Here, an old blind man named Eli faithfully cares for this sacred symbol of the Hebrew’s Exodus. Eli’s sons are also priests. They should be helping him, but they’re corrupt. They steal from that which has been dedicated to God, and if that isn’t enough, they strong-arm the faithful in order to have more sacrifices to plunder. With such corruption, those who desire to be faithful find themselves spiritually starved.

But within the Lord’s house at Shiloh, there’s a young boy named Samuel. His mother, Hannah, had been barren and unable to have children. She implored the Lord to look favorably upon her, promising that if he did, she would dedicate her first born son to his service. And sure enough, God granted her wish and she gave birth to Samuel who, once weaned, is dedicated in the temple. There, Samuel grows, sleeping next to the ark. Yearly his mother drops by, presenting him with a new robe and thanking God for answering her prayers.[2]

With the injection of Samuel into the story, we can see that God isn’t removed from the situation. Things are not as hopeless as they looked in verse one. God has something up his sleeve. There is an important lesson here. It’s when things look the worst that God does some of his best work. The barren give birth, the weak become strong, and death ends in resurrection. In the case of Samuel, God is working behind the scenes.

Traditionally, it’s been assumed that Samuel was 12 years old when he heard God’s call. His age isn’t revealed in scripture, but Josephus, writing a millennium after Samuel, gives it to us.[3] Of course, we don’t for sure that he was 12, but can assume that he’s not yet an adult. After all, he’s referred to in the text as a boy.

It appears Samuel’s role at the temple was to take care of Eli. I’m not sure why Eli’s sons didn’t perform this service, except that the picture we have of them is one of self-centeredness. So instead of taking care of their dad in his old age, they get the boy Samuel to perform such tasks. Samuel is there to help the man get out of bed or to bring him his cane or a glass of water. Whatever needs to be done, Samuel is quick to respond. So it’s natural that when Samuel hears his name during the night, he assumes Eli needs something and rushes into his room to report to duty. On this particular morning—and from the text we can understand that it’s early in the morning, before sunrise since the lamp is still lighted in the temple… But Eli isn’t the one calling Samuel. It takes a few tries for Eli to realize something must be up. God must be summoning Samuel, so Eli tells the boy the next time he hears the call, to respond, “Speak up Lord, I’m all ears.” (That’s my loose translation.)

This passage is not about Samuel as much as it is about God. And this morning, I want us to consider two things our reading tells us about God’s calling—its randomness and how it often comes during times of silence. And then I want us to think about one thing we learn about the nature of God--the hope we have in him. In all, there are three things to consider:

If there is one thing Scripture is clear about, it’s that we can’t control God. As much as we like being in the driver’s seat, we’re not when we are dealing with the Almighty. He’s in control and decides who he wants to further his work in the world. Think about it: Samuel wasn’t on his knees praying that God would call him. He was sawing logs and, when the call came, he assumed it was Eli wanting something, perhaps a glass of water. Samuel wasn’t praying, nor was Eli praying for this to happen. They were both asleep. The roosters hadn’t yet wakened. Knowing mothers, his mother may have been praying, but we don’t know that for sure and even if she was, it wasn’t the reason God decided to upset the balance of things and call Samuel into his service. Instead, God needed someone to shake up his people and Samuel, for whatever reason, was the one chosen.

This passage doesn’t tell us how to secure a calling from God. Instead, it reminds us of God’s freedom. God doesn’t have to play by our rules. For reasons that will become evident next week, God was free not to choose one of Eli’s sons. Instead, he called a boy name Samuel who would play a major role in shaping the emerging nation of Israel. A mere boy, Samuel isn’t yet ready for the assignments he’ll be given. He hasn’t had a chance to prove himself. But that’s okay because God is with him.

When God calls us for a task, we should not question our abilities… “Why me, Lord? I don’t have what it takes!” Instead, we trust God to grant us whatever we need to perform the service he requires. When I first felt the call to enter seminary, I didn’t think I’d be a pastor. I knew I didn’t have enough to say; the thought of preaching every week was horrifying. But you know, God saw to it that I have more than enough material to work with for a sermon. Some of you, I’m sure, might think God’s given me too much—especially on playoff days when you want to get out of church early…

Back to our message, if God calls us, we’re not to worry about how we’re going to perform, we just need to listen and be faithful.

One thing we do learn about God’s call here, and in many other such calls in Scripture, is that they often occur when we least expect it—during times of silence or when there is little to distract the one being summoned. After all, Moses was up on a mountain tending sheep.[4] Likewise, Amos was taking care of those four-legged beasts, as well as those first summoned to greet the baby Jesus.[5] Ezekiel was watching a river flow by[6] and for all we know may have been singing an old Otis Redding song about the tide flowing away. And Samuel was sleeping.

In each of these cases, the one being called wasn’t looking for a call, but their lives were also not so preoccupied that they couldn’t hear God. When we’re too busy, can God get through to us? With Paul and Moses being exceptions, it appears God prefers to approach us in a less than dramatic fashion. In Marva Dawn’s book on worship, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down, comes this quote:

“American fundamentalist religiosity notwithstanding, the Word of God comes to us like a deer that emerges from the mist in the forest where you have been sitting without moving a muscle. If you are still and gentle enough, you will not scare the deer away. Of course, our deer is also the Hound of Heaven who relentlessly pursues us. But we approach God in paradox, and so He is both Word and Silence, the One who will not be silenced, and yet the One who does not shout or raise His voice.”[7]

Don’t you like the analogy of God coming like a deer curiously appearing in the mist? Have you ever experienced such an event, where the deer was a bit skittish, walking slowly in order to check you out? If you make any loud noises, the deer will flee. But if you just sit there, you might be in for a real treat. It’s that way with God. Remember, God tells us through the Psalms to “be still and know that I am God.” “Be still.”[8]

First, we learn that God is free to call whomever he chooses, and we can’t force God to call us. But if there is a lesson here for hearing God, it’s that we need to be quiet, we need to have times in our lives when we aren’t so busy and preoccupied. We need to have Sabbath spaces so we can hear and have room for God in our lives.

The final lesson we draw from this passage is that there is always hope. God’s freedom means he can break into our world at any moment. The first verse of this passage is depressing. God’s word was rare; visions were infrequent. With such a description, the Promised Land doesn’t look so promising. But just like in the late winter, buds begin to form on trees, God works behind the scenes to give new growth to the Hebrew people. Samuel is called. As long as God is with us, there is hope. We should never give in to despair. Never give in to despair for with God there’s hope. Did you hear that? Don’t let despair get you down for with God there’s hope. That’s the message for today. Amen.

[1] Colin Thubron, In Siberia (2000, e- book 2009), 59.

[2] 1 Samuel 2:19

[3] Josephus, Antiquity of the Jews, V.10.4.

[4] Exodus 3:1

[5] Amos 1:1; Luke 2:8-18

[6] Ezekiel 1:1

[7] Raymond Gawronski, “Why Orthodox Catholics Look to Zen,” New Oxford Review 60, no. 6 (July-August 1993), 15. As quoted in Marva J. Dawn, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship for this Urgent Time (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 266.

[8] Psalm 46:10

January 15, 2012 The Kingdom of God

2012-01-15T08:16:00.004-05:00

There is a story that’s been around a lot about heaven and hell. In hell, everyone is at a banquet, with lavishly prepared food that’s piled up on the table. Unfortunately, the only forks in the house are four feet long and people can’t seem to get them to work. They struggle, once they've stab the meat, to get the fork turned around so that they can enjoy those juicy morsels on the tongs of their forks… The table is a mess and everyone is flustered. In heaven, it’s the same tables, same forks and same food; only those at the table use the over-sized forks to feed the persons sitting across the table. There is joy in cooperating with one another.

Today, I want us to ponder what the Kingdom of God means for us. I will be preaching from the opening of Mark’s gospel. Like all the gospels, Mark begins showing how God is initiating the action.[1] The Kingdom of God has come near—in other words, God has entered the human sphere; therefore it is time to repent and believe. Read Mark 1:14-15

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From my childhood, I remember Coy as an easy-going older man. I doubt he was ever uptight, even when he was younger. One of the memories I have of him is in overalls, standing between piles of tobacco in the pack house as he separated the leaves into different grades, preparing his crop for market. He was proud of his work. Tall and lanky, I remember Coy in overalls every day but Sunday. Like the other men at Culdee Presbyterian—farmers, mechanics, tradesmen and such—Coy wore a suit on Sunday. His suit hung loose on his slender frame. On Sunday afternoon, after worship, you’d see him and his friends including my granddaddy, gathered in front of the church. He was always excited to see us. The men would chat and joke with the kids as they smoked a cigarette before heading home to a big Sunday dinner. It was a day of rest; the rest of the week was full of activity.

(Culdee Presbyterian Church)

I was just a squirt. This was before I started school and I was riding with my dad one rainy day over to Coy and Martha’s. I’m pretty sure his house was on Murdocksville Road, just north of Dobb’s Chapel. At this time, back in the early 60s, the road had not yet been paved. It had been raining for some time and the creeks had busted out of their banks and the swampland was all under water. Parts of the road had washed out and my Dad’s ‘55 Buick fishtailed on the wet clay. As we approached their farm, we saw Coy sitting up on his tractor, pulling a car out of the ditch. He was soaking wet, but grinning ear to ear. My father got out and helped. For all I know, that may have been the reason we had gone over there. After the car was free from the ditch and back on the muddy road, the man pulled out his wallet and handed Coy a wad of bills, but they were refused.

Coy and Martha lived on an unassuming homestead, a two story farmhouse with a large front porch that wasn’t used much. The front porch looked at to the highway and was shaded by some large trees. The driveway brought you around back of the house, and there off the kitchen was the back porch. That’s where all the action was at. On Saturdays, sitting in the sill of the kitchen window would be blackberry pies, from berries Coy and Martha had picked down at the branch. The women may have sat on the rockers in the front of the house, but the men stayed in the back with the kids, perhaps to keep an eye on those pies. Sometimes, Coy would make ice cream (and there’s nothing better than churned homemade ice cream on a warm day and when served with pie, it’s a taste of the kingdom!). Or, if was in July or August, he’d have a watermelon or two stashed away in the springhouse. Coy would slice open one of those cool melons and feed us some of the juiciest and tastiest watermelon I’ve known.

Visiting Coy’s farm was a real treat. When it wasn’t raining, we’d have the freedom to roam around. After we left Pinehurst, first for Petersburg, Virginia and a few years later for the coast, Coy would pity us “city-folk” and whenever we visited, he’d tell my dad at church on Sunday to be sure to stop on his way out of town. He would fill up our car with watermelons. We’d straddle one in the well in backseat floorboard (the dog went on the other side of the bump that housed the drive train). The trunks were bigger in those days and Coy would make sure we had three or four melons back there. For the next two weeks, we’d have watermelon every day. Life was good.

Coy was a great-uncle and, in many ways, was a part of the last generation to run small self-sufficient family farms. He raised just about everything he and Martha needed. They had a large garden where they grew all kinds of vegetables that Martha would can and pickle in Mason jars for winter. One of his specialties was okra and one summer when staying with my grandmother, he had so much that we went over there and on the sandy ridge above the pond, helped ourselves to a peck or so of okra. The small ones my grandmother boiled; okra is good boiled, they just slide down. The larger ones were breaded and fried in a cast-iron skillet.

Around Coy and Martha’s house were walnut and pecan trees and out back was a grape arbor. In the fall, after the tobacco had been auctioned at market, Coy and my granddaddy would come down to fish on the coast and he’d always bring a big grocery sack of grapes. We loved ‘em, especially those large and sweet bronze colored scuppernongs!

Dividing Coy’s land was a branch that flowed through the bottom land, about the size of Fall Creek. In the swampy bottomland, hardwoods grew. Coy hunted for squirrels and cut firewood there and he and his wife would pick blackberries along the edges. At one place, an earthen dam crossed the branch to create a pond where I’d fish with my granddaddy some summer evenings. During the heat of the summer, Coy used an old tractor to power a pump and irrigate his tobacco fields from the pond. His farm provided most of their necessities. What little cash they needed came from a couple of acres of tobacco and a few hogs he sold.

Few of us in our mobile society can relate to the attachment Coy and his generation had to their church, their land, and their friends. I confess there are times I envy them. They grew up together and knew each other and their land better than the back of their hands. I’m afraid I’m a bit more like Jig Pendleton, a character in several of Wendell Berry’s novels set in Port Williams, Kentucky. Jig had the habit of taking off and traveling the world. Once when he came back home, someone asked him what he’d done and he said he just looked at the mountains and rivers and oceans that the Lord had made. “Since the Lord had gone to all the trouble to make them,” Jig said, “the least a man could do was go out and look at them.”[2]

I suppose there is some truth in both lifestyles. In a way we’re all sojourners on this earth and, since the Kingdom of God hasn’t yet been fully realized, our hearts should be set on something better. Yet, at the same time, the lifestyle of Coy working hard during the week and enjoying family and friends and worship on Sunday seems to be about as close as we can get to the Kingdom in this life.

Today, I want us to ask what the Kingdom of God means. The concept comes from the Old Testament, even though the term wasn’t used there. The hope of the prophets centered on a day when God would rule Israel and the world. But the Hebrew Scriptures always speak in the future tense. “For soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed.”[3] However, a shift occurs in the New Testament. [4] Here, at the beginning of Mark’s gospel, we hear that the kingdom has come near. What does Jesus mean? What is he trying to tell us?

As much as Jesus spoke about the kingdom, he never paused enough to define it.[5] He gave us parables to explain what it is like. The kingdom is like a farmer who plants and even though he watches his fields day and night, the growth of the crop is a mystery…[6] Or the kingdom is like a mustard seed growing into a bush into which the birds can seek refugees.[7] But Jesus he never gave a clear vision or definition of it. At the danger of over-simplifying, the kingdom is something God provides. It is a restoring of our relationship to God, an overcoming of our sinfulness. It is God coming to us. Although this is done on our behalf, we’re called to respond. “Repent and believe, “Jesus hails. Because God has shown his favor upon us, we need to turn back to God (this is what repentance means, to turn back). We need to trust in God’s goodness.

The proclamation of the kingdom is one of the central themes in Mark’s gospel. It starts with John the Baptist pointing to the one coming, to Jesus the Christ, the one ushering in a new era. Then Jesus takes over the preaching role from John. No longer is the kingdom coming; it has now come near. God is with us and calls us to a new relationship. At the end of Mark’s gospel, you have Jesus sending out the disciples with the commission to take over his role as a preacher.[8] Jesus’ preaching in the first chapter of Mark becomes an example for all who follower. We proclaim the kingdom and we call people to repentance.[9]

When my dad got back to the car on that rainy day at Coy’s, I asked him why Coy didn’t accept the money he was offered by the man whose car he pulled out of the ditch. I had these visions of Coy getting rich by using his tractor as a wrecker service on Murdocksville and Dobb’s Chapel Highways. “Some things you don’t do for money,” my dad insisted. I wonder if the man whose car was stuck felt a little closer to the kingdom when Coy hauled him out of the ditch and didn’t expect anything in return, except perhaps for the man to do the same if he came upon someone else in need. Isn’t that what God does for us, pulls us out of the ditch and expects us treat others as we’ve been treated?

Coy died when I was in high school and I may be reading more into him through my fuzzy memory. But I know he was a good man and from what I glean from my memories, I have the feeling he completely trusted in God’s providence. Coy knew God was taking care of him and that’s why he was willing to haul out his tractor and get all wet, risking his neck on that sloppy road, to pull someone’s car out of the ditch. I’m not sure Coy knew the man, but I’m not sure that mattered. He was a neighbor who needed a hand and Coy was willing to oblige.

Later, in Mark’s gospel, a scribe agrees with Jesus’ teaching, telling our Savior that the most important teaching, more so than sacrifices and offerings, is the belief that God is one and that we should love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. When Jesus heard this response, he said to the Scribe, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”[10]

When we follow Jesus, we help demonstrate the kingdom to others. As you think about the week to come, will you be open to opportunities to share the kingdom? Play it forward, do a good turn daily, perform random acts of kindness, we all know the clichés. Don’t memorize; live them. Love God, love others, it’ll take us far, all the way to the kingdom. Amen.

[1] See David Rhoads & Donald Michie Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 74.

[2] Wendell Berry, Nathan Coulter (New York: North Point Press, 1960), 16-17.

[3] Isaiah 56:1.

[4] John Bright, The Kingdom of God (Nashville: Abingdon, 1981), 197, 216.

[5] Bright, 17.

[6] Mark 4:1-20

[7] Mark 4:30-32

[8] Mark 16:20; Matthew 28:16-20

[9] Brian K. Blount, Go Preach! Mark’s Kingdom Message and the Black Church Today (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1998), 84.

