All We Like Sheep

Scripture Lessons: Ezekiel 34: 11-16 and 20-24, and Matthew 25: 31-46 Sermon Title: All We Like Sheep Preached on November 26, 2017 The book of Genesis begins our Bible, and tells us that out of an outpouring of love, God created the heavens, the earth, and the living things who inhabit the earth. On the earth, the Creator set a garden, and in this Garden, among other things, there was notably a man, a woman, a serpent, and a forbidden tree. You know the story – you know that the Creator said to the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” This was clear enough instruction, drawing the line between obedience and disobedience, but of course, the serpent suggested to the woman that they eat from it, and she did. Then she took some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. This was wrong, but it gets worse for after they ate they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. The Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” They were hiding, because that’s what people who have been disobedient do. Years ago, we were 10 or 11 and had the great idea that we’d explore the great big storm drain running beneath the Charlton Forge neighborhood where we lived. I don’t remember that we were explicitly forbidden from doing so – maybe our parents never imagined that we’d do such a thing, but we didn’t want to risk missing out, so without permission we explored the underbelly of our neighborhood and when I went back home my parents asked me what I had been doing. Assuming that they didn’t want me exploring the sewer, I told them I had just been over at Matt Buchanan’s house, which was sort of the truth, though it didn’t explain why I smelled so bad, so I was then grounded for two weeks, not only because I had disobeyed, but because I lied about it too. Such a two-fold ethical failure is what Church history calls the Fall of Man. And since the beginning, since the 2nd chapter of Genesis, we have been falling and falling again – first with an act of disobedience, then the cover-up which always makes things worse. This is the human condition. All we like sheep have gone astray. That chorus was in my mind this week as I read two of the many passages of Scripture that describe God’s people as sheep. This morning we have two Scripture passages where humans are personified as sheep, and so the song that was in my mind reading this last week was that great chorus from Handle’s Messiah: “All we like sheep, have gone astray.” That’s true. And what’s worse, is that once we’ve gone astray, we lie like Joe Evans or we hide like Adam and Eve – and why would we hide? We hide, because we misunderstand love, assuming that the natural result of going astray must be rejection, but that’s not so with a loving God. Here’s another familiar Bible story – a young man asks for his inheritance before his father has even died. Then he takes the money and squanders it on loose living – and loose living is exactly what you imagine it is – all the money’s gone, spent on things that nice people don’t spend money on. Assuming that he’ll be punished by his father for losing everything he’s afraid to return home. So, instead, he works as a laborer for so little that he winds up jealous over the pigs, who at least have pods to eat in their slop bucket. Only in desperation does he return home. Realizing that his father’s hired hands live better than this, and hoping to become one of them he goes back – but upon his return his father rushes out to embrace him, and treats him like a long-lost prince. Why? Because this is who God is – this is who the Bible describes God to be – not just the one who created us and legislated the great commands to guide our behavior, but the God of Scripture is also the Father who so deeply longs for his son to return home that he is full of forgiveness – the God of Scripture is a husband who’s love for his wife can never die – the God of Scripture is a Shepherd who goes after the lost sheep even after they’ve gone astray, then become trapped in the brambles of fallen-ness. All we like sheep – have gone astray – and the great God of heaven and earth longs to gather us in – “For thus says the Lord God (from the book of Ezekiel): I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep.” That’s God. That’s Scripture. Can you believe that? I hope you can – because it’s hard for me sometimes. Sometimes I go back to that image of God that I remember from fiery, manipulative preachers – who convinced me that the question was not whether or not I’d be going to Hell, but how soon. However, the message of Christianity as recorded in Scripture – is not condemnation for the imperfect. The Bible is not a record of continued abuse on the fallen. No, in the pages of Scripture are the magnificent stories of grace for the lost, and so that great hymn goes like this: Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me I once was lost but now am found Was blind but now I see All we like sheep, have gone astray, and the Shepherd longs to bring us home. That’s Christianity. Not perfection, not condemnation, not self-righteousness, not judgmental legalism that calls some good and some bad – no – this faith of ours is all about the Great Good News that Jesus Christ, Lord of all, created you and redeemed you, and now wants you to come home, and if you’re too ashamed, the Good Shepherd will even go out to find you so that he can bring you back. Here’s again what we read from the book of Ezekiel: I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep…I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak. But there’s a catch. The catch is in the next verse from our 1st Scripture Lesson: “but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.” And our Second Scripture Lesson put it another way. In this last parable of the 25th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, the separation of the sheep and the goats, we hear that there will be no entry into the Kingdom of Heaven without a recommendation from the poor, the imprisoned, the sick, the least of these – for if you believe that all we like sheep have gone astray but are welcomed home, if you’re ready to accept that kind of grace and that kind of undeserved salvation, then the requirement is that you remember that once you were lost – that once you were blind – that once you were wretched - so how can you not offer your kindred lost sheep the same grace that you have received? If you believe that all we like sheep have gone astray but are welcomed home, then you have to be ready to pass grace on to some other people who don’t deserve it either. And that’s hard – because once you’ve made it, it’s easy to forget where you came from. Think of Middle School – she was our best friend one minute, but the second she got caught picking her nose in class we all pretended we’d never met. Now we know that’s wrong, but it’s easy to keep doing it. If all we like sheep have gone astray – then we all have to remember who we were. So, life of a redeemed sheep has to look different too than that of the self-righteous. Those who won’t even speak the word divorce. Who pretend like their houses are always clean. That relative who makes you feel insecure when she asks about your children because you know what she’s really listening for. You know this lady – you probably saw her at Thanksgiving. There are too many like her – and there are far too many who call themselves Christians but who rejoice in pointing out the speak in their neighbor’s eye, blind to the log in their own, having long forgotten that all we like sheep have gone astray – and even they were once lost but have been found. We, who have received grace, cannot disassociate from those who need it. We cannot operate according to the rules of middle school or proper society. Because while many are mindful of being seen with the right kind of people, who you are seen with matters to Jesus too, but he expects you and me to be seen with the lost. His law is so different from the law of Middle School, for according to Scripture, the hand extended with dirt under the nails and no shoes on his feet is the one who holds the Keys to the Kingdom. The voice that’s dry and raspy, lips cracked – “sir, if only I had some water to drink” – it is this one who shows us the way to Eternal Life. The stranger who walks into town with a name that no one recognizes from a place that no one has ever heard of – she has an opportunity to offer you and me. For some who sought salvation asked: ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ These are questions that the condemned ask, because they failed to offer their kindred lost sheep the same grace that they once received. May these words guide your behavior: ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ All we like sheep have gone astray, and we can’t forget it. Because the lost sheep who has been found is obligated to share the same grace that she once received. Amen.

