Christmas Eve 2008
Shepherds and angels and us.
Christianity isn’t a private religion. Here in the darkness, in the privacy of this place on this night it may seem cozy and intimate. Just as after her labor, the relative safety of that stable may have seemed to be a private place to Mary, the mother of Jesus. But this private moment, the one Mary rested from 2000 years ago has world shattering consequences. The peace that the angles told the shepherds about, the peace that Isaiah prophesied about wasn’t (and isn’t) a private peace, an individual accomplishment. It isn’t heralded by a quiet inward calm. It is a public announcement, what we really mean when we wish for “Peace on Earth.” No more blood-stained uniforms, no more threats of mushroom shaped clouds on the horizon, no more homes torn from the inside out with people’s selfishness and violence and fear.
When we look around the world today, we see the results of what happens when we make the Gospel of Jesus Christ into a private religion that is only for old people and little children. Society is cast adrift with no where to turn for morals and ethics. So money and power rule, the weak and the poor are savaged and taken advantage of and the world cries for a savior, for someone to solve the problems and make everything all right.
Brothers and sisters, hear the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: the Savior has been born and we each have a vital part to play in working for His Kingdom.
Hear the angels sing again:
Luke 2:9-14 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"
What did the angels’ song mean to those shepherds long ago? What does it mean to us today? And what would it mean to begin to sing that song into our world today? What if we believed and lived like we believed the words of Isaiah 9 and the words of the angels here were literally, really true? I believe that it is true. I believe that neither George Bush nor Barack Obama can save the world, our economy, the problems in the Middle East, the hunger in the Sudan, the war in Darfur, the apathy of America and Great Britain or the appalling poverty of the Two-Thirds world. The Wonderful Counselor, the Prince of Peace is the Son of God, the Mighty One.
That is a huge claim but it gets lived out in small ways, in small steps taken by individuals that combine into larger movements, waves of public opinion and action.
Think of it this was, on a cold Judean night some 2000 years ago, there was a baby born who was the Son of God, fully human and fully divine. And he lived and taught, healed people, eased their suffering and showed them how to live. Turn the other cheek, he said. Love your neighbor as yourself, he told them. And with stories and miracles and showing them the Father, he taught them and us the better way. But the powers and principalities couldn’t stand it. And they brutally murdered him on a shameful Roman cross. But this man, this Jesus, this Son of God conquered death and the grave for himself and for us. And here we are, 2000 years later thinking about and celebrating his birth and how that humble, quit event forever changed the world.
Is it the “Greatest Story Ever Told?” Perhaps. But better still it is the greatest story ever lived. And our lives, yours and mine, are part of that same story. Through the shepherds, the angels sing to us. And through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, we can sing the angels’ song into a world that is dying, a world at war. How do we sing the song?
• By turning the other cheek.
• By putting other people before ourselves
• By sitting in the stillness that we carve out of our lives and listening to God.
• By stopping before we act and asking what could happen if we acted in God’s best interest instead of in our own best interest.
• By simply doing the next right thing.
Rooted in God’s word, empowered by His Holy Spirit, walking with His people, we sing a song that even the angels cannot sing, a new song of peace and hope and joy and love that is not for ourselves alone but is to be sung to the world and for the world.
Will you join in the song?
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
There He is, that's Him.
Show clip from The Cosby Show, Season1, Episode 13 – Rudy’s Sick
“No more partying in there” says little Rudy to the germs she has just discovered.
Our culture seems to think that the presence of Christ is like Rudy’s germs. It ought to be something we can see, experiment with, manage. How Jesus lives in us must be like germs and microbes, DNA, chemical elements and quarks, something we can’t physically see but that has been captured and defined by science.
How do we define the presence of Christ in something outside ourselves? How do we define the presence of Christ in something like Holy Communion? Theologians over the centuries have argued this. There is the Roman Catholic view of transubstantiation, where the bread and juice literally become the physical body and blood of Christ. There is the later Zwinglian view of consubstantiation where the substance changes but we can’t really tell any difference. And then along came the Reformers that simply threw up their theological hands and said, well maybe it’s just all symbolic anyway. But I don’t buy that either. I think Christ is really present but it comes back to the question – how do you explain it? What is the something more?
The Levites and Pharisees knew there was something more and they quizzed John the Baptist about it. John pointed to the Messiah to answer their questions. Here’s something we often miss: John knew Jesus, he knew the Messiah was already there, alive and human. After all, they were cousins and John was just a few months older than Jesus.
Go back to their mothers. Think about Elizabeth and Mary and the time they spent together during their pregnancies. Here’s Elizabeth almost past the age of being able to conceive a child who is pregnant. Her husband is mysteriously mute after taking his turn in the Temple in the Holy of Holies. And yet, when Mary appears the baby leaps in her womb. And Mary, young, pregnant after some overshadowing that had nothing to do with what we understand as human conception is at the beginning of the journey she will make with her son.
With that bond between their mothers, in the way of extended family in those days, John and Jesus surely played together as little boys. They must have shared in common being different because of the circumstances of their births, especially in the company of other, more ‘normal’ Jewish boys.
So when John testified about Jesus, it wasn’t a prophecy for a far-off time. John knew Jesus, knew him as a human person and as Messiah. When John said “there is one coming after me the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie”, he wasn’t talking about some shadowy, ethereal someday sort of person. The face of Jesus was what he could see in his mind’s eye.
That realization, that John actually knew Jesus, gives a rich layer of texture to our understanding of this text. The Pharisees didn’t recognize the face of the Messiah yet but they soon would for he was already among them. How do we bring that into today? What is the Bible telling us through this Scripture on the Third Sunday of Advent?
Go back to Rudy and her ‘partying’ germs. Through science, we know so much about our human bodies that there is no unexplored territory. I have to confess I am fascinated by those films made by tiny cameras deep inside a living human body showing hearts beating, what it looks like when we swallow, how our brain synapses work. We even talk about our human bodies like they are simply a mechanical system. Athletes are fine tuned machines. We talk about our joints being either creaky or well-oiled. But in our love of science and answers, we have left no room for God.
Yes, John knew Jesus the man but he also recognized in him Jesus the Messiah. We can know that our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made but, in some way that defies and defines our human limitations, God is present in us and with us. God is in us not in a way we can quantify and predict but in a way that is just as real, perhaps more real than what we can see under a microscope or touch with our human hands.
How can we now, how can we see Jesus? How can we see God at work in our world, feel the Holy Spirit and be empowered by it? That’s where faith comes in. Before you turn your brains off at the sound of a ‘church’ word, let me show you what I mean.
Rudy found out about the germs because of her symptoms, because she was sick. We know that our hearts are beating because we are still alive. How can we know that God is real and among us?
Think about where we are physically at this moment. I stand up here in this traditional pulpit because in the days before electricity and microphones, this was the best way for one person to be heard by a lot of people. But the architecture of this sanctuary also reflects what we believe theologically. The one who presumes stand in the pulpit stands in God’s place. They speak for God and don’t think that doesn’t keep me up nights. But just as I can come down from the pulpit and stand among you out here in the pews, in the people’s space, realize that Jesus did the same thing.
Jesus left his father’s house and came down, incarnate in a real human body, just like us. Someone once said, he came down to be like us so we could someday be like Him. John knew him and told other people. Jesus died and was resurrected and came to the disciples and others to show them and us that death had been conquered. And the disciples and Paul empowered by the living Christ and the Holy Spirit told everyone they could. Their lives where changed drastically by the presence of God.
So how do we know? When can we say “There’s Jesus”? When we look into each other’s faces and see him there. When we care for the poor, the stranger, the imprisoned and we see His face in their faces. When we speak God’s name in public, in places where it is not normally heard, that’s Him. When we live lives of repentance and forgiveness, of reconciliation and restoration, that’s Him. When we change our perspective from our short human attention span to God’s eternal view – that’s Jesus at work in us and in the world.
When we walk and talk and love and cry and grieve and live and die in His Spirit and by His truth, we proclaim with our lives the mystery of faith:
Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
When all around us we can see the love and joy, the peace and patience, the gentleness and self-control we can look at each other and say: “There’s Jesus, that’s Him.”
“No more partying in there” says little Rudy to the germs she has just discovered.
Our culture seems to think that the presence of Christ is like Rudy’s germs. It ought to be something we can see, experiment with, manage. How Jesus lives in us must be like germs and microbes, DNA, chemical elements and quarks, something we can’t physically see but that has been captured and defined by science.
How do we define the presence of Christ in something outside ourselves? How do we define the presence of Christ in something like Holy Communion? Theologians over the centuries have argued this. There is the Roman Catholic view of transubstantiation, where the bread and juice literally become the physical body and blood of Christ. There is the later Zwinglian view of consubstantiation where the substance changes but we can’t really tell any difference. And then along came the Reformers that simply threw up their theological hands and said, well maybe it’s just all symbolic anyway. But I don’t buy that either. I think Christ is really present but it comes back to the question – how do you explain it? What is the something more?
The Levites and Pharisees knew there was something more and they quizzed John the Baptist about it. John pointed to the Messiah to answer their questions. Here’s something we often miss: John knew Jesus, he knew the Messiah was already there, alive and human. After all, they were cousins and John was just a few months older than Jesus.
Go back to their mothers. Think about Elizabeth and Mary and the time they spent together during their pregnancies. Here’s Elizabeth almost past the age of being able to conceive a child who is pregnant. Her husband is mysteriously mute after taking his turn in the Temple in the Holy of Holies. And yet, when Mary appears the baby leaps in her womb. And Mary, young, pregnant after some overshadowing that had nothing to do with what we understand as human conception is at the beginning of the journey she will make with her son.
With that bond between their mothers, in the way of extended family in those days, John and Jesus surely played together as little boys. They must have shared in common being different because of the circumstances of their births, especially in the company of other, more ‘normal’ Jewish boys.
So when John testified about Jesus, it wasn’t a prophecy for a far-off time. John knew Jesus, knew him as a human person and as Messiah. When John said “there is one coming after me the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie”, he wasn’t talking about some shadowy, ethereal someday sort of person. The face of Jesus was what he could see in his mind’s eye.
That realization, that John actually knew Jesus, gives a rich layer of texture to our understanding of this text. The Pharisees didn’t recognize the face of the Messiah yet but they soon would for he was already among them. How do we bring that into today? What is the Bible telling us through this Scripture on the Third Sunday of Advent?
Go back to Rudy and her ‘partying’ germs. Through science, we know so much about our human bodies that there is no unexplored territory. I have to confess I am fascinated by those films made by tiny cameras deep inside a living human body showing hearts beating, what it looks like when we swallow, how our brain synapses work. We even talk about our human bodies like they are simply a mechanical system. Athletes are fine tuned machines. We talk about our joints being either creaky or well-oiled. But in our love of science and answers, we have left no room for God.
Yes, John knew Jesus the man but he also recognized in him Jesus the Messiah. We can know that our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made but, in some way that defies and defines our human limitations, God is present in us and with us. God is in us not in a way we can quantify and predict but in a way that is just as real, perhaps more real than what we can see under a microscope or touch with our human hands.
How can we now, how can we see Jesus? How can we see God at work in our world, feel the Holy Spirit and be empowered by it? That’s where faith comes in. Before you turn your brains off at the sound of a ‘church’ word, let me show you what I mean.
Rudy found out about the germs because of her symptoms, because she was sick. We know that our hearts are beating because we are still alive. How can we know that God is real and among us?
Think about where we are physically at this moment. I stand up here in this traditional pulpit because in the days before electricity and microphones, this was the best way for one person to be heard by a lot of people. But the architecture of this sanctuary also reflects what we believe theologically. The one who presumes stand in the pulpit stands in God’s place. They speak for God and don’t think that doesn’t keep me up nights. But just as I can come down from the pulpit and stand among you out here in the pews, in the people’s space, realize that Jesus did the same thing.
Jesus left his father’s house and came down, incarnate in a real human body, just like us. Someone once said, he came down to be like us so we could someday be like Him. John knew him and told other people. Jesus died and was resurrected and came to the disciples and others to show them and us that death had been conquered. And the disciples and Paul empowered by the living Christ and the Holy Spirit told everyone they could. Their lives where changed drastically by the presence of God.
So how do we know? When can we say “There’s Jesus”? When we look into each other’s faces and see him there. When we care for the poor, the stranger, the imprisoned and we see His face in their faces. When we speak God’s name in public, in places where it is not normally heard, that’s Him. When we live lives of repentance and forgiveness, of reconciliation and restoration, that’s Him. When we change our perspective from our short human attention span to God’s eternal view – that’s Jesus at work in us and in the world.
When we walk and talk and love and cry and grieve and live and die in His Spirit and by His truth, we proclaim with our lives the mystery of faith:
Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
When all around us we can see the love and joy, the peace and patience, the gentleness and self-control we can look at each other and say: “There’s Jesus, that’s Him.”
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Merry Christmas from Mitford (almost!)
Dear Friends and Family,
I hadn't sent an update in awhile from our outpost in North Carolina and wanted you all to know we are not just alive and well, but happy and thriving.