[10] Mark 12:34-34

January 8, 2012: An Uncontrollable God

2012-01-08T08:25:00.003-05:00

Psalm 29

January 8, 2012

Yesterday, at dawn, I walked into town for breakfast. There were a couple wisps of clouds to the east. The sun was still tucked in behind the horizon when, all of a sudden as if someone had turned on the lights, those small wisps of clouds turned brilliantly pink. It was the beginning of a glorious morning. The day later turned cloudy but it was a nice start and I was given a glimpse of something beautiful. If we are open to it, we’ll catch glimpses of God’s glory all around. God created this world and proclaimed it good. God’s majesty shines throughout creation. Of course, we can’t fully experience God in nature for we have been corrupted. That’s why we have scripture, to reveal the nature of God. That’s why God had to come to us in Jesus Christ, to lead us back home. And that’s why we need the church, the faithful, to help us on our journeys. Yet, that said, if we’re open to God, we can observe his glory throughout his creation. We won’t fully experience God’s grace, but we’ll see his beautiful handiwork.

Today, we’re exploring Psalm 29, one of the Hebrew people’s ancient hymns, attributed to King David. This Psalm speaks of God’s glory in creation. Read Psalm 29.

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This Psalm is wonderful! I love the images it brings to mind. This past September, when we sailed back from the Europe, the ship took a northerly course. In the passage between Greenland and Newfoundland, at a place where the cold waters of the Labrador Current clash with the warmer waters of the Gulf Stream, we experienced what was essentially an Arctic hurricane. The winds were over 70 knots and the seas were at 8 meters (that’s about 25 feet). Now, we were on a big ship and in no danger, but to experience the power of the sea like that was exciting. Normally, in calm seas, our window was a probably thirty or forty feet from the water line. But during that night, I woke up to the sound of the surf knocking on the glass. The ship would lean to starboard side (the side of the ship where our room was located) just as a wave would break. The rising surf and the leaning ship would collide in an explosion. I wonder what it felt like in the crew’s quarters down below, where their portholes at times would be submerged. I assure you it was exciting to watch (as long as there were no leaks, I’m not sure what I would have done if the seal around that window started to give away). We were told not to venture outside. In fact, it was still rough enough the next morning the crews weren’t even allowed out on deck to do their morning choirs as they might have been washed off.

For a person, like the Israelites, who lived in the desert, the sea is even more a mysterious thing. That’s probably why David chose this image to describe the power of God, whose voice is heard in the wind and the chaos of the waters. God is powerful and mighty, yet does not only hover over the deep. God is seen in storms on land. The winds, zephyrs that whip down from the mountains with enough strength to break the giant cedars of Lebanon, show God’s power. He has control over the land as seen in earthquakes. In the sixth verse, which one commentator suggest has a hint of humor, David refers to how Lebanon and Sirion (the Phoenician name for Hermon) skip like young animals. Perhaps the reference to the instability of these ancient sites that were thought to be the abodes of gods is to remind us of the power of the Almighty One who stands above all creation.[1] The Creator has the power to knock the idols off their pedestals.

In verses seven through nine, we again have visions of chaos. The fire, perhaps a volcano, erupts. Violent nature wrecks human plans! I know those of us who went to New Orleans a couple months after Katrina certainly got to witness the power of nature when, on the last day we were there, we toured the 9^th Ward and the destruction was incredible. John Calvin, commenting on this passage, notes how God rebukes “the madness of the proud.”[2] We think we can protect ourselves, but nature shows us over and over again that we are mere mortals. Our levees can break. The earth can open up and spew out lava and consume towns and we can do little to stop it.
Following the fire, we have another vision of an earthquake and then back to the winds that destroy forest. The meaning is clear: God cannot be controlled! Above all this God sits on his throne. God is the King. We cannot challenge the Lord’s position over the universe. Now, the visions of God’s power being experienced in nature may suggest to us that we are capable of worshipping God in nature.
For those of you who think you can worship God on a golf course or at a fishing hole, you’re thinking there’s hope! Right? But hold on a minute. At the end of the ninth verse, we’re told that in God’s temple, all people will be proclaiming “Glory.” John Calvin interpreted his use of “temple” as the church. God’s voice is heard throughout is creation, but God’s “glory is celebrated only in his church,” Calvin writes, “because God not only speaks intelligibly and distinctly there, but also there gently allures the faithful to himself”[3] In other words, it’s in the church where we get a clear picture of God’s revelation and it’s the fellowship of God’s people that brings others into the faith.
David concludes his Psalm, in verses 10 and 11, acknowledging yet again that God is King. He reigns over all. As his people, like David does when he comes to the conclusion of this psalm, we can only ask that God give us the strength to endure, the peace into which we can prosper.

As I stressed over and over in this sermon, this Psalm reminds us God can’t be control. It’s a message that needs to be repeated in our narcissistic world where the cries of “me, me, me” and “I, I, I” threaten to drown out the faint praise of God from the faithful. When we think too highly of ourselves or see ourselves as more important than we are, we then risk putting ourselves in the place of God. We can never be a substitute for God, such thinking is vainglory idolatry.

I was reading a sermon by Paul Tillich this week. For years, Tillich was a professor of Philosophical Theology at Union Seminary in New York City and later at Harvard University. In his sermon on Psalm 139, Tillich addressed how we attempt to escape from God and goes on to speak as to how the church and the faithful often enables and strengthen the beliefs of atheists. I quote:

"The first step to atheism is always a theology which drags God down to the level of doubtful things. The game of the atheist is then very easy. For he is perfectly justified in destroying such a phantom and all its ghostly qualities. And because the theoretical atheist is just in his destruction, the practical atheists (all of us) are willing to use his argument to support our own attempt to flee God."[4]

When we think we have control of God, we have done what Tillich warns us against. We bring God down to our level where we can control and manipulate him for our own purposes. Such a god (spelled with a little g) is easily dismissed. But the God (the big G God) we find the Psalm refuses to be reduced to our level. He is God and Almighty. Of course, he comes to us in Jesus, in a way that we might know and understand, but he refuses to be controlled.

On the train heading west last week, I finished listening to an audio book by Shusaku Endo, the late Japan novelist who was also a Christian. The book, Deep River, is about a group of Japanese tourists who travel to India to see the places where the Buddha was born and lived. There, in what to them is a strange land, they encounter Otsu, a Japanese Catholic priest living with the untouchables, in a manner that none of them can comprehend. Otsu had studied in both Japan and Europe but found himself being chastised by the leadership of the church in both places. He held to this vision of Christ being amongst the people, a vision that eventually led him to India. His God is too real, he had insisted, to be locked within the dogma of the church. Instead, it is a God who refuses to be controlled and who, for Otsu, can only be experienced in the sufferings of others. Endo creates the character of Otsu to challenge what he saw as the hollow theology of the West and the empty spirituality of the Japanese. God, for Endo as well as for the Psalmist, is beyond us.[5]

But what does it mean for us to have a God outside our grasp? It’s scary, and it should be. But it’s also comforting for only such a God can offer us the strength and the peace David sought for his people. Only a God that can control the seas and the violence of nature can protect us. Only a God that resists our attempts to be recreated in what we think we need can meet our true needs. It is before such a God that we’re called to bow in awe and to gather with others as we sing out in praise.

As we begin this New Year, open yourselves up to this awesome God who is beyond our control, yet who wants to hear from us. In God’s hands, we can do mighty things. Without God, we’re lost. Praise the Almighty and seek out God’s strength, that we may be his people. Amen.

©2012 Jeff Garrison and First Presbyterian Church, Hastings, MI

[1] Artur Weiser, The Old Testament Library: The Psalms Herbert Hartwell, translator (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962), 263-4/

[2] John Calvin, Commentary on Psalm 29:5-8. See http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom08.txt

[3] John Calvin, Commentary on Psalm 29:9-11. See http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom08.txt

[4] Paul Tillich, “The Escape from God,” a sermon on Psalm 139. As found in: www.religion-online.org

[5] Shusaku Endo, Deep River 1993. (Audio Books)

Christmas Homily 2011

2011-12-25T10:35:00.000-05:00

John 1:1-4

Our waiting for Christmas is over. I’m sure in most homes, the presents have all been open and the living room floor is a foot thick in wrapping paper. If you’re still waiting on anything, it’s for family to arrive after stopping first at an in-laws or it’s for the turkey or ham, or in our case, the pork loin to be done. I hope you that remember some of what we’ve talked about during Advent this year. I knew waiting was a prominent theme in Scripture, but since starting this series I've found the theme popping out from all over the Bible, especially in the Psalms. We wait for God’s coming, but we don’t do so passively. While we wait, we live and enjoy the world God has given us. While we wait, we rejoice that God came to us as a man, as Jesus Christ our Lord. And Jesus promises he’ll never abandon us; he will be with us in Spirit until comes back to call his own home. As the Allstate man says, we’re in good hands. But we, the faithful, really are in good hands!

One of the exciting things for me about Christmas is the electric train under the tree. Christmas is the only time of year I take the train out and I enjoy lying there next to the Christmas tree, watching the train pull through the curves as it makes its loops around the tree. I get to serve as President and engineer of my own railroad. I don’t have to worry about making a profit; featherbedding is encouraged on my line.[1] Last year, I brought myself a Christmas present, a model of a CK&S box car that I spotted in a hobby shop in Kalamazoo. The CK&S was one of two railroads that served Hastings. The last remaining structure of the train in our town is the trestle over the Thornapple, out by Hastings Manufacturing, which is now a foot bridge.

CK&S stood for the Chicago, Kalamazoo and Saginaw. The line never lived up to its name; failing to reach both Chicago and Saginaw. It only made it eight miles outside of Kalamazoo and the north end was at Woodlawn, where it liked up with the Pere Marquette. It was a favorite train of sportsmen, as fishermen and hunters would take the early morning train out of the city and hop off a one of the many lakes: Crooked Lakes, Wall Lake, Cloverdale Lake, Long Lake and a host of others. The railroad bragged about serving 46 lakes along its 56 miles of track. Sportsmen would spend the day fishing or hunting and then catch the late train back home in the evening. It was said that a fishing pole waving in the air was all it took to flag down the train. But it must not have been too prompt, for the line was nicknamed the Cuss, Kick and Swear and it went into bankruptcy in 1937. The one time during the year the train seemed to enjoy lots of passengers was during the Barry County Fair. Those living on farms around Prairieville and Delton, Schultz and Quimby, would hop the train into Hastings. I’ve read that there’d be so many people that the engineer would have to slow the train down in order to allow the conductor enough time to collect all the fares. If you haven’t figured it out, I love trains and, as if I haven’t ridden enough of them this year, we’ll be boarding the train to Utah tomorrow morning. I’ll be going out to meet my grandson.

Thinking about model railroading, which led me down this rabbit trail, I recall a story about a home in which Santa had brought a train for Christmas. On that Christmas morning this house looked like a disaster had struck. Tossed across the floor were boxes and wrapping paper and bows, ribbons, and of course new toys. In this particular house the most exciting toy was the train. This boy loved racing the train round and round, as fast as it would go, but in the confusion, a discarded box got on the track, and the train derailed.

Bending down over the train, this young budding engineer kept trying to get it back on the tracks, but he couldn’t get the wheels to seat properly. Finally, his father realized what was happening. “You know, you can’t do that standing up above it,” he said. “You have to get down beside it.” The father then dropped down on the carpet and laid beside the tracks and with his son by his side, proceeded to show him how to put the train back on the tracks.

That’s one way we can think about the incarnation, the coming of God, how God comes to us as a child. The human race has derailed from sin. We’ve all had a few boxes in our paths. We need to be put back on the right track in life. It just couldn’t be done from up above – God has to come down beside us in order to put us back on track. And that’s what God does in Jesus Christ. He comes to save the world.

But Christ doesn’t just come for the world; that sound esoteric. Jesus comes to save you and me. In Luke 2:10, the angels proclaim to the shepherds and to all of us who read this cherished passage: “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people; for there is born to you this day a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Martin Luther in his 1521 Christmas Day sermon, preaching on the Lucan passage, noted this:

The angels “do not simply say, Christ is born, but to you he is born. Neither does he say, I bring glad tidings, but to you I bring glad tidings of great joy… The Gospel does not merely teach about the history of Christ. The gospel is personal; it is addressed to each and every one of us. The gospel enables all who believe it to receive it as their own.”[2]

Now, I know I’m preaching to the choir today, that you all know this, but it is something we should be reminded of over and over again. The meaning of Christmas is in the incarnation, which means that God loves us so much that he came to us as a Son, in Christ Jesus, that we might receive him as our own. And if we do, we become God’s children and are promised an inheritance that’s much greater than we can ever comprehend.

Be of good cheer, for Christ, whom we’re told by John was there at creation, came to earth for you and for me. And remember, we’re waiting his return. With the hope we have in our Savior, I pray you’ll have a wonderful Christmas Day. Amen.

©Jeff Garrison and First Presbyterian Church, Hastings, MI

[1] Featherbedding is a requirement of having more employees than needed to do a job, a practice common on the railroads as they switched from steam to diesel.

[2]Martin Luther, “Sermons for Chirstmas Day; Luke 2:1-14, 1521-1522” as quoted in Watch for the Night: Readings for Advent and Christmas (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2001), 221, 223.

Fourth Sunday of Advent 2011, Luke 1:26-45, Waiting

2011-12-18T08:25:00.003-05:00

December 18, 2011

Luke 1:26-45

Our wait is almost over. Another week and we’ll be celebrating the birth of our Savior. Of course, our wait for his return will continue, and I hope our celebrating Jesus’ first coming will be more than opening gifts, that we’ll worship and give thanks for his birth. Over the past four weeks, we’ve been reminded that God’s timing is different than ours. Sometimes we have to wait generations and centuries, but when we wait, God is good and his promises are fulfilled. We’ve been reminded that waiting isn’t wasting time, for it is through waiting that God transforms his people. And finally, last week, we saw how learning to wait can help us improve our own lives, for when we act rashly, we often find ourselves in hot water, having offended others by our words and deeds. Waiting is not all bad. Being patient is a godly trait that we all need to work on. Today, we will be looking at two women, one old and the other young, who are expecting their first child. As we can imagine, that nine-month wait was full of expectation. Read Luke 1:26-45.

###

There was once a spoiled and rotten child… Let me assure you that I am not talking about anyone’s child who is here today, because none of your children are spoiled or rotten. But this boy was both. As Christmas approached he produced a letter to Santa with a wish list that rivaled a Russian novel. And he was expecting to receive it all. “Christmas is not the season of entitlement,” his mother said in a scolding tone.[1] His parents, knowing they needed to nip his attitude in the bud, forced him to sit in front of the Nativity scene and told him to contemplate the meaning of Christmas and to write a letter to Jesus to wish him a happy birthday.

The boy stared intently at the manger, but he couldn’t get it out of his head that Christmas wasn’t just about him receiving gifts. So he began to compose a letter. “Dear Jesus,” he wrote, “If you bring me all that I want, I’ll be good for the year…” Then he thought about how hard that’d be and so he tore up the letter and tossed it in the waste basket and started over. “Dear Jesus, if you bring me all that I want, I’ll be good for a month. Again the thought about how hard that would be, to be good for a month, for 30 days. He crumbled the letter and dropped it in the waste basket and started again. “Dear Jesus, if you bring me all that I want, I’ll be good for a week.” Thinking further, he realized how futile such an effort would be so he tossed that letter and resumed his contemplation of the Nativity.

Suddenly he spotted the figure of Mary, there in the back, behind the manger, a beautiful young woman wrapped in a light blue shawl, her face shining as she gazes upon her newborn son. He snatched Mary out the Nativity, wrapped her in some tissue paper and hid her in the bottom drawer in his dresser. Then he went back to writing his letter. “Dear Jesus, if you ever want to see your mother again…”

Parents and mothers in particular know about waiting… Those nine months, especially for the first child, can be hectic as you learn about breathing techniques during delivery and how to care for a newborn. And then there is the necessity of preparing for a nursery—most of us can’t get by repurposing a manger for a crib. There is a lot of anticipation and hope during the nine months, as you pray your newborn child won’t grow up to be the terror like the little boy in my opening story. But even if that happens, we’ll still look back on moments like that with a smile.

I can’t imagine what must have gone through Mary’s mind as she is visited by Gabriel. Here she is, engaged to Joseph, and now she’s carrying a special child. But she’s told to have no fear (I think that’s easier for an angel to say than for Mary to do). Gabriel explains about how the child was conceived and his purpose in life. And he also has another message, one for a relative of Mary’s, Elizabeth. After years of trying to conceive a child, she’s given up hope. Now that she’s too old, she finds herself pregnant. It seems impossible, but Mary is reminded that nothing is impossible with God.

