Lent 4
March 18, 2007
Text: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Have you heard the old joke about the man who robbed a liquor store and got sent to prison? On his first day there, he was sitting in the dining hall at lunch and suddenly a man stood up and shouted 37! And everybody laughed. After a while another man stood up and shouted 52! And everybody chuckled and smiled. After a few more minutes somebody else stood and yelled 86! And again, everyone laughed. The new guy leaned over toward the man across from him and said, “What’s going on? Why is everyone laughing at those numbers?
The man said, “It’s like this. There are only a hundred or so jokes in the world, and in here you hear them all. We decided to save time and give them numbers.”
Wishing to fit in and win friends, the new convict screwed up his courage and decided to give it a try. “17!” he yelled out while standing. Nobody laughed, nobody looked at him, finally he sat down, mystified. “What happened?” he asked his new friend. The man shrugged and said, “Oh, some people know how to tell a joke, and some people don’t.”
There are certain stories in the Bible that are like the numbered jokes. As a preacher, one feels all one needs do is stand up and say, feelingly, “The Good Samaritan,” or “The Widow’s Mite” or today’s Gospel lesson, “The Prodigal Son,” and then nothing else need be said; the story is so familiar that it is difficult to find anything new or interesting to say.
Or, perhaps, the problem is that we, as listeners, think we know what it means, so that we really quit listening during the Gospel lesson, the way we quit listening to someone tell a joke when we’ve already heard it. And when we stop listening, we rob ourselves of the opportunity of letting the Holy Spirit teach us something new, this time.
It is a familiar story, isn’t it? Most of us would summarize it something like William Loader does in his Internet commentary:
Arrogant young man insults father (give me what I could have if you were dead!), leaves home to make his fortune (familiar enough then and now), hits rock bottom (especially a Jew winding up in the piggery), comes to his senses and goes home (motivation far from noble at this point). Father, not knowing anything but that the son is coming, abandons cultural norms of fatherly dignity, runs to embrace son.
At one level, it works as heart-warming story of a father’s love. At another level, it is a parable or allegory about God’s love. And at a still different level, it is an accusation against some people then and some people now, who are less than loving. And at an even more important level it is a call to us to expand the horizons of our witness to the world about the love of God. Let’s look at it.
A few years ago dear Abby printed a letter in which the writer had told of an incident that happened in her Italian hometown back in the 1930’s. It was customary for the village Priest to sit at cards with the men of the village one night a week. This card game was held at the village pub, with a beer or two consumed by all. One night the priest arose from the table shortly before midnight with the words, “I best be getting home, so my neighbors can go to bed and get some sleep.” The Priest was being watched and his behavior was being judged.
That is how our story opens, Jesus was being watched and his behavior was being judged.
We begin with the first three verses of Luke 15.
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
For the Pharisees and Scribes, the point of the religious life was to follow God’s laws and rules to the letter and to avoid spiritual contamination by contact with those who didn’t. They were not particularly concerned about the sinners, they did not care if those who did not strictly obey the Law were unhappy, or in need, or in pain, or far from God. They did not consider that their problem. Their only concern was their own happiness, their own needs, their own ease, their own relationship with God.
Now, instead of arguing with them, or yelling at them, or ignoring them, Jesus did what he usually did; he smiled and told them a story, which is what you should always do when children get mean and spiteful and need a nap.
Actually, he told them three stories, of which the Prodigal Son is the third. The other two are the Story of the Lost Sheep and the Story of the Lost Coin. We probably should call this the Story of the Lost Boy.
In each of these stories Jesus sets out to show the judgmental people that God is nothing like they have imagined. God is not a harsh and distant, a fierce and holy deity for whom justice is more important than mercy.
The God revealed in the 3 stories in Luke 15 was like a shepherd who wandered around all night to find one lost sheep, or like a woman who swept and cleaned and searched throughout her house to find a lost coin, or like an old man who sat on the porch, straining his eyes as he stared down the road to the mailbox, hoping against hope to catch a glimpse of a lost boy.
The challenge is pretty clear. While some were willing to write off the LOST, Jesus says God is unwilling to lose anyone. Whereas some would blame the sheep for straying from the fold, Jesus says that God is out and about in the world, searching for us in order to bestow blessings on us; whereas some are willing to leave hidden those who get lost in the shuffle of life; unable to shine forth; Jesus says God is like a woman who searches and searches until she finds that coin, that talent, that hidden shy one, and brings it forth and shows it off.
And while some have no use for human beings who waste their potential, who squander their God-given talents on selfish and narcissistic pleasures, Jesus says God is like a loving Father, who welcomes us home, indeed who yearns and aches for us to come home, and who celebrates wildly when we get there.
Indeed, a common thread running through all these stories is a note of Happiness, of Joy, of Celebration:
The Lost Sheep: Rejoice with me! I have found my lost sheep! And Jesus comments, “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who do not need to repent.”
The Lost Coin: Rejoiced with me! I have found the coin that I lost! And Jesus says, “In the same way there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents.”
The Lost Boy: here we have the most elaborate and festive Joy and celebration yet. Robes and Rings and Shoes and fatted calves and a band and whatever else the Father could think of to celebrate with.
And then there’s the elder brother, a factor we often over look, and which, I think, is the whole point of the story, indeed of all the stories.
The Elder brother looks on and begins to resent his Father’s attention to the younger brother. He is jealous and angry, and he has a good point. I’m been good and you never gave me a party. He’s been really, really bad, and you give him a feast. IT’S NOT FAIR!
Here is Jesus’ point in telling these stories to those who accused him of hanging out with sinners:
You think God hates all sinners and wants them to burn in Hell. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. Actually, God loves all God’s creatures and God’s GREATEST joy is when someone wakes up, comes to a moment of self-awareness and begins to get their life and love and spirit in order.
It is interesting to note that in the stories of the sheep and the coin, we read about the invitation to party, but we don’t know if the neighbors came. And in the story of the Lost Boy, the party takes place, but we don’t know if the elder brother came. It is left like that for a reason, because these stories are an invitation to us, and the ending depends on us, How Will we respond, will we go to the party?
They invite us to be kind and loving and accepting of other people, they are a reminder to be diligent in seeking out those who are far from God, they are a call to never give up on those in need.
They ask us to look at ourselves, to examine our hearts and see what inner resentments, abandoned hopes, unmet needs, petty jealousies and long-harbored hatreds are keeping us standing outside the tent of joy, preventing us from showing to others the Love God has shown to us.
And most of all, these stories remind us to never give up when we feel lost in the universe, for God is always out there looking for us, God has the broom out, sweeping every nook and cranny in search of us, God is ready to run to meet us and welcome us home. AMEN AND AMEN
Friday, March 16, 2007
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Lent 3, March 11, 2007
THE THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT
MARCH 11, 2007
TEXTS: Isaiah 55:1-9
I Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
TITLE: “Turning To and Fro with God”
Architect Frank Lloyd Wright was famous for 2 things:
1) His designs were unusual and beautiful.
2) He used flat roofs, and they all leaked.
It is said that he once designed a “state of the art” home for a rich businessman, whose nickname was “Hib.”
One time Hib gave a huge party, a fund-raiser for some good cause or the other. Everybody who was anybody in his city was there; men in tuxedos, women in evening dresses.
There came a torrential downpour, and sure enough, the roof leaked. If fact, it leaked very, very badly. In particular, it leaked very badly directly over the place where Hib was siting at the end of a long banquet table. Hib was angry, after all, he had spent several million dollars on a house with a roof that leaked.
He had the butler bring him the phone, and while sitting at the end of the table, in full view, and hearing, of his guests, he called Frank Lloyd Wright to complain.
“Frank, he yelled into the phone, “The roof is leaking. Frank, it’s leaking all over me. Frank, I’m getting soaked sitting here.”
And Wright replied, loudly, loudly enough to be heard by those sitting close to the phone. “Well, Hib, why don’t you move?”
Very often, we are like Hib; stuck in the midst of a mess, frozen in our misery, complaining about the design of the universe rather than taking action on those things we can do to improve our situation.
In today’s Gospel lesson, several people brought up to Jesus a recent example of horrific violence: “the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.”
This refers to an incident in which Pontius Pilate, the Roman Military Governor, sent troops into the temple to put down what he thought was an anti-Roman demonstration.
In the temple, small animals were sacrificed on stone altars and the blood ran into a drain in the floor. That’s what “blood mingled with sacrifices” means; the blood of those killed by the Romans mixed with the blood of the animals sacrificed and ran down the drain together.
The people asking the question are assuming that behind the activity of the ruthless Gov. Pilate was the judgement and will of God. Their explanation of such horrors was that, somehow, those killed deserved it, that some sin in their life had angered God so much that God had punished them with a painful, sudden and shameful death.
In his answer, Jesus says NO, they weren’t any worse sinners than you. But he gives no further explanation, he doesn’t philosophize or explain or defend God, no more than Frank Lloyd Wright explained why the roof leaked, or defended his design or blamed the builders. Wright told Hib if you’re getting wet, move; and Jesus told his listeners, if you’re afraid of God or dying, change your life,
He says, “Don’t worry about them, worry about yourself. Unless YOU repent, you will all likewise perish.” Jesus turns their attention away from the ways of God with the world, and points them to the ways of God with their very SOULS.
Jesus was quite right in turning the crowd from an abstract discussion of other people’s sin into a focus on their own need for change and repentance.
We all need to hear the very personal call to repent, to change, to move, to turn.. That is the theme of Lent and the theme of our Gospel lesson, turning to and fro with God, turning from fear to faith, from sin to grace, from the world to God.
Almost a hundred years ago, The Times, a newspaper read all over British Empire, invited readers to write in with answers to the question: What is wrong with the world?
They got many long essays blaming God, the Devil, Communists, Fascists, White People, Black People, Asians and Hispanics. They were told it was the fault of the Jews, the Germans, the Italians, the Chinese, and the Americans.
It was women, and men, and the Older generation and These Young People Today. It was criminals and it was the police and it was immoral people and it was Christians and their silly moral values, etc, etc.
Then they got a letter from GK Chesterton. Chesterton was a journalist and writer of short stories and of books about Christianity. When the editors saw the envelope they thought “Great, a free essay from Chesterton. This will be wonderful.”
They were surprised when they opened the letter and found that in answer to the question “what is wrong with the world?’ Chesterton had written,
Dear sirs,
I am,
Yours Sincerely,
GK Chesterton.
Jesus calls us to turn from blaming God, or the World, or others, for what’s happening to us. He invites us to turn to look at ourselves and then to turn and look to God for help and salvation. To repent is to turn, to turn away from one thing is to turn to another.
That’s what we do when we come to worship. We turn into the church from the world. We bring with us all our questions and doubts and fears and also our happiness and joy and thankfulness.
We come into this place, we hear God’s word, we come to the altar to receive God’s grace in the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ. Then we literally, actually, physically TURN and go back into the world again, carrying God’s love with us.
The word REPENT, means simply “to turn.” Luther said that the life of the Christian was a life of daily repentance, a life of daily turning from the world to God, and then turning back again from God to face the world.
The evidence of our turning is the FRUIT, the acts of love and kindness to others, that our lives produce.
Jesus’ parable of the fig tree is intended to remind us that a life of turning to God will produce fruitful lives of generosity and love - and the reprieve given to the unfruitful tree reveals to us that our God is a god of grace and forbearance and steadfast love, a god of the second chance.
If the tree begins to show fruit, it will live. And the one providing the help is God, the gardener of our souls who heaps upon us the rich and fertile grace necessary to make our lives bloom and grow.
The Lenten call to repentance is a call to turn from the world to God, to come into his presence with singing, to come to God’s table of grace with hearts open to receive the holy food for our souls.
It is also a call to turn from our time with God and to go back into the world spreading that grace and love to others, bearing fruit in the world.
Victor Daily was an Australian poet who suffered a long illness, spent mostly in a Catholic hospital. An a last act before dying, he called in the nuns who had nursed him to thank them for their many kindnesses during his stay with them.
They said, “Don’t thank us. Thank the Grace of God.”
He said, “Excuse me, but aren’t YOU the grace of God?”
Aren’t you the grace of God in someone’s life?
Amen and amen.
MARCH 11, 2007
TEXTS: Isaiah 55:1-9
I Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
TITLE: “Turning To and Fro with God”
Architect Frank Lloyd Wright was famous for 2 things:
1) His designs were unusual and beautiful.
2) He used flat roofs, and they all leaked.
It is said that he once designed a “state of the art” home for a rich businessman, whose nickname was “Hib.”
One time Hib gave a huge party, a fund-raiser for some good cause or the other. Everybody who was anybody in his city was there; men in tuxedos, women in evening dresses.
There came a torrential downpour, and sure enough, the roof leaked. If fact, it leaked very, very badly. In particular, it leaked very badly directly over the place where Hib was siting at the end of a long banquet table. Hib was angry, after all, he had spent several million dollars on a house with a roof that leaked.
He had the butler bring him the phone, and while sitting at the end of the table, in full view, and hearing, of his guests, he called Frank Lloyd Wright to complain.
“Frank, he yelled into the phone, “The roof is leaking. Frank, it’s leaking all over me. Frank, I’m getting soaked sitting here.”
And Wright replied, loudly, loudly enough to be heard by those sitting close to the phone. “Well, Hib, why don’t you move?”
Very often, we are like Hib; stuck in the midst of a mess, frozen in our misery, complaining about the design of the universe rather than taking action on those things we can do to improve our situation.
In today’s Gospel lesson, several people brought up to Jesus a recent example of horrific violence: “the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.”
This refers to an incident in which Pontius Pilate, the Roman Military Governor, sent troops into the temple to put down what he thought was an anti-Roman demonstration.
In the temple, small animals were sacrificed on stone altars and the blood ran into a drain in the floor. That’s what “blood mingled with sacrifices” means; the blood of those killed by the Romans mixed with the blood of the animals sacrificed and ran down the drain together.
The people asking the question are assuming that behind the activity of the ruthless Gov. Pilate was the judgement and will of God. Their explanation of such horrors was that, somehow, those killed deserved it, that some sin in their life had angered God so much that God had punished them with a painful, sudden and shameful death.
In his answer, Jesus says NO, they weren’t any worse sinners than you. But he gives no further explanation, he doesn’t philosophize or explain or defend God, no more than Frank Lloyd Wright explained why the roof leaked, or defended his design or blamed the builders. Wright told Hib if you’re getting wet, move; and Jesus told his listeners, if you’re afraid of God or dying, change your life,
He says, “Don’t worry about them, worry about yourself. Unless YOU repent, you will all likewise perish.” Jesus turns their attention away from the ways of God with the world, and points them to the ways of God with their very SOULS.
Jesus was quite right in turning the crowd from an abstract discussion of other people’s sin into a focus on their own need for change and repentance.
We all need to hear the very personal call to repent, to change, to move, to turn.. That is the theme of Lent and the theme of our Gospel lesson, turning to and fro with God, turning from fear to faith, from sin to grace, from the world to God.
Almost a hundred years ago, The Times, a newspaper read all over British Empire, invited readers to write in with answers to the question: What is wrong with the world?
They got many long essays blaming God, the Devil, Communists, Fascists, White People, Black People, Asians and Hispanics. They were told it was the fault of the Jews, the Germans, the Italians, the Chinese, and the Americans.
It was women, and men, and the Older generation and These Young People Today. It was criminals and it was the police and it was immoral people and it was Christians and their silly moral values, etc, etc.
Then they got a letter from GK Chesterton. Chesterton was a journalist and writer of short stories and of books about Christianity. When the editors saw the envelope they thought “Great, a free essay from Chesterton. This will be wonderful.”
They were surprised when they opened the letter and found that in answer to the question “what is wrong with the world?’ Chesterton had written,
Dear sirs,
I am,
Yours Sincerely,
GK Chesterton.
Jesus calls us to turn from blaming God, or the World, or others, for what’s happening to us. He invites us to turn to look at ourselves and then to turn and look to God for help and salvation. To repent is to turn, to turn away from one thing is to turn to another.
That’s what we do when we come to worship. We turn into the church from the world. We bring with us all our questions and doubts and fears and also our happiness and joy and thankfulness.
We come into this place, we hear God’s word, we come to the altar to receive God’s grace in the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ. Then we literally, actually, physically TURN and go back into the world again, carrying God’s love with us.
The word REPENT, means simply “to turn.” Luther said that the life of the Christian was a life of daily repentance, a life of daily turning from the world to God, and then turning back again from God to face the world.
The evidence of our turning is the FRUIT, the acts of love and kindness to others, that our lives produce.
Jesus’ parable of the fig tree is intended to remind us that a life of turning to God will produce fruitful lives of generosity and love - and the reprieve given to the unfruitful tree reveals to us that our God is a god of grace and forbearance and steadfast love, a god of the second chance.
If the tree begins to show fruit, it will live. And the one providing the help is God, the gardener of our souls who heaps upon us the rich and fertile grace necessary to make our lives bloom and grow.
The Lenten call to repentance is a call to turn from the world to God, to come into his presence with singing, to come to God’s table of grace with hearts open to receive the holy food for our souls.
It is also a call to turn from our time with God and to go back into the world spreading that grace and love to others, bearing fruit in the world.
Victor Daily was an Australian poet who suffered a long illness, spent mostly in a Catholic hospital. An a last act before dying, he called in the nuns who had nursed him to thank them for their many kindnesses during his stay with them.
They said, “Don’t thank us. Thank the Grace of God.”
He said, “Excuse me, but aren’t YOU the grace of God?”
Aren’t you the grace of God in someone’s life?
Amen and amen.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Lent 2, March 4, 2007
Note: Friedens Church WELCA (Women of the ELCA) Organization is having "Bold Women Sunday" this week, so this a sermon is part of that observance, hence the Bold woman references. Delmer
The Second Sunday in Lent
March 4, 2007
Texts: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm 27
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35
My Grandma Hubbard used to get eggs from the Hodges who lived down the dirt road about a mile. When I was about 5 or 6, Grandma and I would walk down there on a cool summer’s evening. We would sit on the porch and talk and drink lemonade; sometimes I could persuade Mrs. Hodges to play the little pump organ in the living room by agreeing to pump the pedals for her. (Her legs hurt.)
Eventually we would go with Mr. Hodges out past the hen-house to the spring-house, where he kept his eggs (and the family’s milk and butter) in little wire cages submerged in a concrete tank feed by a mountain spring. We put the eggs in little pails padded with dishcloths and walked home for supper, probably bacon and eggs with biscuit, ‘cause grandma wasn’t particular about exactly when she had breakfast. She only put a few in my basket, because I was famous for not ever making it home without breaking all the eggs in my pail.