If you are familiar at all with the Mitford books by Jan Karon, you would find many parallels between that made-up community and this real one. We are on the coast of North Carolina and not in the mountains but the town itself itself is so like her concept that sometimes I think she must have stayed here for awhile. We have a local restaurant that everyone here calls "The Grill." It's real name is the Country Kitchen, or something like that, but we all just call it the Grill. It is the place to go on Sunday after church for fried chicken, collards and potato salad. But on Saturday night, it's seafood night and they have the BEST hush puppies and fried oysters I have ever eaten (Sorry, Tister, I know you are the king of hush puppies in KY).
We have a local grocery store that is a little shabby around the edges but if you know the right folks, they cut the thickest and best rib-eye steaks around. The word is to never pick up what's in the case but to ask for the steaks to be cut fresh. And boy, is that worth it! In order to get back to the meat case, you have to walk through the crowd of men that sit around in the front of the store. They won't let you by without a little conversation and usually some good natured teasing. They are still asking me if I have gotten any more good deer (since I hit a huge buck in my car). But these are the same men that not only changed my tire to the spare when I had a flat but had to be talked out of taking the tire into Washington for me to have it fixed or taking me to Washington to a meeting so I could leave my car in the shop. Good guys, and one of them in our new Lay Leader here at the church. :)
The town is so small that I wouldn't even need a car if the parsonage was in Bath but since we are a couple of miles out of town, I am not giving up my car yet. The surrounding area is a lot like kentucky. One of the families in the church owns a riding stable and we have been riding several times. I still miss my horses but Jim's are a close second. There is even a black and white horse that could be Paint's brother. His name is Thunder and I really enjoy riding him. Soon on our church website Dean will probably post the picture of the 'horse' Jim found for me. But, Bible references aside, donkeys really aren't my thing. :)
If you remember, in the Jan Karon books, Father Tim and his wife, Cynthia, go up and sit on a stone wall that overlooks the valley to watch the sunset. They call the view the "Land of Counterpane." Here, Dean and I go down to the river, out on Warren and Irene's pier and watch the sunset. The breeze kicks up about sundown and when the weather is warm, the fish literally jump. Davey Burbage, Jr. is still teasing me about my amazement over that. He called me 'Jumpin' Mullet Sorg" for about a month.
Someone told me when we moved down here that there are still four seasons here: Almost Summer, Summer, It's Still Summer and Christmas. Well, here we are at Christmas, it's 70 degrees and I have spent Derby Days that are colder than it is here now. We have seen some snow but it doesn't seem to accumulate and it's just warmer somehow. Maybe it's the Gulfstream that is just 60 miles offshore here.
I'm not sure that we'll send out Christmas cards this year. I am counting the days until Mark and Sarah are here and we are all together. We have a real tree for the first time in years. It will be wonderful to look out from the pulpit on the 21st and see my children's faces.
I hope this email will go a little ways toward you all knowing that we are thinking of you and praying for you. I found a box of last year's cards with the picture of the horse barn and all the snow. God has certainly moved in a mighty way this year and looking back, I am amazed at how all of our lives have unfolded.
My prayer for all of us is that we stay open to the adventure, that we let the past serve its purpose of reminding us where we've been but that we don't let it define who we are and that we live into the reality that repentance and forgiveness are the foundation stones for what it means to be truly human, the way God intended us to be in the first place.
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord, my friends. And God bless us every one.
I hadn't sent an update in awhile from our outpost in North Carolina and wanted you all to know we are not just alive and well, but happy and thriving.
If you are familiar at all with the Mitford books by Jan Karon, you would find many parallels between that made-up community and this real one. We are on the coast of North Carolina and not in the mountains but the town itself itself is so like her concept that sometimes I think she must have stayed here for awhile. We have a local restaurant that everyone here calls "The Grill." It's real name is the Country Kitchen, or something like that, but we all just call it the Grill. It is the place to go on Sunday after church for fried chicken, collards and potato salad. But on Saturday night, it's seafood night and they have the BEST hush puppies and fried oysters I have ever eaten (Sorry, Tister, I know you are the king of hush puppies in KY).
We have a local grocery store that is a little shabby around the edges but if you know the right folks, they cut the thickest and best rib-eye steaks around. The word is to never pick up what's in the case but to ask for the steaks to be cut fresh. And boy, is that worth it! In order to get back to the meat case, you have to walk through the crowd of men that sit around in the front of the store. They won't let you by without a little conversation and usually some good natured teasing. They are still asking me if I have gotten any more good deer (since I hit a huge buck in my car). But these are the same men that not only changed my tire to the spare when I had a flat but had to be talked out of taking the tire into Washington for me to have it fixed or taking me to Washington to a meeting so I could leave my car in the shop. Good guys, and one of them in our new Lay Leader here at the church. :)
The town is so small that I wouldn't even need a car if the parsonage was in Bath but since we are a couple of miles out of town, I am not giving up my car yet. The surrounding area is a lot like kentucky. One of the families in the church owns a riding stable and we have been riding several times. I still miss my horses but Jim's are a close second. There is even a black and white horse that could be Paint's brother. His name is Thunder and I really enjoy riding him. Soon on our church website Dean will probably post the picture of the 'horse' Jim found for me. But, Bible references aside, donkeys really aren't my thing. :)
If you remember, in the Jan Karon books, Father Tim and his wife, Cynthia, go up and sit on a stone wall that overlooks the valley to watch the sunset. They call the view the "Land of Counterpane." Here, Dean and I go down to the river, out on Warren and Irene's pier and watch the sunset. The breeze kicks up about sundown and when the weather is warm, the fish literally jump. Davey Burbage, Jr. is still teasing me about my amazement over that. He called me 'Jumpin' Mullet Sorg" for about a month.
Someone told me when we moved down here that there are still four seasons here: Almost Summer, Summer, It's Still Summer and Christmas. Well, here we are at Christmas, it's 70 degrees and I have spent Derby Days that are colder than it is here now. We have seen some snow but it doesn't seem to accumulate and it's just warmer somehow. Maybe it's the Gulfstream that is just 60 miles offshore here.
I'm not sure that we'll send out Christmas cards this year. I am counting the days until Mark and Sarah are here and we are all together. We have a real tree for the first time in years. It will be wonderful to look out from the pulpit on the 21st and see my children's faces.
I hope this email will go a little ways toward you all knowing that we are thinking of you and praying for you. I found a box of last year's cards with the picture of the horse barn and all the snow. God has certainly moved in a mighty way this year and looking back, I am amazed at how all of our lives have unfolded.
My prayer for all of us is that we stay open to the adventure, that we let the past serve its purpose of reminding us where we've been but that we don't let it define who we are and that we live into the reality that repentance and forgiveness are the foundation stones for what it means to be truly human, the way God intended us to be in the first place.
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord, my friends. And God bless us every one.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Necessity of Comfort
These are the texts and sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent.
Isaiah 40:1-11
Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’
A voice says, ‘Cry out!’ And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’ All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever. Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’ See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.
Mark 1:1-8
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight” ’,
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’
How do we hold in fruitful tension the prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 40 and the description of John the Baptist in Mark 1? Here we are in the season of Advent, a holy time that is hard to perceive when all around we are surrounded by:
• Santas and red-nosed reindeer,
• snowmen and mistletoe
• and every recording artist who ever had a record deal singing the same dozen songs about the baby in Bethlehem.
And the peace of the Savior, the coming of the King seems further away than ever. As much as we love Christmas carols and the warm sentimentality of homecomings and the delight on the faces of little children experiencing the magic of the season, the Bible refuses to let us drown in a sea of goo. John the Baptist in his camel skin clothing with his command for repentance doesn’t seem to fare well when you put him next to Burl Ives singing Have a Holly Jolly Christmas. There is safety in the sentimentality. It is all about us and our families, where we all are safe and secure and comforted.
Isn’t that what Isaiah is talking about? Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:1-2) Isaiah here is prophesying to a people that were suffering the pain of exile and oppression. These were the descendents of the original Exodus people that had been taken over and dispersed by the Babylonian Empire as a punishment for falling away from God. They needed to hear the prophecy that there would be an end to their suffering and that the Messiah would come. And we need to hear those words of comfort as well. We live in a world that is characterized by pain and suffering, transition and loss. There are many for whom this holiday season will be one of suffering, one of tortured memories of loved ones who have died, family members that are far away, lives that have been ripped apart by addiction, violence and man’s inhumanity to man. So this word of comfort from Isaiah is a necessary one. It is vital that we remember and tell the world around us that there is comfort and hope, grace and peace. Hear again the final words of Isaiah in this section:
"He will feed His flock like a shepherd;
He will gather the lambs in His arms;
He will carry them in His bosom;
He will gently lead the mother sheep."
God is among us to care for those who are most vulnerable, most in need of care. Part of our responsibility as His church is to be his hands and feet in the world, offering that comfort and protection to those who need it the most. It seems as if the very things that make this holiday season so sweet for some are the very things that rub salt into the wounds of those who hurt and mourn. Before we can hear the words of John the Baptist, we must hear and know the prophecy of Isaiah. There is comfort and protection and hope in the arms of God who above all is Love Incarnate. When it seems that all hope is gone, Isaiah reminds us that hope is still possible. It affirms that grace is still possible.
It is no accident that the opening words of Mark’s Gospel are from Isaiah’s prophecy. The prophecy was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus and it was John the Baptist’s vocation to prepare the way. That’s what this season of Advent is all about, getting ready. And how do we get ready for the coming of Jesus? John the Baptist has it in a word. Repent. But hear the echo from the original text the way Mark intended it. This is a voice crying out in the wilderness with an urgency that is missing in many of our English translations and is missing in our piecemeal, daily devotional way of reading the Bible.
When you separate the Scripture down into 365 easily understood passages, something is lost. In the original Greek and in good English translations, the word euqws, immediately, occurs 30 times in the Gospel of Mark alone. After Jesus was baptized by John he immediately went into the wilderness. Immediately the disciples turned and left their nets, immediately Jesus healed or taught or said. Again and again Mark uses this word, immediately, immediately. The whole gospel has this sense of urgency. Mark’s writing is rough, unlike the educated letters of Paul or the precision of Luke the physician. So hear the urgency of John’s call to repent.
-What does it mean to repent? Literally, it means to turn away from some action or course of action and to turn your face to something new. Martin Luther, the great Reformation theologian said that sin is when humans turn in on themselves. Using that same image then, repentance would be turning away from ourselves and our sinfulness to look into the face of God. It means changing our perspective from looking at our lives form our own selfish perspective to looking at our lives from God’s eternal perspective.
-What does repentance look like in our everyday lives? What it looks like is that we make a conscious and real decision to stop doing something that we know is out of the will of God.
What we have to repent of is no mystery. Even now, I know the Holy Spirit is pricking each of your hearts, just as mine is being moved to give up that one thing that we cherish, that we put before God. Maybe it’s money, maybe it’s time, “Oh, I’ll get around to working for the church later, after I retire, after the kids are grown, after I go fishing, after 18 more holes of golf.” Maybe it’s not picking up the phone to check on a friend, to offer a word of encouragement. “I’m too tired, I worked hard all day.” Maybe it’s the spurt of self-righteous irritation we feel when things are done our way, or what we expected someone else to take care of doesn’t happen at all. So we gladly take on a martyr complex “Oh, I’ll do it myself, that’s the only way it will ever get done right anyway. Poor, pitiful me.” I don’t know about you but those are the top of the list of things I need to repent of.
-What does repentance do? It smoothes the hills and valleys of our lives, it removes the obstacles that block our paths. It prepares a way for the King’s arrival in our midst. Go back to Isaiah’s prophecy: Every valley will be lifted up, every mountain will be made low, the uneven ground will be made level and the rough places be made smooth. (40:4)
Our lives are to be pipelines of God’s love, glory and grace in the world. But often our un-confessed sin and self-centeredness block up that pipeline with the grunge of the filth of sin. Imagine a section of cPVC pipe, white and clean, ready to bring good drinking water into your home. But after years of neglect, that pipe can get dirty, stained with the minerals and chemicals that are part of the water supply. The beauty of cPVC and newer types of plumbing lines is that they are slick. Unlike cast iron, they easily shed any residue that might block the water supply and they don’t rust out and break. And that is what repentance does for us. It keeps the pipelines of our lives clear and clean, useful and life-giving. Repentance gets ‘me’ out of the way, so the Holy Spirit can run through my life, spilling over, abundantly blessing others.
Repentance is not a one-shot deal. It isn’t getting your heavenly ticket punched once and for all. Repentance is part of a life of discipline, discipling to be more like Christ. Repentance is about perspective and discipline but mostly repentance is about grace. All these things are impossible without God’s grace. Will Willimon says that you can think about turning away from sin and its consequences in two ways. You have to repent, yes but by God’s grace, we get to repent. For without grace, repentance and forgiveness wouldn’t even be a possibility.
Grace is fully an act of God. That’s the beauty and the purpose of prophets – whether it’s Isaiah prophesying comfort to an embattled people or John the Baptist offering the opposite of comfort. John the Baptist issues a warning, a wake-up call to announce the reality of grace, the reality of God who is continually making all things new. Isaiah is reaching for a far-off day when comfort will come, John the Baptist is preaching the immediacy of that day “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” And remember the preaching of Peter on the Day of Pentecost “Repent and be baptized every one of you.”
Like Peter, we live in the already and the not yet. As a child, I never understood what it meant when Shakespeare wrote “The king is dead. Long live the King.” Or the man who said to Jesus: “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” In both those cases, one sentence or the other has to be true. If the King is dead, why say “Long live the King”? If you say you believe, then why do you have to ask for help with unbelieving? Why do we wait during Advent for the King to arrive, for the baby to be born when it all has happened already?