Mary heads down into the Judean hill country to visit Elizabeth. It used to be that way; a young woman who is not yet married, yet pregnant, would go and live with an aunt or a grandmother. With Zechariah having been struck silent for his disbelief,[2] I’m sure the two women talked incessantly about their expectant babies. We’re told that when they greeted each other, Elizabeth’s child, who will be John the Baptist, jumps in her womb. The premature boys in the womb recognize each other. There is much excitement, for they understand that God is doing something new. But they have to wait. They have to wait till their children are born, and then they have to wait till they are grown. Jesus, we learn, doesn’t start his ministry till he’s thirty[3] and John, instead of leading worship in a fine synagogue in a respectable city, as his parents may have envisioned, instead preaches from the muddy banks of the Jordan River.[4] God does work in mysterious and strange ways.

In the Advent devotional I’ve been reading this season is an essay by Henri Nouwen based on our text this morning. Nouwen says this:

I find the meeting of these two women very moving, because Elizabeth and Mary came together and enabled each other to wait. Mary’s visit made Elizabeth aware of what she was waiting for. The child leaped in joy in her. Mary affirmed Elizabeth’s waiting…. These two women created space for each other to wait. They affirmed for each other that something was happening that was worth waiting for.”[5]

I like the idea of the two of them creating space for the other to wait. Our world encourages us to rush in and fix things right away. We don’t value waiting. Often, when talking to a couple who are planning on marrying, I’ll discuss the danger of trying to jump right away on a conflict. The problem of solving conflicts when you’re in the heat of battle is that you don’t think very clearly. Often, the battle during the height of a conflict is fought over something that’s not at all related to the real issue. Calling a cease fire and waiting, while cooling off, allows both parties to see things more clearly. We need to create space for us and for others to wait; knowing that distance gives us better perspective and in that hopes God is working with us as we wait.

It is healthy for us to accept and understand that there are things in life we can’t control. We can’t control when God wants to act. Mary and Elizabeth, in our passage today, had no control over what was happening. If it had been in Elizabeth’s control, I’m sure that she’d given birth to John when she and Zechariah were young enough that their backs didn’t ache from picking up the boy. And Mary, if she’d been asked, I’m sure she’d suggested things wait until after she and Joseph have been married a few years and maybe taken a cruise or two. The idea of honeymooning in Egypt with a newborn, while on the run from the authorities wasn’t any more romantic then than it would be now.

Before I move to close this sermon, I want to talk about the church and waiting. I admit that I’m often frustrated at the pace the church moves. I’ve often felt that as a pastor attempting to change the course to a church, I am about as successful as a Captain of a battleship trying to steer from the bow, with a canoe paddle. Change comes slowly and some people get upset with that (while others don’t want change at all). But if we look at scripture, we shouldn’t be surprised that change takes time. God seems to wait till the timing is right, and only then does the speed of change accelerates. For so long God had been quiet; there had been no prophets in Israel. And then, all of a sudden, God acts and the world is changed forever.

Paul Davies has been having the staff read a book by Larry Osborne titled Sticky Teams (and my plan is for the Session to read the book early next year). Osborne discusses how we often seem concern with God’s will (which he admits is a worthwhile endeavor as God is not always clear and we have to discern it), but he goes on to say that just as important as it being God’s will, we have to make sure it’s God’s timing. God’s will has a “what and when” component.[6] We can want things to go faster, but we must remember that its best if we go with God’s timing. Otherwise, we’ll make a mess of things.

The two women in our passage today, one who may have only been barely more than a child and the other who was up in years, remind us that whatever our age (or whatever our level of spiritual maturity may be) when you are open to God, the Almighty is so powerful that he can use us to do incredible things. We just have to be open to the Lord and to wait on his timing.

We live in a world where we expect instant gratification. But when it comes to our faith, such expectations may be unrealistic and even harmful. Having faith means we’re in God’s hands and must be open to his timing. We don’t know when Jesus will return, but we should anticipate it and be ready. In the meantime, like Mary and Elizabeth, we need to support one another. Amen.

[1] This line came from MaryMartha Melendy.

[2] Luke 1:20

[3] Luke 3:23

[4] Matthew 3; Mark 1:1-9; Luke 3:1-21; John 3:22-24. John’s preaching was limited to the Jordan, but to that region.

[5] Henri Nouwen “Waiting for God” in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001), 35.

[6] Larry Osborne, Sticky Teams (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 179.

Third Sunday in Advent 2011 "Waiting"

2011-12-11T08:18:00.002-05:00

Third Sunday in Advent

December 10, 2011

Micah 7:1-7

Have you ever received an email that just got you blood boiling and, deciding to strike while it’s still hot, you set down and fire off a response? You’re angry, you’re mad; words fly onto the screen like daggers. After all, you feel must do something. You have a repetition to uphold. You need to stop the rumor mill from turning. Whatever the reasons, you respond and hit send and off it goes into cyberspace. An hour later, it hits you. “What have I done?” Unfortunately, in this world of instant communication, “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, can’t bring that email back again.” At least in the good Ole Days (twenty years or so ago), you could have walked out to the mail box and gotten your letter back before the postman picked up it. But not today! You’ve just thrown kerosene onto the fire…

Who is it that invented the internet, anyway? Before you say Al Gore, and laugh at the joke, let me remind you that he never said he created the internet. All he did was to take credit for a bill that he, as a Senator, helped pass that funded and gave structure to the internet when it was in its infancy.[1] Did he take more credit than deserved? Probably, it’s not an excuse even if it’s what politicians do! But he never made the ridiculous claim that is often credited to him. Yet, I’m sure, when I asked the question who invented the internet, most of you probably thought of him because we’re heard it so many times from those who don’t like him.

Who invented the Internet? Sometimes I think its Satan (which is the reason I decided to go down this rabbit hole). After all, the internet has given us the possibility to take conflict to a whole new level. Now students can “defriend” classmates who are no longer popular and we can all spread rumors at the speed of light. It doesn’t really matter if they’re true or not, for once the rumors are seen or heard enough, they take on a life of their own—case in point being the joke about who invented the internet. Using the tools of the computer, we can take excerpts from what people say and do and make it sound like something completely different.

Of course, the internet isn’t satanic and Satan didn’t have his hand in creating it any more than Al Gore did. The internet, like technology in general, is amoral. How the technology is used can be moral or immoral, but the technology in and of itself isn’t one or the other. It’s kind of like nuclear science. It can be used to kill cancer cells or wipe out cities and perhaps even the human race…

Technology can be used for good or bad; it’s up to us. This brings me back to the situation I referred to at the beginning: responding rashly with an email and throwing more fuel on the fire… Our response is important. This Advent, we’ve been talking about waiting. Sometimes a little waiting allows us the gain perspective. If we just wait a bit, our responses may be a lot clearer and even more productive. If we act in haste, we risk offending more people and spreading more lies and do not live up to the godly standards to which we’re to strive. So the next time you feel you need to make a rash response, stop for a moment and think about it. If you want to write the response, go ahead, just be sure to put it into your “draft folder” and not send it right away. After all, that’s what the draft folder is there for. Go back and reread what you wrote after some time has passed. You may see things differently. Muddy water can, in time, clear itself.[2] Waiting often isn’t wasting time; it’s gaining perspective.

My passage today is from the last chapter of Micah... Read Micah 7:1-7

###

The poor and the struggling are ignored, many are hungry. People are greedy and their lusts are in control. Those with means or in power abuse their positions. Money talks and the politicians listen. Even the best politicians are less than we deserve… There’s no one we can trust…

You might be thinking I was talking about the Occupy Wall Street Movement. After all, they’ve certainly have made some of these claims: too much corporate money in politics, a government that helps those “too big to fail”, but doesn’t do much for those struggling to make a living, no one to trust… It all sounds familiar, but that wasn’t who I was talking about. As fresh as some of this sound, I was talking about the world described by Micah, some 2700 years ago. Some things don’t change.

“Woe is me!” our passage begins. I’m reminded of the call of Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah uses the same words when he has a vision of himself standing before the throne of God. “Woe is me,” he says, because he shouldn’t be there. God is holy and he’s not. In Micah’s case, it’s just the opposite. He realizes he’s standing the middle of a bunch of corrupt and godless people. There is no holiness around. Micah knows the situation isn’t going to please God and he doesn’t want to be nearby when the Almighty pays a visit or drops in a lightning bolt or two.

Micah compares himself to one who comes into the fields after the harvest and finds nothing left to eat. To understand what he’s referring to, we have to recall that in ancient Israel, farmers were not to glean the fields. What this means is that after they have gone through picking the crops, they weren’t to go back through and make sure they’d gotten everything. The late ripening fruit, that which the harvesters missed and that which had fallen on the ground were not to be harvested. Instead, it was left for the poor. The aliens, the widows and the orphans in the land were allowed to go and glean the fields so that they too might have something to eat.[3] But the fields that Micah came upon have been picked clean. There is nothing left to eat. Nobody is taking care of the poor.

Micah cannot find one who is righteous. This may be hyperbole, after all Elijah said the same thing and God reminded the prophet that there were 7000 who had not bowed before Baal.[4] But the prophet feels isolated. It seems as if society is stacked against him as he cries out this lament to God. He already has shown how the farmers have gleaned the fields and taken everything for themselves and not saved anything for others. Now he looks to those in power, the leaders and the judges. There too, he finds corruption. Those who have the means can buy “justice.” Of course, it’s not justice they’re buying; they’re just getting their own way at the expense of others. Sarcasm drips from Micah’s pen as he compares the best of Israel with a brier or a thorn hedge. If that’s what the best are, the worst must be poisonous hemlock!

But their punishment is at hand. The sentinels are not there to watch out for enemies, for Israel has become her own enemy. Instead, they watch over the demise of the people as society unravels. Like the builders of the tower to heaven in Babel, those who would claim for themselves what belonged to God, they are punished with confusion.[5] Everything is now mixed up. Even the family, the basic fabric of society, is in upheaval. Things are as bad as they can get, but the prophet remains grounded in his faith. Like Joshua, who stood before a rebellious people and declared that he and his household would serve the Lord,[6] Micah draws his own line in the sand. “But as for me,” he claims. Just because the rest of the world has gone crazy doesn’t mean that Micah has to accept things as they are. The “But” is important. It wipes out what has previously been stated as fact. Many in Israel may be living in such ways, BUT Micah isn’t going to join them. Instead, he’s going to “look to the Lord and wait for the God of his salvation, for he knows God will hear him. Micah is looking, waiting and having faith! Looking and waiting for the Lord as we remain faithful are our marching orders.

What might be our message today, from this passage? As I pointed out, you can make many parallels with Micah’s world and our world. We have a choice. We can throw up our hands in resignation and give up. We can decide that because everyone else is out to get what they can for themselves, we should join the frenzy. Or, we can be different. Children of God are always called to the later, to be different from the larger society. Just because everyone else is doing something doesn’t mean we have to join in. I know my parents taught me this lesson. I’d tell Mom that everyone was doing it (or that Billy and Mark and Bobbie were doing it) and she’d ask: “if everyone jumped in front of a moving train, would I join them?” That childhood lesson still applies. As people of faith, we strive to do what is right, not because we want to be rewarded, but because it is right. If society wants to turn their backs on the poor, we might not be able to stop them, but we can refuse to go along and help out when given an opportunity. If those with power or means want to abuse the system, it doesn’t mean we also have to do it. We can and should take the high road and strive to do what’s ethically right. If we’re in a position of authority and others around us are taking bribes or kickbacks, we can buck the trend and go against it. We may not be liked, we may even be persecuted for our decisions, but we’re being faithful, for we know that Jesus is going to come to judge and we’ll be ready.

We’re in a time of waiting. We’re waiting for Christmas and we’re waiting for Christ to return again. But until he does, we are to strive to live as his disciples and not succumb to the ways of the world. Next time, think before you send off that email. Or pause a moment before you speak out in anger. Or question your facts before you cite something that may not be true and you’re only saying in order to build yourself up or to destroy the reputation of another. Stand for what is right! Take the high road; it’s the road we’re called to travel as followers of Jesus. Amen.

[1] See http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

[2]Wayne Muller, How Then Shall We Live? Four Simple Questions that Reveal the Beauty and Meaning of Our Lives (New York: Bantam Books, 1996), 57.

[3] Leviticus 19:9-10, Deuteronomy 24:19-21

[4] I Kings 19:10, 18.

[5] Genesis 11:9

[6] Joshua 24:15

A note on how the sermon came to contain the Al Gore story...

In a discussion with a team of people who were looking at future sermons passage with me, the topic came up about how we rashly respond to people without waiting and cooling off. The example used was email—we all had stories about sending emails quickly and then regretting what we’d done. Later, as I was playing around with this, I thought about the possibility of Satan using the internet and how he may be the true “inventor” of it. Then, this week, I was in a gathering of clergy and someone joked about Al Gore inventing the internet and I decided that debunking that “urban myth” in the sermon was appropriate in a sermon calling people to take the ethically high road.

December 4, 2011, Preparing and Waiting

2011-12-04T08:18:00.002-05:00

Second Sunday of Advent 2011

This past summer, as we were coming back from Europe, crossing the cold waters of the North Atlantic, there were two sets of lectures being offered on the ship. One was by a geologist who talked about the geology along with the history and culture of the places we visited like Iceland and Greenland. These were well attended. The other lecturers were by a retired professor of astrophysics. He talked about things like black holes and binary stars and the expanding universe and other deep topics. Both lectures were fascinating, although fewer people attended the second guy’s lectures except for the day the ship’s newspaper misprinted his topic and announced that he was talking on “Extreme Astrology” instead “Extreme Astronomy.” One of the things this professor spoke about was how the universe as we know it will one day cease to exist. Such a comment wouldn’t have surprised Peter, who wrote about such things a long time ago.

Now, let me say that I’m not convinced the Bible gives us a blueprint as how the universe will cease to exist, except that it’s in God’s hands and at God’s timing. Likewise, it doesn’t give us a complete view of how things came to be except to say that God’s hand (or more correctly God’s voice) was involved in creation. I read an interview of Alvin Plantinga this week; he’s a recently retired philosophy professor from Notre Dame and brother of Neil Plantinga who is president at Calvin Theological Seminary. Plantinga strove to suggest that the conflict between science and religion is superficial. “What Christianity tells us is that God created the world and created human beings in his image. He could have done that in a variety of means.” Plantinga went on to point out that this isn’t a new viewpoint, that theologians like Charles Hodge in the 19^th Century (who’s normally considered a conservative theologian) said as much after the publication of Darwin’s theory of evolution.[1] Such theories bothered Hodge and other theologians of the time were a lot less than they bother some of our brothers and sisters in the faith today.

As followers of Jesus, we wait for his return. We wait, not worrying about how things happened or how they’re going to happen, but in the faithful assurance that God is in control and will one day bring all things under the reign of his Son, Jesus the Christ. My passage today will be from Peter’s Second Letter, chapter 3, verses 1-14.

###

There was a six year old boy who wanted a hundred bucks to buy Christmas presents. He needed to find presents for his parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, friends and associates. But the boy had a problem, he had no money saved and there was not enough time for him to earn it. So every night he prayed that God would give him the money, but received no apparent answers to his prayers. Finally, he decided to write God a letter and formally request the money. He placed the letter in an envelope and addressed it simply to "God."

At first, the postmaster didn't know what to do with the letter, but after thinking about it he decided that the President was the most powerful person in the United States, so he sent the letter to the White House. Somehow, the letter got through the secretaries and ended up on the President’s desk. Obama was so moved by the boy's letter that he took a five dollar bill out of his wallet (thinking that a 6 year old would consider it a lot of money) and placed it in an envelope and mailed it.

The boy received the money and in his prayers that night he included this comment: "Dear God, thank you for answering my prayers, but I see by the postmark that you had to mail it through Washington and those crooks stole 95 of the dollars.”

This particular story, I believe, has at least two morals. One is the strength of the boy’s faith. Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone had such a faith in God to believe so strongly that God answers prayer. However, on the less than positive side, the boy sees God more as Santa Claus. Hopefully, he’ll grow out of that view, but some people don’t.

This morning, as we continue to look toward Christmas and to Christ's second coming, I want to discuss what we should be doing as we wait. We’re to prepare! This is a season of preparations. In the past week, we’ve prepared for the holiday by putting up a tree. It's a lovely tree, although we had to go the artificial route last year due to allergies. But it’s beautiful! If you’d like to stop by and see it, just let me know so I can straighten up the living room! Yesterday, the smell of cookies being baked filled our house. Lists are being made as to what we want or what we need to get other people for Christmas. It’s also a time of tension… Will there be enough time and money and patience to do everything that needs to be done before the 25^th?