One day we came out of the spring-house and an awful fuss arose in the chicken yard. There was a raising of dust, and a flurry of feathers and a scattering of hens and chickens, and much screeching and squawking, and then, just as suddenly, things calmed down and an old gray hen emerged with a large black snake in her mouth.
I thought of that day again when I read today’s Gospel lesson. The first thing that leapt out at me was Jesus’ barnyard imagery; Herod, the king, the worldly power portrayed as a fox in the chicken yard, with Messiah, the Christ, portrayed as a Bold Female, risking all to protect her chicks. It’s an interesting play of images.
As our Gospel lesson begins, Jesus is told that he should be afraid, he should watch out, that the evil King Herod is out to get him. Jesus appears to be unafraid, of either Herod or dying. It would be appropriate for Jesus to be scared, but Jesus shows no fear, instead he taunts Herod, saying, come and get me, or better yet, I’ll come to you. No true prophet can die outside Jerusalem.
At the mention of Jerusalem, Jesus’ tone changes. He cries over the people, laments their misguided rejection of God’s messengers of truth and love. And then comes this most startling image: God, Christ, as a Mother Hen protecting her children from the evil fox in their midst.
Jerusalem is Israel and Israel is us, all of us, all of humanity. The truth is that God has loved us, all of us, from the very beginning, from the time of creation, from the time of Noah and the flood, from the time of Abram and Sari and the Promise, from the time of Moses and Miriam and the Exodus, from the time of Deborah and the other judges of Israel and the kings and queens and prophets and psalmists, God has loved the world and sent us signs and wonders and messages of that love.
And all too often, we have failed to understand or respond to that love. All too often, we have turned God’s Word of love into a life of hate, we have turned God’s call to repentance into pointing fingers and a call to arms.
The sly fox of the world has turned us away from that which is good and eternal and has pulled us in the direction of those things which satisfy now but do not linger and live with us for an eternity with God.
If you have ever loved someone you could not protect, then you understand the sadness in Jesus’ voice here. If you’ve ever watched someone waste their life away on drugs or booze or bad relationships or chasing after material possessions or honors or notoriety or celebrity, or something. Something undefined but just around the corner that will, they hope, make them whole and complete and healed, but which is never there; then you know the pain Jesus feels.
For you cannot save them, you cannot make them change, you cannot make anyone give up the things that are ruining them. All you can do is open your arms, you cannot make anyone walk into them. (Repeat) And, it is the most vulnerable posture in the world, arms spread, chest exposed.
Or, to continue Jesus’ Mother Hen imagery, Wings spread, Breast exposed. It is interesting that this turns out to be the way Jesus died in Jerusalem, Wings spread, Breast exposed.
Jesus was able to face down and laugh at Herod the fox because he had faith in the God of Promise, the God who promises and follows through, Jesus had faith in the God who promised Abram and Sarai that they would have a Son and that they would be the parents of a people who filled the earth. Jesus was able to go to the cross because he believed the Psalmists when he said,
The LORD is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid?
In the middle of the night, when the fox is loose in the henhouse of our lives, we grow fearful and we wonder: where is God, will God come? And Jesus is the promise that YES! God comes. She boldly comes across the chickenyard - clucking and screeching, Wings spread, Breast Exposed!
She comes, to rescue, protect, save her children. Yes, God comes, that is the promise Jesus made and that is the promise Jesus kept upon the cross, where he sheltered us from the devil’s wrath and saved us from ourselves so that we might live forever in God’s love.
Amen and Amen.
The Second Sunday in Lent
March 4, 2007
Texts: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm 27
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35
My Grandma Hubbard used to get eggs from the Hodges who lived down the dirt road about a mile. When I was about 5 or 6, Grandma and I would walk down there on a cool summer’s evening. We would sit on the porch and talk and drink lemonade; sometimes I could persuade Mrs. Hodges to play the little pump organ in the living room by agreeing to pump the pedals for her. (Her legs hurt.)
Eventually we would go with Mr. Hodges out past the hen-house to the spring-house, where he kept his eggs (and the family’s milk and butter) in little wire cages submerged in a concrete tank feed by a mountain spring. We put the eggs in little pails padded with dishcloths and walked home for supper, probably bacon and eggs with biscuit, ‘cause grandma wasn’t particular about exactly when she had breakfast. She only put a few in my basket, because I was famous for not ever making it home without breaking all the eggs in my pail.
One day we came out of the spring-house and an awful fuss arose in the chicken yard. There was a raising of dust, and a flurry of feathers and a scattering of hens and chickens, and much screeching and squawking, and then, just as suddenly, things calmed down and an old gray hen emerged with a large black snake in her mouth.
I thought of that day again when I read today’s Gospel lesson. The first thing that leapt out at me was Jesus’ barnyard imagery; Herod, the king, the worldly power portrayed as a fox in the chicken yard, with Messiah, the Christ, portrayed as a Bold Female, risking all to protect her chicks. It’s an interesting play of images.
As our Gospel lesson begins, Jesus is told that he should be afraid, he should watch out, that the evil King Herod is out to get him. Jesus appears to be unafraid, of either Herod or dying. It would be appropriate for Jesus to be scared, but Jesus shows no fear, instead he taunts Herod, saying, come and get me, or better yet, I’ll come to you. No true prophet can die outside Jerusalem.
At the mention of Jerusalem, Jesus’ tone changes. He cries over the people, laments their misguided rejection of God’s messengers of truth and love. And then comes this most startling image: God, Christ, as a Mother Hen protecting her children from the evil fox in their midst.
Jerusalem is Israel and Israel is us, all of us, all of humanity. The truth is that God has loved us, all of us, from the very beginning, from the time of creation, from the time of Noah and the flood, from the time of Abram and Sari and the Promise, from the time of Moses and Miriam and the Exodus, from the time of Deborah and the other judges of Israel and the kings and queens and prophets and psalmists, God has loved the world and sent us signs and wonders and messages of that love.
And all too often, we have failed to understand or respond to that love. All too often, we have turned God’s Word of love into a life of hate, we have turned God’s call to repentance into pointing fingers and a call to arms.
The sly fox of the world has turned us away from that which is good and eternal and has pulled us in the direction of those things which satisfy now but do not linger and live with us for an eternity with God.
If you have ever loved someone you could not protect, then you understand the sadness in Jesus’ voice here. If you’ve ever watched someone waste their life away on drugs or booze or bad relationships or chasing after material possessions or honors or notoriety or celebrity, or something. Something undefined but just around the corner that will, they hope, make them whole and complete and healed, but which is never there; then you know the pain Jesus feels.
For you cannot save them, you cannot make them change, you cannot make anyone give up the things that are ruining them. All you can do is open your arms, you cannot make anyone walk into them. (Repeat) And, it is the most vulnerable posture in the world, arms spread, chest exposed.
Or, to continue Jesus’ Mother Hen imagery, Wings spread, Breast exposed. It is interesting that this turns out to be the way Jesus died in Jerusalem, Wings spread, Breast exposed.
Jesus was able to face down and laugh at Herod the fox because he had faith in the God of Promise, the God who promises and follows through, Jesus had faith in the God who promised Abram and Sarai that they would have a Son and that they would be the parents of a people who filled the earth. Jesus was able to go to the cross because he believed the Psalmists when he said,
The LORD is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid?
In the middle of the night, when the fox is loose in the henhouse of our lives, we grow fearful and we wonder: where is God, will God come? And Jesus is the promise that YES! God comes. She boldly comes across the chickenyard - clucking and screeching, Wings spread, Breast Exposed!
She comes, to rescue, protect, save her children. Yes, God comes, that is the promise Jesus made and that is the promise Jesus kept upon the cross, where he sheltered us from the devil’s wrath and saved us from ourselves so that we might live forever in God’s love.
Amen and Amen.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
First Sunday in Lent
Well it's been a busy week at Friedens Church. I had already scheduled myself to preach a couple of times at the Twin Lakes Retirement Center down the road, (Sunday 4 PM, Thursday 11 AM), plus there was Ash Wednesday and the introduction of the new Worship book (don't ask) and then a patriarch of the congregation and community died and I had a standing room only funeral on Wed. afternoon at 3. Did I mention Shrove Tuesday? I'm not whining, it's just parish minisitry, but, I haven't written my sermon for Sunday yet. I did, however, prepare two pages of notes for a Tuesday morning lectionary group I participate in. I was the discussion leader. Nothing particularly earth-shattering here, just things to think about. The group is made up of 6 or 7 Lutheran pastors in Guilford County (Greensboro-High Point) NC.
Tuesday Lectionary Group,
Feb. 25, 2007 – The First Sunday in Lent
Gospel: Luke 4:1-13
NT Wright: Luke for Everyone WJK, p. 42-43
“Luke has reminded us of Jesus’ (humanity). If there had been any doubt about his being really human, Luke underlines his sharing our flesh and blood in this vivid scene of temptation.”
“After his baptism, Jesus faced the double question: what does it mean to be God’s son in this special, unique way? And what sort of messiahship was he to pursue? . . . the tree temptations can be read as possible answers to this question. . . . God can’t want his beloved son to be famished with hunger, can he? If God wants Jesus to become sovereign over the world, then why not go for it in one easy stride? If Jesus is Israel’s Messiah, why not prove it by spectacular displays of power?”
The Lectionary Commentary: Gospels Eerdman’s, p. 318-320
“The final verse of this text, which is unique to Luke’s account of the temptation, is a good place to begin on the first Sunday of Lent: “When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time,” …. (this is) a critical link between the beginning and the end of Lent – between temptation and the cross, . . . when the devil will not simply test Jesus with words but attack him with actions.”
“. . . don’t try to understand the cross apart from the particular story of Jesus that runs from temptation to crucifixion. There is an essential narrative connection between Jesus’ life and his death. The cross cannot be plopped down out of the blue as a magical transaction between God and individual sinners.”
Africa Bible Commentary Zondervan, Paul John Isaak, Namibia, Evangelical Lutheran, Head of Religion Department, The University of Namibia. P.1212
“The ceremonies associated with rites of passage from one stage of life to another generally involve the separation of the person from his or her usual surroundings, his or her preparation for a new task or way of life in society.
During such rites of passage, the person may be exposed to danger in order to test whether he or she is mature enough to face this new life. . . Only those who have passed through all the stresses, strains and problems of human life and no longer fear anything, those who one might almost say are beyond fear, are qualified . . . by 4:14, after completing his rites of passage, a dramatic change has taken place (in Jesus): he has become a public figure, a prophet in Israel, with a new, clearly defined role and status.”
Sermon decisions:
1) Grand Scale: The Cosmic struggle between Satan and the Christ
with overtones of the Fall and the Cross?
2) Liturgical: emphasizing the season of Lent and our movement
through it to Holy Week, etc.
3) Exemplar: i.e. Jesus’ temptations and ours, with JC as an exemplar of how to overcome temptation.
I too often mix up the themes, and end up with a mishmash.
Sermon idea: The interesting thing about all this is that Jesus did eventually do all the things the Devil tempted him to do, but he did them on his own terms, he did them at the proper time and in the proper way:
Stone into bread? The feeding of the 5000, not as a stunt but as an act of compassion for hungry people, and he gave himself as bread and wine for the world.
Taking political power? He stood before the representative of the greatest political power on earth and said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Jesus created a community with a power that goes beyond politics or force, a community rooted in the power of love.
A rescue from death? Jesus showed the devil how it really works; Jesus went to his death on the cross, trusting in God’s promise, and on the third day arose, coming forth from the grave as a new man, a new creation, a new sign that God is real and God is love.
Tuesday Lectionary Group,
Feb. 25, 2007 – The First Sunday in Lent
Gospel: Luke 4:1-13
NT Wright: Luke for Everyone WJK, p. 42-43
“Luke has reminded us of Jesus’ (humanity). If there had been any doubt about his being really human, Luke underlines his sharing our flesh and blood in this vivid scene of temptation.”
“After his baptism, Jesus faced the double question: what does it mean to be God’s son in this special, unique way? And what sort of messiahship was he to pursue? . . . the tree temptations can be read as possible answers to this question. . . . God can’t want his beloved son to be famished with hunger, can he? If God wants Jesus to become sovereign over the world, then why not go for it in one easy stride? If Jesus is Israel’s Messiah, why not prove it by spectacular displays of power?”
The Lectionary Commentary: Gospels Eerdman’s, p. 318-320
“The final verse of this text, which is unique to Luke’s account of the temptation, is a good place to begin on the first Sunday of Lent: “When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time,” …. (this is) a critical link between the beginning and the end of Lent – between temptation and the cross, . . . when the devil will not simply test Jesus with words but attack him with actions.”
“. . . don’t try to understand the cross apart from the particular story of Jesus that runs from temptation to crucifixion. There is an essential narrative connection between Jesus’ life and his death. The cross cannot be plopped down out of the blue as a magical transaction between God and individual sinners.”
Africa Bible Commentary Zondervan, Paul John Isaak, Namibia, Evangelical Lutheran, Head of Religion Department, The University of Namibia. P.1212
“The ceremonies associated with rites of passage from one stage of life to another generally involve the separation of the person from his or her usual surroundings, his or her preparation for a new task or way of life in society.
During such rites of passage, the person may be exposed to danger in order to test whether he or she is mature enough to face this new life. . . Only those who have passed through all the stresses, strains and problems of human life and no longer fear anything, those who one might almost say are beyond fear, are qualified . . . by 4:14, after completing his rites of passage, a dramatic change has taken place (in Jesus): he has become a public figure, a prophet in Israel, with a new, clearly defined role and status.”
Sermon decisions:
1) Grand Scale: The Cosmic struggle between Satan and the Christ
with overtones of the Fall and the Cross?
2) Liturgical: emphasizing the season of Lent and our movement
through it to Holy Week, etc.
3) Exemplar: i.e. Jesus’ temptations and ours, with JC as an exemplar of how to overcome temptation.
I too often mix up the themes, and end up with a mishmash.
Sermon idea: The interesting thing about all this is that Jesus did eventually do all the things the Devil tempted him to do, but he did them on his own terms, he did them at the proper time and in the proper way:
Stone into bread? The feeding of the 5000, not as a stunt but as an act of compassion for hungry people, and he gave himself as bread and wine for the world.
Taking political power? He stood before the representative of the greatest political power on earth and said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Jesus created a community with a power that goes beyond politics or force, a community rooted in the power of love.
A rescue from death? Jesus showed the devil how it really works; Jesus went to his death on the cross, trusting in God’s promise, and on the third day arose, coming forth from the grave as a new man, a new creation, a new sign that God is real and God is love.
Friday, February 16, 2007
TRANSFIGURATION SUNDAY: February 18, 2007
TRANSFIGURATION SUNDAY
FEB. 18, 2007
TEXTS: Exodus 34:29-35,
II Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Luke 9:28-36
TITLE: The Hidden-ness of the Holy
Almost every Saturday afternoon, I listen to the opera on the Public Radio Station. Don’t look so surprised. I like opera; not as much as I like Lynard Skynard or ZZ Topp, but I like opera.
Well, actually I don’t, but I do like the idea of liking opera; deep down inside I fell like an educated person SHOULD like opera, and sooo;On Saturday afternoon’s I listen to opera; kind of on the same theory as your mother had when she kept feeding you liver and asparagus, hoping that one day you would come in and when she said,
“What would you like for dinner?,” you would say, “How about some yummy liver and asparagus?” Not gonna happen, but hope springs eternal in the human breast.
Anyway, I listen to opera in the vague hope that someday I’ll like it and can then count myself as a genuinely educated and cultured person. Every once in a while, I find myself liking a piece, nodding along and getting into it and thinking, “Gee, I beginning to like this opera stuff.” But then I realized that the opera pieces I liked were the ones they used as soundtracks for Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd cartoons, and I was back to square one; I still didn’t like opera; I was just engaging in nostalgia about my childhood.
It seems to me that many people are seeking after Spiritual Enlightenment in much the same way that I have been seeking Musical Enlightenment; it’s something they’ve heard about, many of the better people have had these experiences, so they believe they ought to have them too.
So, they go seeking after the next new thing; the latest prayer techniques and the different churches and the praise bands and labyrinth walks and Alpha bible Study and the Men’s drum-beating Sweat Lodge, and I don’t know what all. Whatever they’re looking for, it isn’t where they are, it must be over the hill or around the next corner.
Some of this can be traced to biblical stories like today’s scripture lessons, which tell us about extra-ordinary spiritual events. In our First Lesson, Moses goes up on the mountain and meets God in cloud and devouring fire. In the Gospel lesson, Jesus goes up the mountain with Peter, James and John; and while there is TRANSFIGURED, whatever that means. And in our Second Lesson, Paul refers to Moses and the veil.
Somehow, some people are always looking for something more, something electric and kinetic and spine tingling to happen to them religiously. Which is okay, those things do happen, sometimes, to some people. What is not okay is when one believes that such experiences are what religion in general and Christianity in particular are all about. What is not okay is when people think that unless one has had such an experience, one has not really encountered the HOLY.
The truth of the matter is that religion is NOT about seeking after the extraordinary, not about the quest for the next new spiritual high, not about looking for an experiential fix of the Holy to carry one through another drab and ordinary week.
NO! Religion is about seeing, and feeling and hearing and respecting the Holy in, with and under the ordinary-ness of our daily lives. To be religious is not a matter of being otherworldly; to be religious is to be uniquely grounded in this world, seeing the very stuff of life as the very stuff of God.
Where are we to find the Holy? On Mountaintops and in Sweat Lodges? Where are we to look for God’s presence in our lives? Well, you don’t have to go to the mountaintop; it’s all around you, all the time. We know this. It’s shown to us in our sacraments.
The water in the font, the water in which we baptize. It’s ordinary water, I get it out of the sink in the Sacristy in the back. It’s the same water that goes into the drinking fountain, the same water that flushes the toilet. It’s just water.
What makes it holy? The use makes it holy. We use it to baptize a child, we speak the promise of Christ, and in with that water we bring a new child into Covenant with God and into Community with us.
Look at this wafer. It’s just a little whole-wheat flour and water. We buy them by the thousands. It’s not very good to eat; if you’re not careful, it will stick to the roof of your mouth.
And this, its just wine, grapes fermented and bottled by our own Graham Womack. It’s good wine, good with dinner, but it’s nothing special or extraordinary, not until we make Eucharist out of it.