Because we are still waiting. Yes, Jesus Christ was born, fully human and fully divine on a cold Palestinian night many years ago. And he lived and taught and healed and grew in favor and stature with both God and man. And he gathered around himself a group of followers and disciples and after 33 years, he was brutally murdered, crucified on a shameful Roman cross. And the veil of the Temple was torn in two and all of creation and the Creator mourned. But after three days, he rose again and he appeared to his disciples and gave them instructions, peace and comfort. And he ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us from that day to this. And he calls us to be his disciples, to be stewards of His-story. And it all begins with a voice crying in the wilderness “Prepare the way of the Lord.” “Repent.”
For the King is coming again after this second time of Advent waiting. But instead of coming as a tiny baby, he will come as conquering King. And the prophecy of Isaiah, and John the Revelator will be fulfilled. So what then is our response in this already but not yet time, between the king that has been born and the King that will come to judge the living and the dead for they are one and the same?
Repent. Turn your face away from the world and your entrapment. Repent and be free to live a life full of risk and purpose and grace. Yes, we are waiting for the King to come, waiting for the light to fully drown out the darkness that threatens to engulf us. But brothers and sisters, hear the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The King has come, the King is coming! The curse of Adam and Eve has been removed and we will live together in the beauty of creation as it was intended to be. There will be no more night, no more pain, no more fear. But in this waiting time, don’t be content to simply endure, to grit your teeth and just exist. Repent, turn your face to God’s perspective and see the world as it really is: a place full of grace and glory, a world of forgiveness and hope. Repent, turn, look around, God is all around if you will
Isaiah 40:1-11
Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’
A voice says, ‘Cry out!’ And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’ All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever. Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’ See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.
Mark 1:1-8
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight” ’,
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’
How do we hold in fruitful tension the prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 40 and the description of John the Baptist in Mark 1? Here we are in the season of Advent, a holy time that is hard to perceive when all around we are surrounded by:
• Santas and red-nosed reindeer,
• snowmen and mistletoe
• and every recording artist who ever had a record deal singing the same dozen songs about the baby in Bethlehem.
And the peace of the Savior, the coming of the King seems further away than ever. As much as we love Christmas carols and the warm sentimentality of homecomings and the delight on the faces of little children experiencing the magic of the season, the Bible refuses to let us drown in a sea of goo. John the Baptist in his camel skin clothing with his command for repentance doesn’t seem to fare well when you put him next to Burl Ives singing Have a Holly Jolly Christmas. There is safety in the sentimentality. It is all about us and our families, where we all are safe and secure and comforted.
Isn’t that what Isaiah is talking about? Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. (Isaiah 40:1-2) Isaiah here is prophesying to a people that were suffering the pain of exile and oppression. These were the descendents of the original Exodus people that had been taken over and dispersed by the Babylonian Empire as a punishment for falling away from God. They needed to hear the prophecy that there would be an end to their suffering and that the Messiah would come. And we need to hear those words of comfort as well. We live in a world that is characterized by pain and suffering, transition and loss. There are many for whom this holiday season will be one of suffering, one of tortured memories of loved ones who have died, family members that are far away, lives that have been ripped apart by addiction, violence and man’s inhumanity to man. So this word of comfort from Isaiah is a necessary one. It is vital that we remember and tell the world around us that there is comfort and hope, grace and peace. Hear again the final words of Isaiah in this section:
"He will feed His flock like a shepherd;
He will gather the lambs in His arms;
He will carry them in His bosom;
He will gently lead the mother sheep."
God is among us to care for those who are most vulnerable, most in need of care. Part of our responsibility as His church is to be his hands and feet in the world, offering that comfort and protection to those who need it the most. It seems as if the very things that make this holiday season so sweet for some are the very things that rub salt into the wounds of those who hurt and mourn. Before we can hear the words of John the Baptist, we must hear and know the prophecy of Isaiah. There is comfort and protection and hope in the arms of God who above all is Love Incarnate. When it seems that all hope is gone, Isaiah reminds us that hope is still possible. It affirms that grace is still possible.
It is no accident that the opening words of Mark’s Gospel are from Isaiah’s prophecy. The prophecy was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus and it was John the Baptist’s vocation to prepare the way. That’s what this season of Advent is all about, getting ready. And how do we get ready for the coming of Jesus? John the Baptist has it in a word. Repent. But hear the echo from the original text the way Mark intended it. This is a voice crying out in the wilderness with an urgency that is missing in many of our English translations and is missing in our piecemeal, daily devotional way of reading the Bible.
When you separate the Scripture down into 365 easily understood passages, something is lost. In the original Greek and in good English translations, the word euqws, immediately, occurs 30 times in the Gospel of Mark alone. After Jesus was baptized by John he immediately went into the wilderness. Immediately the disciples turned and left their nets, immediately Jesus healed or taught or said. Again and again Mark uses this word, immediately, immediately. The whole gospel has this sense of urgency. Mark’s writing is rough, unlike the educated letters of Paul or the precision of Luke the physician. So hear the urgency of John’s call to repent.
-What does it mean to repent? Literally, it means to turn away from some action or course of action and to turn your face to something new. Martin Luther, the great Reformation theologian said that sin is when humans turn in on themselves. Using that same image then, repentance would be turning away from ourselves and our sinfulness to look into the face of God. It means changing our perspective from looking at our lives form our own selfish perspective to looking at our lives from God’s eternal perspective.
-What does repentance look like in our everyday lives? What it looks like is that we make a conscious and real decision to stop doing something that we know is out of the will of God.
What we have to repent of is no mystery. Even now, I know the Holy Spirit is pricking each of your hearts, just as mine is being moved to give up that one thing that we cherish, that we put before God. Maybe it’s money, maybe it’s time, “Oh, I’ll get around to working for the church later, after I retire, after the kids are grown, after I go fishing, after 18 more holes of golf.” Maybe it’s not picking up the phone to check on a friend, to offer a word of encouragement. “I’m too tired, I worked hard all day.” Maybe it’s the spurt of self-righteous irritation we feel when things are done our way, or what we expected someone else to take care of doesn’t happen at all. So we gladly take on a martyr complex “Oh, I’ll do it myself, that’s the only way it will ever get done right anyway. Poor, pitiful me.” I don’t know about you but those are the top of the list of things I need to repent of.
-What does repentance do? It smoothes the hills and valleys of our lives, it removes the obstacles that block our paths. It prepares a way for the King’s arrival in our midst. Go back to Isaiah’s prophecy: Every valley will be lifted up, every mountain will be made low, the uneven ground will be made level and the rough places be made smooth. (40:4)
Our lives are to be pipelines of God’s love, glory and grace in the world. But often our un-confessed sin and self-centeredness block up that pipeline with the grunge of the filth of sin. Imagine a section of cPVC pipe, white and clean, ready to bring good drinking water into your home. But after years of neglect, that pipe can get dirty, stained with the minerals and chemicals that are part of the water supply. The beauty of cPVC and newer types of plumbing lines is that they are slick. Unlike cast iron, they easily shed any residue that might block the water supply and they don’t rust out and break. And that is what repentance does for us. It keeps the pipelines of our lives clear and clean, useful and life-giving. Repentance gets ‘me’ out of the way, so the Holy Spirit can run through my life, spilling over, abundantly blessing others.
Repentance is not a one-shot deal. It isn’t getting your heavenly ticket punched once and for all. Repentance is part of a life of discipline, discipling to be more like Christ. Repentance is about perspective and discipline but mostly repentance is about grace. All these things are impossible without God’s grace. Will Willimon says that you can think about turning away from sin and its consequences in two ways. You have to repent, yes but by God’s grace, we get to repent. For without grace, repentance and forgiveness wouldn’t even be a possibility.
Grace is fully an act of God. That’s the beauty and the purpose of prophets – whether it’s Isaiah prophesying comfort to an embattled people or John the Baptist offering the opposite of comfort. John the Baptist issues a warning, a wake-up call to announce the reality of grace, the reality of God who is continually making all things new. Isaiah is reaching for a far-off day when comfort will come, John the Baptist is preaching the immediacy of that day “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” And remember the preaching of Peter on the Day of Pentecost “Repent and be baptized every one of you.”
Like Peter, we live in the already and the not yet. As a child, I never understood what it meant when Shakespeare wrote “The king is dead. Long live the King.” Or the man who said to Jesus: “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” In both those cases, one sentence or the other has to be true. If the King is dead, why say “Long live the King”? If you say you believe, then why do you have to ask for help with unbelieving? Why do we wait during Advent for the King to arrive, for the baby to be born when it all has happened already?
Because we are still waiting. Yes, Jesus Christ was born, fully human and fully divine on a cold Palestinian night many years ago. And he lived and taught and healed and grew in favor and stature with both God and man. And he gathered around himself a group of followers and disciples and after 33 years, he was brutally murdered, crucified on a shameful Roman cross. And the veil of the Temple was torn in two and all of creation and the Creator mourned. But after three days, he rose again and he appeared to his disciples and gave them instructions, peace and comfort. And he ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us from that day to this. And he calls us to be his disciples, to be stewards of His-story. And it all begins with a voice crying in the wilderness “Prepare the way of the Lord.” “Repent.”
For the King is coming again after this second time of Advent waiting. But instead of coming as a tiny baby, he will come as conquering King. And the prophecy of Isaiah, and John the Revelator will be fulfilled. So what then is our response in this already but not yet time, between the king that has been born and the King that will come to judge the living and the dead for they are one and the same?
Repent. Turn your face away from the world and your entrapment. Repent and be free to live a life full of risk and purpose and grace. Yes, we are waiting for the King to come, waiting for the light to fully drown out the darkness that threatens to engulf us. But brothers and sisters, hear the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The King has come, the King is coming! The curse of Adam and Eve has been removed and we will live together in the beauty of creation as it was intended to be. There will be no more night, no more pain, no more fear. But in this waiting time, don’t be content to simply endure, to grit your teeth and just exist. Repent, turn your face to God’s perspective and see the world as it really is: a place full of grace and glory, a world of forgiveness and hope. Repent, turn, look around, God is all around if you will
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Last Sunday was the final Sunday of the liturgical year. Next Sunday, we will celebrate the first Sunday of Advent usually with a Hanging of the Greens Service. So today, I would like to revisit with you the journey we have made through the Scripture over the last almost three months. My first Sunday blogging was September the 7th and the Scripture for that day was Matthew 18:15-20. I talked about our identity in Christ, who we are as Christians and how we should act radically different than the culture around us so that we are a witness to God’s love and the unifying nature of the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
As I read through the sermons that I have preached in this pulpit (and from this blog), I found again and again that I spoke about the hard work of being in community with each other, the difficult and often emotionally messy work of relationship, about call and change, leading our hearts instead of our hearts leading us, God’s glory and God’s goodness. We have journeyed through Exodus, Deuteronomy and Joshua, through the Red Sea and the Wilderness with the tribes of Israel. I reminded you through the words of a song that God won’t play ‘Second Fiddle’ in our lives. We have walked with Jesus through the eyes of Matthew as Jesus told parables that tell us what His Kingdom, the kingdom of God is like. Wise and foolish bridesmaids, fearful servants who sit on the gifts the Master gives them, and today, sheep and goats, those who are hungry, naked, thirsty, strangers, sick and in prison. Again and again, Jesus told his followers and he tells us what time it is and what we are to be about. And just as Jesus’ followers stood looking up to the sky after his resurrection and ascension, we stand on the edge of a great adventure.
There are signs of the inbreaking of God’s Kingdom all around us. Last week at the Martha Project (in Belhaven, NC), I watched a lot and helped a little. And it came to my mind two criteria that I had learned to assess a mission project. There are two questions to ask: “Do they see Jesus in us?” and “Do we see Jesus in them?” It was humbling and gratifying to see that the answer in both cases was a resounding “yes!” And also to see us work alongside folks from outside our church here witnesses to the unity of Christ, to his call that we all be one in Him.
There are also signs of change as we look to new people doing new things here. Change is hard but it is a characteristic of the ‘with-God’ life. The ‘with-God’ life is a life that doesn’t say “what about me?” It is a life that says “It’s about God.” It is when we re-frame our lives to not tell our story from our tunnel vision. But we re-frame our stories in the light of who God is in the world. That is the true and good history, when history is seen in the light of it being “His-story” and not simply being about us.
How do we live into this ‘with-God’ life? Through practicing the spiritual disciplines we see demonstrated in the life of Christ: prayer, fasting, caring for the poor, teaching, healing and self-sacrifice. Richard Foster wrote a book called Celebration of Discipline. In that book, he talks about each of the disciples of the spiritual life, the life ‘with-God’ and he says that for each discipline there is a corresponding freedom but when we turn the discipline into a law that must be obeyed, into legalism, that freedom disappears.
I see many signs here of people beginning to stretch out into God’s freedom, into gift-based service. It is exciting to watch and humbling to be your pastor, the one God has called to empower and to educate as this Christian community begins to individually and communally name and live into God’s vision for this church. As the tide of loving service rises, it runs along the channel that keeps it within the banks of God’s love and discipline. What forms the banks are Scripture, human reason and experience of God and the traditions handed down to us by those who came before, those others who have lived life with God in this world.