I'm sure that things are busy around your house too. It seems as if preparation implies busyness, and this is certainly the season of busyness. Only the kids find it hard to wait for the rest of us are just too busy. Parties and dinners, shopping and wrapping, baking and decorating... Things are so busy, and at times we are so tense, that it's easy for us to forget what the season is all about.

Throw waiting into our busy and tense lives, and it’s easy to get confused about what we’re really about, what we’re really waiting for. Those in Peter’s day thought Jesus would be back soon, like last week or the week before that. They were getting antsy and there were those who scoffed at them, suggesting they were naive in their beliefs. Peter is trying to allay their fears. Others aren’t antsy; they’ve had enough and have gone back to former ways of living or in some cases worse. Peter tries to shock them into the seriousness of their sin. The earth may have been cleansed in Noah’s time by water, but the next time it’s gonna be fire! There will judgment and the destruction of the godless. Peter addresses both the faithful who are worried (and shouldn’t be) as well as those who lack faith and are not worried (but should be).

We don’t know all that’s going to happen or when. “A day for God is like a thousand of our years,” Peter says in verse 8, borrowing from Psalm 90.[2] Peter then gives the reason that God seems slow in fulfilling history. God is patient, wanting all people to repent and not wanting anyone to perish. God is not playing with us; this is all a part of the divine plan as God strives to get out his Son’s message. Of course, we don’t know when he will return, but Peter assures us it will be a surprise. “Like a thief in the night,” we’re reminded. This all sounds frightening, but is it? Eugene Peterson, in the Message translation, says that we, the believers, will hardly notice, for we’ll be looking the other way, looking toward the promised new heaven and earth that’s landscaped with righteousness.[3]

There are recurring themes in his passage. There’s some waiting to be done, but it’s not passive waiting. We strive for righteousness so that when Jesus returns, we will be found without spot or blemish. Of course, none of us will be sinless, but we can be blemish-free because we are covered by the righteousness of our Savior, the one we follow and worship and in whom we place our trust.

Let me go back to verse 9: "God is patient, not wanting any of us to perish, but to come to repentance." This is what our waiting is about. This is what the Christmas season is about. Not wanting any of us to perish, God became a man and was born as a child to poor parents in an obscure town in a far-away land. The great gift of Christmas is that God was willing to go that far in order to reach a stubborn human race.

Peter encourages us to be holy and godly as we wait and hasten the coming of the day of God. This thought of “hastening” the day doesn’t mean that we can speed God up. The passage may also be translated as "earnestly desiring" the day of God.[4] Most of us have heard sermons or read books about the coming of the Lord which were designed to scare us into the kingdom. That's not what it is all about. Instead, we are to long for the coming since Christ will usher in peace and do away with evil. You know, when we pray the Lord's Pray, we say, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." With our faith grounded in Jesus Christ, we should joyfully look to his return and until then, we should work to build his kingdom by continuing the ministry to which he has called us.

In addition to holiness and godliness, Peter tells us to strive to be at peace, without spot or blemish. While the later part of this phrase refers to our ethical behavior, I regard peace as a state of mind like holiness and godliness that is achieved thought a relationship with God.

Henri Nouwen, whom I have quoted many times from this pulpit, was a Catholic priest who spent most of his career in academia. He took a number of sabbaticals and often wrote about them. In what I think is his best book, The Genesee Diary, he tells about his time in a monastery near Rochester, New York. During his stay, Nouwen slowly gained a new understanding about what it meant to be at peace with God. In his conclusion, he writes that "a monastery is not built to solve problems, but to praise the Lord in the midst of them."^{^[5]} The same could be said for the church. There will always be issues in the world than we can never address or solve and even though we’re to do what we can, we’re not to let our good intentions get in the way of praising God.

As we prepare ourselves for the holidays, let us not forget to prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ. Meister Eckhart, a mystic from centuries past, wrote "we are all meant to be the mother of God, for God always needs to be born."^{^[6]} We prepare ourselves for Christ's coming by making room for him in our lives. How might we, as we wait for his return, make room for him? How might we help Jesus be born again, and again, and again?

Don’t let this be a season dominated by the commercial calls so familiar in our society. Instead, spend time with God using your Bible and perhaps a devotional book. Spend time away from the noise, connecting with God through prayer. Spend time and some of your resources, making the holiday a little brighter for those who go without the blessings we enjoy. If you’re looking for such an opportunity, look no further than our “Love Tree” in the narthex. Open yourself up so that God might fill you with his Spirit and use you to help Christ be known, loved and followed by more and more, for Peter tells us that God is patient, not wanting anyone to perish. Amen.

[1] Alvin Plantinga as quoted by John Wilson in “Conflict Resolution: Alvin Plantinga seeks to disentangle sound science from naturalistic dogma,” Christianity Today (December 2011), 67.

[2] Psalm 90:4.

[3] 1 Peter 3:13, The Message

[4] See footnote in the New Revised Standard Version

[5]Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Genesee Diary: Report from a Trappist Monastery (NY: Image Books, 1981), 217.

[6]Quote used in The Living Pulpit, (October-December 1995), 29.

First Sunday of Advent, Psalm 37

2011-11-27T08:09:00.001-05:00

November 27, 2011

We’ve made it through another Black Friday with only a few incidents of pepper spraying and gunshots. Andy Borowitz, in his satirical news briefs, noted that “Egyptians risk their lives for a new government” and that “Americans bravely do the same for new flat screens.” Borowitz’s cup is half full. “We have been looking for evidence that the economy is on the mend,” he quotes a bogus profession of economics from the University of Minnesota. “When people resort to homicide to buy a Blu-ray player, that is very, very good news indeed.”[1] Consumer confidence is up! I told you Borowitz’s cup is half full…

We’re not good at waiting. Some stores can’t even wait for the traditional shopping season to begin on the day after Thanksgiving, so they encroached on Thanksgiving, the one holiday they’ve not been able to fully commercialize (they’ve left that to the NFL). Once again we fall for the old bait and switch trick, rushing in to grab one of the few carrots that are dangling. I know; I’m cynical. But seriously, we don’t like to wait. We see it as wasting time that could be used more productively. Or we don’t have patience and we want what we want now and are not willing to wait a little longer. Advertisers attempt to create the sense of urgency, of an immediate need. Perhaps fearing that if we wait a bit before satisfying our desires, we may no longer desire whatever it was that we felt we so desperately needed. They want us to buy on impulse, before we consider whether or not it’s something we need or can afford!

We’re not good at waiting, but waiting at the core of the gospel! The Jews waited over a millennium for a Messiah and we, as Christians, have waited nearly two millennia for his return. Listen to what Sue Monk Kidd, in her book When the Heart Waits, says: “When you’re waiting, you’re not doing nothing. You’re doing the most important something there is. You’re allowing your soul to grow up. If you can’t be still and wait, you can’t become what God created you to be.”[2]

I plan to talk a lot about waiting during the four Sundays of Advent this year. It is not something that I am particularly good at, so maybe we will learn together. My passage for today’s message will come from the 37^th Psalm, reading verses 3-11.

###

“Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him,” the Psalmist proclaims… Be still and wait…

There are two times in our lives that we wait… As children and again when we are in our evening years. During both periods of time, we have to depend on the help of others; we’re limited in what we can do for ourselves which is primarily why we have to wait… But in the decades between childhood and our later years, we rush around and have little time for waiting. And the danger is that we will also have little time for God.

Shortly after moving here, Wendy Kimble lent me a book that I think all Michiganians (or Michiganders or whatever it is we’re called) should read. It’s Bruce Catton’s Waiting for the Morning Train, a book about his childhood in Benzonia, in the Upper Lower Peninsula, at the opening of the 20^th Century, at a time when timber was more important to our economy than automobiles. Catton’s memoir is a delight to read. He writes:

Early youth is a baffling time… Living in it is like waiting in a junction town for the morning limited; the junction may be interesting but some day you will have to leave it and you do not know where the limited will take you… In this respect early youth is exactly like old age; it is a time of waiting before a big trip to an unknown destination. The chief difference is that youth waits for the morning limited and age waits for the night train.[3]

Waiting on a train or waiting for a plane is something we all must do. But unless we’re the engineer or the pilot, there’s not much we can do about such waiting… You can’t board until the train or the plane arrives and then you’re at the mercy of pilot or the engineer… And lest we think they’re in charge, they’re at the mercy of the weather and the guys in the control towers and the conditions of the track or runway… Perhaps we don’t like waiting because we have no control and that’s precisely why God has his people wait so often and for so long. For in waiting, we realize that we’re not in control, that we’re not God and that we’re dependent on something beyond ourselves. Waiting allows God to be God and for us to be his children.

Throughout the 37^th Psalm, we’re encouraged to wait and to have patience. The Psalm is an acrostic poem, which means that each line begins with the next letter in the alphabet. However, this structure is lost in English, as the Hebrew alphabet doesn’t exactly match ours. Furthermore, in order to create such a Psalm, there is a fair amount of repetition.[4] Much of the Psalm addresses the apparent success of the wicked. The Psalm begins with the call not to fret over the gains of the wicked or be envious of wrongdoers. The righteous look at the wicked and their ill-gotten wealth and wonder what’s up with that. Why do those who mock God prosper and those who are faithful go without? “Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit,” we’re told in Proverbs 10:2. But when you’re in the position of those whom the Psalmists addresses, such Proverbs sounds like a cliché.

The Psalmist attempts to get his audience to focus on doing what is right and good and noble and not worry about others. It is an important lesson for those of us who strive to follow the ways of God. We’re to be a bit strange, at least when you compare us to the rest of the world. We’re to strive to do right, regardless, even if it goes against our short-term interest. And we’re to be hopeful people, even when things are bleak, because we know that Jesus Christ is our Lord, that he is all that matters. I was reading an Advent devotion yesterday by J. B. Phillips and came across this quote:

When, we may well ask, have Christians been promised physical security? In the early Church it is evident that they did not even expect it! Their security, their true life, was rooted in God; and neither the daily insecurities of the decaying Roman Empire, nor the organized persecution which followed later, could affect their basic confidence."[5]

Neither wealth nor security are we promised as followers of Jesus, at least not in this world. Instead, we’re to store up treasures in heaven.[6] We’re to follow Jesus as the disciples did because we know there is not another one in whom we can place our trust. [7] This Psalm reminds us that we’re to do what is right. Instead of looking around and comparing ourselves to our neighbors and feeling sorry, we’re to focus on the eternal. There is much in this world that is unjust, and when we can we are to strive to work to change that, but in the end, we’re to remember that in the fullness of time, God will make all things right.

Advent is a season of living in tension, of living in the meantime. Advent reminds us that our lives are lived out between two great events in human history. The first is Jesus’ coming as a child in Bethlehem, which we celebrate at the end of the season. The other event has yet to occur, that is Jesus’ return to earth, at a time when he will come as we recite in the Apostles’ Creed, “to judge the quick and the dead.” It is between these two events that we wait, but we don’t do so passively. We wait, opening ourselves up to be transformed by a loving God. We wait, doing God’s work in the meantime. We wait, knowing that we’re not the answer, that we can’t make all things right, but trusting that God has all things under control.

John Ortberg, a Presbyterian Pastor at Menlo Park in California and the author of many of our Bible Studies has said that “Biblically, waiting is not just something we do until we get what we want. Waiting is part of the process of becoming what God wants us to be.” We’re not to wait like a child who longs to receive a special toy under the Christmas tree. Instead, we wait humbly, knowing that what God has in store for us will be so much better than what could do ourselves.

Yet waiting is so very hard. It seems as if everything in life is instant. We used to have to wait for the newspaper or the 6 o’clock news, but now we have 24 hour news channels and the internet. We used to have to wait for see our photos taken at Christmas, which brought us joy in the darkness of January, but these days we have instant photos that we can also share around the world, instantly. Heck, we even have instant noodles and instant grits. Everything, it seems, can be available at our fingertips in an instant if we just have the cash (or available credit)… But we run into a problem if we think we can have “instant spirituality.” God doesn’t work on our timetable and he requires us to develop patience and as we wait and trust, God changes us in ways we can never change ourselves.

As I’ve said, waiting is at the heart of the gospel. Waiting and patience are skills we all need to foster. The next time you find yourself having to wait (and you’ll get plenty of opportunities during this season, don’t think about it as wasted time. Instead, offer up a little prayer to the Lord, opening your heart to transformation.

“For those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land…” Amen.

[1] Andy Borowitz, “Black Friday,” (November 25, 2011)

[2] Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits (New York: HarperCollins, 1990), 22.

[3] Bruce Catton, Waiting for the Morning Train: An American Boyhood (Detroit: Great Lake Books, 1972), 39.

[4] James L. Mays, Psalms: Interpretation, A Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1994), 159.

[5] J. B. Phillips, "The Danger of Advent" in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 2001), 19.

[6] Matthew 6:19-21.

[7] John 6:68.

November 20, 2011, Christ the King Sunday

2011-11-20T08:25:00.001-05:00

November 20, 2011

Ezekiel 34:11-24

Today is Christ the King Sunday! That probably doesn't mean much to those of us who grew up in non-liturgical churches. As the title suggest, it is a day when we proclaim the Lordship of Jesus Christ over our lives and over our world—something that shouldn't be limited to one day a year. Christ should be our king, 365 days a year and 366 days during leap years. But then, just as every dawn should remind us of the resurrection, and we have one day a year we celebrate Easter, so it is with Christ the King. This day plays an important role in the liturgical calendar for it reminds all kings and dictators and tyrants and even elected leaders that they are not the final authority; they have a higher authority to whom they’re to answer.

Interestingly, as I was researching this week, I learned that it’s one of the newest of the liturgical days. It actually only goes back to mid-1920s, at the rise of Mussolini in Italy. Pius XI, the Pope for the Roman Catholic Church at the time, called for this day in response to Mussolini’s rise, reminding the believers that their ultimate allegiance did not belong to a dictator. Later, other churches began to adopt the day. Proclaiming Christ as King during that era of 20^th Century, with the rise of Fascism and the brutality of Soviet Communism was somewhat subversive. There were also other such challenges to the politics of the day including the Confession of Barmen, which is in our Book of Confessions and was published in 1933 with the rise of Nazism in German. Now, proclaiming Christ as King wasn’t a new concept. Christ is proclaimed as king in scripture[1] and our Confessions lift up the kingly role as one of three offices of Christ, the other two are the prophet and the priest.[2]

I came across a story this week about Bishop of London in the 16^th Century, Hugh Latimer. Latimer was one of the leaders in the English Reformation. This was during the time of King Henry VIII. One Sunday morning, as he was preparing to preach, he looked out and saw King Henry sitting in the pews. “This might not be good,” he thought as he whispered for those around him to hear, “Latimer, be careful of what you say today. King Henry is here.” But then, as he prepared to enter the pulpit, he whispered again, “Latimer, be careful of what you say today; the King of Kings is here.” [3]

Although I am not a lectionary preacher per se, there is something refreshing about proclaiming Christ the King. There are lots of demands on our allegiance—but we should be reminded of our ultimate allegiance. “I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ,” the Heidelberg Catechism begins. “Our help is in the name of the Lord,” the Psalmist proclaims.[4] May Christ, our Lord and our King, reign forever.

My sermon this morning comes from a prophecy given to the Prophet Ezekiel, in which he indicts those who have abused their positions of power and then lifts up a vision of a new order, in which God becomes the “shepherd” of his people. Read Ezekiel 34:11-24

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Do you remember Calvin and Hobbes? I miss that comic strip. There was one strip where Calvin was swinging on the playground at school. The bully Moe, who looks to be twice Calvin’s age and as one who may have repeated more grades than he’s passed, calls Calvin “Twinkie” and tells him to get off his swing. Brave Calvin responds, "Forget it, Moe, wait your turn." Moe responds with a right punch that knocks Calvin out of the swing and onto the ground. Pulling himself together, Calvin thinks to himself, "It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning."[5]

I expect the Israelites in exile felt the same way as Calvin did. Where was their God when the Babylonians were storming the walls of Jerusalem? I am sure some of the Israelites lost their faith, but there were others who probably listened to the prophets. Ezekiel challenges and charges those in authority with corruption and for not looking out for their citizens. He also challenges citizens, those who do not govern but through their prominence or status have the ability to abuse others (to dirty the water, to tramp the grass, and to butt the weak away from the feed trough). Then Ezekiel holds up a promise; no longer will those in power lead, no longer will those who bully and abuse continue. Instead, God is going to lead as a shepherd, and as a true shepherd will protect Israel. This passage contains both judgment and promise!