What makes it holy? What turns this ordinary stuff into the Body and Blood of Christ? Not me. I don’t have magical powers. It’s us; us and God together; God promising and acting and our believing and celebrating which reveals the Holy within the ordinary. (Early: Seed, Scattered and Sown)
That’s what happened to Jesus up on that mountain. Jesus was a man, just like every other man; smarter, holier than most perhaps, but still very much a fully human person. Even though the disciples called him Rabbi, Christ even, they still saw him as a man. And then this thing happened. And they knew; Peter James and John knew; that here was the Divine, the Holy, in human form.
And we too are ordinary people, doing ordinary things. We too, as a church, as a community of faith, as the Body of Christ in the world, we too carry in, with and under our human-ness, the brightness of the Holy-ness of God.
We don’t have to go looking for it; we don’t have to struggle after extraordinary spiritual experiences. God is here with us in all that we do.
Our calling is to pay attention; to listen, look, feel and know that God is here, in this place, and in all our places: at home, at work, at church, at school. God is present with us in the world, all we have to do is lift the veil and look for the Holy with the eyes of the heart. AMEN AND AMEN.
FEB. 18, 2007
TEXTS: Exodus 34:29-35,
II Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Luke 9:28-36
TITLE: The Hidden-ness of the Holy
Almost every Saturday afternoon, I listen to the opera on the Public Radio Station. Don’t look so surprised. I like opera; not as much as I like Lynard Skynard or ZZ Topp, but I like opera.
Well, actually I don’t, but I do like the idea of liking opera; deep down inside I fell like an educated person SHOULD like opera, and sooo;On Saturday afternoon’s I listen to opera; kind of on the same theory as your mother had when she kept feeding you liver and asparagus, hoping that one day you would come in and when she said,
“What would you like for dinner?,” you would say, “How about some yummy liver and asparagus?” Not gonna happen, but hope springs eternal in the human breast.
Anyway, I listen to opera in the vague hope that someday I’ll like it and can then count myself as a genuinely educated and cultured person. Every once in a while, I find myself liking a piece, nodding along and getting into it and thinking, “Gee, I beginning to like this opera stuff.” But then I realized that the opera pieces I liked were the ones they used as soundtracks for Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd cartoons, and I was back to square one; I still didn’t like opera; I was just engaging in nostalgia about my childhood.
It seems to me that many people are seeking after Spiritual Enlightenment in much the same way that I have been seeking Musical Enlightenment; it’s something they’ve heard about, many of the better people have had these experiences, so they believe they ought to have them too.
So, they go seeking after the next new thing; the latest prayer techniques and the different churches and the praise bands and labyrinth walks and Alpha bible Study and the Men’s drum-beating Sweat Lodge, and I don’t know what all. Whatever they’re looking for, it isn’t where they are, it must be over the hill or around the next corner.
Some of this can be traced to biblical stories like today’s scripture lessons, which tell us about extra-ordinary spiritual events. In our First Lesson, Moses goes up on the mountain and meets God in cloud and devouring fire. In the Gospel lesson, Jesus goes up the mountain with Peter, James and John; and while there is TRANSFIGURED, whatever that means. And in our Second Lesson, Paul refers to Moses and the veil.
Somehow, some people are always looking for something more, something electric and kinetic and spine tingling to happen to them religiously. Which is okay, those things do happen, sometimes, to some people. What is not okay is when one believes that such experiences are what religion in general and Christianity in particular are all about. What is not okay is when people think that unless one has had such an experience, one has not really encountered the HOLY.
The truth of the matter is that religion is NOT about seeking after the extraordinary, not about the quest for the next new spiritual high, not about looking for an experiential fix of the Holy to carry one through another drab and ordinary week.
NO! Religion is about seeing, and feeling and hearing and respecting the Holy in, with and under the ordinary-ness of our daily lives. To be religious is not a matter of being otherworldly; to be religious is to be uniquely grounded in this world, seeing the very stuff of life as the very stuff of God.
Where are we to find the Holy? On Mountaintops and in Sweat Lodges? Where are we to look for God’s presence in our lives? Well, you don’t have to go to the mountaintop; it’s all around you, all the time. We know this. It’s shown to us in our sacraments.
The water in the font, the water in which we baptize. It’s ordinary water, I get it out of the sink in the Sacristy in the back. It’s the same water that goes into the drinking fountain, the same water that flushes the toilet. It’s just water.
What makes it holy? The use makes it holy. We use it to baptize a child, we speak the promise of Christ, and in with that water we bring a new child into Covenant with God and into Community with us.
Look at this wafer. It’s just a little whole-wheat flour and water. We buy them by the thousands. It’s not very good to eat; if you’re not careful, it will stick to the roof of your mouth.
And this, its just wine, grapes fermented and bottled by our own Graham Womack. It’s good wine, good with dinner, but it’s nothing special or extraordinary, not until we make Eucharist out of it.
What makes it holy? What turns this ordinary stuff into the Body and Blood of Christ? Not me. I don’t have magical powers. It’s us; us and God together; God promising and acting and our believing and celebrating which reveals the Holy within the ordinary. (Early: Seed, Scattered and Sown)
That’s what happened to Jesus up on that mountain. Jesus was a man, just like every other man; smarter, holier than most perhaps, but still very much a fully human person. Even though the disciples called him Rabbi, Christ even, they still saw him as a man. And then this thing happened. And they knew; Peter James and John knew; that here was the Divine, the Holy, in human form.
And we too are ordinary people, doing ordinary things. We too, as a church, as a community of faith, as the Body of Christ in the world, we too carry in, with and under our human-ness, the brightness of the Holy-ness of God.
We don’t have to go looking for it; we don’t have to struggle after extraordinary spiritual experiences. God is here with us in all that we do.
Our calling is to pay attention; to listen, look, feel and know that God is here, in this place, and in all our places: at home, at work, at church, at school. God is present with us in the world, all we have to do is lift the veil and look for the Holy with the eyes of the heart. AMEN AND AMEN.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Feb. 11, 2007: Epiphany 6
Epiphany Six February 11, 2007
Text: Luke 6:17-26
Title: Two Kinds of People?
When I was a little boy, my favorite game was anything to do with guns; cap pistols and BB guns and pretend machine guns. My brothers and I and the Simmons boys and the Beasley boys and the Tilley boys with an occasional Smith or Hayes or Tullidge thrown in for good measure would play Cowboys and Indians and Cops and Robbers and Yankees and Rebels and Gi Joe versus the Germans all the time. And the big debate was about who had to be the “bad guys”; “them,” in the perpetual battle between “us” and “them.”
Nobody much minded being Indians or Robbers or even Germans, but nobody where I grew up ever wanted to be Yankees, which meant when we played Civil War, the big Brothers got to be the South and the little brothers had to be the North, and in our Mt. Airy North Carolina revision, the South always won.
We have an unfortunate tendency to divide the world into opposing groups, don’t we? Male/ Female, Red State/ Blue State, Redneck/Yankee, Duke/Carolina or State/Carolina, Black/White, Been Heres/Come Heres, Natives/Immigrants, us and them. Some of it is relatively good-natured kidding; a lot of it isn’t. Even at its best, it reveals an underlying tension, at its worst, it tears communities, countries, even the world apart.
Three of today’s Scripture lessons leave themselves open to a Good Guys/Bad Guys, “us”/”them” interpretation.
The Hebrew Bible reading from Jeremiah: in verse 5 we read: “cursed are those . ., “
while verse 7 begin: “Blessed are those . . “
The very first word in the Psalm is happy,“Happy are they . . . ., “ yet in verse 4 it says, “It is not so with the wicked. . . “
And in our Gospel lesson, Jesus says that some are “blessed” while others are “woe”-ful.
Cursed and blessed, happy and wicked, blessed and woeful, and with our natural propensity for dividing the world into “us” and “them,” it isn’t long before we take on the identity of blessed and happy while assuming the other to be a cursed and wicked and woeful “them.”
There is an illustration of this which took place on this very spot, in this very church. The good hearty German Lutherans who came down the wagon road from Pennsylvania to settle this area and founded Friedens Church, along with their German Reformed and German Moravian neighbors, spoke German at home, at work and in worship from the time they arrived in the 1740's until the Revolution, when King George of England, who was German and Lutheran and barely spoke English, hired German mercenaries, Hessians, to fight against the American Colonists. At that time, almost all the German Lutheran Churches started worshiping in English, as a sign that they were a part of the “us,” the Americans, and not the “them,” the Germans fighting for the British.
In matters of religion, we have a very bad habit of taking on the blessed and happy role for ourselves as well. Lutherans, “us,” have got the theology, or the liturgy, or the preaching style or something right; and the Baptists, or Episcopalians or the Catholics or the Muslims, “them” have got it all wrong, and it isn’t long before we start into thinking that they are not only woefully wrong, but that they are wicked and probably cursed.
And it isn’t long after that until we’re saved and they’re damned, and it isn’t long after that we have a right to live free and they don’t. It is a dangerous and slippery slope.
And is not at all what the scriptures, especially the Gospels, were trying to tell us. In point of fact, both Jeremiah and Jesus are asking their listeners to consider another way of looking at the world, to consider a different scale of values by which to judge, or evaluate, or better yet, to create, a life.
Neither Jesus not Jeremiah wants us to look at those around us to figure out who’s us and who’s them, blessed or cursed, happy or wicked. They call us to look to ourselves, to our own lives, and to think about what we value and what we are doing with the gift of a life. Alexander Solzhenitsyn said something to the effect that the real Iron Curtain, the real line between good and evil, is drawn right down the middle of the human heart.
This is similar to what Martin Luther meant when he said every Christian is simul justus et peccator, simultaneously saint and sinner, good guy/bad guy, “us” and “them” all rolled into one.
Jesus calls us to look at our life and see which direction we are headed, what values drive our decisions, what goals inform our daily choices. We serve our future by what we do today, and the question is:“What future are we serving, “The Kingdom of God” or “The Kingdom of Me?”
The world teaches us to serve “The Kingdom of Me.”Our culture has taught us to measure things and people in terms of earnings, possessions and financial security. It is so pervasive and ingrained that we don’t notice it anymore; it has become natural to us.
This week I went on a 2 -day Retreat with a group of Pastors, some I knew, some I didn’t. We worshiped and prayed and had Bible study and quiet time. One afternoon we spent on a Bible Study about poverty and true riches of the spirit, etc. etc. Then we went to Chapel and had communion, then we went to dinner. And over dinner, we; and I do mean WE, I was involved; over dinner, we talked about the best stock options for our retirement accounts. And I wasn’t aware of the disconnect until later that night as I wrote in my journal about the day.
Those to whom Jesus and Jeremiah spoke were no different than us; they valued earnings and possessions and financial security, and needed to be reminded that there is more to life than that, much much more.
Each of us struggles with the journey toward wholeness, the pilgrimage of the heart from self-love, to the totally unselfish, unconditional love of others created in us through the totally unselfish, unconditional love of God.
We struggle to really, really understand that we cannot insulate ourselves against the world’s woes, no matter how much money, or fame, or power we acquire. None of it will ever be enough to save us.
That is why the poor, the hungry, the mournful are blessed. They get it. They really get it. When you are at bottom, life is purely dependent upon God, and it is those with nothing else to depend upon who are able to completely and totally depend upon God.
Those of us who have what we need, be it shelter, food or entertainment; can be lulled into a placid state of safety and self-sufficiency; thinking that we can live life to its fullest without God.
But, the Word of the Lord to us this day is that that is a false hope, a sham God, an empty dream. For all of us, life will be difficult; though it will be difficult in different ways in each of our different lives. We all suffer, we all die. The open secret is to know that and to trust in God rather than things for our happiness.
The movie Cool Runnings is about the Jamaican Bobsled team in the 1988 Olympics. John Candy plays their coach who got caught cheating in a previous Olympiad.
A player asked him why he cheated. To win. Was it worth it? No. Did you learn anything? I learned if you’re not happy without a Gold Medal, you won’t be happy with one!
Christ calls us today to the true pursuit of happiness, a life lived in dependence on God and in pursuit of peace and justice with our neighbor, a world without “us” and “them”; a world in which we are all a part of God’s great WE.
Amen and amen.
Text: Luke 6:17-26
Title: Two Kinds of People?
When I was a little boy, my favorite game was anything to do with guns; cap pistols and BB guns and pretend machine guns. My brothers and I and the Simmons boys and the Beasley boys and the Tilley boys with an occasional Smith or Hayes or Tullidge thrown in for good measure would play Cowboys and Indians and Cops and Robbers and Yankees and Rebels and Gi Joe versus the Germans all the time. And the big debate was about who had to be the “bad guys”; “them,” in the perpetual battle between “us” and “them.”
Nobody much minded being Indians or Robbers or even Germans, but nobody where I grew up ever wanted to be Yankees, which meant when we played Civil War, the big Brothers got to be the South and the little brothers had to be the North, and in our Mt. Airy North Carolina revision, the South always won.
We have an unfortunate tendency to divide the world into opposing groups, don’t we? Male/ Female, Red State/ Blue State, Redneck/Yankee, Duke/Carolina or State/Carolina, Black/White, Been Heres/Come Heres, Natives/Immigrants, us and them. Some of it is relatively good-natured kidding; a lot of it isn’t. Even at its best, it reveals an underlying tension, at its worst, it tears communities, countries, even the world apart.
Three of today’s Scripture lessons leave themselves open to a Good Guys/Bad Guys, “us”/”them” interpretation.
The Hebrew Bible reading from Jeremiah: in verse 5 we read: “cursed are those . ., “
while verse 7 begin: “Blessed are those . . “
The very first word in the Psalm is happy,“Happy are they . . . ., “ yet in verse 4 it says, “It is not so with the wicked. . . “
And in our Gospel lesson, Jesus says that some are “blessed” while others are “woe”-ful.
Cursed and blessed, happy and wicked, blessed and woeful, and with our natural propensity for dividing the world into “us” and “them,” it isn’t long before we take on the identity of blessed and happy while assuming the other to be a cursed and wicked and woeful “them.”
There is an illustration of this which took place on this very spot, in this very church. The good hearty German Lutherans who came down the wagon road from Pennsylvania to settle this area and founded Friedens Church, along with their German Reformed and German Moravian neighbors, spoke German at home, at work and in worship from the time they arrived in the 1740's until the Revolution, when King George of England, who was German and Lutheran and barely spoke English, hired German mercenaries, Hessians, to fight against the American Colonists. At that time, almost all the German Lutheran Churches started worshiping in English, as a sign that they were a part of the “us,” the Americans, and not the “them,” the Germans fighting for the British.
In matters of religion, we have a very bad habit of taking on the blessed and happy role for ourselves as well. Lutherans, “us,” have got the theology, or the liturgy, or the preaching style or something right; and the Baptists, or Episcopalians or the Catholics or the Muslims, “them” have got it all wrong, and it isn’t long before we start into thinking that they are not only woefully wrong, but that they are wicked and probably cursed.
And it isn’t long after that until we’re saved and they’re damned, and it isn’t long after that we have a right to live free and they don’t. It is a dangerous and slippery slope.
And is not at all what the scriptures, especially the Gospels, were trying to tell us. In point of fact, both Jeremiah and Jesus are asking their listeners to consider another way of looking at the world, to consider a different scale of values by which to judge, or evaluate, or better yet, to create, a life.
Neither Jesus not Jeremiah wants us to look at those around us to figure out who’s us and who’s them, blessed or cursed, happy or wicked. They call us to look to ourselves, to our own lives, and to think about what we value and what we are doing with the gift of a life. Alexander Solzhenitsyn said something to the effect that the real Iron Curtain, the real line between good and evil, is drawn right down the middle of the human heart.
This is similar to what Martin Luther meant when he said every Christian is simul justus et peccator, simultaneously saint and sinner, good guy/bad guy, “us” and “them” all rolled into one.
Jesus calls us to look at our life and see which direction we are headed, what values drive our decisions, what goals inform our daily choices. We serve our future by what we do today, and the question is:“What future are we serving, “The Kingdom of God” or “The Kingdom of Me?”
The world teaches us to serve “The Kingdom of Me.”Our culture has taught us to measure things and people in terms of earnings, possessions and financial security. It is so pervasive and ingrained that we don’t notice it anymore; it has become natural to us.
This week I went on a 2 -day Retreat with a group of Pastors, some I knew, some I didn’t. We worshiped and prayed and had Bible study and quiet time. One afternoon we spent on a Bible Study about poverty and true riches of the spirit, etc. etc. Then we went to Chapel and had communion, then we went to dinner. And over dinner, we; and I do mean WE, I was involved; over dinner, we talked about the best stock options for our retirement accounts. And I wasn’t aware of the disconnect until later that night as I wrote in my journal about the day.
Those to whom Jesus and Jeremiah spoke were no different than us; they valued earnings and possessions and financial security, and needed to be reminded that there is more to life than that, much much more.
Each of us struggles with the journey toward wholeness, the pilgrimage of the heart from self-love, to the totally unselfish, unconditional love of others created in us through the totally unselfish, unconditional love of God.
We struggle to really, really understand that we cannot insulate ourselves against the world’s woes, no matter how much money, or fame, or power we acquire. None of it will ever be enough to save us.
That is why the poor, the hungry, the mournful are blessed. They get it. They really get it. When you are at bottom, life is purely dependent upon God, and it is those with nothing else to depend upon who are able to completely and totally depend upon God.
Those of us who have what we need, be it shelter, food or entertainment; can be lulled into a placid state of safety and self-sufficiency; thinking that we can live life to its fullest without God.
But, the Word of the Lord to us this day is that that is a false hope, a sham God, an empty dream. For all of us, life will be difficult; though it will be difficult in different ways in each of our different lives. We all suffer, we all die. The open secret is to know that and to trust in God rather than things for our happiness.
The movie Cool Runnings is about the Jamaican Bobsled team in the 1988 Olympics. John Candy plays their coach who got caught cheating in a previous Olympiad.
A player asked him why he cheated. To win. Was it worth it? No. Did you learn anything? I learned if you’re not happy without a Gold Medal, you won’t be happy with one!
Christ calls us today to the true pursuit of happiness, a life lived in dependence on God and in pursuit of peace and justice with our neighbor, a world without “us” and “them”; a world in which we are all a part of God’s great WE.