As we move into a new season in the church calendar and in the life of the church here, we can look forward with faith and confidence and hope knowing that the Christian life, the ‘with-God’ life isn’t something so mysterious we can never comprehend it, something so difficult we can never achieve it, something so painful we can never bear it. But when we look at the mystery, the difficulty, the pain from God’s perspective, it all gets put into focus. Our circumstances may not be easy to bear but we know we are safe within the sheepfold of God’s love, that he is the good Shepherd, in whom all things work together for good for those that love Him.
In today’s text from Matthew, Jesus reminds us of the coming judgment, when the sheep and the goats will be separated. But almost in the next breath, he tells us how to live in the reality of that judgment. How do we know what we are to be about? The message rings loud and clear through both the Old and New Testaments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and love your neighbor as yourself. That sums up all the law and the prophets. And whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.
In the coming days, we will begin to articulate a vision, a mission statement and a strategic plan. But there is no better mission statement than those words of Jesus. Every vision that is cast, every statement and strategy must fit securely within that parameter.
Let me leave you with one final image. As we move into the Advent season, we will begin to talk a lot about waiting for the light, watching for the light of Christ to come into the world. Advent is a time that is balanced by lent. They are both times of waiting, times of discernment and prayer. They are both culminated by the major celebrations of the church: Christ’s birth into our space and time and his death and resurrection in our space and time. And the image of light is important in both.
I challenge you in this season of Advent to look for the light of God’s grace and goodness in your world. It seems there isn’t much light these days. We barely have lunch before the darkness sets in. Many people go to work in the pre-dawn darkness and go home from work in the post-sunset darkness. You can work all day and never see the sun. And you can live all of your life and never see the light of Jesus Christ shining though the power of the Holy Spirit all around you. How do we find the light? By asking two simple questions? Do they see Jesus in me? And do I see Jesus in them? Amen
As I read through the sermons that I have preached in this pulpit (and from this blog), I found again and again that I spoke about the hard work of being in community with each other, the difficult and often emotionally messy work of relationship, about call and change, leading our hearts instead of our hearts leading us, God’s glory and God’s goodness. We have journeyed through Exodus, Deuteronomy and Joshua, through the Red Sea and the Wilderness with the tribes of Israel. I reminded you through the words of a song that God won’t play ‘Second Fiddle’ in our lives. We have walked with Jesus through the eyes of Matthew as Jesus told parables that tell us what His Kingdom, the kingdom of God is like. Wise and foolish bridesmaids, fearful servants who sit on the gifts the Master gives them, and today, sheep and goats, those who are hungry, naked, thirsty, strangers, sick and in prison. Again and again, Jesus told his followers and he tells us what time it is and what we are to be about. And just as Jesus’ followers stood looking up to the sky after his resurrection and ascension, we stand on the edge of a great adventure.
There are signs of the inbreaking of God’s Kingdom all around us. Last week at the Martha Project (in Belhaven, NC), I watched a lot and helped a little. And it came to my mind two criteria that I had learned to assess a mission project. There are two questions to ask: “Do they see Jesus in us?” and “Do we see Jesus in them?” It was humbling and gratifying to see that the answer in both cases was a resounding “yes!” And also to see us work alongside folks from outside our church here witnesses to the unity of Christ, to his call that we all be one in Him.
There are also signs of change as we look to new people doing new things here. Change is hard but it is a characteristic of the ‘with-God’ life. The ‘with-God’ life is a life that doesn’t say “what about me?” It is a life that says “It’s about God.” It is when we re-frame our lives to not tell our story from our tunnel vision. But we re-frame our stories in the light of who God is in the world. That is the true and good history, when history is seen in the light of it being “His-story” and not simply being about us.
How do we live into this ‘with-God’ life? Through practicing the spiritual disciplines we see demonstrated in the life of Christ: prayer, fasting, caring for the poor, teaching, healing and self-sacrifice. Richard Foster wrote a book called Celebration of Discipline. In that book, he talks about each of the disciples of the spiritual life, the life ‘with-God’ and he says that for each discipline there is a corresponding freedom but when we turn the discipline into a law that must be obeyed, into legalism, that freedom disappears.
I see many signs here of people beginning to stretch out into God’s freedom, into gift-based service. It is exciting to watch and humbling to be your pastor, the one God has called to empower and to educate as this Christian community begins to individually and communally name and live into God’s vision for this church. As the tide of loving service rises, it runs along the channel that keeps it within the banks of God’s love and discipline. What forms the banks are Scripture, human reason and experience of God and the traditions handed down to us by those who came before, those others who have lived life with God in this world.
As we move into a new season in the church calendar and in the life of the church here, we can look forward with faith and confidence and hope knowing that the Christian life, the ‘with-God’ life isn’t something so mysterious we can never comprehend it, something so difficult we can never achieve it, something so painful we can never bear it. But when we look at the mystery, the difficulty, the pain from God’s perspective, it all gets put into focus. Our circumstances may not be easy to bear but we know we are safe within the sheepfold of God’s love, that he is the good Shepherd, in whom all things work together for good for those that love Him.
In today’s text from Matthew, Jesus reminds us of the coming judgment, when the sheep and the goats will be separated. But almost in the next breath, he tells us how to live in the reality of that judgment. How do we know what we are to be about? The message rings loud and clear through both the Old and New Testaments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and love your neighbor as yourself. That sums up all the law and the prophets. And whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.
In the coming days, we will begin to articulate a vision, a mission statement and a strategic plan. But there is no better mission statement than those words of Jesus. Every vision that is cast, every statement and strategy must fit securely within that parameter.
Let me leave you with one final image. As we move into the Advent season, we will begin to talk a lot about waiting for the light, watching for the light of Christ to come into the world. Advent is a time that is balanced by lent. They are both times of waiting, times of discernment and prayer. They are both culminated by the major celebrations of the church: Christ’s birth into our space and time and his death and resurrection in our space and time. And the image of light is important in both.
I challenge you in this season of Advent to look for the light of God’s grace and goodness in your world. It seems there isn’t much light these days. We barely have lunch before the darkness sets in. Many people go to work in the pre-dawn darkness and go home from work in the post-sunset darkness. You can work all day and never see the sun. And you can live all of your life and never see the light of Jesus Christ shining though the power of the Holy Spirit all around you. How do we find the light? By asking two simple questions? Do they see Jesus in me? And do I see Jesus in them? Amen
Monday, November 17, 2008
Living in Fear?
20081116Matt25Talenta
When we read or hear the parable of the talents, it is easy for our minds to make the leap from a unit of money to talking about what we know of as talents, our giftedness, the things we are good at. And so it is easy for us to make the step to application of this parable in our lives. It means that God wants us to use what we have wisely, to be the most effective. In certain ways, that’s true. But there is a sneaky human element that creeps into that interpretation. One that twists the text ever so slightly and instead of proclaiming and living into the gospel, the good news, we find ourselves on the endless treadmill of searching for better performance and measurable results.
We need to take a look at the wider scope of Scripture to let the whole voice of the Bible speak, not just lift out a couple of sentences and then say that we are finished. Looking at the context of the parable of the talents, Matthew 25:14-30, we see that it immediately follows the parable of the ten bridesmaids and is just before Jesus’ description of the separation of the ‘sheep’ and the ‘goats’ on the day of Judgment, the parousia in Greek. There is an urgency to Jesus’ words here for this is one of the last things he teaches before Gethsemane, Calvary and the empty tomb. Again and again, Jesus had told the disciples he had to go away and one of the last parables he tells is about a master who does go away and stays away longer than expected. Here again, we have to realize that hindsight is 20/20. It’s so easy for us think: “why didn’t they get it? He was standing right there telling them what was going to happen?” And yet, why don’t we get it? For he told us then that all of this would happen and we still are stumbling around in the dark. Making it all harder and more complicated than it has to be, tying millstones around the necks of our children and ourselves.
What are we missing? Look at the text again, considering these things. One, the talenta was one of the largest measurements of money in the ancient world. It was worth 15 years of a normal man’s income. Jesus wasn’t pointing to a specific amount of money here because this was more than most of his hearers could even conceive of. The first thing we have to see is that Jesus was talking about the generosity of the Master. Trusted servants were often left in charge of their master’s household accounts for years at a time and they were expected to support themselves, other servants and take care of business for the master in ways that were honorable and profitable. Entrusting this much money to another means the master knows he will be gone for a long time. And yet, he doesn’t settle all the talenta on one servant.
That’s the second point, the servants. Each of the three of them were given different amounts and Jesus doesn’t tell us what any of them think about anything until the end of the parable. We don’t know why the master divided things as he did and we don’t know how the servants felt about the division of the materials. We don’t really hear from the servants at all until the one given the single talent speaks up at the end. “Master, I knew you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you had not scattered seed, so I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground.” Almost literally, the servant is saying ‘I buried your money and sat on it.’ You have to admit this man has some guts to even say that to his boss, to name what he thinks the trouble is. “Look, I am basically afraid of you and afraid of what you would do to me if I didn’t measure up. If I didn’t make you a profit or do something amazing and fantastic, I knew that I’d be in trouble anyway, so I didn’t do anything at all.”
And in our human opinion, the master then lives up to that slave’s assessment of him. He takes the talenta away, gives it to the servant who had the most to begin with and throws the man out into that most frightening of biblical images, into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Where is the gospel in this? Where is the good news? The good news is hard to hear because of how we have twisted this story. We concentrate on the judgment. We zero in on the fruit of the labor of the servants. Why? Because the human element hooks us. We get hung up on what, for us, is the hinge of the story. “I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground.” The fear speaks to us, we can relate to it, we know what it means to be afraid of not measuring up, of not performing well, we can see the disappointment in the eyes of our parents and teachers, our spouses and our children when we don’t measure up, we don’t fulfill their expectations. And so, to protect ourselves and to keep from failing anyone, we work harder and harder and we make more and more rules, so we all know how the game is played, what it takes to succeed and what you have to do to get in. Even up to what it is you have to do to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. And even then, we aren’t so sure that the outer darkness isn’t waiting for us after all.
And we hear the servant’s characterization of the master as a condemnation instead of an accurate assessment. The servant meant it as a condemnation, he called the master ‘a harsh man’. Yet, look at the image he uses, one of the sower and the seed, sowing and reaping without regard for rules and regulations, sowing and reaping abundantly and fearlessly.
I was talking to a fellow clergyperson one day who was describing a funeral that he had attended with some of the leaders of the congregation where he was serving. After the funeral, they were all sitting down at a meal when one of the women commented on how difficult it was not knowing if you would really make it to heaven or not until you got there. That you just had to work and hope. And he turned to her and asked “Do you believe that Jesus was the Son of God and died for your sins?” Taken aback, she replied “Of course.” “Then what are you worried about?”
That’s where the disconnect is. We don’t think that having faith and living in grace and gratitude is enough. We are afraid there must be something more and we end up living into a works-righteousness mindset that says: “If I just work hard enough I can get there on my own.” That my work can equal God’s righteousness and works-righteousness is the wheel in the hamster cage where the hamster runs faster and faster, harder and harder but never gets anywhere, never gets out of the cage.
Brothers and sisters hear the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ: You can’t get there on your own. You can never work hard enough, be holy enough, you can’t fulfill the Law of Moses any more than you can be just like Jesus. Salvation is not a wage you earn but a gift that’s free. This parable isn’t about our behavior.
It’s about God.
It’s about a Master who gives freely. This is Jesus again telling them and us that he is going away and he may be gone a long time, longer than we expect. But he is giving us what we need to take care of ourselves and each other in his absence. What if the talenta isn’t about money or our personalities? What if the talenta he bestows is the presence of the Holy Spirit and that is what we an either live into and multiply or we can bury deep in our hearts because we are afraid?
There are two things that people seem to be most afraid of: death and meaninglessness. Being afraid of dying physically and being afraid of living life with no purpose, no meaning. Our loving God has delivered us from both.
Our lives in our time seem to be characterized by rules and regulations. Life in Christ is about living deeply into the presence of God, so deeply that his love and grace spill over into the lives of those around us. Life is about living abundantly and fearlessly in the kingdom of God in the world. We can know we are saved. John Wesley wrote about his heart being strangely warmed that night at Aldersgate. He wrote: “And I knew that God loved me, even me.” We as United Methodist Christians claim that we can know by real human experience that we are saved from our sins and we live lives of grace and gratitude, not works-righteousness and trying to make it. I am not talking about cheap grace here. This is not about well, I’ve been baptized so my ticket is punched and I am waiting at the station. Not at all. I am talking about knowing we have been given the gift of salvation and living out our lives in gratitude.
We celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism as the outward sign of the inward grace of being adopted into God’s family. And you can’t be un-adopted, emancipated from God unless you work really hard at it and you are the one doing the emancipating. We enter into the Sacrament of Holy Communion as the outward sign of the inward grace of belonging at God’s family table, that Thanksgiving Table when we all will be gathered together not on this side of Gethsemane and Calvary but full yon the other side.
How are you living today? Are you living fearlessly, abundantly, sowing and reaping, walking with God through the salvation of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit? Or have you buried your talenta so it is muffled and powerless, so you don’t have to think about it or deal with it? The choice is yours today, while it is still day, to dig down deeply, let the light of Christ shine into your life and the lives around you, to face your fear head on and know that the victory has been claimed, the battle is over and that grace is abundant and free.