To fully understand this passage, we need to look at the 34th chapter in its entirety. The whole chapter revolves around the "shepherd allegory." Kings were often called shepherds in the ancient world. Good kings were not like the Czars of Russia, who ruthlessly exiled those who challenged their position. You know, I spent a day in the Winter Palace and Hermitage this summer, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The place is incredible. It would take you a week to really appreciate all the art work that was collected by the Czars. It is one of the world’s great art collections, but when you consider that the collection was gathered by the richest monarchs in Europe, who ruled the poorest country of the continent, I came away realizing why the Russian people revolted. A good king is not one who lives high on the hog, as we’d say in North Carolina, while his subjects starve. Rather a good king is like a shepherd, one who helps protect his subjects from danger and leads in a way that they’re provided with fresh fields (or food) and running streams (or clean water). A shepherd was an appropriate name for such a leader.

Unfortunately, Israel didn’t have too many kings like this. Surely, there were some who did a better job than others, but most looked out for themselves and for their friends, allowing the abuse of their citizens. This chapter begins with a condemnation of such wicked rulers, the "shepherds who have eaten of the fat and clothed themselves with the wool of their flocks, yet have not fed the sheep. Starting with the 4th verse, God proclaimed a series of indictments addressed to the "shepherds."

-You have not strengthened the weak

-You have not healed the sick

-You have not bound up the injured

-You have not sought the lost,

-Rather you have ruled with force and harshness, said the Lord.

Notice, this passage did not call for the leaders to change their ways. It was too late for that. Due to the leader’s failure, the nation is ruined and scattered. Only direct intercession by God will change the circumstances. This was what God promises beginning in the 11th verse. "I, myself," God proclaims, "will search for my sheep." God promises to become the shepherd, and God bring the people back together. There will be a reversal of the people's misfortune. God will provide good pasture; God will strengthen the weak; God will heal the sick, God will bind the injured God will seek the lost. At the beginning of the 16th verse, there seemed to be a balance between judgment and promise, but then there was a shift and God again speaks of judgment.

"The fat and the strong I will destroy, says God. Notice the shift: no longer is God talking to the shepherds, or the rulers. God is now addressing the "sheep," members of the flock. Obviously, some “sheep and goats” are abusing others.

Have you ever watched animals eat and notice how the weak always get pushed aside by the stronger? Sheep do the same thing. Sheepherders spend a lot of time with the weaker animals trying to strengthen them. If a ewe gives birth to more lambs that she can nurse, the ewe will push away the weaker lamb and the shepherd will have to take that lamb and find another ewe, another mother, for it and encourage that “adoptive bond.” Otherwise, the lamb will die. Likewise, if the animals are being fed, the stronger ones will push away the weaker ones. Without a shepherd, strong animals are able to take advantage of the weaker animals. And we see such behavior even among us humans. Without a good teacher, bullies in the classroom can intimidate other students. Without good leaders and good government, those with economic or political clout can take advantage and oppress those without.

Now, I do not want to make this into a political sermon, but I cannot deal with this passage in good conscience without pointing out the obvious. There are political implications here. God judges governments by how they care of those unable to care for themselves. We are going to have an election next year (although unfortunately the campaigning has been going one now for the past three years) and many of the candidates point to how they are better than those in office and others seeking office. We can judge them that way, but we need to remember that God doesn’t judge us in comparison to others. We have a higher standard to strive for and thankfully we also have grace from God to support us. There are also social implications here. God doesn’t care for those who abuse others: bullies, those who commit spousal abuse, or those who misuse positions of authority, be it clergy or politicians or assistant football coaches. Justice demands accountability.

Now that God has judged both the shepherds who have ignored the needs of their flocks and the sheep who, in the absence of the shepherds, abused the weaker ones, God returns to the future promise of a new shepherd. God and his servant David will rule and guide the flock. David, the former shepherd who became a king, will return to be God's prince. This is a Messianic Promise spoken to Hebrews living in exile hundreds of miles from their home. God will gather the faithful together and lead them back home, and David will return and will rule justly.

Have these promises of God been fulfilled? Partly! The Israelites whom God addressed through Ezekiel did return to their homeland of Palestine. A new shepherd, the good shepherd, was born in the city of David—the one you and I proclaim as our Savior. We’ll be celebrating his birth in five weeks! But, as we wait for Christmas, we’re reminded over and over that we’re still waiting and longing for the day proclaimed in scripture when Jesus Christ will rule, when all wars will cease, and every knee will bow and proclaim Christ as King. Until then, we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus, Come."

There are a couple of things I want you to take from this passage. First, we’re reminded that there are bad shepherds and there are bad goats and sheep in the world. There are those who rule ruthlessly and those who use their power to exclude others. As followers of Jesus, we don’t owe them any allegiance. Secondly, there will be a new day coming that will bring justice and hope. The bad shepherds and the bullies within the flocks will be brought to justice. We have no need to fear them, for our hope doesn’t rest in their hands, but in the hands of our loving Savior. Finally, as Christians, we’re longing for that day when Christ will return and his kingship will be visible for all to see. We’re to be lifting up this vision of this better world that’s coming, but until it arrives, we’re to strive for godliness, to live as God intends. We’re to try to create a world envisioned by the Ezekiel and others. And although we will never fully succeed, we’re to make the world a better place. Whenever we refuse to give allegiance to one who would usurp Christ’s rightful place or when we ensure that the weak are included, we help further such a vision.

If our allegiance really belongs to Jesus, if Christ really is our king, then we should act accordingly. What is important isn’t what people around us think. We shouldn’t worry much about them. Instead, what is important is what our Lord thinks. What would our King do? AMEN

[1] Matthew 27:11; John 1:49:1 Timothy 1:17, 6:15; Revelations 15:3, 1:9

[2] “The Westminster Larger Catechism” Questions 43-45.

[3] Robert F. Sims, “The Shepherd King,” in Under the Wings of the Almighty in “www.sermonsuite.com.

[4] Psalm 124:8.

[5] Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (November 8, 1990).

November 13, 2011

2011-11-13T08:15:00.000-05:00

November 13, 2011

Matthew 25:14-30

I came across a quote by Maya Angelou this week that read: “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” I wish I had come across this quote last week, for there is a lot of truth in it. It went with last week’s sermon but it also fits today as it goes with my next quote.

Another thing I read this week was an article that was a little disturbing. The author, from across the pond (he was British), addressed some of the issues being raised by Occupy Wall Street and other such movements circling the globe. The author is well traveled; the article was titled “The Self-Attribution Fallacy,” which is crediting yourself with outcomes for which you are not responsible. The first sentence of this article read, “If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.”[1] You know, he’s got a point. People in the Third-World work hard just to put a pot of beans or a bowl of rice on their table in the evening. Reading this article, as I was pondering what I was going to say about Jesus’ Parable of the Talents, gave me a lot to think about.

I want to approach this passage on a “post-stewardship Sunday” from a different perspective that it is often used. It’s often used as a stewardship sermon, but there is more to it than just asking people to make a pledge to their church’s budget. The passage from Matthew’s gospel isn’t just about hard work being rewarded; in fact, it may not be about that at all. It’s about being called to be faithful regardless of where we find ourselves. Whether we’ve been given a little or lot of whatever—brains, money, opportunity—doesn’t matter in God’s eyes. What matters is how faithful we are with what God has given us. READ MATTHEW 25:14-30.

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I’m normally rooting for the underdog. Well, not always. Friday was an exception when Carolina was playing Michigan State on an aircraft carrier out in California. Whenever the Steelers or Carolina are playing, my fondness for the underdog wanes. Of course, with the Pirates, they’re almost always underdogs. But when I don’t have a perceived stake in the game, I want to see the underdog do well. And I think Jesus is that way, too. After all, he has all those sayings about the last being first.[2] Which makes this parable a little hard to understand? Why does the man’s master pick on this poor guy? After all, he must have limited abilities since the talents are handed out based on the ability of each recipient. And this guy gets only one. Furthermore, he’s obviously afraid of his master. He’s infected with a paralyzing fear that keeps him from action and this fear the gets him consigned to hell. Don’t you agree; it just doesn’t seem right! But here it is in Scripture; therefore we must deal with it.

Matthew sets this parable in a unique place, right between several parables that deal with judgment. In fact, the 24^th and 25^th chapters of Matthew are about the end of the age, and the return of the Messiah for judgment. The way Jesus begins the Parable of the Talents links it with grammatically with the preceding Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids.[3] And the parable that follows, about the judgment of the Nations, continues this theme of Judgment that is found throughout these two chapters. So, this parable isn’t about the right to make a profit nor does it support (or challenge, for that matter) a capitalist economy (which wasn’t even known in Jesus’ day). Instead, Jesus is saying something about how we are to live our lives. We’re living in the in-between. Jesus came and called us. All three of these guys claim to be disciples; they all call Jesus “Master.” He came, forgave and called us into his ministry and sends us out to recruit and to make disciples, with awareness that his return will bring judgment. The question that this parable should leave us asking is “How are we doing?” Jesus is coming back, what will he think of how we’re living?

As I said, this parable not only follows but is linked to the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids. Both parables address Jesus’ delay and the difficulty it created within the early Christian community. People expected Jesus’ return to be imminent, and as the months became years they began to worry. In recalling these two parables, Matthew reminds the community that Jesus hinted that his return might be delayed. In emphasizing his delay, Jesus tells this story about a man who goes on a trip and entrusts his slaves with his wealth. Two slaves, as we see in this story, go out and double the Master’s money, but one of the slaves hides that which he was given. The two who take the risk receive an even a greater reward while the one who takes the easy path—not even putting the money in a saving account so it gains a bit of interest—is punished. The surface meaning here is fairly clear. Doing something is better than doing nothing. Laziness is not a Christian trait. We’re not to just sit back and wait for Christ’s return. Instead we’re to take what God has given us and use it; we’re to be good stewards of the time, talents, and blessings God has given us, using our gifts wisely until either Christ returns or we’re called to our heavenly home.

As I have often talked about, the idea of a steward can be understood in the relationship between kings within the great empires in Biblical times. These large empires, like Babylon and Rome, were too big for one person to rule. Think about Herod, King of the Jews. Herod wasn’t the final authority; that was Caesar Augustus. All that Herod controlled belong ultimately, not to him, but to Caesar in Rome. Caesar entrusted Herod with his holdings in Israel. It’s the same with us, God entrust us with certain gifts and talents and blessings. But they’re not really ours, these talents and blessings belong to God. We’re just stewards of them. That’s something that all three of the slaves in this parable understand. What they have and what they make isn’t theirs. It belongs to their master.

Right after I came back from my Sabbatical, I showed a clip in the sermon that came from the movie Shenandoah. It starred Jimmy Stewart as Charlie Anderson, a farmer in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War. Charlie’s prayer at the beginning of the movie is classic:

Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvested it. We cooked the harvest. It wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be eatin’ it if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog-bone hard for every crumb and morsel. But we thank you just the same for this food we’re about to eat. Amen.

Too often that’s our attitude. We should be thankful for the land, the ability to clear it and to plant and harvest and for the sun and the rain… The slaves in the parable knew the talents weren’t theirs to keep. The same is true for us. Our lives are not ours, nor are our abilities or our opportunities. We were placed in a particular spot within history and on the globe and are to make the best of the situation in a way that will honor the Creator.

Now let me address the poor guy who got only one talent. He sounds so poor, like he only received a dollar for an allowance when his older brothers got two and five. But a talent was a significant amount. We’re not talking about the widow’s mite here. A talent was 10,000 denarii and each denarius represented a day’s labor in the ancient world. So, he’s given what he could have expected to earn as a laborer during a lifetime.[4] That’s a lot of cash at one time, so maybe we shouldn’t feel quite so bad for him. Furthermore, maybe we can more easily relate to him.

Part of the problem with the man who received only one talent is that he has no love for his master. He acknowledges his master’s power, but instead of loving him, he fears him.[5] This guy reminds us that not everyone who says, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom.[6] We have to do more than proclaim Jesus with our lips; we have to follow him. This calls for personal examinations that’s not pleasant to do but is necessary because the consequences are so high.

Frightened, this slave does nothing. Inactivity on our part is a sin. We’re called by Jesus not just because he’s a good guy who wants to forgive us our sins; we’re called to do his work in the world. The slave who received one blessing fails to do his part and is found guilty. He serves as a warning to all of us. We’re all given a life and we’re given some opportunities and some skills. What do we do with them?

God wants us to partner with him for his work in the world. Too often we think of God as the Santa Claus in the sky, the one whom we turn when we need something. And although we’re to go to God with our needs, we should have another view of God, one who calls us to work with him for the life of the world. God isn’t there just to give us stuff for our own enjoyment. Instead, consider this, God invests in us. God gives us the things we need to do our work and then calls us to partner with him as we serve as his ambassadors in the world. What do we do with the investment God has made in us? Think of the investments you make in life and how you judge them… Then, put yourself in God’s shoes and consider the investment God has made in your life.

God also calls us to take risks. Often we want to be like the guy with one talent and want to take the easy way out. But we see where that got him. Instead of taking the easy path, God calls us to step out on faith, to trust him, to take risks. You know, when you invest, if you expect any kind of return, you have to take a risk. The greater the return, the greater the risk! It’s no different with our faith.

If we want an example of a risk taker, we should consider what God has done for us. There is no greater risk in the history of the cosmos than sending Jesus. God took a huge risk by becoming one of us! God took a risk on us; we’re called to take a risk for him. In doing so, we will grow in faith.

We might wonder what would have happened if this servant who did nothing had invested and lost the talent that had been entrusted to him. First off, I can’t think of any more horrible of a fate than being assigned to outer darkness. What else could the master have done to him? Would the master have been upset if he’d lost his talent? There is one other place in Matthew’s gospel where Jesus speaks of the talent as a unit of measuring wealth. In the 18^th chapter Jesus tells the story of the Unforgiving Servant. With this story, you have a servant who is forgiven the debt of 10,000 talents—far greater than the amounts referred to in this parable. Such forgiveness implies that faithfulness, not success, is at the heart of the Christian message. The guy in Matthew 18 has lost a fortune that’s beyond the comprehension of the guy who had a mere talent, yet he is forgiven. Will not God also forgive us?

What are the talents that God has blessed you with? And more importantly, are you using them to their fullness? Are you willing to step out and take a risk, knowing that’s what our Master expects of us? Or, do you prefer to play it safe? Would you prefer to play it safe knowing it jeopardizes your eternal security. God gives us blessings and grants us responsibilities accordingly. And no one can deny that God has not blessed us—all of us—richly. We live in the richest nation in the history of the world, yet, as a people, as our wealth have grown, we have statistically become less and less generous. That is, we’re given a smaller percentage of our income to church and charities. We place our trust in bank accounts and retirement funds and possessions—and are less willing to take a risk, to step out in faith and partner with God to do the work to which he has called.

This is a parable of judgment. We are reminded that we are responsible for what God has given us, which includes not only our possessions, but also our time, our abilities, our imagination, and our intellect. We belong to God! But do we live like it? It’s a tough question, but we should be asking that for the eternal consequences are high… Amen.

[1] George Monbiot, “The Self-Attribution Fallacy,” The Guardian (November 8, 2011).

[2] Matthew 19:30, 20:16; Mark 9:35, 10:31.

[3] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Churchbook: Matthew 13-28 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 552

[4] Bruner, 553.

[5] Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation: A Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993), 286.

[6] Matthew 7:21

November 6, 2011, "Come, all who are weary"

2011-11-06T09:47:00.001-05:00

Matthew 11:28-30

I woke up at about 4:30 AM on September 10^th and looked out the window of our cabin. Overhead was a bridge and its lights were reflecting off the water. In the confusion of the early morning hours, my heart sank. “We must be ahead of schedule and have missed the Statue of Liberty,” I thought. We were supposed to sail by “The Lady” at 5 AM and here was a bridge… It took a few minutes for me to clear out my head enough to realize that it was the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at the entrance into the New York Harbor. Lady Liberty hasn’t been the first thing one sees coming into the harbor for forty some years. We pulled on clothes and headed up to the 9^th Deck, which allowed us to see both sides of the river. Most of the passengers on the ship were up. At exactly 5 AM, our boat slipped passed the Statue of Liberty, a sight that had welcomed multitudes of people, both American citizens returning home from abroad and immigrants in search of a better life. With lights on the monument, it stood stand out against the dark sky.

I have always liked the poem “The New Colossus” that’s inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. We’ve all heard these words before; perhaps you’ve even had to memorize them in school:

Give me your tired, your poor

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Emma Lazarus’ poem sets forth a national ideal of compassion. Yet, as a nation, we must admit that we have seldom lived up to such an ideal. When we immigrants established ourselves (and almost all of us came from immigrant families), we tried to shut the door behind us. There was an old comic strip I remember of the President of the United States seeking the advice of the leaders of the great Native American tribes within our country. They looked at one another and then in unison said, “Control immigration.” They were suggesting we should learn from their mistakes.