Amen and amen.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Feb. 4, 2007; ELCA Lessons for Epiphany 5
EPIPHANY 5, FEBRUARY 4, 2007
TEXTS: ISAIAH 6:1-8, I Cor. 15:1-11, Luke 5:1-11
It was a Wed. night in Lent at Lutheran Chapel in china Grove, NC. I had left the congregational dinner in the Fellowship Hall and gone into the church to get things ready for worship. While placing my sermon notes on the pulpit and checking the sound system and putting prayers on the altar, I noticed the light in the stained glass window cross over the altar was burned out.
The window was accessed through a locked door on the second floor of the educational wing built across the back of the church. Almost exactly like what we have here at Friedens. I went upstairs to see if I could fix or change the light.
While I was in there I heard some noise from down below in the altar area. Looking through an almost clear part of the window, I could see little Seth, almost 5 years old, playing alone in the chancel. He had pulled a pulpit chair over in front of the Altar and was attempting to crawl from the chair up onto the Altar itself. With visions of candlesticks bashing his skull and communion wine splattered all over his body, I spoke out quite loudly, Seth! Seth! Get down from there; you’re going to hurt yourself!
I will never forget the look of sheer terror that washed over Seth’s face as he jerked his head up and looked at the cross from which the Voice had come. He started crying and yelling, I’M SORRY, I’M SORRY, I’M SORRY! as he ran out of the room.
I immediately left what I was doing and went to find Seth and his parents in order to explain the situation. Worship was delayed a few minutes while I took Seth upstairs and showed him the closet and the backside of the window and assured him that neither God nor I was mad at him, for his mother told me he had come running into the Fellowship Hall, screaming: Mama, Mama. Jesus yelled at me. I want to go home NOW!
In our lesson from the Hebrew Bible, Isaiah says,Woe is me, I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!
In the lesson from Luke: Simon Peter falls at Jesus’ feet and says, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, says the writer of the book of Hebrews. A fearful thing. Be careful. Coming to church would be easy if we could think of it as a weekly meeting of the religiously inclined. But NO. That is NOT what we do here. To gather here is to take the risk of falling into the hands of the living God.
Make no mistake about it, the love and grace and power of the living God can blow your life to bits, can turn your world upside down, can turn you inside out. Can send you screaming into the arms of your Mama, yelling “GET ME OUT OF HERE NOW!” Isaiah had an encounter with the Living God; for just an instant he met God faced to face, and his life was changed forever.
At first, he was stunned into silence and humility. When he saw the LORD sitting upon the throne, with seraphim flying about and singing praises, voices thundering and smoke swirling, Isaiah realized that everything he thought he knew about God was just a pale imitation of the divine reality. Isaiah looked upon God’s holiness and in that moment realized his own unworthiness, his own frailty and yes, sinfulness. And he cried out a cry of repentance, “I am lost, I am unclean!”
God’s response to Isaiah’s cry of repentance was an act of healing and restoration. God did not simply forgive Isaiah, God acted to make Isaiah worthy of being in the divine presence.
Some years ago, in another Southern State in which I have lived, there was a woman who was a client of the State Hospital. She was totally convinced that she was married to God.
She ended up in the hospital because one day she walked into the County offices of the small, rural place where she lived and asked to see the tax records. These tax records were public information, so the books were brought forward for her to examine. When the big, leather-bound ledger was placed on the counter, she reached into her purse and brought out a giant red magic marker and wrote across the last page:
“All debts is cancelled,” Signed, Imogene T. God
When Isaiah makes his confession, God sends a seraph to touch his lips with a burning coal and to say: “your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out!” In the words of Imogene T. God, “All debts is cancelled!”
Then comes the most important part of the story, God says to Isaiah: Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? And Isaiah says, “Here am I, Send me!”
God turns the repentant sinner into the proclaimer of forgiveness. God lifts the humbled one and turns him into one who elevates other sinful and humiliated people. God transforms the unclean one into a prophet of purity and righteousness.
The story of Simon Peter and James and John, the sons of Zebedee is similar to the story of Isaiah. They too come face to face with the holy.
Now, if you are not a fisherperson, a huge pile of fish is not as impressive as it is to these folks, but they fish for a living, and they know that something strange is going on here.
1) You don’t catch fish in the daytime in these waters.
2) They’ve been out all night, the right time to fish, and there are no fish here today.
3) When you trawl for fish in big nets, you catch schools of fish, fish that are all alike or maybe two types of fish, but not the variety implied here.
It is the sudden appearance of so many fish, and Jesus’ awareness of where to look that strikes Peter and the others so strongly. And Peter’s response to the presence of the Holy is not unlike that of Isaiah, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” And again, the Holy One responds by healing the wound, closing the breach, canceling the debt, pronouncing the Good News: DO NOT BE AFRAID!
And issuing an invitation to service: FROM NOW ON YOU WILL BE CATCHING PEOPLE, or, as the KJV says, FISHERS OF MEN!
Now, very few of us have had a vision of the heavenly throne room, no exposure to the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY sitting on a jeweled throne, surrounded by angels, thunder and smoke. Nor have we been the beneficiaries of spectacular miracles, like a huge catch on fish on what appeared to be a fishless day. No, we must make do with lesser miracles and dimmer signs, quieter voices and less certain invitations to service.
But the message of the gospel, the message of the church is that we too stand in the presence of the Holy, we too are invited to examine our souls and we too receive the message that we are forgiven, all debts is cancelled and that we are not to be afraid, neither of God nor the future.
And we too stand before the throne as God asks, Whom shall I send? Who will go for me? Who will be a fisher of men, a catcher of people for me? Who? Who?
A man named Origen became famous as a church leader in the third century. When he was 17, his father was arrested for being a Christian, and led away to be thrown to the lions in the arena. Origen was full of childish bravado, loudly proclaiming his desire to go and be martyred with his Father. His mother did the only thing she could think of; she hid his clothes. And he didn’t go.
Interesting isn’t it? He loudly proclaimed he was not afraid to die for his LORD, but he was afraid to go outside naked for him, to be embarrassed for the sake of Jesus. Most of us profess a strong affection for the faith and for our LORD, but we keep waiting for the big moment to come when we can prove our faith; meanwhile the little moments keep passing us by.
Our calling is to reach out to our neighborhood, to our community, with the Gospel. We are surrounded by people who need Jesus, who need to know the unconditional love of God in Christ. Our calling is to find a way to love them in Jesus name, to live in their presence in such a way that they will begin to suspect that God is lurking in their lives.
When God asks you, Whom shall I send?
Will you respond, Here I am Lord, Send Me?
Amen and Amen.
TEXTS: ISAIAH 6:1-8, I Cor. 15:1-11, Luke 5:1-11
It was a Wed. night in Lent at Lutheran Chapel in china Grove, NC. I had left the congregational dinner in the Fellowship Hall and gone into the church to get things ready for worship. While placing my sermon notes on the pulpit and checking the sound system and putting prayers on the altar, I noticed the light in the stained glass window cross over the altar was burned out.
The window was accessed through a locked door on the second floor of the educational wing built across the back of the church. Almost exactly like what we have here at Friedens. I went upstairs to see if I could fix or change the light.
While I was in there I heard some noise from down below in the altar area. Looking through an almost clear part of the window, I could see little Seth, almost 5 years old, playing alone in the chancel. He had pulled a pulpit chair over in front of the Altar and was attempting to crawl from the chair up onto the Altar itself. With visions of candlesticks bashing his skull and communion wine splattered all over his body, I spoke out quite loudly, Seth! Seth! Get down from there; you’re going to hurt yourself!
I will never forget the look of sheer terror that washed over Seth’s face as he jerked his head up and looked at the cross from which the Voice had come. He started crying and yelling, I’M SORRY, I’M SORRY, I’M SORRY! as he ran out of the room.
I immediately left what I was doing and went to find Seth and his parents in order to explain the situation. Worship was delayed a few minutes while I took Seth upstairs and showed him the closet and the backside of the window and assured him that neither God nor I was mad at him, for his mother told me he had come running into the Fellowship Hall, screaming: Mama, Mama. Jesus yelled at me. I want to go home NOW!
In our lesson from the Hebrew Bible, Isaiah says,Woe is me, I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!
In the lesson from Luke: Simon Peter falls at Jesus’ feet and says, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, says the writer of the book of Hebrews. A fearful thing. Be careful. Coming to church would be easy if we could think of it as a weekly meeting of the religiously inclined. But NO. That is NOT what we do here. To gather here is to take the risk of falling into the hands of the living God.
Make no mistake about it, the love and grace and power of the living God can blow your life to bits, can turn your world upside down, can turn you inside out. Can send you screaming into the arms of your Mama, yelling “GET ME OUT OF HERE NOW!” Isaiah had an encounter with the Living God; for just an instant he met God faced to face, and his life was changed forever.
At first, he was stunned into silence and humility. When he saw the LORD sitting upon the throne, with seraphim flying about and singing praises, voices thundering and smoke swirling, Isaiah realized that everything he thought he knew about God was just a pale imitation of the divine reality. Isaiah looked upon God’s holiness and in that moment realized his own unworthiness, his own frailty and yes, sinfulness. And he cried out a cry of repentance, “I am lost, I am unclean!”
God’s response to Isaiah’s cry of repentance was an act of healing and restoration. God did not simply forgive Isaiah, God acted to make Isaiah worthy of being in the divine presence.
Some years ago, in another Southern State in which I have lived, there was a woman who was a client of the State Hospital. She was totally convinced that she was married to God.
She ended up in the hospital because one day she walked into the County offices of the small, rural place where she lived and asked to see the tax records. These tax records were public information, so the books were brought forward for her to examine. When the big, leather-bound ledger was placed on the counter, she reached into her purse and brought out a giant red magic marker and wrote across the last page:
“All debts is cancelled,” Signed, Imogene T. God
When Isaiah makes his confession, God sends a seraph to touch his lips with a burning coal and to say: “your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out!” In the words of Imogene T. God, “All debts is cancelled!”
Then comes the most important part of the story, God says to Isaiah: Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? And Isaiah says, “Here am I, Send me!”
God turns the repentant sinner into the proclaimer of forgiveness. God lifts the humbled one and turns him into one who elevates other sinful and humiliated people. God transforms the unclean one into a prophet of purity and righteousness.
The story of Simon Peter and James and John, the sons of Zebedee is similar to the story of Isaiah. They too come face to face with the holy.
Now, if you are not a fisherperson, a huge pile of fish is not as impressive as it is to these folks, but they fish for a living, and they know that something strange is going on here.
1) You don’t catch fish in the daytime in these waters.
2) They’ve been out all night, the right time to fish, and there are no fish here today.
3) When you trawl for fish in big nets, you catch schools of fish, fish that are all alike or maybe two types of fish, but not the variety implied here.
It is the sudden appearance of so many fish, and Jesus’ awareness of where to look that strikes Peter and the others so strongly. And Peter’s response to the presence of the Holy is not unlike that of Isaiah, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” And again, the Holy One responds by healing the wound, closing the breach, canceling the debt, pronouncing the Good News: DO NOT BE AFRAID!
And issuing an invitation to service: FROM NOW ON YOU WILL BE CATCHING PEOPLE, or, as the KJV says, FISHERS OF MEN!
Now, very few of us have had a vision of the heavenly throne room, no exposure to the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY sitting on a jeweled throne, surrounded by angels, thunder and smoke. Nor have we been the beneficiaries of spectacular miracles, like a huge catch on fish on what appeared to be a fishless day. No, we must make do with lesser miracles and dimmer signs, quieter voices and less certain invitations to service.
But the message of the gospel, the message of the church is that we too stand in the presence of the Holy, we too are invited to examine our souls and we too receive the message that we are forgiven, all debts is cancelled and that we are not to be afraid, neither of God nor the future.
And we too stand before the throne as God asks, Whom shall I send? Who will go for me? Who will be a fisher of men, a catcher of people for me? Who? Who?
A man named Origen became famous as a church leader in the third century. When he was 17, his father was arrested for being a Christian, and led away to be thrown to the lions in the arena. Origen was full of childish bravado, loudly proclaiming his desire to go and be martyred with his Father. His mother did the only thing she could think of; she hid his clothes. And he didn’t go.
Interesting isn’t it? He loudly proclaimed he was not afraid to die for his LORD, but he was afraid to go outside naked for him, to be embarrassed for the sake of Jesus. Most of us profess a strong affection for the faith and for our LORD, but we keep waiting for the big moment to come when we can prove our faith; meanwhile the little moments keep passing us by.
Our calling is to reach out to our neighborhood, to our community, with the Gospel. We are surrounded by people who need Jesus, who need to know the unconditional love of God in Christ. Our calling is to find a way to love them in Jesus name, to live in their presence in such a way that they will begin to suspect that God is lurking in their lives.
When God asks you, Whom shall I send?
Will you respond, Here I am Lord, Send Me?
Amen and Amen.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Epiphany Four: January 28, 2007
Epiphany Four
January 28, 2007
Texts: Jeremiah 1:4-10,
Psalm 71:1-6,
I Cor. 13:1-13,
Luke 4:21-30
Ravi Zacharias is a Christian writer and preacher who was born in India and grew up there and in Canada. After receiving a Master of Divinity degree in the States, he went to do post-graduate work at Cambridge University in England.
John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress had always been an important book to him, and he was excited to learn that Bunyan’s hometown, Bedford, was only a short bus ride from Cambridge. One Saturday he made the pilgrimage. He was not disappointed. There in the middle of town was a life-size statue of the tinker/preacher/writer, and his restored house, and a museum, and the church he pastored in the 1600's, still going strong.
Zacharias had a great day wandering around town, praying in the church, examining the house, looking over artifacts in the museum. Finally it was time to go home, but he lingered in the gift shop of the museum, looking over the various editions of the Pilgrim’s Progress for sale. He struck up a conversation with the young clerk. He asked her where she was from.
Right there in Bedford, born and bred. He asked her about Bunyan and she told him all the vital statistics ( when and where born, books written, times in jail, death, etc), things he already knew but he was secretly enjoying her broad Midlands accent. He chatted with her about the different copies of the book available, and she told him all about covers and paper quality and print size. Finally, he asked her what her favorite part of the story was, what bit stuck with her?
Oh, I wouldn’t know, she said, I’ve never read it. It’s quite old and boring isn’t it?
This is an interesting twist on the prophet without honor in his hometown motif. On the one hand, they have greatly honored Bunyan in his hometown of Bedford: statues, museum’s etc. But the woman working in that museum, born and raised in that town, has never paid the least bit of attention to what Bunyan said.
And the question arises: is that how we treat Jesus in the church? Honoring his memory without really remembering what he said. Are we keeping the name alive but forgetting the message?
Is the church a museum to the memory of Jesus, or is it a House of God, where the Risen Christ is proclaimed in Scripture, sermon and song and a Living LORD is encountered in prayer, praise and sacrament? Let’s examine the Scriptures to find some answers.
In today’s Gospel Lesson, we pick up where we left off last week. Remember, Jesus has responded to the call of John by getting baptized, the Holy Spirit comes upon him, he is declared the Beloved Son of God.
Then the Spirit leads him into the Wilderness, where he resists the Devil’s temptations to fame and power, then, still full of the Spirit, he returns to Galilee and begins preaching and healing.
Then he comes to Nazareth, his hometown, and goes to the Synagogue and reads the text from Isaiah about being the Lord’s anointed, and then, our scripture begins. Jesus says - Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Many commentators believe that this is not all that he said, but rather it is a synopsis of what he said, a summation.
Like when President Coolidge went to church one day. When he came home, his wife asked him what the sermon was about. He answered “Sin.” “Well, what did he say about sin?” Coolidge replied, “He’s against it.” So, this is a summary of the short homily, or talk, or teaching Jesus gave in the synagogue that day.
At first people were pretty impressed. Verse 22 says, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” Here, unlike in Mark, this not an insult, they are simply impressed.
Like the old men in Mount Airy will tell you about going to school with Andy Griffith, “Shoot, I knew him when he was a snot-nosed kid. We went to school together over there on Rockford Street. He warn’t nothing special. A little prissy to tell you the truth, always singing and acting and playing that trombone and such.”
It is in verses 23-27 that he makes them mad. Again, this is a shortened version of the discussion. Apparently they were pleased with his preaching, but they had heard that he had done miracles and healings elsewhere and they wanted him to do some for them. And Jesus refused, Why? Because all they wanted was a show, an exhibition. They weren’t interested in people being healed, they wanted to be entertained, and Jesus was having none of it. And so, we can read between the lines and hear them saying things like,
Who do you think you are? What’s the matter, you too good for us now? You gone off to the city and now you’re too big to do miracles for us? This is where the nasty line from Mark’s version of the story comes in to play, instead of Son of Joseph, Mark has them call him “Mary’s boy.” That’s another way of saying, You ain’t nothing, boy.
Jesus responds with two Hebrew Bible stories of healing. Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath and Elisha and Namaan. What’s important here is that both the widow of Zarephath and Namaan, were gentiles, foreigners, aliens.
Then, Jesus points out that there were many widows and lepers in Israel, but God chose to use Elijah and Elisha to heal the outsiders, and God has chosen Jesus to bring God’s love to everybody, not just the Children of Israel. And this made them really mad. So mad that they ran him out of town and tried to kill him, but he mysteriously got away
Now, here’s the question for us today. Are we like the people in Bedford, honoring the memory of Jesus without actually knowing what he said or meant? Or are we like the people of Nazareth, pleased with Jesus as long as what he says sounds good to us, but turning our backs on him when he says things we don’t like?
Now, most of us would never come right out and say we disagree with Jesus, so we basically use wriggle room to avoid it. Whenever we hear something we don’t like coming out of Jesus’ mouth, we blame it on somebody other than Jesus: the professors, the liberals, the over-educated preachers, the bleeding hearts, the conservatives, the fundamentalists. Anything but admitting that Jesus said it, and I’m supposed to believe it and obey it.
For example, I’ll admit it, I’m a little hard-hearted about poor people and homeless people. My heart sneers, get a job, go work, get busy. If you’re poor, it’s your own fault. Despite a UNC and Duke Education and years of prayer and Bible study and living with a Social Worker for 32 years, somewhere in a place I don’t visit very often, deep in my soul, I still feel that way. Deborah would say it’s the Chilton in me.
And yet Jesus said The Holy Spirit had anointed him to preach Good News to the poor. He told the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give it to the poor. There is the great judgement parable in which Jesus said, “If you did unto one of the least of these, the cold, the hungry, the naked, the poor, you did it unto me.” And many more things about the poor and my, our obligation to them. We have to deal with that. Do we sort of ignore it, like the nice lady at the Bunyan Museum ignored Pilgrim’s Progress? Do we get mad about it, and turn our backs on Jesus, like the people of Nazareth? Or do we swallow our pride and obey our master.