When we read or hear the parable of the talents, it is easy for our minds to make the leap from a unit of money to talking about what we know of as talents, our giftedness, the things we are good at. And so it is easy for us to make the step to application of this parable in our lives. It means that God wants us to use what we have wisely, to be the most effective. In certain ways, that’s true. But there is a sneaky human element that creeps into that interpretation. One that twists the text ever so slightly and instead of proclaiming and living into the gospel, the good news, we find ourselves on the endless treadmill of searching for better performance and measurable results.
We need to take a look at the wider scope of Scripture to let the whole voice of the Bible speak, not just lift out a couple of sentences and then say that we are finished. Looking at the context of the parable of the talents, Matthew 25:14-30, we see that it immediately follows the parable of the ten bridesmaids and is just before Jesus’ description of the separation of the ‘sheep’ and the ‘goats’ on the day of Judgment, the parousia in Greek. There is an urgency to Jesus’ words here for this is one of the last things he teaches before Gethsemane, Calvary and the empty tomb. Again and again, Jesus had told the disciples he had to go away and one of the last parables he tells is about a master who does go away and stays away longer than expected. Here again, we have to realize that hindsight is 20/20. It’s so easy for us think: “why didn’t they get it? He was standing right there telling them what was going to happen?” And yet, why don’t we get it? For he told us then that all of this would happen and we still are stumbling around in the dark. Making it all harder and more complicated than it has to be, tying millstones around the necks of our children and ourselves.
What are we missing? Look at the text again, considering these things. One, the talenta was one of the largest measurements of money in the ancient world. It was worth 15 years of a normal man’s income. Jesus wasn’t pointing to a specific amount of money here because this was more than most of his hearers could even conceive of. The first thing we have to see is that Jesus was talking about the generosity of the Master. Trusted servants were often left in charge of their master’s household accounts for years at a time and they were expected to support themselves, other servants and take care of business for the master in ways that were honorable and profitable. Entrusting this much money to another means the master knows he will be gone for a long time. And yet, he doesn’t settle all the talenta on one servant.
That’s the second point, the servants. Each of the three of them were given different amounts and Jesus doesn’t tell us what any of them think about anything until the end of the parable. We don’t know why the master divided things as he did and we don’t know how the servants felt about the division of the materials. We don’t really hear from the servants at all until the one given the single talent speaks up at the end. “Master, I knew you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you had not scattered seed, so I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground.” Almost literally, the servant is saying ‘I buried your money and sat on it.’ You have to admit this man has some guts to even say that to his boss, to name what he thinks the trouble is. “Look, I am basically afraid of you and afraid of what you would do to me if I didn’t measure up. If I didn’t make you a profit or do something amazing and fantastic, I knew that I’d be in trouble anyway, so I didn’t do anything at all.”
And in our human opinion, the master then lives up to that slave’s assessment of him. He takes the talenta away, gives it to the servant who had the most to begin with and throws the man out into that most frightening of biblical images, into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Where is the gospel in this? Where is the good news? The good news is hard to hear because of how we have twisted this story. We concentrate on the judgment. We zero in on the fruit of the labor of the servants. Why? Because the human element hooks us. We get hung up on what, for us, is the hinge of the story. “I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground.” The fear speaks to us, we can relate to it, we know what it means to be afraid of not measuring up, of not performing well, we can see the disappointment in the eyes of our parents and teachers, our spouses and our children when we don’t measure up, we don’t fulfill their expectations. And so, to protect ourselves and to keep from failing anyone, we work harder and harder and we make more and more rules, so we all know how the game is played, what it takes to succeed and what you have to do to get in. Even up to what it is you have to do to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. And even then, we aren’t so sure that the outer darkness isn’t waiting for us after all.
And we hear the servant’s characterization of the master as a condemnation instead of an accurate assessment. The servant meant it as a condemnation, he called the master ‘a harsh man’. Yet, look at the image he uses, one of the sower and the seed, sowing and reaping without regard for rules and regulations, sowing and reaping abundantly and fearlessly.
I was talking to a fellow clergyperson one day who was describing a funeral that he had attended with some of the leaders of the congregation where he was serving. After the funeral, they were all sitting down at a meal when one of the women commented on how difficult it was not knowing if you would really make it to heaven or not until you got there. That you just had to work and hope. And he turned to her and asked “Do you believe that Jesus was the Son of God and died for your sins?” Taken aback, she replied “Of course.” “Then what are you worried about?”
That’s where the disconnect is. We don’t think that having faith and living in grace and gratitude is enough. We are afraid there must be something more and we end up living into a works-righteousness mindset that says: “If I just work hard enough I can get there on my own.” That my work can equal God’s righteousness and works-righteousness is the wheel in the hamster cage where the hamster runs faster and faster, harder and harder but never gets anywhere, never gets out of the cage.
Brothers and sisters hear the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ: You can’t get there on your own. You can never work hard enough, be holy enough, you can’t fulfill the Law of Moses any more than you can be just like Jesus. Salvation is not a wage you earn but a gift that’s free. This parable isn’t about our behavior.
It’s about God.
It’s about a Master who gives freely. This is Jesus again telling them and us that he is going away and he may be gone a long time, longer than we expect. But he is giving us what we need to take care of ourselves and each other in his absence. What if the talenta isn’t about money or our personalities? What if the talenta he bestows is the presence of the Holy Spirit and that is what we an either live into and multiply or we can bury deep in our hearts because we are afraid?
There are two things that people seem to be most afraid of: death and meaninglessness. Being afraid of dying physically and being afraid of living life with no purpose, no meaning. Our loving God has delivered us from both.
Our lives in our time seem to be characterized by rules and regulations. Life in Christ is about living deeply into the presence of God, so deeply that his love and grace spill over into the lives of those around us. Life is about living abundantly and fearlessly in the kingdom of God in the world. We can know we are saved. John Wesley wrote about his heart being strangely warmed that night at Aldersgate. He wrote: “And I knew that God loved me, even me.” We as United Methodist Christians claim that we can know by real human experience that we are saved from our sins and we live lives of grace and gratitude, not works-righteousness and trying to make it. I am not talking about cheap grace here. This is not about well, I’ve been baptized so my ticket is punched and I am waiting at the station. Not at all. I am talking about knowing we have been given the gift of salvation and living out our lives in gratitude.
We celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism as the outward sign of the inward grace of being adopted into God’s family. And you can’t be un-adopted, emancipated from God unless you work really hard at it and you are the one doing the emancipating. We enter into the Sacrament of Holy Communion as the outward sign of the inward grace of belonging at God’s family table, that Thanksgiving Table when we all will be gathered together not on this side of Gethsemane and Calvary but full yon the other side.
How are you living today? Are you living fearlessly, abundantly, sowing and reaping, walking with God through the salvation of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit? Or have you buried your talenta so it is muffled and powerless, so you don’t have to think about it or deal with it? The choice is yours today, while it is still day, to dig down deeply, let the light of Christ shine into your life and the lives around you, to face your fear head on and know that the victory has been claimed, the battle is over and that grace is abundant and free.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Knowing what time it is
20081109IThessMatt
Wisdom is knowing what time it is. (NTW) That is the essential truth behind all of today’s lectionary readings. In Joshua, he stands before the children of Israel as they prepare to cross into the Promised Land. He guides them into entering a solemn covenant with God. The reading is a conversation between Joshua and the people: “Joshua said:” “The people said:” At one point, Joshua bluntly tells them they aren’t ready, they aren’t holy enough and he issues that stirring question that echoes down through the ages: Choose you this day whom you will serve. It was time to cross over into this new land full of challenges and promise but it was up to the Israelites to decide what time it was, time to follow or time to turn away. Two of the tribes decided to stay on the eastern side of the river. They crossed over but then, when the country was secure, they returned to the eastern shore. Eternally, it seems to me, straddling the fence, trying to both live inside God’s promises and outside them. But wisdom is knowing what time it is, what decisions have to made in the here and now that must be lived up to and lived into in the future.
In Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, he mixes three different images of the end times in this short space of verses. If you unravel this tightly-knitted imagery, you hear the echoes of , in Exodus, Israel’s leaders going up the mountain to meet Moses. There is the echo of Daniel 7 and people exalted ‘on the clouds’ and the historic Roman Empire image of the people of a city going out to meet their ruler and escorting him back into their city. That was common practice in Bible times for the people of a city to go out along the road to meet the ruler, who wasn’t normally resident in the city, came to visit, to enforce the law and introduce new law, the people would go out to meet him on the road as he came and they would form a joyful procession back into the city and into the throne room. (My thanks to N.T. Wright for his pulling together of these exegetical threads. A Year of Sundays, Year A, pg. 123). Paul’s point in his description of this apocalyptic eschatology (which is a $20 term for discussions of what the end times will be like) is that it is vital to know what time it is. Paul’s point is to remind the Thessalonians that in the midst of their current problem: their impatience for Paul’s return to them. By using all of these images knitted tightly together, Paul is redirecting their focus from his return to the return of Jesus, the One for whom and with whom they are all waiting and working in the first place. Paul is reminding them that the wise choice is to know what time it is, in God’s time looking forward to God’s return.
So in turning to the gospel of Matthew and the parable of the ten bridesmaids, it is easy to see the point of the parable. As Brenda Lewis reminded us Wednesday night, parables are earthly stories with heavenly meanings. In this earthly story we hear again the echo of the ‘going out.’ The bridesmaids were waiting for the groom, some were ready, some were not. When they received word that the groom was on his way, they went out to meet him. Those that were prepared went into the house with him and the door was shut. Those who were not ready, who didn’t know what time it was, were left outside.
So wisdom is knowing what time it is. So what do we do with that wisdom? We make sure we are ready, make sure our lamps are filled, that we are listening for the voice of the bridegroom. The wise bridesmaids knew what was going to happen, they knew what their place in the ritual was and they were prepared to do what they needed to do.
Let’s take that to our level. Knowing what time it is means that we know that we are waiting for Christ’s breaking in to our lives. We know the Bible tells us that someday Jesus will return in triumphal glory but it is also true that He breaks into our lives every day when He asks us to choose whom we will serve. Christ calls us to come out and meet him, to move from where we are to where He is at work in the world. As Christians we know we are part of the Biblical story and that we each have a unique place, a unique part to play. We can discover that part through knowing God, studying the Bible and being part of a faithful Christian community.
So let me ask you this morning, do you know what time it is? And are you ready? Maybe being ready for you means accepting Christ as He is breaking into your life, asking for your heart, for your love. Maybe being ready for you is realizing that you have been using the oil in your lamp, your God-given giftedness in ways that are wasteful and don’t reflect God’s glory. Maybe it’s time to think again about what your life is really like, where you’re headed, what the goal is. Maybe for you being ready means making the commitment to this body of believers, saying that yes, I believe God is at work in the community here and I want to be part of it. Whatever ‘being ready’ means in your life, my prayer for you this morning is that you heed the question of Joshua, Yeshua, Jesus: Choose you this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Wisdom is knowing what time it is. (NTW) That is the essential truth behind all of today’s lectionary readings. In Joshua, he stands before the children of Israel as they prepare to cross into the Promised Land. He guides them into entering a solemn covenant with God. The reading is a conversation between Joshua and the people: “Joshua said:” “The people said:” At one point, Joshua bluntly tells them they aren’t ready, they aren’t holy enough and he issues that stirring question that echoes down through the ages: Choose you this day whom you will serve. It was time to cross over into this new land full of challenges and promise but it was up to the Israelites to decide what time it was, time to follow or time to turn away. Two of the tribes decided to stay on the eastern side of the river. They crossed over but then, when the country was secure, they returned to the eastern shore. Eternally, it seems to me, straddling the fence, trying to both live inside God’s promises and outside them. But wisdom is knowing what time it is, what decisions have to made in the here and now that must be lived up to and lived into in the future.
In Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, he mixes three different images of the end times in this short space of verses. If you unravel this tightly-knitted imagery, you hear the echoes of , in Exodus, Israel’s leaders going up the mountain to meet Moses. There is the echo of Daniel 7 and people exalted ‘on the clouds’ and the historic Roman Empire image of the people of a city going out to meet their ruler and escorting him back into their city. That was common practice in Bible times for the people of a city to go out along the road to meet the ruler, who wasn’t normally resident in the city, came to visit, to enforce the law and introduce new law, the people would go out to meet him on the road as he came and they would form a joyful procession back into the city and into the throne room. (My thanks to N.T. Wright for his pulling together of these exegetical threads. A Year of Sundays, Year A, pg. 123). Paul’s point in his description of this apocalyptic eschatology (which is a $20 term for discussions of what the end times will be like) is that it is vital to know what time it is. Paul’s point is to remind the Thessalonians that in the midst of their current problem: their impatience for Paul’s return to them. By using all of these images knitted tightly together, Paul is redirecting their focus from his return to the return of Jesus, the One for whom and with whom they are all waiting and working in the first place. Paul is reminding them that the wise choice is to know what time it is, in God’s time looking forward to God’s return.
So in turning to the gospel of Matthew and the parable of the ten bridesmaids, it is easy to see the point of the parable. As Brenda Lewis reminded us Wednesday night, parables are earthly stories with heavenly meanings. In this earthly story we hear again the echo of the ‘going out.’ The bridesmaids were waiting for the groom, some were ready, some were not. When they received word that the groom was on his way, they went out to meet him. Those that were prepared went into the house with him and the door was shut. Those who were not ready, who didn’t know what time it was, were left outside.