Contrary to what you might be thinking, I am not up here this morning to talk about our immigration policy as a nation should or shouldn’t be. Let me instead suggest that the difference between the words found on the base of the Statue of Liberty and how we act points mostly to our human inability to achieve perfection. We seldom live up to our ideals and if we do, it’s probably because our ideals have been set too low. We’re not God, yet we’re called to strive to be more god-like.

The reason I brought up the Lazarus poem is that it sounds a lot like Jesus’ words in Matthew 11:28: “Come to me all you that are weary.” “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,” Lazarus wrote. Lazarus sets our national sights high; perhaps it’s too high of a goal for us to be able to meet. Yet, striving for such an ideal has helped us be more compassionate. Jesus, of course, completely fulfills his goal to provide rest to the weary. Read Matthew 11:28-30.

###

“Take my yoke and learn from me,” Jesus says. Most of us have an idea what a yoke is, I hope. It’s not the cholesterol-laden center of an egg… My canoe has a yoke in the middle of it and I can assure you that after a two and a half mile portage in the Hudson Bay lowlands of Northern Ontario, I’d gladly shared that yoke with Jesus. In many parts of the world, you still see yokes in use. Through much of Asia, small-time merchants and traders haul their goods to market this way. It spreads the weight across their shoulders. Fruit from the orchards, crates of live chickens and ducks, fish and shellfish, clothing and cooking utensils all get transported on the shoulders of the merchants.

Jesus may be alluding here to a poem of wisdom found at the end of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus, one of the books in the Apocrypha that’s not a part of the Protestant Bible, but is found in the Roman Catholic canon. If so, Jesus certainly turns this first century rabbinical teaching on its head. In Sirach, the line reads, “Come close to me, you ignorant, take your place at my school…” It goes on to encourage the reader to “put your neck under her yoke,” insisting that wisdom and the law is how one achieves blessings from God.[1]

Of course, Jesus didn’t make the law easier. In many situations, Jesus’ reinterpretation of the law made it more difficult as lust became equivalent to adultery and hate to murder.[2] With other laws, like the Sabbath, Jesus may have lightened the load a bit.[3] In the end Jesus reduced the law into two over-arching principles: “the love of God and the love of neighbor.”[4] Where there is a difference between Jesus’ and the rabbis’ approach is in how they relate to their followers. Jesus doesn’t call them ignorant; instead he realizes they are hurting. Jesus doesn’t stand over them in condemnation; instead he joins them, he joins us, shouldering the load. It’s in humility and meekness that Jesus approaches his followers.

“Come to me all you who are weary…” That’s beautiful! It sounds refreshing, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it make you want to run up to Jesus and fall at his feet? “Come to me all you who are weary…”

Jesus doesn’t say, “Come to God,” for he is the face of God for us. “Come to me…” And who is it that Jesus calls to himself? It’s not the righteous. It’s not the elite or those who are steeped in Scripture. Instead, he calls for the weary, those carrying heavy loads, those who are struggling with life. Jesus isn’t doing anything new here. God has always been concerned for those who struggle—throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the widow and orphan and alien are often lifted up as those whom God is especially concerned. “The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up those who are bowed down,” the 145^th Psalm proclaims. Jesus, in his call to those who are struggling, is not saying anything new.[5] But to those struggling with life’s burdens, his call is refreshing.

From a practical point of view one can easily understand there are people who need the church more than the church needs them. On the surface, these are people who are hard to deal with and who take a lot more from the community than they can ever give back. I recall from a decade or so ago, when I was pondering doing New Church Development and reading up on the literature about how one “expert” suggested excluding such people at the beginning of one’s ministry. He suggested that such needy people would be a burden that would keep the church from growing.[6] Although that may be the case, I’m not so sure that is how God calls us to operate. Essentially that’s believing the “means justify the ends,” which is not a Christian world-view. Such a view puts everything on our shoulders (and it’s not an easy yoke). Such a view leaves no room for faith. To be faithful to Jesus we must show the face of Christ to the world, we must be willing to be there beside those struggling in life.

One of the things that shocked me about China when I was there this summer is the number of beggars. There are lots of people there who have been passed over by the economic boom the country has experienced. Most everyone appears to be in a rush and few take the time to stop and help. In fact, if you stop, you’re liable to be run over. I was heading to the Beijing Main Train Station, a huge complex in the center of the city. My hotel was north of the station and to get to the station there was a multilane highway one had to cross. Crossing it on ground level would be suicidal; there were so many cars and trucks. Above the highway are two walkways, but to get up and down them, one has to climb and descend stairs. There are no elevators or escalators.

I was running to catch the train into Mongolia and had everything with me. My backpack was on with my daypack draped over my chest and in one hand I had a bag with water and some food for the 30 hour trip. There was a crowd of people rushing up the stairs and in the middle, holding up traffic, was an older woman with one of the largest suitcases I’ve seen. She was trying to pull it up by its wheels, one step at a time. I think she was with her daughter for there was another woman with her who was struggling with two suitcases and didn’t have a free hand to help. Seeing this woman struggle, I came along side of her and with my free hand grabbed the handle. It was heavy. I have no idea what she was taking with her, but it could easily have been bricks. She looked at me, surprised. I motioned for her to go on and we walked up the stairs. I don’t think she spoke any English, but when we got to the top (where I was out of breath from having exerted myself so hard), I could tell she was grateful as she bowed deeply, with a smile on her face. “All you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens…”

As followers of Jesus, we find rest in him and should also help others find rest. As Dale Brunner writes in his wonderful commentary on Matthew, “A yoke is not a sitting instrument, it is a walking instrument.” Jesus isn’t saying, take a seat and listen and learn from me. He’s calling us to join him along the way. “Follow me,” he said earlier in the gospel when he called the disciples.[7] To be a follower of Jesus means that we’re on a journey as we strive to live and learn from him. Being a follower of Jesus requires more than just book learning; it requires living a life that reflects his grace. As Doug Hare, a professor of mine from seminary writes about this passage, the rest promised to the weary is not inactivity! This yoke that Jesus offers to share with us, that is often translated as “easy”, could also be translated as “kind.”[8] A yoke is a tool for working, but when it fits well, it will make what must be done a lot easier.

Following Jesus isn’t easy. Jesus never says it is. In other places he says we must pick up our crosses; and a cross isn’t an easy yoke to bear.[9] Instead, what I think Jesus is doing in this passage is contrasting his gentle and humble way to that of many of the teachers of his day. “The meek shall inherit the earth,” he tells us.[10] If we’re to be like Jesus, we strive to learn from him and to live, as he teaches and not as the world teaches. Living a Christ-like life can be difficult, but it is made easier when we are yoked to Jesus, when we realize he is with us and he calls us not to worry about the burden of the law, but to rejoice in life itself, a gift from an All-loving God.

Dale Bruner, to whom I referred earlier, sees this passage as a shift in Matthew’s gospel. Bruner splits the gospel into two parts: the first focuses on Jesus and the second on Jesus’ preparation for the church to take over his work. Bruner divides this passage into four clauses, which relate to the life of Jesus as shown by Matthew.

1. “Come to me” (as Jesus came to us as shown in the opening chapters of Matthew)

2. “Take my yoke upon you” (as Jesus teaches us in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7)

3. “And learn from me” (as Jesus shows us in his teachings, miracles and mission, especially in Matthew 8-10).

4. “Because I am gentle and simple at heart” (as we learn about Jesus’ nature in Matthew 10 and 11)[11]

Jesus’ yoke is still a yoke. It’s still a tool; it’s for work. We still have responsibilities. Following Jesus doesn’t mean we’re free to do whatever we want. But if we follow Jesus, we are assured that we’re eternally heading in the right direction. If we know Jesus, we know that we’re loved. And knowing where we’re headed and that we’re loved will make any task easier to bear. Furthermore, if we have the spirit of Jesus in us, his humility and meekness, we will draw others to the one who gave his life so that we might live more fully. Amen.

[1] New Jerusalem Translation, Ecclesiasticus 51:23, 25. See also Matthew 23:4

[2] Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28.

[3] Matthew 12:1-8.

[4] Matthew 22:37-40.

[5] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 1-12 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 537.

[6] In a recent book I’ve been reading about church planting in Mongolia, the author discusses having been taught such a principle and being dismayed when, at first, the only people they seemed to reach were teenage girls. Brian Hogan, There’s a Sheep in my Bathtub: Birth of a Mongolian Church Planting Movement (Bayside, CA: Asteroidea Books, 2008), 105.

[7] Bruner, 539. Matthew 4:19.

[8] Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation, a Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1993) , 128-129.

[9] We find this summons in each of the synoptic gospels and twice in Matthew and Luke. Matthew 10:39, 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23 and 18:27.

[10] Matthew 5:5

[11] Bruner, 540.

Transitions: Joshua 5:8-12

2011-10-30T07:20:00.000-05:00

October 30, 2011

After the second service today, there will be a congregational meeting to vote on an offer we have to sell our old home on South Broadway. Our action today will complete the transition to this facility. If we sell the building, we won’t have to continue maintaining it and can channel that energy into our mission and ministry here. Furthermore, the plans for the use of our old building will provide needed community services. Yet, as any one of you who have ever sold a home know, it’s bittersweet. Transitions are always that way, I think. The text for today’s sermon is from a time of transition in Israel’s history. It comes at the end of the Exodus, when the people are entering the Promised Land. There will be no turning back. The wandering in the wilderness and the manna from heaven has come to an end. At this point, they’re to focus on the future into which God is calling them. Read Joshua 5:8-12

###

All of us go through transitions—as individuals and as communities. One day we’re happy in school and the next we’re working 9 to 5 (or 11 to 7 in my case when I finished college). One day we’re enjoying the fruits of our mom’s table and the next we’re eating burnt toast and running eggs prepared with our own hands. One day we’re going to work and the next we’re retired and trying to figure out what’s next. One day we’re fit and healthy and the next we’re facing a medical crisis. One day we’re going along fine and the next terrorist are flying planes into buildings. Life is full of changes: always has been, always will be.

The Hebrew people are going through a significant transition. After 400 years of slavery and 40 years of wandering in the desert, they have finally entered the land promised to Abraham and his descendants. Now that they’ve come home, two things happen. They are weaned from God’s daily providence of substance and one again required, as we’re told in the third chapter of Genesis, to make a living from the sweat of their brow.[1] The second change is that they are able to freely institute religious rituals without being harassed by their masters or prohibited from doing due to their wandering in the desert. This transition is marked by the reinstitution of circumcision and the celebration of Passover.

Today, we too will be discussing a significant transition for us as a congregation and for our community, as we discuss allowing our old church building to be used for a new purpose.

In my sermon, I am going to focus on the end of manna and what it meant. If you remember the story, after the Hebrew people were safely in the wilderness, having crossed through the sea that closed up and drowned the pursing Egyptian army, they realized they got a few things they didn’t bargain for. They’re free from slavery, but with an entire nation crossing some of the most barren landscape on earth, they quickly realize they were in a tough place. Food was scarce. In Egypt they’d filled their stomach on grains and meat but in the desert, the pickings were slim. There weren’t that many mountain goats and fried cactus for dinner didn’t go over very well.

But God wasn’t going to lose his redeemed people, those who had been purchased for a price in Egypt, so he provided for their nourishment. There was this bread like substance called manna that fell upon the ground every day (or ever day but the Sabbath). In the mornings they’d gather enough for that day, but if they tied to hoard any extra, it spoiled. It was not a commodity to be saved and traded with others. The only day they could “collect” an extra measure was the day before the Sabbath, when they needed enough for two days.[2]

It didn’t take them long to get tired of eating only manna, so God provided them quails for meat.[3] And so, for forty years, their diet consisted of manna and quail, provided through an ultra-efficient food delivery system, fresh right outside their tents every morning. Life wasn’t hard and they got use to it.

A secondary benefit for this rather bland diet is that the kids stopped pestering their moms about what was for dinner. It was always the same—manna and quail, manna and quail, quail and manna. Everyone took it for granted. Everyone ate the same meal. Of course, in an attempt to fight of boredom and to raise money for some mission project, I’m sure the women’s association published cookbooks: Forty Ways to Fix Manna, Manna and Quail Essentials, and the ever popular Martha Stewart’s Secrets for Dealing with a Bland Diet.

But all good things must come to an end and so it was with the manna and quail. Upon entering the Promised Land, the Hebrews held a Passover feast and from then on worked for their daily bread. God’s ultimate welfare system was replaced and everyone was required to follow a plow or chop weeds.

Let me change subjects for a moment and tell you about a friend of mine. Mark was one of my best friends in the 9^th grade and I’ve talked about him before. An adolescent hippie who resembled John Lennon (Lennon was still alive in those days, in case any of you are wondering), Mark could blend in with the Occupy Wall Street crowd today. But this was 1971and 2. He was a year older than me, having repeated a grade when he was younger and hit by a car and spent much of the year in the hospital-which looking back on things seems to be an ominous sign. As I’ve told you before, it was the day we got out of school for the Christmas break, when we were in the 10^th Grade, that Mark was riding on the back of his brother’s motorcycle when a car ran a red light. He was thrown across the intersection and killed.

I’m not sure what drew me to Mark; perhaps it was his usual style. One of my best memories of Mark occurred during the fourth period lunch. My lunch break was at fifth period and fourth period I was in Ms. Gooden’s math class, in a room that faced the front of the school. A day or two before, they’d painted the flagpole and some guy hosted himself up to the top and painted it as he lowered himself down. This gave Mark and idea and he told me to be on the lookout during his lunch period. Mark, who was kind of a loner and generally didn’t draw much attention to himself, went over the pole and shimmied up it. At the top of the pole, with the flag wrapping around him, he was looking right into the 2^nd story windows and for a few minutes, as everyone on lunch ran to the front of the school to see the spectacle and classes on the second floor ground to a halt as teachers and students looked out with mouths gapped open and while teachers and administrators gathered to coax him down, Mark swung like a monkey from the top of the pole. Then he climbed down and was led away by the principal. I didn’t think I’d see Mark for a few days but he was let off with a good chewing out. It was hard to be too mad at Mark, for he didn’t harm anyone and this was at a time when racial tensions were running high and, at least, Mark didn’t cause a riot.

God provides for our needs. I had never thought about Mark in this way until years later I read Anne Lamott’s book, Traveling Mercies.[4] Lamott writes about how God in very surprising ways looked after her during her trials and I realized the role Mark played in my life and wrote down my memories of him. At school during the ninth grade, I hung out with two groups of people. Some of them were like Mark, but the other group was a little more gang-like. My ninth year was a tough one because we were in a different school and didn’t want to be there and those who had attended that school the year before didn’t want us there, either. It was the first year of cross-county busing in the South. There was a lot of strife and some of the other guys I hung out with got in lots of trouble. Mark had this live-and-let-live attitude and his questioning some of the things going on kept me from getting too involved with some of the others and from finding myself in too much trouble. His subtle friendship was important in ways he’d never know. God provides and watches over us, especially during transitions. Sometimes God chooses a strange way to care out his business.

God provided for the Israelites in the wilderness in a very special way. But the free food wasn’t to continue. For once God provided them with a homeland, they were required to participate with God as co-creators as they toiled to raise their food. Of course, God didn’t lead them into the land and abandon them, just as God doesn’t abandon us. God remained at their side. Having protected and provided for them during the wilderness, they could now fulfill the role which God had destined for them.

God desires that we mature, that we get to a point that we can be responsible and take care of ourselves and fully participate with him in the role assigned to us. When God carries us, as he did with the Hebrew children in the Exodus, we learn we are to depend on God. When God leads us to a new place where we can be productive, we shouldn’t forget that lesson but instead give God thanks for giving us the means to take care of ourselves.

Those of us here at First Presbyterian Church have seen evidence of God providing and being with us. Look at this building and consider what it means. Think about our mission team that’s in Costa Rica right now? Even this summer, when I was on sabbatical, look at how well things went. I felt God’s presence with me in my travels. From the sermons I’ve read that was given by both our members and some of the international pastors, I know God was also with you. And today, we’ll mark another transition… We have an opportunity before us. But to seize it, we’ll have to leave part of our past behind, and that’s bittersweet. But that’s the way it is with all spiritual growth. Jesus tells us we must be born again; the birthing metaphor certainly implies a significant transition.[5] He also tells us that when we’ve put our hand to the plow, for us not to look back, a lesson learned the hard way by Lot’s wife.[6] The Apostle Paul calls us to let the past die as we become a new creation in Jesus Christ.[7]

Throughout our journey with Christ, we’re often called to leave the past and to have faith as we are led into new places, situations or encounters to which God is leading us. We’re to respond to such calls in prayer, making sure that it’s God’s desire. Then we’re to respond in faith. We’re to move forward knowing that God provides. God has been faithful in the past and will continue to be so in the future. That is our hope, that is our faith, and that is at the core of the gospel message. Amen.