Have we stopped listening to Jesus? He says many things about loving the stranger and the foreigner, about turning the other cheek, about living a life of prayer, about selling what we have and giving it to the poor, about the Kingdom of God being inside us, etc. etc. And here’s the question, do we take Jesus seriously, or are we giving him the yada, yada treatment, nodding and smiling, but not really listening, putting him off and putting him on?
I hope not. I really hope not. But listening to Jesus is hard. Many things he says challenge us; they challenge our ideas and our prejudices and our actions. But Jesus also invites us, invites us to think about things in a new way, to think about others in a new way, to act toward others in a new way. Jesus invites us to join him in living in the world by the rules of the Kingdom of God, not the rules of earthly success and happiness.
Jesus invites us to join him in blessing the world with God’s grace and acts of healing and love.
Jesus invites us to join him in going out to all lands and all peoples with the great Good News that the Kingdom of God has come and we are all invited to be a part of it.
Amen and amen.
January 28, 2007
Texts: Jeremiah 1:4-10,
Psalm 71:1-6,
I Cor. 13:1-13,
Luke 4:21-30
Ravi Zacharias is a Christian writer and preacher who was born in India and grew up there and in Canada. After receiving a Master of Divinity degree in the States, he went to do post-graduate work at Cambridge University in England.
John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress had always been an important book to him, and he was excited to learn that Bunyan’s hometown, Bedford, was only a short bus ride from Cambridge. One Saturday he made the pilgrimage. He was not disappointed. There in the middle of town was a life-size statue of the tinker/preacher/writer, and his restored house, and a museum, and the church he pastored in the 1600's, still going strong.
Zacharias had a great day wandering around town, praying in the church, examining the house, looking over artifacts in the museum. Finally it was time to go home, but he lingered in the gift shop of the museum, looking over the various editions of the Pilgrim’s Progress for sale. He struck up a conversation with the young clerk. He asked her where she was from.
Right there in Bedford, born and bred. He asked her about Bunyan and she told him all the vital statistics ( when and where born, books written, times in jail, death, etc), things he already knew but he was secretly enjoying her broad Midlands accent. He chatted with her about the different copies of the book available, and she told him all about covers and paper quality and print size. Finally, he asked her what her favorite part of the story was, what bit stuck with her?
Oh, I wouldn’t know, she said, I’ve never read it. It’s quite old and boring isn’t it?
This is an interesting twist on the prophet without honor in his hometown motif. On the one hand, they have greatly honored Bunyan in his hometown of Bedford: statues, museum’s etc. But the woman working in that museum, born and raised in that town, has never paid the least bit of attention to what Bunyan said.
And the question arises: is that how we treat Jesus in the church? Honoring his memory without really remembering what he said. Are we keeping the name alive but forgetting the message?
Is the church a museum to the memory of Jesus, or is it a House of God, where the Risen Christ is proclaimed in Scripture, sermon and song and a Living LORD is encountered in prayer, praise and sacrament? Let’s examine the Scriptures to find some answers.
In today’s Gospel Lesson, we pick up where we left off last week. Remember, Jesus has responded to the call of John by getting baptized, the Holy Spirit comes upon him, he is declared the Beloved Son of God.
Then the Spirit leads him into the Wilderness, where he resists the Devil’s temptations to fame and power, then, still full of the Spirit, he returns to Galilee and begins preaching and healing.
Then he comes to Nazareth, his hometown, and goes to the Synagogue and reads the text from Isaiah about being the Lord’s anointed, and then, our scripture begins. Jesus says - Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Many commentators believe that this is not all that he said, but rather it is a synopsis of what he said, a summation.
Like when President Coolidge went to church one day. When he came home, his wife asked him what the sermon was about. He answered “Sin.” “Well, what did he say about sin?” Coolidge replied, “He’s against it.” So, this is a summary of the short homily, or talk, or teaching Jesus gave in the synagogue that day.
At first people were pretty impressed. Verse 22 says, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” Here, unlike in Mark, this not an insult, they are simply impressed.
Like the old men in Mount Airy will tell you about going to school with Andy Griffith, “Shoot, I knew him when he was a snot-nosed kid. We went to school together over there on Rockford Street. He warn’t nothing special. A little prissy to tell you the truth, always singing and acting and playing that trombone and such.”
It is in verses 23-27 that he makes them mad. Again, this is a shortened version of the discussion. Apparently they were pleased with his preaching, but they had heard that he had done miracles and healings elsewhere and they wanted him to do some for them. And Jesus refused, Why? Because all they wanted was a show, an exhibition. They weren’t interested in people being healed, they wanted to be entertained, and Jesus was having none of it. And so, we can read between the lines and hear them saying things like,
Who do you think you are? What’s the matter, you too good for us now? You gone off to the city and now you’re too big to do miracles for us? This is where the nasty line from Mark’s version of the story comes in to play, instead of Son of Joseph, Mark has them call him “Mary’s boy.” That’s another way of saying, You ain’t nothing, boy.
Jesus responds with two Hebrew Bible stories of healing. Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath and Elisha and Namaan. What’s important here is that both the widow of Zarephath and Namaan, were gentiles, foreigners, aliens.
Then, Jesus points out that there were many widows and lepers in Israel, but God chose to use Elijah and Elisha to heal the outsiders, and God has chosen Jesus to bring God’s love to everybody, not just the Children of Israel. And this made them really mad. So mad that they ran him out of town and tried to kill him, but he mysteriously got away
Now, here’s the question for us today. Are we like the people in Bedford, honoring the memory of Jesus without actually knowing what he said or meant? Or are we like the people of Nazareth, pleased with Jesus as long as what he says sounds good to us, but turning our backs on him when he says things we don’t like?
Now, most of us would never come right out and say we disagree with Jesus, so we basically use wriggle room to avoid it. Whenever we hear something we don’t like coming out of Jesus’ mouth, we blame it on somebody other than Jesus: the professors, the liberals, the over-educated preachers, the bleeding hearts, the conservatives, the fundamentalists. Anything but admitting that Jesus said it, and I’m supposed to believe it and obey it.
For example, I’ll admit it, I’m a little hard-hearted about poor people and homeless people. My heart sneers, get a job, go work, get busy. If you’re poor, it’s your own fault. Despite a UNC and Duke Education and years of prayer and Bible study and living with a Social Worker for 32 years, somewhere in a place I don’t visit very often, deep in my soul, I still feel that way. Deborah would say it’s the Chilton in me.
And yet Jesus said The Holy Spirit had anointed him to preach Good News to the poor. He told the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give it to the poor. There is the great judgement parable in which Jesus said, “If you did unto one of the least of these, the cold, the hungry, the naked, the poor, you did it unto me.” And many more things about the poor and my, our obligation to them. We have to deal with that. Do we sort of ignore it, like the nice lady at the Bunyan Museum ignored Pilgrim’s Progress? Do we get mad about it, and turn our backs on Jesus, like the people of Nazareth? Or do we swallow our pride and obey our master.
Have we stopped listening to Jesus? He says many things about loving the stranger and the foreigner, about turning the other cheek, about living a life of prayer, about selling what we have and giving it to the poor, about the Kingdom of God being inside us, etc. etc. And here’s the question, do we take Jesus seriously, or are we giving him the yada, yada treatment, nodding and smiling, but not really listening, putting him off and putting him on?
I hope not. I really hope not. But listening to Jesus is hard. Many things he says challenge us; they challenge our ideas and our prejudices and our actions. But Jesus also invites us, invites us to think about things in a new way, to think about others in a new way, to act toward others in a new way. Jesus invites us to join him in living in the world by the rules of the Kingdom of God, not the rules of earthly success and happiness.
Jesus invites us to join him in blessing the world with God’s grace and acts of healing and love.
Jesus invites us to join him in going out to all lands and all peoples with the great Good News that the Kingdom of God has come and we are all invited to be a part of it.
Amen and amen.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Epiphany 3, January 21, 2007
EPIPHANY 3
JANUARY 21, 2007
Text: Luke 4:14-21
Many of you are, no doubt, familiar with the name Thad Eure. He was a fascinating man. He was NC’s Secretary of State from 1936 to 1989. He was also Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Elon University from 1955 to 1989. He used to refer to himself as “the oldest rat in the Democratic barn.” He was also quite a storyteller, in the rural NC tradition in which all of the stories are true, even if they aren’t exactly factual.
He used to tell a story about a man running for governor who was politicking and speechifying at a huge outdoor rally down east somewhere. They were serving a big dinner of pork barbecue and fried chicken with all the necessary accoutrements.
As the candidate went through the line, he received one piece a chicken, a little piece, a wing or a back or something. He smiled his politician’s smile and asked the serving woman for another piece. Without looking up she said “one per person.”
He smiled again and said, “Yes, but his is an awfully small piece and I’m an awfully big man. Could I please have another?” Again she said, “One per person.”
At this point the candidate got a little huffy and said,“Look, do you know who I am?”
She said, “Nope, but I know who I am. I’m the chicken lady and I said one per person.”
Today’s Gospel lesson is about knowing who you are. Specifically, it is about Jesus knowing who he is and what he is called to do. It is also about our knowing who we are and what we are called to do, for the two are intimately related. Our identity as Christian people flows directly out of Jesus’ identity as the Christ of God, and what we are called to do follows directly on what Jesus was called to.
As we look at this story, it is important to place it in its proper context. The flow of Luke’s story goes like this:
John the Baptist is Preaching and Baptizing
Lots of people are coming to get baptized
One of those people is Jesus
After Jesus gets baptized
the Spirit descends on him and he is declared
the beloved Son of God
the Spirit leads him in to the Wilderness
where he is tempted by the Devil
then our text begins, in which:
“filled with the power of the Spirit”
he teaches around Galilee.
he goes to the synagogue, (HIS HABIT) and reads and preaches/teaches about What? About the Spirit anointing him
for ministry.
Now, what happens right after this, in the part we didn’t read, is how his friends and neighbors were not too impressed by all this, indeed they got mad enough to run him out of town, in fact, they intended to kill him, but he got away.
What are we to make of all this? How can we begin to understand what it means for us? Well, there are two things I want to focus on here, and we’ll take them in turn.
One is the business of Spirit and Identity. As I retold the last half of chapter 3 and the first half of chapter 4 in Luke, I purposely emphasized the role of the Holy Spirit. What Jesus was about was rooted in the leading of the Spirit, the power of the Spirit and the comfort of the Spirit.
All too often we in the church act as though what happens in the life of the church were up to us. We take a bow in God’s direction and say a prayer or two for guidance, but then we go about the church’s business relying on our own ideas and interests and abilities.
We forget that even Jesus was dependent upon the Spirit, who are we to think or act as though we can go it alone.
In the Bible, 40 is a number that symbolizes a long time, usually a long time of testing and waiting and getting clear spiritually. Think about the children of Israel being in the wilderness for 40 years, of the Noah flood lasting 40 days and 40 nights, etc. When the Bible says Jesus was in the wilderness 40 days, it means he spent a great deal of time in prayer and study and spiritual discipline, seeking to know exactly what it was God was calling him to Be and to Do.
Biblical Scholar and Bishop Tom Wright points out that what we often call an “inspired” performance” is usually the result of long years of practice and preparation. A great musician, a fine actor, a superb athlete; none of them appears on the world’s stage without the blood, sweat and tears of dedicated work to get ready.
Jesus had spent the time in prayer and study to be prepared for the moment God called upon him to come forth as the Lord’s Anointed. The Spirit, the ‘inspiration” came on him because he was ready to receive it.
We are called to do no less. We are called to be prepared, to be ready, to be open to the Spirit; and the only way to do that is to take seriously our call to study scripture and to pray and to seek God’s will in the community of the faithful. It was not by accident that it was Jesus’ custom to go to synagogue. He didn’t go there because they were friendly (this bunch certainly was not) he didn’t go there because his Mama and his brothers and cousins were there (though they were); Jesus went to pray, to hear God’s word read and explained, to prepare for the moment when God would call upon him to do something extraordinary, and when that moment came, he was ready.
So, the first thing we see here is Jesus preparation for and dependence upon the Spirit.
The second thing we note the nature of what Jesus is called to do.
Talked to a pastor friend not to long ago who saw a church sign which said, WE CARE FOR YOU! in big letters.
Underneath, in small print, it said, Sundays, 10 am only.
The things Jesus is called to say and do as the Lord’s anointed shout out in large letters the message: GOD CARES FOR YOU!
Good News to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed. Love, care, act.
As the followers of Christ, we too are called to care, not just in our hearts, but also in our actions. And we are called to caring actions all the time, not just on Sundays at 10 AM. We are called to find ways as individuals and as a church, a community of faith, of doing those very things Jesus talks about it this Scripture lesson. To do any less would be to back away from our call to take up our cross and follow.
When I was a kid, Yogi Berra was one of my favorite baseball players. He didn’t look like a ballplayer, yet he played like one of the best. When I got older, I got even more fond of him as I began to read some of the Yogisms that were often quoted on the sports pages, things like:
That restaurant’s so crowded, nobody goes there anymore.
If you come to a fork in the road, take it.
Anybody who is popular is bound to be disliked.
My all time favorite is this:
If you don’t know where you’re going, You might wind up someplace else.
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus shows clearly that he knows who he is and where he is going. It is an awareness that has come to him through serious study of the scriptures, deep and impassioned prayer and a commitment to living within the community of God’s faithful people.
We are called today to follow Jesus in this ministry. We are called to study the scriptures, pray hard and long for guidance, to live out a commitment to the gathered people of God by coming together in worship and prayer and service. And we are called to follow the Spirit’s leading in serving the world in Jesus’ name.
Reaching out in love and action to those who are poor and oppressed, blind and lame, sharing with them the joyous Good news of a Christ, a Messiah, who can lift them up, ease their pain, restore their sight and set them free.
Amen and amen.
JANUARY 21, 2007
Text: Luke 4:14-21
Many of you are, no doubt, familiar with the name Thad Eure. He was a fascinating man. He was NC’s Secretary of State from 1936 to 1989. He was also Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Elon University from 1955 to 1989. He used to refer to himself as “the oldest rat in the Democratic barn.” He was also quite a storyteller, in the rural NC tradition in which all of the stories are true, even if they aren’t exactly factual.
He used to tell a story about a man running for governor who was politicking and speechifying at a huge outdoor rally down east somewhere. They were serving a big dinner of pork barbecue and fried chicken with all the necessary accoutrements.
As the candidate went through the line, he received one piece a chicken, a little piece, a wing or a back or something. He smiled his politician’s smile and asked the serving woman for another piece. Without looking up she said “one per person.”
He smiled again and said, “Yes, but his is an awfully small piece and I’m an awfully big man. Could I please have another?” Again she said, “One per person.”
At this point the candidate got a little huffy and said,“Look, do you know who I am?”
She said, “Nope, but I know who I am. I’m the chicken lady and I said one per person.”
Today’s Gospel lesson is about knowing who you are. Specifically, it is about Jesus knowing who he is and what he is called to do. It is also about our knowing who we are and what we are called to do, for the two are intimately related. Our identity as Christian people flows directly out of Jesus’ identity as the Christ of God, and what we are called to do follows directly on what Jesus was called to.
As we look at this story, it is important to place it in its proper context. The flow of Luke’s story goes like this:
John the Baptist is Preaching and Baptizing
Lots of people are coming to get baptized
One of those people is Jesus
After Jesus gets baptized
the Spirit descends on him and he is declared
the beloved Son of God
the Spirit leads him in to the Wilderness
where he is tempted by the Devil
then our text begins, in which:
“filled with the power of the Spirit”
he teaches around Galilee.
he goes to the synagogue, (HIS HABIT) and reads and preaches/teaches about What? About the Spirit anointing him
for ministry.
Now, what happens right after this, in the part we didn’t read, is how his friends and neighbors were not too impressed by all this, indeed they got mad enough to run him out of town, in fact, they intended to kill him, but he got away.
What are we to make of all this? How can we begin to understand what it means for us? Well, there are two things I want to focus on here, and we’ll take them in turn.
One is the business of Spirit and Identity. As I retold the last half of chapter 3 and the first half of chapter 4 in Luke, I purposely emphasized the role of the Holy Spirit. What Jesus was about was rooted in the leading of the Spirit, the power of the Spirit and the comfort of the Spirit.
All too often we in the church act as though what happens in the life of the church were up to us. We take a bow in God’s direction and say a prayer or two for guidance, but then we go about the church’s business relying on our own ideas and interests and abilities.
We forget that even Jesus was dependent upon the Spirit, who are we to think or act as though we can go it alone.
In the Bible, 40 is a number that symbolizes a long time, usually a long time of testing and waiting and getting clear spiritually. Think about the children of Israel being in the wilderness for 40 years, of the Noah flood lasting 40 days and 40 nights, etc. When the Bible says Jesus was in the wilderness 40 days, it means he spent a great deal of time in prayer and study and spiritual discipline, seeking to know exactly what it was God was calling him to Be and to Do.
Biblical Scholar and Bishop Tom Wright points out that what we often call an “inspired” performance” is usually the result of long years of practice and preparation. A great musician, a fine actor, a superb athlete; none of them appears on the world’s stage without the blood, sweat and tears of dedicated work to get ready.
Jesus had spent the time in prayer and study to be prepared for the moment God called upon him to come forth as the Lord’s Anointed. The Spirit, the ‘inspiration” came on him because he was ready to receive it.
We are called to do no less. We are called to be prepared, to be ready, to be open to the Spirit; and the only way to do that is to take seriously our call to study scripture and to pray and to seek God’s will in the community of the faithful. It was not by accident that it was Jesus’ custom to go to synagogue. He didn’t go there because they were friendly (this bunch certainly was not) he didn’t go there because his Mama and his brothers and cousins were there (though they were); Jesus went to pray, to hear God’s word read and explained, to prepare for the moment when God would call upon him to do something extraordinary, and when that moment came, he was ready.
So, the first thing we see here is Jesus preparation for and dependence upon the Spirit.
The second thing we note the nature of what Jesus is called to do.
Talked to a pastor friend not to long ago who saw a church sign which said, WE CARE FOR YOU! in big letters.
Underneath, in small print, it said, Sundays, 10 am only.
The things Jesus is called to say and do as the Lord’s anointed shout out in large letters the message: GOD CARES FOR YOU!