So wisdom is knowing what time it is. So what do we do with that wisdom? We make sure we are ready, make sure our lamps are filled, that we are listening for the voice of the bridegroom. The wise bridesmaids knew what was going to happen, they knew what their place in the ritual was and they were prepared to do what they needed to do.
Let’s take that to our level. Knowing what time it is means that we know that we are waiting for Christ’s breaking in to our lives. We know the Bible tells us that someday Jesus will return in triumphal glory but it is also true that He breaks into our lives every day when He asks us to choose whom we will serve. Christ calls us to come out and meet him, to move from where we are to where He is at work in the world. As Christians we know we are part of the Biblical story and that we each have a unique place, a unique part to play. We can discover that part through knowing God, studying the Bible and being part of a faithful Christian community.
So let me ask you this morning, do you know what time it is? And are you ready? Maybe being ready for you means accepting Christ as He is breaking into your life, asking for your heart, for your love. Maybe being ready for you is realizing that you have been using the oil in your lamp, your God-given giftedness in ways that are wasteful and don’t reflect God’s glory. Maybe it’s time to think again about what your life is really like, where you’re headed, what the goal is. Maybe for you being ready means making the commitment to this body of believers, saying that yes, I believe God is at work in the community here and I want to be part of it. Whatever ‘being ready’ means in your life, my prayer for you this morning is that you heed the question of Joshua, Yeshua, Jesus: Choose you this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Legalism or Messy Sentiment? Neither!
Why two Scripture readings today (Matthew23: 1-12, I Tess. 2:9-13) ? Because they strikingly show how the life and words of Christ continued to echo, to be lived out in the life and work of the Apostle Paul and must continue to be lived out in our lives as well. Not as legalism and not as sentimentality, but as the true love of God.
"Paul’s life was more than a ministry project. As I read and re-read these verses, I am struck by the frequent terms of endearment used. From all appearances, the Thessalonians had become as dear to Paul's company as family members. Ministry among them was so important to Paul that he worked with his hands to avoid being a financial burden to them and reminded them in this letter that his only reason for sharing the good news with them was his love for them and their need for the good news from God. I am not sure that we know what it means to be that in love with people -- either inside or outside the family circle. Remember these are not my words….
If Paul were writing these words to us, what pleadings might he make?
• I did not come to you for the prestige of the appointment…
• I did not come for salary…
• I did not come to impress the DS or to placate my spouse…
• I am simply here because I love you and I love God.
For God so loved the world… " GBOD/Worship
Compare and contrast the Pharisees to whom Jesus was speaking and Paul, the apostle who so tenderly loved the Christians at Thessalonica. Jesus told the people to do what the teachers said (their preaching was OK) but not to live like they did. For their lives spoke louder than their words. Paul lived that out among the Thessalonians. His life was congruent with his message about Jesus.
What does that look like in the here and now, in our Monday through Saturday lives? It means leading our heart instead of letting our hearts lead us. How many times have we heard and even used the self-justification “It just feels right”? There are a lot of things that may feel right at the moment but are dead wrong in the long run.
That’s why we must be so careful about guarding our hearts, being carried away with emotionalism and sentimentality and calling it the tide of the Holy Spirit. That’s why in Methodism we hold Scripture as foundational and allow our interpretation of Scripture to be informed by tradition, reason and experience. Too much emphasis on one of those three over and above the other two is a recipe for disaster. And throwing any one of those three out also leads to a life that is unbalanced, a life lived disfigured and mutated.
Let’s give the Pharisees some credit here. I do believe that they were trying to get it right, trying to fulfill the Mosaic Law the best way they could. At least the 98% of them that weren’t trying to get rid of Jesus. But they had tied heavy burdens of do’s and don’ts on their followers. In the days after Jesus, it would get even worse with the Midrashic laws and the interpretations of the great rabbis. The Midrash was the interpretation of the laws of the Pharisees and over time the laws have been interpreted again and again so that there has been an exponential adding-to of the law code and it is impossible to fulfill.
Protestants can’t escape from this condemnation either. One of the things we celebrate today is that it is Reformation Sunday, the remembrance of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, nailed to the cathedral door at Wittenberg, 95 protests against the excesses and excessive legalism of the church and in some ways, it is time for another Martin Luther, another dramatic reckoning and reformation of the way we DO church, who we are AS the church. Martin Luther's definition of sin was a person 'turned in on themselves." Doesn't thats till echo true across the centuries. As I told a chapel full of students the other day, it is no accident that the word SIN has an "I" right in the middle.
It is our human tendency to want rules, logic and order, measurable results. One of the things I find personally frustrating about my pastoral ministry is that when someone asks me how church was last Sunday, I immediately reply with how many people were there, or how much money we raised. As if those measurable things were what God was really concerned with.
I believe he is much more concerned with
• The condition of our hearts,
• with the ways we love each other,
• with the ways we are challenged and empowered to change,
• to step out in faith,
• to be more like Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit.
But it is easier to resort to numbers instead of discerning and celebrating the moving of the Holy Spirit.
On the other extreme, we can float off, soar off, on a whirlwind of emotion, of feel good music and preaching that reminds us how great we are, how great God is, how easy we will have it in the long run, in the sweet by and by. And that makes it easy to forget and to dismiss the hard work of the here and now.
Jesus said: "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach……The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. Paul told the Thessalonians: As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.
As we move to the Communion Table this morning, I want to tell you of a man who had a great influence on me in the years when I was a stay-at-home mom. Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s before there was Food Network, PBS had all the good cooking shows and one of them was a show called “The Frugal Gourmet.” Jeff Smith was an ordained Methodist minister in Seattle, WA, who somehow or another had become a TV chef. He wrote a theology/cookbook in about 1995 called The Frugal Gourmet Keeps the Feast. It is an exploration of food and food traditions in the biblical world and how that translates into today. At the end of the book, he tells what he thinks that eternal communion table will be like. That the 5 people he least wants to spend eternity with will be there seated right across from him. And he said that image motivates him to work on forgiving them, to work on changing, doing the hard work of love, intentional love that wants the best for the other, the love God has for us.
Humility, forgiveness, self-giving love – that is the hard work to which we are called. And that is the life we are empowered to live through him who first loved us.
"Paul’s life was more than a ministry project. As I read and re-read these verses, I am struck by the frequent terms of endearment used. From all appearances, the Thessalonians had become as dear to Paul's company as family members. Ministry among them was so important to Paul that he worked with his hands to avoid being a financial burden to them and reminded them in this letter that his only reason for sharing the good news with them was his love for them and their need for the good news from God. I am not sure that we know what it means to be that in love with people -- either inside or outside the family circle. Remember these are not my words….
If Paul were writing these words to us, what pleadings might he make?
• I did not come to you for the prestige of the appointment…
• I did not come for salary…
• I did not come to impress the DS or to placate my spouse…
• I am simply here because I love you and I love God.
For God so loved the world… " GBOD/Worship
Compare and contrast the Pharisees to whom Jesus was speaking and Paul, the apostle who so tenderly loved the Christians at Thessalonica. Jesus told the people to do what the teachers said (their preaching was OK) but not to live like they did. For their lives spoke louder than their words. Paul lived that out among the Thessalonians. His life was congruent with his message about Jesus.
What does that look like in the here and now, in our Monday through Saturday lives? It means leading our heart instead of letting our hearts lead us. How many times have we heard and even used the self-justification “It just feels right”? There are a lot of things that may feel right at the moment but are dead wrong in the long run.
That’s why we must be so careful about guarding our hearts, being carried away with emotionalism and sentimentality and calling it the tide of the Holy Spirit. That’s why in Methodism we hold Scripture as foundational and allow our interpretation of Scripture to be informed by tradition, reason and experience. Too much emphasis on one of those three over and above the other two is a recipe for disaster. And throwing any one of those three out also leads to a life that is unbalanced, a life lived disfigured and mutated.
Let’s give the Pharisees some credit here. I do believe that they were trying to get it right, trying to fulfill the Mosaic Law the best way they could. At least the 98% of them that weren’t trying to get rid of Jesus. But they had tied heavy burdens of do’s and don’ts on their followers. In the days after Jesus, it would get even worse with the Midrashic laws and the interpretations of the great rabbis. The Midrash was the interpretation of the laws of the Pharisees and over time the laws have been interpreted again and again so that there has been an exponential adding-to of the law code and it is impossible to fulfill.
Protestants can’t escape from this condemnation either. One of the things we celebrate today is that it is Reformation Sunday, the remembrance of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, nailed to the cathedral door at Wittenberg, 95 protests against the excesses and excessive legalism of the church and in some ways, it is time for another Martin Luther, another dramatic reckoning and reformation of the way we DO church, who we are AS the church. Martin Luther's definition of sin was a person 'turned in on themselves." Doesn't thats till echo true across the centuries. As I told a chapel full of students the other day, it is no accident that the word SIN has an "I" right in the middle.
It is our human tendency to want rules, logic and order, measurable results. One of the things I find personally frustrating about my pastoral ministry is that when someone asks me how church was last Sunday, I immediately reply with how many people were there, or how much money we raised. As if those measurable things were what God was really concerned with.
I believe he is much more concerned with
• The condition of our hearts,
• with the ways we love each other,
• with the ways we are challenged and empowered to change,
• to step out in faith,
• to be more like Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit.
But it is easier to resort to numbers instead of discerning and celebrating the moving of the Holy Spirit.
On the other extreme, we can float off, soar off, on a whirlwind of emotion, of feel good music and preaching that reminds us how great we are, how great God is, how easy we will have it in the long run, in the sweet by and by. And that makes it easy to forget and to dismiss the hard work of the here and now.
Jesus said: "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach……The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. Paul told the Thessalonians: As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.
As we move to the Communion Table this morning, I want to tell you of a man who had a great influence on me in the years when I was a stay-at-home mom. Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s before there was Food Network, PBS had all the good cooking shows and one of them was a show called “The Frugal Gourmet.” Jeff Smith was an ordained Methodist minister in Seattle, WA, who somehow or another had become a TV chef. He wrote a theology/cookbook in about 1995 called The Frugal Gourmet Keeps the Feast. It is an exploration of food and food traditions in the biblical world and how that translates into today. At the end of the book, he tells what he thinks that eternal communion table will be like. That the 5 people he least wants to spend eternity with will be there seated right across from him. And he said that image motivates him to work on forgiving them, to work on changing, doing the hard work of love, intentional love that wants the best for the other, the love God has for us.
Humility, forgiveness, self-giving love – that is the hard work to which we are called. And that is the life we are empowered to live through him who first loved us.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Conversation - First and Last
Someone once said that home is the place where they have to take you in. Not a very flattering image but one that rings true for those of us who have raised teenagers. But here we are at homecoming, for some of us it is truly that: a return to and a celebration in the place where we feel the most comfortable, where we have served God and others. To some of us, it doesn’t feel like home at all. It feels like a strange and foreign place where the natives speak a form of the language we know but we aren’t sure of our place, where we fit in, where we belong or what is going to happen next.
The word home in this context also brings up images of heaven, that place where we will go when we die, that place of rest and peace where the suffering and the conflict of this world will be ended and there will be no more crying, no more tears, no more night. We think of Jesus’ words in John 14 where he tells the disciples and us that He has gone to prepare a place for us in that land where his Father has prepared many mansions. The songs we sing here, like the one we just sang, “Sweet Beulah Land”, abound with such imagery. We can spend a lot of time imagining what heaven will be like and that is a valuable exercise but it brings up a pressing question. What are we to be about here in the light of the reality of God and the reality of salvation? If we only concentrate on going to heaven when we die, it is easy to ignore or mis-use the gifts we have been given here. So what are we to be about and where is God in this?
For that, I think we can go back to the Exodus text. Let’s place it in he context of where it is in the book of Exodus and where it is in the overarching meta-narrative of Scripture. These words are some of Moses’ last words to the God with whom he has journeyed from the beginning of the narrative until now. Moses has lead the people out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, across the wilderness and now they are facing entering the Promised Land. One more time, Moses and God talk together on the top of a mountain. If you can see and hear the echoes of the conversation Moses and God had originally, back in the light of the burning bush you are on the right track. That was the first of these conversations and this is one of the last. At that first conversation, Moses asked God “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?” and God replied: “I will be with you.” And in that conversation, back and forth, Moses said what about this and this and this? And God replied “I will be with you and I am who I am.” Honestly, to us that doesn’t seem like a very good answer does it? We want to know what God is going to do and He replies to us, as He did to Moses: This is what I am like. This is who I am.
In our text today, in chapter 33, verse 19 Moses says to God: “Show me your glory.” And God responds: “I will make my goodness pass before you.” Hear the difference. Moses is asking God to do a mighty act, some glorious something that will keep these rag-tag Isreailtes in line, something that will keep them from another ‘golden-calf’-type incident. Moses wants God to do the work. Amaze them, scare them to death so that they will fall in line.
Some scholars say that Moses is asking to really see God’s face, to really be sure who God is. Moses wants God’s assurance that God will not just go with him but do what needs to be done. Yet, God assures Moses of God’s goodness, his nature and that God will work his power through Moses.