[1] Genesis 3:19.

[2] See Exodus 16 and Numbers 11.

[3] Exodus 16:13 and Numbers 11:31

[4] Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (New York: Anchor Books, 1999).

[5] John 3:3

[6] Luke 9:62, Genesis 19:26.

[7] 2 Corinthians 5:17. See also Romans 6:6

October 16, 2011 "Greed and Worry"

2011-10-16T09:44:00.000-05:00

October 16, 2011

Luke 12:15-25

Last week I told you today’s sermon was going to be about worry. As I began preparing the message and dug more into the text, the topic shifted from worry to greed. Yet, greed is a cause of worry, so the two go together. Or maybe my topic is really idolatry; after all we do worry a lot when we place our trust in idols that can’t satisfy. Of maybe it’s about living in the now… You’ll have to decide!

In addition to the man in parable that Jesus told, which we’ll look at in just a minute, I am going to talk today about two other men. One of these men, Steve Jobs, who died a little over a week ago, influenced most of our lives and the other man, Uncle Frank, influenced my life. I’m sure we all had such people in our lives.

Steve Jobs is well known as the founder of Apple Computers, and even those of us who are more wedded to PCs than to Macs may use Apple’s iPods, iPads or iPhones. When he died, people started posting tributes to him all across the internet. Many of these posts recalled his 2005 Commencement Address at Stanford University. Jobs, who only spent a semester in college, addressed one of the most prestigious institutions in America. And one of the things he talked about was death…

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. [1].

There’s a lot about Jobs we don’t know. He protected his private life. Was he religious? I read somewhere that as a young man he explored Buddhism, but so has a lot of us. Did he have a relationship with Jesus Christ? I don’t know nor is it up to me to speculate. However, his words here are full of wisdom and almost sound like something Jesus could have said.

Today, we’re exploring the Parable of the Rich Fool. Interestingly, this story was told right after someone asked Jesus to intervene in a family dispute over ones inheritance. Jesus refused to get involved, and then told this story. Let’s listen now to the Master as I read from the twelfth chapter of Luke, starting with verse fifteen. (Read Luke 12:15-25.

###

Whenever I think about a farmer, I envision Uncle Frank. It’s been about a year since he died and I’ve talked about him before in this pulpit. Frank raised tobacco and was good at it. He expanded the number of fields and barns and worked hard during the summer to raise and cure the golden leaf. As he got older and the tobacco market went south, Frank leased out most of his land and retired. Well, kind-of retired. He’d farmed the same land all his life. He grew up on that land and there must have been something in the dirt that was addictive as Frank was not able to let it go.

In his retirement, Frank started raising strawberries. Then he added sweet corn and peas and beans and tomatoes and watermelons and other crops. There were two old barns he used the cure tobacco, out near the highway. He converted them to a produce stand, air conditioning the barns where he stored that which he grew. It was a homey setting, the barns and the tin roof shed between them where produce was displayed. The whole operation was under the shade of pecan trees. If I remember correctly, there were a few rockers sitting around where people could cool off and enjoy a Coca-Cola on hot summer afternoons.

I don’t think anything brought Frank more happiness than the knowledge someone was enjoying the fruits of his labor. The juice from a watermelon or that from a red tomato, cut thick and stuck in between two slices of bread slathered with mayonnaise, running down the chin of a kid made it all worthwhile. The knowledge that some people drove 20 miles out of their way just to purchase some of his sweet corn was satisfying. It seems appropriate that the last time I saw Frank, during Spring Break 2010 when we were visiting kinfolk in North Carolina, he was on top of a John Deere, planting peas.

Frank was not at all like the guy in the story Jesus told. Although I’m sure Frank struggled with greed, as we all do, he was a bighearted man. I believe it was his love for the land and the happiness his produce brought to his costumers and not the money it put into his bank account that kept Frank farming well into his eighth decade. Furthermore, Frank generously supported his church and was known to help out neighbors in need.

We’re not told much about the farmer in our story today. He was successful and blessed with fertile land and good crops. That’s good. We’re to enjoy the gifts from God’s creation! He built barns to store up his excess and that’s not necessarily bad, either. After all, if Joseph hadn’t built barns and silos in Egypt during their seven years of plenty, they’d all starved during their seven years of drought.[2] So what’s the problem here… Why did God call this man a fool?

I have a feeling this man is incredibly lonely. Interestingly, in the parable, he only talks to himself. “I’m going to do this and that,” he says, but he’s the only one around. He takes credit for all that he’s done, forgetting that others may be partly responsible for his blessings. There were the day laborers who prepared the fields, who chopped the weeds, and who helped harvest the crop, all for the chance of having a full belly at the end of the day. I’m sure they received their portion, but the man doesn’t acknowledge he’s dependent on the sweat from their brows... Next, there were the carpenters who sawed the wood and lifted up the beams and built his barns. We can assume they too were paid, but certainly their contributions are overlooked by the man in the story. And then there is the one who sends the rain and the sun and who gives the harvest. [3] The source of his blessings is also ignored, at least until the end of the parable when the man is confronted by the God of Creation and then it’s too late.

Yet, we’re also not told that the man’s death is punishment. I don’t think it was. It seems to have just been his time. Death is something we will all confront. Steve Jobs in that commencement address at Stanford acknowledged this:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent.

The knowledge of our humanity, our mortality, should help us focus on that which is important. But too often, perhaps because we have tried hard to erase death from our minds, we ignore it. The man is not called a fool because he was rich and didn’t share of his blessings, for we don’t know that. For all we know, he may have been very generous. Nor was he called a fool for hoarding the bounty of his fields. After all, if someone doesn’t store up food, we’d all starve during a year or drought or floods, and this was especially at a time when buying produce on the world market wasn’t an option. Instead, the man was called a fool because he was living, not for today, but for tomorrow. Instead of enjoying today, he was making plans to enjoy tomorrow. As we all know, but may not want to admit, tomorrow may not be. This farmer worried about how he could store up his crop so that he could kick back and relax or party-hardy (depending on his mood) sometime in the future. He thought he had everything under control, but he over-reached. He’s still mortal and life is still a gift for the Almighty, not something that he (or we) can control. Yes, we can and should take care of ourselves, but we can’t bank on tomorrow’s sunrise.

I should reiterate again that there is nothing in this passage that suggests this man was immoral or he had prospered from unjust actions or had been dishonest with others which allowed him to gain wealth. That’s not the problem Jesus is addressing here. Instead, his problem is where he places his trust. His full barns have become his god, that’s where he’s placed his trust. He’s an idolater. His idol isn’t some stone carving, but a barn and a collection of silos. Looking at them, all filled with the bounty of his fields, he thinks his future is secure. Furthermore, I do think this story illustrates how the love of stuff not only destroys our relationship with God, but also with others as this farmer, at least in the story, has only himself with whom to talk.

Jesus moves from this story to encouraging us not to worry about tomorrow. Elsewhere, Jesus says they’ll be enough troubles tomorrow to worry over, take care of your troubles today.[4] “One day at a time,” is a motto our AA friends live by, and it’s a good one. Worrying, as Jesus reminds us, “will not add a single hour to the span of your life.”[5]

Steve Jobs ended that commencement address by recalling the 70s phenomenon known as The Whole Earth Catalog. There was a country road on the back of last issue, above which were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." Jobs noted that it was their farewell message and one he has wished for himself and for the graduates. I don’t know about the foolish part, especially in light of our text today, but I like that advice, “Stay Hungry.” If we are a little hungry, we’ll work harder and we’ll acknowledge our dependence upon others and especially upon God. If our bellies are always full, we can mistakenly believe all is well and we need no one.

These are trying times in which we live. We can live by fear and be anxious and strive to assure our future by hoarding and isolating ourselves. But we can’t stop the inevitable. Sooner or later, we’ll be gone. At such a time will we be known for what we did with the blessings God entrusted to us? Or will we be known by what we left behind, unused. I encourage you to look at your lives from the perspective of your faith in an Almighty God. Do we trust that God will be with us in the future? If so, do we live like it? Do we embrace the possibility each day holds? Do we give freely and generously? Do we seek out the fellowship of others? Are we willing to take a risk, to be a little foolish, not like the farmer who thought he had it made, but foolish by worldly standards which means trusting in God whom we believe wants something more and better from and for us?[6]

Examine yourself. It’s not yet too late to change. It’s not too late to start enjoying the life God’s given you. It’s not too late to make things right with God or with a friend or family member. It’s not too late, but at some point in the future it will be. Life is too short to be greedy. Stay hungry. Stay foolish. Hungry and foolish for God… Amen.

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/09/steve-jobs-stanford-commencement-address

[2] Genesis 41:46-57.

[3] Mary Hinkle “On Securing the Soul” at http://maryhinkle.typepad.com/pilgrim_preaching/2010/07/on-securing-the-soul.html

[4] Matthew 6:34.

[5] Luke 12:25, NRSV

[6] See 1 Corinthians 1:18

The Christian Life

2011-10-09T07:33:00.000-05:00

October 9, 2011

Philippians 4:2-9

It’s stewardship time. Like it or not, it comes every year. It shouldn’t be a surprise. As our Reformed heritage reminds us, one of the key tenets of being a follower of Jesus is to remember that all we have belongs to God, it is only entrusted to us and, if we are faithful, we’re to use what God gives us to bring him glory and to do good in the world.

At another church, the preacher had a hard-hitting message on stewardship on Sunday. She highlighted all the needs in their church and within a community. The message hit one family very hard. On the way home from church, they talked about all the needs and how they might be able to help. It must have been a really good sermon for instead of watching the Lions play on the afternoon televised game, as they ate lunch they continued the conversation and decided to do something. After lunch, they went through their home and collected stuff they no longer needed, piling it up in an empty garage bay. An extra bed in the basement was to be donated to the homeless shelter, toys that were no longer played with were collected for children staying at the domestic abuse shelter, old clothes were stuffed into bags to be carried by those from the congregation who were heading on a mission trip to Guatemala, and the excess food that was nearing the expedition date was boxed up for the local pantry. When they were finished and had hauled everything out to the garage, they were amazed. They realized it’d take them many trips to haul it all away in the family’s station wagon. But they felt good about what they’d done… That is, until their six year daughter looked at the accumulated pile and remarked, “I see, giving means getting rid of all the stuff we don’t want anymore.” [1]

“A child will lead them,” Isaiah writes.[2] If we listen to what they say, we can probably learn as much from our children as they do from us—especially about generosity. God hasn’t given us handouts. God has given us the best, from creation to his son. Our giving must be in response to what God has done for us. That’s why the Bible talks about us giving to God from our first-fruits, a tithe, a portion of what we have, instead of just giving back to God what we don’t want, don’t need, or what’s left. [3]

Today, as we were last week, we’ll be in the letter to the Philippians. This week we’ll examine the final chapter of the book, where Paul gives us some good advice about how we are to live as Christians. A lot of it is about our attitude, how we approach life. Are we optimistic? Are we gracious? Do we trust God? Our attitude goes a long way toward how we live our lives. Listen as I read… Philippians 4:2-9

###

At the beginning of this letter, we learn that Paul’s circumstances are not ideal. He’s writing from prison.[4] There is a guard checking on him regularly, making sure the cuffs are snug, the chains secured and the door bolted. Guard duty for a soldier was the pits. It’s boring work. And the Romans didn’t tend to be too kind to guards who had prisoners to escape under their watch,[5] so they made sure their prisoners weren’t going anywhere. If you were to write a letter under these circumstances, what would you say? How would you end your letter? I’m not so sure I could end my letter as Paul did, rejoicing in the Lord. Instead, expect to receive a letter from me begging for your help in getting me out, or in raising my bail, or maybe requesting that you slip a file in a cake and bring it to me…

Paul is attempting to calm the Philippians who seem to be stressed out. There is some bickering within the church in Philippi as we see in the beginning of this passage; there’s also some confusion as to what to believe as we saw last week. Over all, this is normal stuff. Someone is not happy about something, someone else is stressing out over something else… Paul wants them to take a deep breath and then to joyfully continue the work they’re supposed to be doing…

This week my daughter had a homework assignment to write a paper on stress. It was stressing her out and I suggested that one stressor she could write about is homework. In this class the teacher called for a “stress-free day” in which they did nothing, nor were they allowed to do anything (like homework). Leaving the class at the end of the period, Caroline told the teacher that the “stress-free class” was the most stressful class she’s had. I think that was part of the point. We don’t avoid stress by doing nothing and I think that’s one of the things we see from Paul in this letter. Keep doing the good work, keep rejoicing, and don’t let the circumstances get you down. Even though things may be bad in Philippi, at least they’re better off than Paul, whose chains rattle as he writes to the congregations he loves so much.

There is a quote that has remained with me for most of my adult life—I read it in my mid-20s. “It is not stress that kills us. It is effective adaptation to stress that permits us to live.”[6]

Paul begins this section of the letter mentioning several people who had been helpful in his ministry in Philippi. It seems they’re in a bit of a snit. They’re fighting, they’re arguing, struggling to get along and Paul tells the good folks of Philippi to step in and help out. They need to be “of the same mind in the Lord.” In other words, their focus needs not be on their internal struggles with one another, but on what God is doing in their community. When we focus on ourselves, we take things personally, but when we focus on the larger picture of what’s God’s doing in the world, there’s a lot all of us can get excited over. We should want to be a part of it!

Back in July, I was in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Twenty years ago, it was an atheistic country and there were only a few underground churches meeting in homes in a city which at that time was approaching a million people. Today, there are over 200 churches! God is active in our world and calls us to join in and participate with him to make this world a better place. If we only focus on our own needs, we’ll miss a golden opportunity to be a part of something much greater than of which we’re capable by ourselves.

Paul provides the Philippians with a number of suggestions as to how they’re to live the Christian life. First of all, they’re to rejoice in the Lord and as they do this, they’re to let their gentleness be known. You know, it’s hard to be praising God as you abuse others. Instead, if we lift up our hearts to God, we should also be led to deal gently with those around us, for we know from where our blessings come and to whom the future belongs. So take delight in God. Stand in awe of God’s wonderful creation, look to see God’s image in those around you, praise God in song and in prayer, with others and when you are alone.

Next, they’re told not to worry. Good advice, but how, we might ask. The Philippians probably asked the same question, and then they thought about Paul and his tribulations. “If Paul ain’t worrying, why are we?” Instead of worrying, Paul encourages his readers to take their needs to God, the one who holds the world in his hands. I am going to spend more time next week on the topic of not worrying, for I suggest it is one that we Christians need to learn. Of all people, those of us of faith should not worry, but we all do. As followers of Jesus, we should be bringing a calming approach to our society, but I don’t often see that. We should do better.

Paul goes on to say that the Philippians need to focus on that which is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent and worthy. Verse eight is beautiful. Paul knows that if those who are bickering focus on what’s important, things will work out. Problems arise. However, when we get sidetracked, what should be minor irritants grow and if left unchecked can become a full-fledged war. Too much of what we fight and argue over is trivial—whether it is in our relationships and family, in the church or in our community, in our nation or between nations. If we only could focus on that which is good and pure and honorable instead of trying to always be seen as right, we’d be a lot better off. (By the way, whether or not we are right is another whole topic.)

Finally, Paul lifts himself as an example. Keep on doing those things you’ve learned from me, that which you’ve seen me doing. Again, Paul is writing this in chains and, by his demeanor, he’s setting an example for the Philippians and for us.

Ask yourselves: are you always rejoicing? Are you gentle with others? Are you worried? Do you always do what is right? Is there room for improvement in these areas? If so, how might you recommit yourselves to be like Paul, to take a step to live a Christ-filled life?

Consecration Sunday is coming up. In two weeks, on October 23, there will be one service at 11 AM. On this day, we’ll all crowd in here to worship, followed by a nice luncheon. Before then, I encourage you to pray about your response. Generous giving is only one aspect of what it takes to be a faithful Christian. But generosity comes from a heart that is right with God. Ask yourself: as a follower of Jesus and a member or friend of our fellowship, “how will I respond to the love God has shown us? How can God work through me to do his work in the world?” Amen.

[1] Adapted from a story by David Hoffman found at: http://www.luthersem.edu/stewardship/resource_detail.aspx?resource_id=1022

[2] Isaiah 11:6

[3] See Exodus 23:19, Leviticus 27:30-32, Malachi 3:8

[4] Philippians 1:13

[5] See Acts 16 :27.

[6] Melvin Konner, The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit (New York: Harpers, 1982), 259. Konner is quoting Jean MacFarlane, as quoted by George E. Vaillant, Adaptation to Life (Boston: Little Brown, 1977).