Good News to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed. Love, care, act.
As the followers of Christ, we too are called to care, not just in our hearts, but also in our actions. And we are called to caring actions all the time, not just on Sundays at 10 AM. We are called to find ways as individuals and as a church, a community of faith, of doing those very things Jesus talks about it this Scripture lesson. To do any less would be to back away from our call to take up our cross and follow.
When I was a kid, Yogi Berra was one of my favorite baseball players. He didn’t look like a ballplayer, yet he played like one of the best. When I got older, I got even more fond of him as I began to read some of the Yogisms that were often quoted on the sports pages, things like:
That restaurant’s so crowded, nobody goes there anymore.
If you come to a fork in the road, take it.
Anybody who is popular is bound to be disliked.
My all time favorite is this:
If you don’t know where you’re going, You might wind up someplace else.
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus shows clearly that he knows who he is and where he is going. It is an awareness that has come to him through serious study of the scriptures, deep and impassioned prayer and a commitment to living within the community of God’s faithful people.
We are called today to follow Jesus in this ministry. We are called to study the scriptures, pray hard and long for guidance, to live out a commitment to the gathered people of God by coming together in worship and prayer and service. And we are called to follow the Spirit’s leading in serving the world in Jesus’ name.
Reaching out in love and action to those who are poor and oppressed, blind and lame, sharing with them the joyous Good news of a Christ, a Messiah, who can lift them up, ease their pain, restore their sight and set them free.
Amen and amen.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Second Sunday After Epiphany, January 14, 2007
Epiphany 2, January 14, 2007
Texts: I Corinthians 12:1-11
Will Willimon is now the Methodist Bishop of Alabama. For a long time he was the Minister to the University at Duke. He says he knows only one person who has experienced an empirically proven and medically attested healing.
The woman who was healed was an atheist before her healing. And, Willimon says, she remained an atheist after her healing She went to the hospital with very serious burns on her hand and arm. The next morning there was no trace of the burns. Doctors had absolutely no explanation for her healing. They labeled it a miracle.
The woman who was healed was totally discombobulated by it and spend a great deal of the next few years researching possible explanations, coming up with some version of what she called a “spontaneous reaction of the cellular structure.” She was willing to believe anything BUT the idea that God or the Supernatural was involved.
Dr. Willimon points out that we should learn from this incident something Jesus clearly knew. When it comes to matters of faith, miracles are not very helpful! Miracles DO NOT produce faith, at most, they confirm it.
In the story of Jesus turning the water into wine, the disciples were already committed to following Jesus, and they are ones the text says believed. The miracle had no apparent effect on the servants who knew what had happened. In other words, the miracle confirmed the faith of the disciples without converting anyone.
Over and over again in the Gospels, Jesus performs miracles, especially healings, and then tells people not to say anything about it. Why? Why would he do that? When I do something extraordinary I tell everybody about it MYSELF! Why would Jesus be so secretive? Well, because he knew that miracles do not produce faith. Or rather, he knew that a faith based in miracles, in what God can do for you, is a fleeting, skin-deep faith, needing to be propped up with more and more miraculous happenings.
No, Jesus was about creating deep and abiding faith in his followers.And his miracles, signs John calls them, were intended to deepen faith, not create it. They were meant to draw his disciples deeper into the mystery of God’s will for the world.
John is a writer whose work is always full of symbolism, he intends to show spiritual truth through the use of human stories. Reading John is like watching the TV show Lost or the old X-files show: things are seldom what they seem and the obvious is always wrong.
A prevailing theme throughout John is that Jesus is the start of something entirely NEW, not only for Israel but for the world. The coming of Jesus as the Messiah has transformed what used to be into something entirely new and different.
God, in Jesus the Christ, is doing a whole new thing, and nothing will ever be the same as it was before. For John, Jesus’ miracles are signs, hints, of that new thing, that new kingdom. The changing of water into wine at the wedding is the first sign of the new day.
There are, in John’s Gospel, seven signs,
1 - Water to Wine - 2:1-11
2 - Gentile Official’s Son healed - 4:46-54
3 - Lame man made to walk - 5:2-8
4 - Feeding of the 5000 - 6:1-14
5 - Walking on Water - 6:16-21
6 - Man blind from birth receives sight - chapter 9
7 - The Raising of Lazarus - Chapter 11
Notice how they grow in difficulty and significance, from the almost trivial sign of providing wine for a party to the ultimate sign of new life out of death. And none of them converts anybody, indeed John says in Chapter 12, verse 37:
“Though he had done so many signs before them, yet they did not believe in him.”
If the point is not conversion, what is the point of the signs? What do the signs point to? In particular, what is the point of John’s telling us that Jesus turned the water into wine at a wedding?
It is important that the water was the water set aside for the Jewish purification rites. It was there for people who came to the wedding to wash up, not only to get the dirt of the road off themselves and their clothes, but also to be ritually pure for the meal.
In this sign, Jesus takes the OLD, the water of purification, the old way of getting right with God; and turns it into the NEW, the new wine of the Spirit, the new way of BEING right with God. The Messiah has come and is doing a new and different thing.
Back when I was in Seminary in Columbia SC, I was scheduled to preach for a Lutheran Church in the little town of Prosperity SC. I got hopelessly lost, and it was about 10:30 when I came to a stop at an intersection. There were two signs, pointing in opposite directions; each one said Prosperity, 11 miles.
There was a man in a field right next tot he road, he was working on his tractor. I rolled down the window, got his attention and asked him, Does it matter which way I go to Prosperity?
He looked at me, he looked at the signs, he looked back at me, he spit on the ground, pulled up his pants, and said, Not to me it don’t!
A good question for us today is what does this text say to us. Not what difference did it make to the people at that wedding 2000 years ago, but; what difference does it make to me, now, today?
If Jesus can turn water into wine, what is our water that needs to be transformed, changed, by the power of God’s love? If Jesus, through the poser of God’s love, changed the purification rites into an outpouring of God’s Spirit, what is the promise of what God will do for us?
In 1964, there was a war on between Malaysia and Indonesia. A group of Gurkha tribesmen from Nepal were asked if they would be willing to jump from transport planes into combat against the Indonesians.
The Gurkhas usually agreed to anything, but this time they originally rejected the plan. The next day one of their officers went to see the British officer who made the request and said they had thought about it and discussed it and would make the jump under certain conditions.
1) the land has to be soft or marshy with no rocks,
2) the plane had to fly as slowly as possible and only 100 feet above the ground.
The British Officer said the soft landing would be no problem, and they always flew as slowly as possible when troops were jumping, but that 100 feet was too low. The Parachute wouldn’t have time to open.
The Gurkhas said, “Oh, that’s alright then. We’ll jump with parachutes anywhere. You never said anything about parachutes.” It seems to me that many of us are trying to live our Christian lives without parachutes.
We’re trying to live up to God’s will and way without using the gifts God has given us. We’re trying to go it alone, we’re trying to lower the standards so that we can meet them, we’re trying to be good enough for God on our own.
And the message of the Gospel is we don’t have to. All seven signs in John are revelations, showings, demonstrations of God’s ability and willingness to change, to transform our lives. Yet, we seldom avail ourselves of this life-changing offer. We’d rather live like spiritual pygmies, just struggling by, than to stand tall like children of Almighty God.
Not only does John show that Jesus has come to change our lives, Paul in I Corinthians goes on and on about the gifts of the Spirit, gifts which are bestowed on all of us. This list is not complete, total, exhaustive. It is partial, temporary, illustrative. There are as many gifts of the Spirit as there are human beings. We are all gifts of God to each other, we are all unique expressions of God’s creative activity in the world, we all receive abilities and talents and insights, not for ourselves, but for others.
One of the most important verses in the Bible is almost buried, obscured in our reading from I Corinthians: To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
Many of us fail to recognize that we are blessed, talented, gifted; many of us have trouble recognizing that we are made by God with individual care and unique possibilities.
Others of us are all too aware of our gifts, we are just not aware that they were given to us for a purpose. We think of our gift as ours, to be savored and enjoyed, but for us and us alone.
The message of the Gospel is that God gave us our gifts, and God gave us our gifts fort a purpose and that purpose is serving the “common good”.
We are put on this earth to give something back, to be a blessing to others, to help somebody somewhere on their way. We are not here for ourselves, we are here for God and the world.
Our calling today is to offer ourselves completely to Christ, to turn ourselves over to him, to trust him with our lives. We are called to be like the water in those stone jars, ready to be changed and transformed by the power of Christ into a new wine of the Spirit, filling the world with Words of hope, acts of love and song of Joy.
Amen and Amen.
Texts: I Corinthians 12:1-11
Will Willimon is now the Methodist Bishop of Alabama. For a long time he was the Minister to the University at Duke. He says he knows only one person who has experienced an empirically proven and medically attested healing.
The woman who was healed was an atheist before her healing. And, Willimon says, she remained an atheist after her healing She went to the hospital with very serious burns on her hand and arm. The next morning there was no trace of the burns. Doctors had absolutely no explanation for her healing. They labeled it a miracle.
The woman who was healed was totally discombobulated by it and spend a great deal of the next few years researching possible explanations, coming up with some version of what she called a “spontaneous reaction of the cellular structure.” She was willing to believe anything BUT the idea that God or the Supernatural was involved.
Dr. Willimon points out that we should learn from this incident something Jesus clearly knew. When it comes to matters of faith, miracles are not very helpful! Miracles DO NOT produce faith, at most, they confirm it.
In the story of Jesus turning the water into wine, the disciples were already committed to following Jesus, and they are ones the text says believed. The miracle had no apparent effect on the servants who knew what had happened. In other words, the miracle confirmed the faith of the disciples without converting anyone.
Over and over again in the Gospels, Jesus performs miracles, especially healings, and then tells people not to say anything about it. Why? Why would he do that? When I do something extraordinary I tell everybody about it MYSELF! Why would Jesus be so secretive? Well, because he knew that miracles do not produce faith. Or rather, he knew that a faith based in miracles, in what God can do for you, is a fleeting, skin-deep faith, needing to be propped up with more and more miraculous happenings.
No, Jesus was about creating deep and abiding faith in his followers.And his miracles, signs John calls them, were intended to deepen faith, not create it. They were meant to draw his disciples deeper into the mystery of God’s will for the world.
John is a writer whose work is always full of symbolism, he intends to show spiritual truth through the use of human stories. Reading John is like watching the TV show Lost or the old X-files show: things are seldom what they seem and the obvious is always wrong.
A prevailing theme throughout John is that Jesus is the start of something entirely NEW, not only for Israel but for the world. The coming of Jesus as the Messiah has transformed what used to be into something entirely new and different.
God, in Jesus the Christ, is doing a whole new thing, and nothing will ever be the same as it was before. For John, Jesus’ miracles are signs, hints, of that new thing, that new kingdom. The changing of water into wine at the wedding is the first sign of the new day.
There are, in John’s Gospel, seven signs,
1 - Water to Wine - 2:1-11
2 - Gentile Official’s Son healed - 4:46-54
3 - Lame man made to walk - 5:2-8
4 - Feeding of the 5000 - 6:1-14
5 - Walking on Water - 6:16-21
6 - Man blind from birth receives sight - chapter 9
7 - The Raising of Lazarus - Chapter 11
Notice how they grow in difficulty and significance, from the almost trivial sign of providing wine for a party to the ultimate sign of new life out of death. And none of them converts anybody, indeed John says in Chapter 12, verse 37:
“Though he had done so many signs before them, yet they did not believe in him.”
If the point is not conversion, what is the point of the signs? What do the signs point to? In particular, what is the point of John’s telling us that Jesus turned the water into wine at a wedding?
It is important that the water was the water set aside for the Jewish purification rites. It was there for people who came to the wedding to wash up, not only to get the dirt of the road off themselves and their clothes, but also to be ritually pure for the meal.
In this sign, Jesus takes the OLD, the water of purification, the old way of getting right with God; and turns it into the NEW, the new wine of the Spirit, the new way of BEING right with God. The Messiah has come and is doing a new and different thing.
Back when I was in Seminary in Columbia SC, I was scheduled to preach for a Lutheran Church in the little town of Prosperity SC. I got hopelessly lost, and it was about 10:30 when I came to a stop at an intersection. There were two signs, pointing in opposite directions; each one said Prosperity, 11 miles.
There was a man in a field right next tot he road, he was working on his tractor. I rolled down the window, got his attention and asked him, Does it matter which way I go to Prosperity?
He looked at me, he looked at the signs, he looked back at me, he spit on the ground, pulled up his pants, and said, Not to me it don’t!
A good question for us today is what does this text say to us. Not what difference did it make to the people at that wedding 2000 years ago, but; what difference does it make to me, now, today?
If Jesus can turn water into wine, what is our water that needs to be transformed, changed, by the power of God’s love? If Jesus, through the poser of God’s love, changed the purification rites into an outpouring of God’s Spirit, what is the promise of what God will do for us?
In 1964, there was a war on between Malaysia and Indonesia. A group of Gurkha tribesmen from Nepal were asked if they would be willing to jump from transport planes into combat against the Indonesians.
The Gurkhas usually agreed to anything, but this time they originally rejected the plan. The next day one of their officers went to see the British officer who made the request and said they had thought about it and discussed it and would make the jump under certain conditions.
1) the land has to be soft or marshy with no rocks,
2) the plane had to fly as slowly as possible and only 100 feet above the ground.
The British Officer said the soft landing would be no problem, and they always flew as slowly as possible when troops were jumping, but that 100 feet was too low. The Parachute wouldn’t have time to open.
The Gurkhas said, “Oh, that’s alright then. We’ll jump with parachutes anywhere. You never said anything about parachutes.” It seems to me that many of us are trying to live our Christian lives without parachutes.
We’re trying to live up to God’s will and way without using the gifts God has given us. We’re trying to go it alone, we’re trying to lower the standards so that we can meet them, we’re trying to be good enough for God on our own.
And the message of the Gospel is we don’t have to. All seven signs in John are revelations, showings, demonstrations of God’s ability and willingness to change, to transform our lives. Yet, we seldom avail ourselves of this life-changing offer. We’d rather live like spiritual pygmies, just struggling by, than to stand tall like children of Almighty God.
Not only does John show that Jesus has come to change our lives, Paul in I Corinthians goes on and on about the gifts of the Spirit, gifts which are bestowed on all of us. This list is not complete, total, exhaustive. It is partial, temporary, illustrative. There are as many gifts of the Spirit as there are human beings. We are all gifts of God to each other, we are all unique expressions of God’s creative activity in the world, we all receive abilities and talents and insights, not for ourselves, but for others.
One of the most important verses in the Bible is almost buried, obscured in our reading from I Corinthians: To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
Many of us fail to recognize that we are blessed, talented, gifted; many of us have trouble recognizing that we are made by God with individual care and unique possibilities.
Others of us are all too aware of our gifts, we are just not aware that they were given to us for a purpose. We think of our gift as ours, to be savored and enjoyed, but for us and us alone.
The message of the Gospel is that God gave us our gifts, and God gave us our gifts fort a purpose and that purpose is serving the “common good”.
We are put on this earth to give something back, to be a blessing to others, to help somebody somewhere on their way. We are not here for ourselves, we are here for God and the world.
Our calling today is to offer ourselves completely to Christ, to turn ourselves over to him, to trust him with our lives. We are called to be like the water in those stone jars, ready to be changed and transformed by the power of Christ into a new wine of the Spirit, filling the world with Words of hope, acts of love and song of Joy.
Amen and Amen.
Friday, January 05, 2007
The Baptism of Our Lord, January 7, 2007
THE BAPTISM OF OUR LORD
January 7, 2007
Text: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
There’s an old preacher story about the theatrical pastor who had a great idea for Baptism of Our Lord Sunday. He went to the pet store and bought a little white bird. Then he recruited the church janitor to sit, with the bird, in the unused balcony during the service.
When the preacher said, “And the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove,” the janitor was supposed to release the bird and let it fly out over the congregation. You have to admit, it would have been kind of cool. Tacky, yes, but still, kinda cool.
When the pastor got to the right place, he paused briefly and then said, quite dramatically, “And the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove,” while, throwing out his arm and pointing to the heavens expectantly. And nothing happened.
He waited a little bit then said, again, more loudly, “And the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove.”
Still, nothing happened. So, he proclaimed a third time, “And the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove!”
At this point the janitor leaned over the balcony and said, “The cat done ate the bird. You want I should throw down the cat?”
When I was a kid, if you were shy or failed to answer an adult’s question, they would usually say, “What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”
As we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord today, there are several questions that come to mind. One of them could be phrased, “Cat got your Baptism?”
Put in Religious terms: “How has being a Baptized person affected your life?” “What difference does having a few drops of water sprinkled on your head make?”
Let’s examine this:
One of the interesting things about any discussion of baptism is that the thing most people “know” is the least important thing about it. People “know” that you have to be baptized to get rid of Original Sin. Some people worry about babies who die going to Hell if they haven’t been baptized and others worry about everybody who hasn’t been baptized going to Hell. This is a serious misunderstanding of the sacrament that turns it into a piece of “Magic,” of divine Hocus-Pocus, of humans casting some sort of spell which requires God to act in a certain way, in this case, allowing the Baptized into heaven.
It is because of this understanding of baptism that people sometimes ask, “Why was Jesus baptized, since he was a sinless, perfect being, he had no sins which needed forgiving.” This kind of thinking is rooted in a basically backwards picture of who God relates to us. We struggle mightily with the nature of the gift of God’s love to us.
We try to earn it, or we feel unworthy of it. We try to figure out what we must do to deserve it; we try to pay for it.
It reminds me of the story of Harvey Pinnick. Harvey, back in the 1920’s, bought a little red spiral notebook and began jotting down his observations about golf and life. He never showed the book to anyone but his son. In 1991, Harvey gave the book to a writer he knew and asked him if he thought it was worth publishing. The writer showed the book to an editor at Simon and Schuster Publishers. They called and spoke to Harvey’s wife, saying they had decided to publish with an advance of $90,000.
Several days passed and Harvey Pinnick had not responded to the message. Finally, Harvey spoke to his writer friend and said that with all his medical bills he just didn’t see how he could come up with the 90,000 to get the book published. The writer had to explain to Harvey that he didn’t pay Simon and Schuster; Simon and Schuster paid him!
All too often, we’re like Harvey Pinnick. We misunderstand the message of the Gospel. We think we have to do things to make God love us when the message of our baptism is just the opposite; God loves us just the way we are.