This has to be because if God just takes over and makes everything perfect for us, then we necessarily become robots and can’t love him freely. So because God loves us, He can’t take over and be fully present but His nature of love means that He works through us to accomplish His will in the world.
Moses says “I want to see you.” GLORY
God says “I want you to know me.” GOODNESS
Because of the golden calf incident, because of the people’s sin in the wilderness, their relationship with God has necessarily changed. God can’t come and dwell among them in the fullness of Himself, anymore than Adam and Eve could walk with God in the cool of the day in the Garden of Eden because of their sin. But the Bible is the story of God at work in the world, constantly reaching out to us in relationship and in love. And again and again we as flawed humans sin and distance ourselves from the one who created us and loved us the most.
But brothers and sisters, hear the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ:
In the coming of Jesus to earth to live and love as a human, the sins of Eden and Sinai are superceded, we can see God face to face, Moses’ request is fulfilled and we see both God’s glory and his goodness. The God whose face is unveiled at last in self-giving love (NTW).
Does the fact that Jesus has come into the world mean that we throw out the Old Testament? No, we see and hear in Moses’ the foreshadowing of our own questions, our own needs. If God is so great, the world asks, if He os so great and so powerful, why doesn’t he just set the world to rights? Why doesn’t he get this over with? That is Moses’ request: Show us your glory. The theologian Henri Nouwen wrote about it this way: “What makes the temptation for power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God rthan to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life. The long painful history of the church is the history of people ever and again tempted to choose power over love, control over the cross, being a leader over being led. Those who resisted this temptation to the end and thereby give us hope are true saints.” – In the Name of Jesus.
And hear God’s response to Moses, to us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit: I will show you my goodness, I want you to know me. The Christian life isn’t about signs and wonders, it’s about the difficult and messy work of relationship. It’s about pain and suffering, it’s about grace and forgiveness received, offered and received again, over and over and over. It’s about sinking into the quiet intimate times of communication where words themselves are unnecessary and living through the painstaking work of being heard and understood, of hearing and understanding. And all those things are true both in our horizontal relationships, the ones we have with other people as well as being true in the relationship with have with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
Where are you this morning? Are you tired and worn out and fed up? Good, you are in exactly the right place to receive the refreshing grace of the living God. Are you living your life expectantly waiting for what God has for you next? Here among this family, you are at home for we wait also, to see where God is already at work and to join him there. L.L. Nash who was the pastor of this church from 1872-1874 tells this story of his call to this church:
We are not Christians to simply see the phenomenon of God’s glory but to receive and to give, to do the work of loving God and loving others in this world. Brothers and sisters in the light of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is time to get to work.
The word home in this context also brings up images of heaven, that place where we will go when we die, that place of rest and peace where the suffering and the conflict of this world will be ended and there will be no more crying, no more tears, no more night. We think of Jesus’ words in John 14 where he tells the disciples and us that He has gone to prepare a place for us in that land where his Father has prepared many mansions. The songs we sing here, like the one we just sang, “Sweet Beulah Land”, abound with such imagery. We can spend a lot of time imagining what heaven will be like and that is a valuable exercise but it brings up a pressing question. What are we to be about here in the light of the reality of God and the reality of salvation? If we only concentrate on going to heaven when we die, it is easy to ignore or mis-use the gifts we have been given here. So what are we to be about and where is God in this?
For that, I think we can go back to the Exodus text. Let’s place it in he context of where it is in the book of Exodus and where it is in the overarching meta-narrative of Scripture. These words are some of Moses’ last words to the God with whom he has journeyed from the beginning of the narrative until now. Moses has lead the people out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, across the wilderness and now they are facing entering the Promised Land. One more time, Moses and God talk together on the top of a mountain. If you can see and hear the echoes of the conversation Moses and God had originally, back in the light of the burning bush you are on the right track. That was the first of these conversations and this is one of the last. At that first conversation, Moses asked God “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?” and God replied: “I will be with you.” And in that conversation, back and forth, Moses said what about this and this and this? And God replied “I will be with you and I am who I am.” Honestly, to us that doesn’t seem like a very good answer does it? We want to know what God is going to do and He replies to us, as He did to Moses: This is what I am like. This is who I am.
In our text today, in chapter 33, verse 19 Moses says to God: “Show me your glory.” And God responds: “I will make my goodness pass before you.” Hear the difference. Moses is asking God to do a mighty act, some glorious something that will keep these rag-tag Isreailtes in line, something that will keep them from another ‘golden-calf’-type incident. Moses wants God to do the work. Amaze them, scare them to death so that they will fall in line.
Some scholars say that Moses is asking to really see God’s face, to really be sure who God is. Moses wants God’s assurance that God will not just go with him but do what needs to be done. Yet, God assures Moses of God’s goodness, his nature and that God will work his power through Moses.
This has to be because if God just takes over and makes everything perfect for us, then we necessarily become robots and can’t love him freely. So because God loves us, He can’t take over and be fully present but His nature of love means that He works through us to accomplish His will in the world.
Moses says “I want to see you.” GLORY
God says “I want you to know me.” GOODNESS
Because of the golden calf incident, because of the people’s sin in the wilderness, their relationship with God has necessarily changed. God can’t come and dwell among them in the fullness of Himself, anymore than Adam and Eve could walk with God in the cool of the day in the Garden of Eden because of their sin. But the Bible is the story of God at work in the world, constantly reaching out to us in relationship and in love. And again and again we as flawed humans sin and distance ourselves from the one who created us and loved us the most.
But brothers and sisters, hear the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ:
In the coming of Jesus to earth to live and love as a human, the sins of Eden and Sinai are superceded, we can see God face to face, Moses’ request is fulfilled and we see both God’s glory and his goodness. The God whose face is unveiled at last in self-giving love (NTW).
Does the fact that Jesus has come into the world mean that we throw out the Old Testament? No, we see and hear in Moses’ the foreshadowing of our own questions, our own needs. If God is so great, the world asks, if He os so great and so powerful, why doesn’t he just set the world to rights? Why doesn’t he get this over with? That is Moses’ request: Show us your glory. The theologian Henri Nouwen wrote about it this way: “What makes the temptation for power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God rthan to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life. The long painful history of the church is the history of people ever and again tempted to choose power over love, control over the cross, being a leader over being led. Those who resisted this temptation to the end and thereby give us hope are true saints.” – In the Name of Jesus.
And hear God’s response to Moses, to us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit: I will show you my goodness, I want you to know me. The Christian life isn’t about signs and wonders, it’s about the difficult and messy work of relationship. It’s about pain and suffering, it’s about grace and forgiveness received, offered and received again, over and over and over. It’s about sinking into the quiet intimate times of communication where words themselves are unnecessary and living through the painstaking work of being heard and understood, of hearing and understanding. And all those things are true both in our horizontal relationships, the ones we have with other people as well as being true in the relationship with have with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
Where are you this morning? Are you tired and worn out and fed up? Good, you are in exactly the right place to receive the refreshing grace of the living God. Are you living your life expectantly waiting for what God has for you next? Here among this family, you are at home for we wait also, to see where God is already at work and to join him there. L.L. Nash who was the pastor of this church from 1872-1874 tells this story of his call to this church:
We are not Christians to simply see the phenomenon of God’s glory but to receive and to give, to do the work of loving God and loving others in this world. Brothers and sisters in the light of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is time to get to work.
How to hear the Word
I have copied for you here a short but incredibly powerful hermeneutic statement from NT Wright. Read slowly, savor and enjoy! Kelli
The Fourfold Amor Dei and the Word of God
intervention by the Rt Revd N. T. Wright, Bishop of Durham (Church of England)
Synod of Bishops, 14 October 2008
Your Holiness; your Eminences and Excellences; brothers and sisters in Christ:
It is an honour and privilege to be here, and to bring you greetings from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
We face the same challenges as you: not only secularism and relativism, but also postmodernity. Challenges, though, bring fresh insights and opportunities. Uncritical rejection of cultural pressures is as unwise as uncritical embracing. Uncertainy here breeds anxiety, and I have detected some anxiety in this Synod: anxiety that the Bible might tell us things we didn’t expect or want to hear, and also anxiety lest the Bible’s powerful message should be stifled.
To get the balance right, I propose a fourfold reading of scripture. We are to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength.
1. The heart: Lectio Divina, private meditation and prayer, and above all the readings in the eucharist.
2. The mind: historical study of the text and its original contextual meaning.
3. The soul: the ongoing life of the church, its tradition and teaching office.
4. The strength: the mission of the church, the work of God’s kingdom.
Some insist on the heart to the exclusion of mind, soul and strength. Then you have a dangerous and vulnerable anti-intellectualism. But with modern critical study you often have the opposite: thousands of pages of research from which we only hear the faintest echo of the word of God: parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Then we bishops naturally react, insisting on ‘devotional’ reading only, or strict magisterial control. We then run the risk that we never hear God saying anything which has not already been controlled and neutralised. We need all four ‘loves’, in proper balance, as our hermeneutical principle.
In particular, we need fresh mission-oriented engagement with our own culture. Paragraph 57 of the Instrumentum Laboris implies that Paul’s cultural engagement on the Areopagus merely purifies and elevates what is there in the culture. This, to be sure, is part of it. Paul begins with the Altar to the Unknown God, and speaks of the true God. But Paul also confronts head-on the idolatry of ancient paganism, its temples and sacrifices. In our own culture, some elements need purifying and elevating, but we must also confront idolatry (today, in particular, Mammon!). This cultural discernment applies not least to the tools and methods of historical/critical scholarship themselves. As a religion of incarnation, we are bound to do historical research. But this is sometimes confused with scepticism, and we must distinguish.
So, yes, we read the Canon as a whole; but the climax of the Canon is Jesus Christ, especially his cross and resurrection. These events are not only salvific. They provide a hermeneutical principle, related to the Jewish tradition of ‘critique from within’. The narrative of scripture enshrines the path of death and resurrection as the principle for its own understanding.
H. E. Cardinal Dias gave a splendid lecture at the Lambeth Conference, in which he spoke of three moments in the life of Mary: Fiat, Magnificat and Stabat. To these, I add the other relevant verb, which Luke repeats: Conservabat. Let us apply these to our reading of scripture. First, God calls us through scripture in sovereign love and grace, and the response of the obedient mind is Fiat: let it be to me according to your word. Then we celebrate, with our strength, the relevance of the word to new personal and especially political situations: Magnificat. Then we ponder in the heart what we have seen and heard: Conservabat. But scripture tells us that Mary, too, had to learn hard things: she wanted to control her son, but could not. Her soul is pierced with the sword, as she stands (Stabat) at the foot of the cross. We too must wait patiently, letting the written Word tell us things that may be unexpected or even unwelcome, but which are yet salvific. We read humbly, trusting God and waiting to see his purposes unfold.
Dunelmiensis dixi.
The Fourfold Amor Dei and the Word of God
intervention by the Rt Revd N. T. Wright, Bishop of Durham (Church of England)
Synod of Bishops, 14 October 2008
Your Holiness; your Eminences and Excellences; brothers and sisters in Christ:
It is an honour and privilege to be here, and to bring you greetings from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
We face the same challenges as you: not only secularism and relativism, but also postmodernity. Challenges, though, bring fresh insights and opportunities. Uncritical rejection of cultural pressures is as unwise as uncritical embracing. Uncertainy here breeds anxiety, and I have detected some anxiety in this Synod: anxiety that the Bible might tell us things we didn’t expect or want to hear, and also anxiety lest the Bible’s powerful message should be stifled.
To get the balance right, I propose a fourfold reading of scripture. We are to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength.
1. The heart: Lectio Divina, private meditation and prayer, and above all the readings in the eucharist.
2. The mind: historical study of the text and its original contextual meaning.
3. The soul: the ongoing life of the church, its tradition and teaching office.
4. The strength: the mission of the church, the work of God’s kingdom.
Some insist on the heart to the exclusion of mind, soul and strength. Then you have a dangerous and vulnerable anti-intellectualism. But with modern critical study you often have the opposite: thousands of pages of research from which we only hear the faintest echo of the word of God: parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Then we bishops naturally react, insisting on ‘devotional’ reading only, or strict magisterial control. We then run the risk that we never hear God saying anything which has not already been controlled and neutralised. We need all four ‘loves’, in proper balance, as our hermeneutical principle.
In particular, we need fresh mission-oriented engagement with our own culture. Paragraph 57 of the Instrumentum Laboris implies that Paul’s cultural engagement on the Areopagus merely purifies and elevates what is there in the culture. This, to be sure, is part of it. Paul begins with the Altar to the Unknown God, and speaks of the true God. But Paul also confronts head-on the idolatry of ancient paganism, its temples and sacrifices. In our own culture, some elements need purifying and elevating, but we must also confront idolatry (today, in particular, Mammon!). This cultural discernment applies not least to the tools and methods of historical/critical scholarship themselves. As a religion of incarnation, we are bound to do historical research. But this is sometimes confused with scepticism, and we must distinguish.
So, yes, we read the Canon as a whole; but the climax of the Canon is Jesus Christ, especially his cross and resurrection. These events are not only salvific. They provide a hermeneutical principle, related to the Jewish tradition of ‘critique from within’. The narrative of scripture enshrines the path of death and resurrection as the principle for its own understanding.