October 2, 2011

2011-10-02T07:34:00.003-05:00

October 2, 2011

Philippians 3:2-17

Two country boys were taking a break after working in the hot sun. Sitting under the shade of an oak tree, each holding a cold Coca-Cola, one asked, “Billy Bob, if you had a million dollars, would you give me half of it?” Ole Billy Bob replied, “Lee Roy, you know I would.” So Lee Roy questioned again, “If you had a thousand dollars, would you give me five hundred?” “Lee Roy, we have been friends for over twenty years,” said Billy Bob, “and you know I would give you five hundred dollars if I had a thousand.” Well, Ole Lee Roy scratched his chin and asked, “If you had two hogs, would you give me one?” “That’s not fair,” Billy Bob shouted. “You know I have two hogs.”[1]

Sometimes we like to speculate on what we’d do or how we’d act if fortune fell into our lap. Kids do this all the time, but so do adults. “What would you do if you won the lottery?” Ever asked or answered that question? Personally, I’d faint, because I don’t play the lottery nor do I care for it, but that’s not my point here. Instead, do you ever ponder how you might act in different situations? As long as we don’t dwell on it, there is probably little harm in such speculation. However, when it comes to our lives, we can’t make plans based on luck. Nor should we remain in bondage to the past. We start where we find ourselves, here and now, and move forward. As followers of Jesus Christ, we’re to be thankful, generous, and gracious and focused on him.

This morning I’m preaching from Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi. I will be reading from The Message translation. Read Philippians 3:2-17

###

It’s never too late to do what is right. That’s good news, although at times it may not seem like it.

One of the advantages of spending so much time traveling by train and boat is that I got to read and listen to a bunch of books. One of these books was Anne Tyler’s novel, Saint Maybe. It is the story of Ian Bedloe, who at the beginning of the book is a high school student living in the shadows of Danny, his talented older brother. Ian looks up to his Danny and doesn’t know what to make of things when his brother quickly marries a woman with two children. She’s quickly pregnant with a third, maybe too quickly. In time, Ian begins to have questions about Danny’s wife and one day, when he’s angry and feels he’s been taken advantage of by her, he shares his concerns with his brother. Danny leaves in a rage and is killed in an automobile accident. Or was it an accident? Ian must live with a terrible secret. He graduates from high school and goes off to college. Along the way, his sister-in-law, who is struggling with the three kids, overdoses on drugs. Was it intentional? The guilt builds, as his parents who are now aging and have health issues of their own, must take care of three small children. Ian is unsure what to do and one night while walking around with his hands in his pocket, he stumbles upon the “Church of the Second Chance,” in a storefront. There, he becomes friends with the Reverend Emmett, to whom he confesses what he has done. Emmett assures him that he can be forgiven, but that he needs to take care of his brother’s kids. He drops out of school and for the next two decades raises the kids, putting his own life on hold.

Tyler’s story is about forgiveness and shows a tension that exists between forgiveness and consequences, penance and doing what is right. Certainly, there is much in the story that smacks of works-righteousness and later in the book, his sister-in-law’s oldest child, a bright but troubled teenager, labels Ian “Saint Maybe.” He certainly saw himself, not working out of gratitude but working to earn forgiveness… Was he paying the price or accepting the consequences of his sin?

Paul, I believe, would disagree with Ian’s feelings that he’s got to carry this burden to the end to be forgiven. Our forgiveness comes through the atoning death of Jesus Christ. But, the grace God has shown us frees us to live in a new way; it frees us to finally do what is right and good and noble, not because we want to earn our salvation but because our relationship with Christ is all that matters.

Although I felt the “Church of the Second Chance” should have helped reassure Ian that he was loved unconditionally by God, I do give them credit with helping him, just a kid in his late-teens, care for the three orphaned children. The church stands by Ian, babysitting and helping him bear the burden. And in the book, after years of struggling to raise these children who are not his, you see the fruit of the love they have for each other. Grace, along with love, does abide.

In our Scripture passage for today we get a sense that Paul is in a battle with the Jewish Christians who wanted to burden Gentile converts with the Law handed down from Moses. Why else would he begin this section of his letter, in verse 2, with a warning for his readers to beware of evil workers and those who mutilate the flesh?[2] (In the Message, from which I read, the language of verse two is even more colorful.) Paul has every reason to be proud of who he is and of his background. In our text, we hear Paul cite his resume. It’s impressive, the guy has credentials. But then he turns it around and in verse 7 says he regards it all as loss because of Christ. It wasn’t enough. It could never be enough. Only in Christ can Paul, and we, find that which is truly important. Paul acknowledges that he’s still longing for the prize. But until then he will run the race, remaining focused on Christ.

There are three points that I want to make today concerning this passage. First, I want us to consider what Paul uses, from his own life, as an example for others. Secondly, I want us to ask ourselves, what is it that we value? What’s important for our lives? And finally, I want to come back to the good news that I see in this passage, that it’s never too late to do what is right.

The Apostle Paul had a miraculous conversion on the Damascus road. Paul literally does a one-eighty; he starts out as a persecutor of the church and he ends up as the church’s greatest missionary. Such a change has set the pattern for what we, as Christians, see as the ideal conversion.[3] But interestingly, Paul doesn’t hold up his conversion as the ideal or even as the norm, that’s only because of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Instead of talking about his conversion as a model for others, Paul lifts up his struggle to be faithful as the example. In numerous places, he uses the metaphor of a runner or an athlete to describe the Christian life.

Too often, I think we see one’s acceptance of Jesus as the goal. If someone can just accept Christ, all is well. I’m not so sure that Paul would agree with this modern way in which we’ve cheapened the faith. Paul saw himself in a long distance race, and the goal line wasn’t going to be reached in this life. Paul experienced grace, but that’s not the goal. Grace isn’t the end, it’s the beginning. Paul must continue to run, to hold tight to the faith as a runner in a relay might hold tight to the baton. The goal is to be with Christ, eternally.

Paul tells people not to judge him by his past, for his life-long goal is to be faithful to his Savior. Nothing else matters.

This leads into my second point, “what is it that we value?” What’s important to you? What do you want to be remembered? Paul is definite here. What’s important isn’t the past. His resume is impeccable, but he throws it out the window. “Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ,” he writes in the 7^th verse. Our accomplishments pale in comparison to what Christ has done for us. Even if we live a good life, we still have no room to brag and it’s all so trite when we think about the love shown to us.

Or maybe there are things in our past that overshadow our accomplishments. Some of us and perhaps many of us are burdened with at least part of our past. We’ve all done things we’ve regretted, things that may still haunt us. That doesn’t seem to be Paul’s problem. With the exception of his stint as a persecutor of the church, his past is pretty remarkable. I expect for most of us, and I’m including myself, our past is a mixed-bag: some good and some bad and some indifferent. But Paul reminds us we can’t dwell on our past. We’re to start where we are and make our way forward. This leads into my third point. The past is water under the bridge. We’re now on a new journey with Christ and we need to focus on him. The good news, as I said at the beginning, is that it’s never too late to do what is right, to change our direction, to find the peace that comes from knowing and accepting God’s grace and love.

Paul wasn’t ashamed of his past; there was much there of which he could be proud. Instead, he knew it didn’t matter. What was important is what Jesus had done for him and how he would respond. The same is true for us—as individuals, as a congregation, as a community, as a nation and even as the collective citizens of the globe. If we spend too much time dwelling on the past—on the good we’ve done, the bad we’ve done or that which we left undone—we’ll miss out on what we can be doing now.

We can’t let the past hold us back. Paul knew he had to move forward and he was ready to run till Jesus called him home. What about us? Do we trust enough to turn all the joys and accomplishments, the broken dreams and missed opportunities, over to Jesus, and to dedicate this day and every day forward to serving him and him alone? Amen.

[1] Story from Jerry Mixon. http://blogs.lifeway.com/blog/domoreministry/archives/2007/10/short_stories_o_1.html

[2] NRSV translation

[3] See Fred B. Craddock, Phillippians: Interpretations: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta: John Knox, 1984), 55.

September 25, 2011

2011-09-25T07:41:00.002-05:00

Jeff Garrison

Psalm 48

This has been the longest that I’ve gone without preaching since I first entered the pulpit twenty-five years ago, so I hope preaching is like riding a bicycle and I haven’t forgotten how… Making me more nervous coming back into the pulpit is knowing you have heard some wonderful sermons this summer—some of them from our members and others from the international pastors who preached over the past two months. I thank everyone who has involved with making this time of sabbatical a success, for me and for the congregation.

Often, when I travel, I get preaching ideas from the sermons I hear when visiting other churches. That didn’t happen much this summer, as many of the sermons I heard were in different languages. In Mongolia, I thought I might be in luck as they had a translator! The preacher was even a Presbyterian (a Korean Presbyterian), but as fate would have it the translator took the message from the Korean into Mongolian… I was still out of luck!

Last Sunday, as I was back in the States, I heard a good sermon in English (even with a Southern dialect) at the Presbyterian Church in Newton, NC, near where my grandmother now lives in an assisted-living facility. The pastor told a story I thought I’d share with you. A woman was at a party and noticed on another woman’s finger the most beautiful diamond she’d ever seen. She was envious of this rock and asked about the diamond. “This is the Chapman diamond,” she was informed by the wearer. “Yes, it’s beautiful and valuable, but with it came a curse.” Shocked, the admirer asked what kind of curse could be associated with such a lovely diamond. “Mr. Chapman,” the other woman replied. (Sorry, that doesn’t have anything to do with my sermon today, but even my grandmother chuckled when she heard it.)

During my travels this summer and since coming back, the question I have been asked most often is “what was your most favorite place.” Early on it was Mt. Bromo in Indonesia, where I got to stand on the lip of a volcano and look down into the hole from which heavy smoke spewed. Later, it was Penang, Malaysia, where the food is great and where I got to hike into the jungle. Then it was Vietnam, with its mystical bays… Later, it was Mongolia, with incredible mountains, followed by Lake Baikal, Russia, which is also beautiful… Culturally, St. Petersburg, Russia, with the vast art collection at the Hermitage is hard to beat. And as I neared the end of my journey, Prince Christian Sound in Greenland rose to the top, a place of gorgeous fjords filled with icebergs and surrounded by rugged mountains.

But the truth is this: there wasn’t a place I disliked. I could find something good about every place I visited and there were always good people around. And such an insight shouldn’t be surprising for I believe God created the world good and that all humanity is created in God’s image. We can mess things up (and we certainly do), but we can’t destroy the divine imprint. In every place I traveled, there was evidence of God’s handiwork. Where ever we’re at on this planet, we should stand in awe of God’s work and offer our praise and prayers of thanksgiving. Furthermore, anyone we meet, anywhere around the world, can open us up to the possibility of seeing God fresh and new. We just have to be open to such encounters.

Today’s sermon will be from Psalm 48, a “Song of Zion.”

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One of the theories Biblical scholars propose concerning this hymn, Psalm 48, was that it was sung by pilgrims coming to Jerusalem to worship. As they made their way to the holy city, they sang about it, lifting up a vision of God as protector of the city and as sovereign of the entire world.[1] I began to ponder this Psalm during the last month of my journey. Certainly, there were many times during the trip when I felt God’s protection and in this way the Psalm seemed an appropriate response to God’s great providence. For me, these verses call us to seriously consider God’s role in our lives, to continually praise the Lord for his blessings, and for us to instill our faith in the Almighty to each new generation.

When I was around eight years old, my dad took my brother and me to a movie. We were still living in Petersburg, Virginia at that time, a city that a hundred years earlier (almost to the date that we saw the movie) had been the site of the longest battle in of the Civil War, a nine month siege. The movie was Shenandoah. It starred Jimmy Stewart as Charlie Anderson, a farmer in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War. Charlie tries unsuccessfully to keep his family out of the war. Thinking back on it, it’s a movie with a strong religious message. In fact, the film ends—after all the tragedy they’ve endured—with an experience of grace as the family gathers in church. At the beginning of the movie, Charlie Anderson is a bit of a cynic. When his family is gathered around the table, he says grace:

Too often, we’re like Charlie Anderson. Although we’re called to participate with God in his creation, we give ourselves more credit than we give God for our blessings. Interestingly, at the end of the movie, after having lost members of his family to both sides in the war, Charlie is no longer able to pray that way. When things are going well, it’s hard for us to see the hand of providence in our lives. Yet, we must remember, as we Christians have sung for centuries in the Doxology, from where Our blessings flow. “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow…” we sing. Those singing this Psalm recalled God’s protection in the past and knew that their hope for the future was in God’s hands.

You might be wondering about the references to God’s city and his holy mountain in this passage. Certainly, as Christians, we don’t have a site like Jerusalem upon which we focus when we worship God. Jerusalem, after the time of David, became such a place for the Hebrew people. Interestingly, the Psalmist does some exaggeration here. Although Jerusalem had walls, it wasn’t the most heavily defended of the ancient cities. Furthermore, the mountain upon which it sits, “beautiful in elevation,” the Psalmist proclaims, isn’t all that tall. But the hope of the Psalmist isn’t in the size of the hill or the strength of the walls; it’s in the arms of an everlasting God that reaches out onto the seas and, as he proclaims, to the ends of the earth.

In the Book of Acts, we see the church, God’s vehicle for sharing the gospel, spread throughout the world. The world, having been creating by God, is also being redeemed by God’s Son. God’s presence and power, as even the Psalmist knew, isn’t limited to a temple or a particular city, for God can be found throughout his creation. Where ever God’s people set out to do God’s work, God is present. We should praise God in all that we do, wherever we find ourselves for we know we are not alone. At times it may feel like we’re alone, but our experiences and the Biblical record tell us otherwise.

The Psalmist ends by calling those headed to Zion to consider what God has done and then tell this to the next generation, reminding them that God is not just a God for us, for our parents, or for our grandparents. Our God is for every generation. God is eternal and, as we’re constantly reminded in the Psalms, God’s love endures forever.[3] As believers, as followers of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, we have a responsibility to share what we believe with others. Now, this doesn’t mean we’re to brow-beat people into believing. That doesn’t work and mostly makes people mad and make us look inconsiderate. Instead, in the manner we live, people should experience us praising and honoring God in our words and deeds, in how we relate to others and to God’s creation.

This past week, as I was in North Carolina to check on my parents and grandmother, I read a book by Sue Monk Kidd, a South Carolinian (but I won’t hold that against her). You may know her from her novels, some of which have been made into movies, but she’s also written a spiritual book titled When the Heart Waits. I started to take this book with me on my journey, but at the last minute decided to leave it behind and to read it when I returned home. It’s was a perfect book to help me process some of what has been happening to me and, as some of you know, I’ve shared a number of her quotes on my Facebook page. At one point she asks “whether we’ve been so busy saving souls that we’ve neglected the unfolding of the God-image within them.”[4]

As followers of Jesus, we’re not in the soul-saving business. That’s his work. Instead, we’re to help people experience the love of God and remind them that they too have benefitted (and will benefit) from God’s grace.

Like the original singers of this hymn who journeyed to Jerusalem, we’re also on a journey through life. There are three things I’ve tried to impress upon you in this sermon, three things I hope you take with you and ponder in the week to come. At this point I’m going to mix up the order in order to allude to a product for which most of us are familiar. This may be corny, but perhaps it’ll help you remember. Do you all of you recall Richard Petty (another North Carolina boy who made good)? He was a stock car driver and won a couple hundred races. His car is easy to spot, even for a non-race enthusiastic like me. It was always a Dodge. And there was that was a big number 43 on the side. And you can’t forget, if you know the car, what was on the top of the hood: the logo for his main sponsor, STP, an oil additive that is supposed to help our car’s engines on their journeys. But STP can do more than increase engine performance; it can also remind us what Psalm 48 calls us to do. We’re to share what God’s done (Share, that’s “S”); to trust God to protect us (Trust, that’s “T”); and finally to praise God’s name (Praise, that’s “P”). STP! Amen.

Prayer of Confession based on Psalm 48

Almighty God, your glory surrounds us, but we fail to see. Your mercy is ever present, but we fail to acknowledge. Your grace is freely offered but we fail to understand how needy we truly are. Forgive us for not falling down before your works in awe and help us, O Lord, to share your story with each new generation. Hear our confessions as we silently lift up to you those sins that burden our hearts…

[1] James L. May, Psalms: Interpretations, A Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1994), 188.

[2] I was recently reminded of this scene in a newsletter article by John Guthrie, pastor of Community Presbyterian Church, Cedar City, UT

[3] See Psalm 100, 106, 107, 111, 118, 136 (every verse) and 138.

[4] Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions (New York: HarperCollins, 1990), 49.