Baptism is a message to us that our sins are forgiven; sins: past, present and future. Baptism doesn’t forgive our sins; God forgives our sins. Baptism tells us that our sins are forgiven. We are reminded of our baptism and our forgiveness, every time we make confession. The sign of the cross is made by the pastor, and can be made by you, as a reminder that the sign of the cross was made on your forehead in Baptism and that it is through the cross that we are forgiven.
Yes, God loves us just the way we are. God also loves us too much to let us stay that way. Forgiveness of sins is not all that is going on in Baptism. Look at our second lesson, the reading from Acts: At first glance, it looks like a bit of theological silliness; baptized in name of Jesus only, so what?
But I think the issue had to do with what some of us do, limiting the meaning of Baptism to its least important function. Without the understanding that in baptism we receive the Holy Spirit, we are left with a wooden, legalistic, tit-for-tat, formalistic, action; like a courthouse marriage of convenience.
But, with the giving of the Holy Spirit, we are in a dynamic, organic, growing, pulsating relationship with God almighty. We go from being over here, with God over there, to being enmeshed with God. God’s in us, we’re in God, we are the Body of Christ, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, we are NOT far off and distant from God, simply seeking to keep God from sending us to Hell through magical religious rites and our accumulated list of Good Works. NO! We are part of the Divine Presence in the world. God has made God’s dwelling to be within us.
Writing in Christianity Today, Pastor Paul Bocca talks about how some people find a genuinely Christian life boring. Going to church, doing the liturgy, reading the lessons, hearing the sermons, doing the rituals, serving on committees, etc. etc. It’s BORING! This, he says, is why so many find their way to TV ministries and huge mega-churches that are entertaining and exciting.
Pastor Bocca then turns this BORING accusation upside down – by admitting it, and then reminding us of another meaning for the word boring.
He says Christianity is boring. It is like the slow movement of a drill; slowly, laboriously digging beneath the surface of our lives. The continuing cycle of Sunday after Sunday, season after season, year after year, the Christian message and life in community bores ever deeper and deeper into our souls, until, we begin to realize the truth of the words spoken over us in baptism.
That we are a beloved child of God, we are marked with the cross of Christ forever, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we are called to follow Christ, we are to love one another unconditionally, we are forgiven and called to forgive others, we are ambassadors for Christ.
This boring life of faith is begun at baptism, and is not completed until the day we die. We live each day in remembrance of our baptism, in remembrance of the fact that God loves us with a love so deep, so wide, so complete that nothing can separate us from that love.
When Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a young pastor in rural South Africa, he taught religion, catechism, to a class of 13-year-old boys in the parochial school at this church. He gave them a test on the New Testament.
One of the questions was, “What did the voice from heaven say at Jesus’ baptism?”
One boy wrote: “You are the Son of God, now act like it!”
That same voice spoke over us at our baptism, and said something very similar, “You are a beloved child of God,
I am giving you the greatest gift I can give, myself. Let my spirit grow in you, live a life of love, show Christ to the world.”
Amen and amen.
January 7, 2007
Text: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
There’s an old preacher story about the theatrical pastor who had a great idea for Baptism of Our Lord Sunday. He went to the pet store and bought a little white bird. Then he recruited the church janitor to sit, with the bird, in the unused balcony during the service.
When the preacher said, “And the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove,” the janitor was supposed to release the bird and let it fly out over the congregation. You have to admit, it would have been kind of cool. Tacky, yes, but still, kinda cool.
When the pastor got to the right place, he paused briefly and then said, quite dramatically, “And the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove,” while, throwing out his arm and pointing to the heavens expectantly. And nothing happened.
He waited a little bit then said, again, more loudly, “And the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove.”
Still, nothing happened. So, he proclaimed a third time, “And the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove!”
At this point the janitor leaned over the balcony and said, “The cat done ate the bird. You want I should throw down the cat?”
When I was a kid, if you were shy or failed to answer an adult’s question, they would usually say, “What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”
As we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord today, there are several questions that come to mind. One of them could be phrased, “Cat got your Baptism?”
Put in Religious terms: “How has being a Baptized person affected your life?” “What difference does having a few drops of water sprinkled on your head make?”
Let’s examine this:
One of the interesting things about any discussion of baptism is that the thing most people “know” is the least important thing about it. People “know” that you have to be baptized to get rid of Original Sin. Some people worry about babies who die going to Hell if they haven’t been baptized and others worry about everybody who hasn’t been baptized going to Hell. This is a serious misunderstanding of the sacrament that turns it into a piece of “Magic,” of divine Hocus-Pocus, of humans casting some sort of spell which requires God to act in a certain way, in this case, allowing the Baptized into heaven.
It is because of this understanding of baptism that people sometimes ask, “Why was Jesus baptized, since he was a sinless, perfect being, he had no sins which needed forgiving.” This kind of thinking is rooted in a basically backwards picture of who God relates to us. We struggle mightily with the nature of the gift of God’s love to us.
We try to earn it, or we feel unworthy of it. We try to figure out what we must do to deserve it; we try to pay for it.
It reminds me of the story of Harvey Pinnick. Harvey, back in the 1920’s, bought a little red spiral notebook and began jotting down his observations about golf and life. He never showed the book to anyone but his son. In 1991, Harvey gave the book to a writer he knew and asked him if he thought it was worth publishing. The writer showed the book to an editor at Simon and Schuster Publishers. They called and spoke to Harvey’s wife, saying they had decided to publish with an advance of $90,000.
Several days passed and Harvey Pinnick had not responded to the message. Finally, Harvey spoke to his writer friend and said that with all his medical bills he just didn’t see how he could come up with the 90,000 to get the book published. The writer had to explain to Harvey that he didn’t pay Simon and Schuster; Simon and Schuster paid him!
All too often, we’re like Harvey Pinnick. We misunderstand the message of the Gospel. We think we have to do things to make God love us when the message of our baptism is just the opposite; God loves us just the way we are.
Baptism is a message to us that our sins are forgiven; sins: past, present and future. Baptism doesn’t forgive our sins; God forgives our sins. Baptism tells us that our sins are forgiven. We are reminded of our baptism and our forgiveness, every time we make confession. The sign of the cross is made by the pastor, and can be made by you, as a reminder that the sign of the cross was made on your forehead in Baptism and that it is through the cross that we are forgiven.
Yes, God loves us just the way we are. God also loves us too much to let us stay that way. Forgiveness of sins is not all that is going on in Baptism. Look at our second lesson, the reading from Acts: At first glance, it looks like a bit of theological silliness; baptized in name of Jesus only, so what?
But I think the issue had to do with what some of us do, limiting the meaning of Baptism to its least important function. Without the understanding that in baptism we receive the Holy Spirit, we are left with a wooden, legalistic, tit-for-tat, formalistic, action; like a courthouse marriage of convenience.
But, with the giving of the Holy Spirit, we are in a dynamic, organic, growing, pulsating relationship with God almighty. We go from being over here, with God over there, to being enmeshed with God. God’s in us, we’re in God, we are the Body of Christ, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, we are NOT far off and distant from God, simply seeking to keep God from sending us to Hell through magical religious rites and our accumulated list of Good Works. NO! We are part of the Divine Presence in the world. God has made God’s dwelling to be within us.
Writing in Christianity Today, Pastor Paul Bocca talks about how some people find a genuinely Christian life boring. Going to church, doing the liturgy, reading the lessons, hearing the sermons, doing the rituals, serving on committees, etc. etc. It’s BORING! This, he says, is why so many find their way to TV ministries and huge mega-churches that are entertaining and exciting.
Pastor Bocca then turns this BORING accusation upside down – by admitting it, and then reminding us of another meaning for the word boring.
He says Christianity is boring. It is like the slow movement of a drill; slowly, laboriously digging beneath the surface of our lives. The continuing cycle of Sunday after Sunday, season after season, year after year, the Christian message and life in community bores ever deeper and deeper into our souls, until, we begin to realize the truth of the words spoken over us in baptism.
That we are a beloved child of God, we are marked with the cross of Christ forever, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we are called to follow Christ, we are to love one another unconditionally, we are forgiven and called to forgive others, we are ambassadors for Christ.
This boring life of faith is begun at baptism, and is not completed until the day we die. We live each day in remembrance of our baptism, in remembrance of the fact that God loves us with a love so deep, so wide, so complete that nothing can separate us from that love.
When Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a young pastor in rural South Africa, he taught religion, catechism, to a class of 13-year-old boys in the parochial school at this church. He gave them a test on the New Testament.
One of the questions was, “What did the voice from heaven say at Jesus’ baptism?”
One boy wrote: “You are the Son of God, now act like it!”
That same voice spoke over us at our baptism, and said something very similar, “You are a beloved child of God,
I am giving you the greatest gift I can give, myself. Let my spirit grow in you, live a life of love, show Christ to the world.”
Amen and amen.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Another one for Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve Dec. 24, 2006
Text: Luke
Several years ago, I saw a cartoon in a religious magazine that showed a young boy talking to his
little sister. He was saying:
Now the Shepherds were busy
Washing their socks by night.
It’s an interesting picture, isn’t it?
Several tired and dirty shepherds who,
after a long day watching their flocks,
have finally gotten the sheep settled down for the night.
They have finished their simple supper,
eaten standing up around the fire.
Now they boil a kettle of water
and after removing their work boots,
peel off their dirty, stinking socks.
I imagine them wearing long, white, tube socks,
with reinforced heel and toe,
you know, the ones with a little band of red
or orange around the top.
The shepherds sit back
and stretch their feet out to the fire,
wiggling their toes and massaging their insteps.
Ah, what a relief after a 16 hour day chasing sheep
up rocky hillsides and down dusty roads.
So, they wash and rinse and wring out their socks, propping them on little sticks near the fire to dry
before they stretch out on their blankets
to catch a little sleep.
Just another day - just another night
on a boring job in which every day is
Pretty much like the day that went before.
Suddenly, the sky is filled with a blinding light
and an angel is hovering in the air above them. They quake and shake and hug the ground.
“They were sore afraid.” is one of the great understatements of the Bible.
The angel talks about the Messiah
and a baby and the city of David.
Then a whole choir of angels appears,
singing about peace and love.
And then, the shepherds get up and put on their damp socks and cold shoes and tramp off to Bethlehem to see what all the fuss is about. At least, that’s what I think about when I hear the words Washing their socks by night.
Now, this whole business of thinking about shepherds washing out tube socks by the fire was very helpful for me, because it helped me remember that they were, after all, real, ordinary people like you and me.
Yes, they were ordinary people, going about their ordinary lives in ordinary ways, when something truly extraordinary, extra - ordinary, suddenly intruded and changed their lives forever.
All too often, we fail to remember that most of the people in the Bible were more like us than otherwise. They didn’t spend their days waiting for a prophet to come to town or scanning the horizon for angels.
No, most of them spent most of their time going about the ordinariness of life; going to work, paying bills, cleaning house, gossiping with neighbors, quarreling with the in-laws, worrying about taxes and the girl Junior’s been dating. They went to the Synagogue on the Sabbath and then went home and talked about the Rabbi being long-winded and the sanctuary being too hot. They were a lot like us.
And, just like us, while they were hopeful that next year would be better than last year, or the year before that, they weren’t really expecting things to change, not really. In their heart of hearts they weren’t looking for God to do anything dramatic any time soon.
And yet tonight we gather to celebrate and remember that there came a time when God did act, when God did do something totally unordinary.
God came calling, with trumpets blaring and angels singing and stars in the night. While the shepherds were washing their socks by night, God showed up with a gift.
It was a gift of God’s self, a gift of love and joy and forgiveness, all wrapped up in a very surprising package, a little baby, born in a spare room, sleeping in a feed trough.
Back in the 1870's, the Canadian Pacific Railroad was attempting to build a Transcontinental Railroad across Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In order to get through the area between the towns of Medicine Hat and Calgary in Southern Alberta, the railroad had to negotiate with Chief Crowfoot of the Blackfoot Confederacy.
At the end of the negotiations, the CPR gave Chief Crowfoot a lifetime pass to ride the train. He was very proud of his gift. He put the pass in a leather case around his neck and wore it the rest of his life. He showed it to all the important visitors who came to his village. It is reported that he even used it as collateral for a loan.
There is one thing Chief Crowfoot never used his pass for. He never once used it to ride a train.
We have been given a great gift, the greatest gift of all, the gift of God’s Son, the Christ, Our Savior.
It would be a shame if, after all the effort we go to to celebrate the gift, we failed to properly receive it by letting God’s love and peace and forgiveness go to work in our lives.
It would be sheer folly to celebrate Jesus as the Son of God and yet fail to obey Him when he invites us to take up our Cross and follow.
Yes, God has shown up in the midst of our ordinary lives, shattering our timid normality with his own brazen originality. God has exploded into our lives, and the question is: What are we going to do with this gift?
AMEN and AMEN
Text: Luke
Several years ago, I saw a cartoon in a religious magazine that showed a young boy talking to his
little sister. He was saying:
Now the Shepherds were busy
Washing their socks by night.
It’s an interesting picture, isn’t it?
Several tired and dirty shepherds who,
after a long day watching their flocks,
have finally gotten the sheep settled down for the night.
They have finished their simple supper,
eaten standing up around the fire.
Now they boil a kettle of water
and after removing their work boots,
peel off their dirty, stinking socks.
I imagine them wearing long, white, tube socks,
with reinforced heel and toe,
you know, the ones with a little band of red
or orange around the top.
The shepherds sit back
and stretch their feet out to the fire,
wiggling their toes and massaging their insteps.
Ah, what a relief after a 16 hour day chasing sheep
up rocky hillsides and down dusty roads.
So, they wash and rinse and wring out their socks, propping them on little sticks near the fire to dry
before they stretch out on their blankets
to catch a little sleep.
Just another day - just another night
on a boring job in which every day is
Pretty much like the day that went before.
Suddenly, the sky is filled with a blinding light
and an angel is hovering in the air above them. They quake and shake and hug the ground.
“They were sore afraid.” is one of the great understatements of the Bible.
The angel talks about the Messiah
and a baby and the city of David.
Then a whole choir of angels appears,
singing about peace and love.
And then, the shepherds get up and put on their damp socks and cold shoes and tramp off to Bethlehem to see what all the fuss is about. At least, that’s what I think about when I hear the words Washing their socks by night.
Now, this whole business of thinking about shepherds washing out tube socks by the fire was very helpful for me, because it helped me remember that they were, after all, real, ordinary people like you and me.
Yes, they were ordinary people, going about their ordinary lives in ordinary ways, when something truly extraordinary, extra - ordinary, suddenly intruded and changed their lives forever.
All too often, we fail to remember that most of the people in the Bible were more like us than otherwise. They didn’t spend their days waiting for a prophet to come to town or scanning the horizon for angels.
No, most of them spent most of their time going about the ordinariness of life; going to work, paying bills, cleaning house, gossiping with neighbors, quarreling with the in-laws, worrying about taxes and the girl Junior’s been dating. They went to the Synagogue on the Sabbath and then went home and talked about the Rabbi being long-winded and the sanctuary being too hot. They were a lot like us.
And, just like us, while they were hopeful that next year would be better than last year, or the year before that, they weren’t really expecting things to change, not really. In their heart of hearts they weren’t looking for God to do anything dramatic any time soon.
And yet tonight we gather to celebrate and remember that there came a time when God did act, when God did do something totally unordinary.
God came calling, with trumpets blaring and angels singing and stars in the night. While the shepherds were washing their socks by night, God showed up with a gift.
It was a gift of God’s self, a gift of love and joy and forgiveness, all wrapped up in a very surprising package, a little baby, born in a spare room, sleeping in a feed trough.
Back in the 1870's, the Canadian Pacific Railroad was attempting to build a Transcontinental Railroad across Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In order to get through the area between the towns of Medicine Hat and Calgary in Southern Alberta, the railroad had to negotiate with Chief Crowfoot of the Blackfoot Confederacy.
At the end of the negotiations, the CPR gave Chief Crowfoot a lifetime pass to ride the train. He was very proud of his gift. He put the pass in a leather case around his neck and wore it the rest of his life. He showed it to all the important visitors who came to his village. It is reported that he even used it as collateral for a loan.
There is one thing Chief Crowfoot never used his pass for. He never once used it to ride a train.
We have been given a great gift, the greatest gift of all, the gift of God’s Son, the Christ, Our Savior.
It would be a shame if, after all the effort we go to to celebrate the gift, we failed to properly receive it by letting God’s love and peace and forgiveness go to work in our lives.
It would be sheer folly to celebrate Jesus as the Son of God and yet fail to obey Him when he invites us to take up our Cross and follow.
Yes, God has shown up in the midst of our ordinary lives, shattering our timid normality with his own brazen originality. God has exploded into our lives, and the question is: What are we going to do with this gift?
AMEN and AMEN
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Advent IV and Christmas Eve
ADVENT IV Dec. 24, 2006
Micah 5:2-5a, Hebrews 10:5-10, Luke 1:39-55
True story. Margaret was having a tough Christmas season. Her husband was out of town on business for most of December. Her kids were sick half the time, work was driving her crazy with year-end deadlines. Nothing was going right.
About a week before Christmas she did some shopping at the Mall during her lunch owner. She darted into a card store and bought a box of 50 Christmas Cards, already on sale because it was so late.
That night she printed some labels using the computer and put the kids to work. One signed the cards with the family’s last name, a second stuffed the cards into the envelope, a third put on the address lapels and the youngest stuck on the stamps, mostly upside down or sideways; but it got done, just in time.
The day after Christmas, Margaret was cleaning up and found a stray card between the couch cushions. She realized she had been so busy she never even read the card.
And after she did, she wished she hadn’t. She sat down on the couch and cried after she read:
We’re sending this card
just to say,
A little gift
is on its way.
A little gift is on its way. That is the message of the Fourth Sunday of Advent. It’s the message Elizabeth and Zechariah got about John.
It’s the message Joseph and Mary got about Jesus.
And it’s the message we are getting about the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior.
In the midst of our running around and gift-buying and card-sending and house-decorating; we need to pause and remember why we’re doing all this. We’re doing it because God has sent us a message that a little gift is on the way, a little bundle of Joy is coming, a Word of Hope and Peace is just around the corner.
It is a gift and a word that the world needs now as much as ever. A glance at the daily paper, or 30 minutes of watching the news is enough to remind us that the world is all too often a dark, scary and lonely place run by the proud, the rich and the powerful.