H. E. Cardinal Dias gave a splendid lecture at the Lambeth Conference, in which he spoke of three moments in the life of Mary: Fiat, Magnificat and Stabat. To these, I add the other relevant verb, which Luke repeats: Conservabat. Let us apply these to our reading of scripture. First, God calls us through scripture in sovereign love and grace, and the response of the obedient mind is Fiat: let it be to me according to your word. Then we celebrate, with our strength, the relevance of the word to new personal and especially political situations: Magnificat. Then we ponder in the heart what we have seen and heard: Conservabat. But scripture tells us that Mary, too, had to learn hard things: she wanted to control her son, but could not. Her soul is pierced with the sword, as she stands (Stabat) at the foot of the cross. We too must wait patiently, letting the written Word tell us things that may be unexpected or even unwelcome, but which are yet salvific. We read humbly, trusting God and waiting to see his purposes unfold.
Dunelmiensis dixi.
20081026Deu34
The Death of Moses
Today’s text is about the death of Moses. It is basically his obituary. Nobody likes to talk about death. But it is the final reality of life. We think about those who have passed away and we feel the deep ache that we will never again see them in this life and sometimes, even the assurance of seeing them again in heaven seems like a hollow promise. When we first read this text, we as humans focus not so much on what Moses did and the legacy that was his life. We focus on what he didn’t get to do. He didn’t get to enter the Promised Land, the destination toward which he led the Israelites for over 40 years. There is a lot of mystery that surrounds the death of Moses. Why didn’t he get to enter the Promised Land? Where is he buried? Why isn’t there some great shrine there to this one man who walked with God, and in shaping the band of Jewish refugees into a nation and the people of God, literally changed the world, changed culture and civilization even into our own time? This text raises a lot of questions. It raises more questions than it answers.
There are two underlying themes to the life and death of Moses that is described in this passage. Call and change. Those are the two things that categorized Moses’ life and the two things he had to facilitate in the lives of the people who followed God under his leadership. And across the centuries, those two things haven’t changed in the Kingdom of God. There is a saying that made the rounds a few years ago and it still holds true today: God loves you enough to meet you where you are (CALL) but He loves you to much to leave you that way (CHANGE).
God, through Jesus and through the Holy Spirit, meets us where we are emotionally, spiritually, physically. He meets us in prayer, in the Bible, in each other and in the situations and circumstances of our daily lives. He met Moses on a mountaintop in a mysterious burning bush. He met the apostle Paul on the Damascus Road. He met John Wesley in the middle of a stormy Atlantic Ocean and in the words of a teacher in a Bible class meeting. He met me in the words and actions of my faithful grandparents and in the soaring Christchurch Cathedral on Oxford, England. He meets each of us to assure us of his love and his saving grace. We have heard dramatic conversion stories, dramatic call stories, like the one from L.L. Nash, an early pastor of this church that I shared with you last week. But it is not just preachers and clergy that are called to God’s service. We are ALL called into God’s service. Yes, Moses is a towering, colossal figure in the three major religions of the world, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The Apostle Paul stands over us as a true Christian, one who was converted to belief in Christ and then proceeded to convert the world around him. The pastors who have stood in this pulpit, all the way down to me, have been called to be servants of God in this place.
But just as importantly, perhaps more importantly, YOU have been called to serve God in this place. God’s call on your life is that holy nudge, sometimes the holy shove you feel when you think about the place you’d like to serve. It’s the way your mind spins in a thousand creative directions when someone brings up an area that needs attention, a place where the church could be a stronger witness or a stronger agent for good in the world. Your call is the place where you are uniquely gifted by God to serve Him and only you can accomplish that task.
But God does not require what he doesn’t empower. And that’s where change comes in. Serving God, fulfilling your call, will take all you have but it will give you more than you can ever ask or imagine. In the beginning, we take baby steps. We change in small ways in response to the call of God in our lives. And then, as we grow in Christ and in working with the Holy Spirit, the changes get bigger and bigger, until one day we look around and our lives, ourselves are totally different than we ever expected them to be but better in good and life-giving ways.
Change is hard. When things are good, we want them to stay that way forever. How many of us as parents think of that moment when you held your new baby in your arms for the first time. We want that moment to go on and on. Where we can hold our children safe against us and nothing can hurt them and nothing can hurt us. But, as Bill Cosby says, babies are false advertising. They draw you in with smelling good and looking cute and begin cuddly. But then they become two and then 12 and then 17. Babies grow up to be teenagers and vital, energetic 30 year olds become senior citizens. There’s nothing we can do to atop that. No amount of Botox in the world can stop the hands of time. The best analogy I know is that we each go through seasons in our lives. A tiny acorn grows into a massive oak tree that will someday die and fall and the process will repeat itself. But we are humans, not oak trees. It matters what we do in the here and now. An acorn can only grow into one thing: an oak tree. But we as humans are gifted by God in a multitude of ways across all the seasons of our lives.
Moses is one of the pivotal figures in the biblical text because we see so much of his life. From abandoned baby to hotheaded young man, from a stuttering, stumbling half-hearted leader to righteously furious prophet,, who destroys the first set of stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. We see him grow from beleaguered shepherd of sheep to beleaguered shepherd of God’s people to the one who looked out across the mountaintop and the river to the Promised Land and then went on with God to that eternal Promised Land.
But, I can hear you thinking from all the way up here, I am NOT Moses. I am just me. But God’s need of Moses was no more and no less than his need of you.
The Gospel text for this Sunday is Matthew 22:34-46. In that reading, the Pharisees and Sadducees are testing Jesus, their last conversation with him before they put their fatal plan in motion. ‘What is the greatest commandment?’ they ask him. And that was a rhetorical question. All good Jews knew the answer already for it was the Shema, the Jewish prayer they each recited at least twice a day: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment and the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
But then Jesus turns the tables on them and asks them a question: “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” “The son of David” they answer, like the educated Jews they are. And then Jesus asks them a question that seems totally confusing to us. Something about David’s son also being David’s Lord but the bottom line is that Jesus was really asking them: “Who am I?” Am I the Messiah and are you willing to live like it? Or am I just another misguided Jew with political aspirations? The Pharisees could handle Jesus being David’s son. There were many Jewish men who claimed to be of the line of King David. What they couldn’t handle was Jesus’ divinity, the fact that he was also King David’s Lord. And we hear that even in the world today. People are willing to accept that Jesus was a good man, a good teacher but they refuse to accept that he was the Son of God. Why? Because then they’d have to change. Jesus is either Lord of All or he’s not Lord at all.
Jesus called the Pharisees and Sadducees to follow him, to believe in him but instead of surrendering their pride and their comfort, they fended him off with philosophical arguments and detailed reasons why not.
And Jesus stands before you and I today, here in this place and calls us. He calls us to follow him, to change, to live into being transformed by the Holy Spirit to be more like him, our Lord. Will you follow, will you step out, step up, stand up to be counted? Or will you find philosophical arguments and detailed reasons why you just can’t. There are decisions to be made every day in our lives but no decision is more important than choosing who you will follow and how.
Call and change: The two things that characterize the Christian life. Both come from God and lead us to God. No matter how long ago you first gave your heart and life to God, He is still calling, calling you deeper, calling you to change, calling you home.
The Death of Moses
Today’s text is about the death of Moses. It is basically his obituary. Nobody likes to talk about death. But it is the final reality of life. We think about those who have passed away and we feel the deep ache that we will never again see them in this life and sometimes, even the assurance of seeing them again in heaven seems like a hollow promise. When we first read this text, we as humans focus not so much on what Moses did and the legacy that was his life. We focus on what he didn’t get to do. He didn’t get to enter the Promised Land, the destination toward which he led the Israelites for over 40 years. There is a lot of mystery that surrounds the death of Moses. Why didn’t he get to enter the Promised Land? Where is he buried? Why isn’t there some great shrine there to this one man who walked with God, and in shaping the band of Jewish refugees into a nation and the people of God, literally changed the world, changed culture and civilization even into our own time? This text raises a lot of questions. It raises more questions than it answers.
There are two underlying themes to the life and death of Moses that is described in this passage. Call and change. Those are the two things that categorized Moses’ life and the two things he had to facilitate in the lives of the people who followed God under his leadership. And across the centuries, those two things haven’t changed in the Kingdom of God. There is a saying that made the rounds a few years ago and it still holds true today: God loves you enough to meet you where you are (CALL) but He loves you to much to leave you that way (CHANGE).
God, through Jesus and through the Holy Spirit, meets us where we are emotionally, spiritually, physically. He meets us in prayer, in the Bible, in each other and in the situations and circumstances of our daily lives. He met Moses on a mountaintop in a mysterious burning bush. He met the apostle Paul on the Damascus Road. He met John Wesley in the middle of a stormy Atlantic Ocean and in the words of a teacher in a Bible class meeting. He met me in the words and actions of my faithful grandparents and in the soaring Christchurch Cathedral on Oxford, England. He meets each of us to assure us of his love and his saving grace. We have heard dramatic conversion stories, dramatic call stories, like the one from L.L. Nash, an early pastor of this church that I shared with you last week. But it is not just preachers and clergy that are called to God’s service. We are ALL called into God’s service. Yes, Moses is a towering, colossal figure in the three major religions of the world, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The Apostle Paul stands over us as a true Christian, one who was converted to belief in Christ and then proceeded to convert the world around him. The pastors who have stood in this pulpit, all the way down to me, have been called to be servants of God in this place.
But just as importantly, perhaps more importantly, YOU have been called to serve God in this place. God’s call on your life is that holy nudge, sometimes the holy shove you feel when you think about the place you’d like to serve. It’s the way your mind spins in a thousand creative directions when someone brings up an area that needs attention, a place where the church could be a stronger witness or a stronger agent for good in the world. Your call is the place where you are uniquely gifted by God to serve Him and only you can accomplish that task.
But God does not require what he doesn’t empower. And that’s where change comes in. Serving God, fulfilling your call, will take all you have but it will give you more than you can ever ask or imagine. In the beginning, we take baby steps. We change in small ways in response to the call of God in our lives. And then, as we grow in Christ and in working with the Holy Spirit, the changes get bigger and bigger, until one day we look around and our lives, ourselves are totally different than we ever expected them to be but better in good and life-giving ways.
Change is hard. When things are good, we want them to stay that way forever. How many of us as parents think of that moment when you held your new baby in your arms for the first time. We want that moment to go on and on. Where we can hold our children safe against us and nothing can hurt them and nothing can hurt us. But, as Bill Cosby says, babies are false advertising. They draw you in with smelling good and looking cute and begin cuddly. But then they become two and then 12 and then 17. Babies grow up to be teenagers and vital, energetic 30 year olds become senior citizens. There’s nothing we can do to atop that. No amount of Botox in the world can stop the hands of time. The best analogy I know is that we each go through seasons in our lives. A tiny acorn grows into a massive oak tree that will someday die and fall and the process will repeat itself. But we are humans, not oak trees. It matters what we do in the here and now. An acorn can only grow into one thing: an oak tree. But we as humans are gifted by God in a multitude of ways across all the seasons of our lives.
Moses is one of the pivotal figures in the biblical text because we see so much of his life. From abandoned baby to hotheaded young man, from a stuttering, stumbling half-hearted leader to righteously furious prophet,, who destroys the first set of stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. We see him grow from beleaguered shepherd of sheep to beleaguered shepherd of God’s people to the one who looked out across the mountaintop and the river to the Promised Land and then went on with God to that eternal Promised Land.
But, I can hear you thinking from all the way up here, I am NOT Moses. I am just me. But God’s need of Moses was no more and no less than his need of you.
The Gospel text for this Sunday is Matthew 22:34-46. In that reading, the Pharisees and Sadducees are testing Jesus, their last conversation with him before they put their fatal plan in motion. ‘What is the greatest commandment?’ they ask him. And that was a rhetorical question. All good Jews knew the answer already for it was the Shema, the Jewish prayer they each recited at least twice a day: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment and the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
But then Jesus turns the tables on them and asks them a question: “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” “The son of David” they answer, like the educated Jews they are. And then Jesus asks them a question that seems totally confusing to us. Something about David’s son also being David’s Lord but the bottom line is that Jesus was really asking them: “Who am I?” Am I the Messiah and are you willing to live like it? Or am I just another misguided Jew with political aspirations? The Pharisees could handle Jesus being David’s son. There were many Jewish men who claimed to be of the line of King David. What they couldn’t handle was Jesus’ divinity, the fact that he was also King David’s Lord. And we hear that even in the world today. People are willing to accept that Jesus was a good man, a good teacher but they refuse to accept that he was the Son of God. Why? Because then they’d have to change. Jesus is either Lord of All or he’s not Lord at all.
Jesus called the Pharisees and Sadducees to follow him, to believe in him but instead of surrendering their pride and their comfort, they fended him off with philosophical arguments and detailed reasons why not.
And Jesus stands before you and I today, here in this place and calls us. He calls us to follow him, to change, to live into being transformed by the Holy Spirit to be more like him, our Lord. Will you follow, will you step out, step up, stand up to be counted? Or will you find philosophical arguments and detailed reasons why you just can’t. There are decisions to be made every day in our lives but no decision is more important than choosing who you will follow and how.
Call and change: The two things that characterize the Christian life. Both come from God and lead us to God. No matter how long ago you first gave your heart and life to God, He is still calling, calling you deeper, calling you to change, calling you home.
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