And we, like Mary, have been called to carry the gift that is Christ into the midst of that hurting world.
The lowly still need lifting up.
The hungry still need to be fed.
The poor still need a chance to live.
The world still hungers in its heart for true goodness
to reign supreme.
Caroline Hodges lives in Atlanta. She is an active member of an Episcopal Church there, serves on the Vestry and Altar Guild and teaches Sunday School.
A couple of years ago, her Priest asked her to do something more, something extra. The churches in the area were opening a Homeless shelter and they needed a director - would she help?
Although she was already quite busy -she agreed. She went into it with great enthusiasm and high commitment, she wanted to help, she wanted to make a difference in people’s lives.
By Christmas Eve, she was quite tired of the whole thing, a little bit jaded and burned out. She had come to see her job as Director of the Shelter as a thankless chore.
When she had begun, she had thought: Give these people a little love and they’ll turn around and soon become useful and productive citizens.
But her high hopes and great expectations had soon turned into impatient resignation and resentment.
These people will never change. They’re all the same. TAKE! TAKE! TAKE! And never give anything.
It was in this mood that she encountered a young man named Christopher. She had gotten everyone bedded down for the night that Christmas Eve, which was a lot like every other night, except that they ha Turkey for dinner instead of soup; and everyone received a Christmas package of soap, toothpaste and toothbrushes from the ladies Auxiliary of Greater Hope Baptist Church.
Caroline had turned out the lights and retreated to the kitchen for a cup of coffee when Christopher came in, wanting to talk. She agreed, nodding her head, but not really interested.
He told her the usual story - the kind of story you hear a hundred times a year if you work with the homeless. His father drank and beat him, his mother slept around. He dropped out at 14 and did a lot of drugs, married at 19 to a woman 36 who was already pregnant. She left him and the baby a little while later, so he gave the baby up for adoption and hit the road.
By this time Caroline was looking at her watch, ready to send the young man back to bed, when suddenly Christopher said,
GOD HAS REALLY BLESSED ME!
Caroline jerked her head up. How can he say that? She thought. After all he’s gone through, how can he say that?
YES, Christopher said, God has really blessed me. He let me see the darkness, so I’d recognize the light.
CHRISTOPHER - The name means carrier of Christ. That night, Christopher lived up to his name. He brought the light of Christ to a tired and bitter woman. A woman who learned one more time that God specializes in surprise packages, in coming to us in unlikely places, in speaking to us through unlikely voices.
As Caroline thought about Christopher’s words about light and darkness, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, worn Bible and from it he took a dried and pressed Monarch butterfly with radiant colors.
Here, he said, Merry Christmas. This is for you. Put it in your Bible and remember that on one cold Christmas Eve you took the time to let your light shine on some tired and lonely people.
The mystery and miracle that is Christmas is just around the corner. Our little gift is on its way. We are called to receive the gift of Christ with glad and joyful hearts and to share the gift of Christ with all the world.
Amen and Amen.
Micah 5:2-5a, Hebrews 10:5-10, Luke 1:39-55
True story. Margaret was having a tough Christmas season. Her husband was out of town on business for most of December. Her kids were sick half the time, work was driving her crazy with year-end deadlines. Nothing was going right.
About a week before Christmas she did some shopping at the Mall during her lunch owner. She darted into a card store and bought a box of 50 Christmas Cards, already on sale because it was so late.
That night she printed some labels using the computer and put the kids to work. One signed the cards with the family’s last name, a second stuffed the cards into the envelope, a third put on the address lapels and the youngest stuck on the stamps, mostly upside down or sideways; but it got done, just in time.
The day after Christmas, Margaret was cleaning up and found a stray card between the couch cushions. She realized she had been so busy she never even read the card.
And after she did, she wished she hadn’t. She sat down on the couch and cried after she read:
We’re sending this card
just to say,
A little gift
is on its way.
A little gift is on its way. That is the message of the Fourth Sunday of Advent. It’s the message Elizabeth and Zechariah got about John.
It’s the message Joseph and Mary got about Jesus.
And it’s the message we are getting about the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior.
In the midst of our running around and gift-buying and card-sending and house-decorating; we need to pause and remember why we’re doing all this. We’re doing it because God has sent us a message that a little gift is on the way, a little bundle of Joy is coming, a Word of Hope and Peace is just around the corner.
It is a gift and a word that the world needs now as much as ever. A glance at the daily paper, or 30 minutes of watching the news is enough to remind us that the world is all too often a dark, scary and lonely place run by the proud, the rich and the powerful.
And we, like Mary, have been called to carry the gift that is Christ into the midst of that hurting world.
The lowly still need lifting up.
The hungry still need to be fed.
The poor still need a chance to live.
The world still hungers in its heart for true goodness
to reign supreme.
Caroline Hodges lives in Atlanta. She is an active member of an Episcopal Church there, serves on the Vestry and Altar Guild and teaches Sunday School.
A couple of years ago, her Priest asked her to do something more, something extra. The churches in the area were opening a Homeless shelter and they needed a director - would she help?
Although she was already quite busy -she agreed. She went into it with great enthusiasm and high commitment, she wanted to help, she wanted to make a difference in people’s lives.
By Christmas Eve, she was quite tired of the whole thing, a little bit jaded and burned out. She had come to see her job as Director of the Shelter as a thankless chore.
When she had begun, she had thought: Give these people a little love and they’ll turn around and soon become useful and productive citizens.
But her high hopes and great expectations had soon turned into impatient resignation and resentment.
These people will never change. They’re all the same. TAKE! TAKE! TAKE! And never give anything.
It was in this mood that she encountered a young man named Christopher. She had gotten everyone bedded down for the night that Christmas Eve, which was a lot like every other night, except that they ha Turkey for dinner instead of soup; and everyone received a Christmas package of soap, toothpaste and toothbrushes from the ladies Auxiliary of Greater Hope Baptist Church.
Caroline had turned out the lights and retreated to the kitchen for a cup of coffee when Christopher came in, wanting to talk. She agreed, nodding her head, but not really interested.
He told her the usual story - the kind of story you hear a hundred times a year if you work with the homeless. His father drank and beat him, his mother slept around. He dropped out at 14 and did a lot of drugs, married at 19 to a woman 36 who was already pregnant. She left him and the baby a little while later, so he gave the baby up for adoption and hit the road.
By this time Caroline was looking at her watch, ready to send the young man back to bed, when suddenly Christopher said,
GOD HAS REALLY BLESSED ME!
Caroline jerked her head up. How can he say that? She thought. After all he’s gone through, how can he say that?
YES, Christopher said, God has really blessed me. He let me see the darkness, so I’d recognize the light.
CHRISTOPHER - The name means carrier of Christ. That night, Christopher lived up to his name. He brought the light of Christ to a tired and bitter woman. A woman who learned one more time that God specializes in surprise packages, in coming to us in unlikely places, in speaking to us through unlikely voices.
As Caroline thought about Christopher’s words about light and darkness, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, worn Bible and from it he took a dried and pressed Monarch butterfly with radiant colors.
Here, he said, Merry Christmas. This is for you. Put it in your Bible and remember that on one cold Christmas Eve you took the time to let your light shine on some tired and lonely people.
The mystery and miracle that is Christmas is just around the corner. Our little gift is on its way. We are called to receive the gift of Christ with glad and joyful hearts and to share the gift of Christ with all the world.
Amen and Amen.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Advent III, December 17, 2006
THE THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT, December 17, 2006
Zephaniah 3:14-20, Isaiah 12:2-6, Philippians 4:4-7, Luke 3: 7-18
A few years ago I was in Hickory Hollow Mall in Nashville. I had just stepped into the second level elevator when I saw a harried young family coming my way. I held the doors open as they struggled to et in. There was a young man pushing a baby stroller, the child almost hidden in the midst of precariously balanced packages. Mother was struggling with a “wild child” 4 year old.
She practically drug him into the elevator by the arm as he screamed and twisted and cried and kicked and . . .well, you know. As they got in the glass elevator, she put her hand on the back of his head and directed his gaze to santa in the atrium below. She said, “Santa is watching you. Do you want him to see you acting like this?”
The young boy grew very still as he contemplated Santa, then he turned to his mother and said, “I’ll be good as long as he can see me.” And he was. They got out of the elevator and he was a perfect angel. He even nodded and smiled in Santa’s direction. Then, when they got about fifteen feet past Santa, he looked up at his mother, grinned and kicked her in the shin.
So it is with us. Repentance and amendment of life based on fear and punishment are always insincere and short-lived. We have a disease which the LAW (Santa is watching you!) Cannot cure. Our disease goes under many names: self-will, narcissism, hubris, pride, greed, selfishness, sin. It is not so much a matter of the things we do. Those are only the symptoms, the outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual lack of grace.
And any remedy which treats only the symptoms will, in the end, fail to cure us and bring us to wholeness and new life. When the Mom made her appeal to Santa, she placed within her son a fear of losing his Christmas presents. So, he responded appropriately, in a manner calculated to protect his own self-interest. He did not repent, he did not “bear fruit worthy of repentance” He merely changed his behavior in an attempt to fool Santa Claus.
And that’s the way religious Law always works.
Thou Shalt Not Kill may keep us from strangling our enemies, but it does nothing to remove from our hearts the hatred and resentment of others which all too often burns there.
Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Your Neighbor May keep us from telling outright lies and slanders about the people next door, or in the next office, or sitting in the next pew, but it won’t keep us from thinking and believing the worst about them in our most private thoughts.
Law fails because it goes about its work backwards. It treats the symptoms, it changes the behavior, without going to the source, without healing the disease, without changing the heart.
This is why Luke dares to call John’s preaching against insincere and incomplete repentance GOOD NEWS. Did you hear that jarring note at the end of the Gospel Lesson?
After quoting John the Baptist saying harsh things like:
You Brood of vipers, and
The axe is at the root of the tree, and
every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into
the fire. and
His winnowing fork is in his hand and
the chaff will be burned with unquenchable fire.
Luke then says quietly, And so, with many other exhortations,
he proclaimed the Good News to the people.
Gee whiz, if that’s the Good News, what’s the Bad News? We think. Where’s the Good News in all that stuff about repentance and burning in endless fires?
Well, it is Good News, it is the Gospel of the LORD.” It is a message to be joyful about. It is good news because John has revealed to us the purpose for all this preparation, John has announced to us WHY CHRIST CAME.
CHRIST CAME to stop the cycle of inco0mplete repentance and temporary solutions to the deepest needs of the human heart.
CHRIST CAME to cut through our feeble attempts to change our own behavior to meet some external standard.
CHRIST CAME to treat the disease, not the symptoms.
CHRIST CAME to break our hearts and change our lives.
CHRIST CAME to show us a new way of dealing with our God, ourselves and each other.
The old way, the way of fear and intimidation, of trying to adjust our live’s to meet external demands rooted in a fear of judgement and reprisal, does not work.
The New Way is God’s Way of Love and Intimacy, of having our hearts broken by the depth and totality of God’s love for us, having our hearts broken so deeply and completely that God can move in and change us from within, from the very core of our being, emptying us of our selfishness and pride and filling us with the gifts of the Spirit and the fire of God’s love.
When THAT happens, our behavior changes without our having to think about it.
Back to that bearing fruit worthy of repentance: just as our sins and misdeeds grew out of the disease of self-will rooted deep in our hearts, as new creatures in Christ, acts of love and kindness will flow from us as naturally as water flows from a spring, or as apples grow on apple trees.
An Apple tree doesn’t have to think about or decide what kind of fruit to have. It doesn’t say to itself, “Should I do pears this year, or maybe go a little tropical and exotic and try oranges or limes.” NO. There is nothing to think about. It’s an apple tree. Apple trees grow apples. End of discussion.
Just so with us, Christians whose hearts have been broken and filled with the Spirit of the Living God. We don’t have to think about doing good, about bearing fruit worthy of repentance. We’re Christians. Doing acts of love and kindness is what we do, it is who we are. It’s nothing to worry about or to brag about; it is simply that which flows out of a heart filled with God.
When my son David, who is now 23, was about 3, he was getting excited about Christmas for the first time. He jabbered about Santa and his Christmas list and about elves and reindeer. Ever the Pastor, I didn’t want him to miss the religious importance of the holiday, so one night, as I was putting him to bed, after going over the Christmas list one more time, and reading “The Night before Christmas” one more time, I said, “Okay David, who’s birthday are we celebrating at Christmas?” And he said, “JESUS” Good,, I thought. “And who is Jesus?” I asked.
“I dunno,” he shrugged, burrowing into his pillow, ready to sleep.
What are we celebrating at Christmas? The birth of Jesus. And who is Jesus, why did he come?
Christ came to turn our lives around, to show us a new way to live, to open up to us the possibility of living our lives in complete freedom, bound only by the constraints of selfless love.
It is not a simple or easy proposition. After all, it cost the Babe of Bethlehem his very life.
That was what was necessary and that is why he came, and that is very Good News indeed.
Amen and amen.
Zephaniah 3:14-20, Isaiah 12:2-6, Philippians 4:4-7, Luke 3: 7-18
A few years ago I was in Hickory Hollow Mall in Nashville. I had just stepped into the second level elevator when I saw a harried young family coming my way. I held the doors open as they struggled to et in. There was a young man pushing a baby stroller, the child almost hidden in the midst of precariously balanced packages. Mother was struggling with a “wild child” 4 year old.
She practically drug him into the elevator by the arm as he screamed and twisted and cried and kicked and . . .well, you know. As they got in the glass elevator, she put her hand on the back of his head and directed his gaze to santa in the atrium below. She said, “Santa is watching you. Do you want him to see you acting like this?”
The young boy grew very still as he contemplated Santa, then he turned to his mother and said, “I’ll be good as long as he can see me.” And he was. They got out of the elevator and he was a perfect angel. He even nodded and smiled in Santa’s direction. Then, when they got about fifteen feet past Santa, he looked up at his mother, grinned and kicked her in the shin.
So it is with us. Repentance and amendment of life based on fear and punishment are always insincere and short-lived. We have a disease which the LAW (Santa is watching you!) Cannot cure. Our disease goes under many names: self-will, narcissism, hubris, pride, greed, selfishness, sin. It is not so much a matter of the things we do. Those are only the symptoms, the outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual lack of grace.
And any remedy which treats only the symptoms will, in the end, fail to cure us and bring us to wholeness and new life. When the Mom made her appeal to Santa, she placed within her son a fear of losing his Christmas presents. So, he responded appropriately, in a manner calculated to protect his own self-interest. He did not repent, he did not “bear fruit worthy of repentance” He merely changed his behavior in an attempt to fool Santa Claus.
And that’s the way religious Law always works.
Thou Shalt Not Kill may keep us from strangling our enemies, but it does nothing to remove from our hearts the hatred and resentment of others which all too often burns there.
Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Your Neighbor May keep us from telling outright lies and slanders about the people next door, or in the next office, or sitting in the next pew, but it won’t keep us from thinking and believing the worst about them in our most private thoughts.
Law fails because it goes about its work backwards. It treats the symptoms, it changes the behavior, without going to the source, without healing the disease, without changing the heart.
This is why Luke dares to call John’s preaching against insincere and incomplete repentance GOOD NEWS. Did you hear that jarring note at the end of the Gospel Lesson?
After quoting John the Baptist saying harsh things like:
You Brood of vipers, and
The axe is at the root of the tree, and
every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into
the fire. and
His winnowing fork is in his hand and
the chaff will be burned with unquenchable fire.
Luke then says quietly, And so, with many other exhortations,
he proclaimed the Good News to the people.
Gee whiz, if that’s the Good News, what’s the Bad News? We think. Where’s the Good News in all that stuff about repentance and burning in endless fires?
Well, it is Good News, it is the Gospel of the LORD.” It is a message to be joyful about. It is good news because John has revealed to us the purpose for all this preparation, John has announced to us WHY CHRIST CAME.
CHRIST CAME to stop the cycle of inco0mplete repentance and temporary solutions to the deepest needs of the human heart.
CHRIST CAME to cut through our feeble attempts to change our own behavior to meet some external standard.
CHRIST CAME to treat the disease, not the symptoms.
CHRIST CAME to break our hearts and change our lives.
CHRIST CAME to show us a new way of dealing with our God, ourselves and each other.
The old way, the way of fear and intimidation, of trying to adjust our live’s to meet external demands rooted in a fear of judgement and reprisal, does not work.
The New Way is God’s Way of Love and Intimacy, of having our hearts broken by the depth and totality of God’s love for us, having our hearts broken so deeply and completely that God can move in and change us from within, from the very core of our being, emptying us of our selfishness and pride and filling us with the gifts of the Spirit and the fire of God’s love.
When THAT happens, our behavior changes without our having to think about it.
Back to that bearing fruit worthy of repentance: just as our sins and misdeeds grew out of the disease of self-will rooted deep in our hearts, as new creatures in Christ, acts of love and kindness will flow from us as naturally as water flows from a spring, or as apples grow on apple trees.
An Apple tree doesn’t have to think about or decide what kind of fruit to have. It doesn’t say to itself, “Should I do pears this year, or maybe go a little tropical and exotic and try oranges or limes.” NO. There is nothing to think about. It’s an apple tree. Apple trees grow apples. End of discussion.
Just so with us, Christians whose hearts have been broken and filled with the Spirit of the Living God. We don’t have to think about doing good, about bearing fruit worthy of repentance. We’re Christians. Doing acts of love and kindness is what we do, it is who we are. It’s nothing to worry about or to brag about; it is simply that which flows out of a heart filled with God.
When my son David, who is now 23, was about 3, he was getting excited about Christmas for the first time. He jabbered about Santa and his Christmas list and about elves and reindeer. Ever the Pastor, I didn’t want him to miss the religious importance of the holiday, so one night, as I was putting him to bed, after going over the Christmas list one more time, and reading “The Night before Christmas” one more time, I said, “Okay David, who’s birthday are we celebrating at Christmas?” And he said, “JESUS” Good,, I thought. “And who is Jesus?” I asked.
“I dunno,” he shrugged, burrowing into his pillow, ready to sleep.
What are we celebrating at Christmas? The birth of Jesus. And who is Jesus, why did he come?
Christ came to turn our lives around, to show us a new way to live, to open up to us the possibility of living our lives in complete freedom, bound only by the constraints of selfless love.
It is not a simple or easy proposition. After all, it cost the Babe of Bethlehem his very life.
That was what was necessary and that is why he came, and that is very Good News indeed.
Amen and amen.
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