They Were Stewards of Their Lives

Scripture Lessons: Micah 3: 5-12 and Matthew 23: 1-12 Sermon Title: They Were Stewards of their Lives Preached on 11/12/17 I heard a joke at a Kiwanis meeting last week. Andrew Macintosh and I were proud to be the guests of Margaret Waldrep, and after lunch the speaker was introduced. Buck Rogers is his name. He’s the president of the State Bar of Georgia, and he gets up there and he says to the group, “Do you know how many lawyers there are in the state of Georgia?” And some smart Alek in the back shouts out: “Too many.” I like lawyer jokes, and I like them a lot better than preacher jokes. A group of kids were standing around having a lying contest, and the preacher over heard them. Offended by the idea that they’d compete in telling the biggest lie rather than practice being trustworthy and honest, he marches over there and tells them, “You boys should stop telling those lies and should be more like me. I always tell the truth.” They look at each other, and then shout: “You win pastor! That’s the biggest lie we ever heard” This morning Scripture demands that we come face to face with the reality, that the Church is not nearly so unlike Wall Street or Washington as I would like. That those many politicians, so self-serving as to be completely ineffective, that those business executives, so cutthroat as to worship the might dollar, are not so unlike a lot of clergy I know. And I went through college and seminary preparing myself to be different. That I would be real, faithful, and honest, but every day I face the same reality of being human, and spearing far more like a Pharisee than I would like. Jesus’ warning to them – it could be directed at me just as well. Jesus said that, “They do all their deeds to be seen by others.” And last Wednesday Night, there I was, finally in the kitchen, cooking for Wednesday Night Supper, so proud of myself that I put my picture all over Facebook, because I love to have all my deeds seen by others too. Did you see me posing with that pot? Jesus said that the Pharisees “do all their deeds to be seen by others,” and I have to be careful about that. Jesus also said that “They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues” and have you seen where I get to sit in here? Right up front. And then those Pharisees – Jesus said that, “They love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them Rabbi,” and maybe we don’t have a marketplace and maybe no one calls me Rabbi, but watch me walk through Kroger, scanning the aisle for who I might know. Unless I’m in the beer aisle that is. I am a sinner. There’s no doubt about it, but this is a reality, not to run away from or hide, this is a reality that I have to come to terms with, because here I am up in this pulpit. I have on this fancy robe, and this microphone that makes me feel like Madonna. But every time I put the stole around my neck, do you know what I think of? This stole represents the towel that Jesus used to wash the disciple’s feet. We preachers need to remember that. Because the model of Jesus is a different model than the world of business or commerce, politics or power. I’m not the CEO of First Presbyterian Church of Marietta, GA. No – to quote the Psalms: “I’m a doorkeeper in the house of my God.” That’s what I am. A sinner who can write a sermon and lead you in prayer, invited to help keep the doors of this mighty house of God open. Don’t let me forget that, because bringing honor to myself, falling down that trap that the Pharisees fell into, it will lead to the kind of self-serving misery that I long to avoid, for there is no more miserable person than the one who seeks only to honor himself. There’s a better way to live, and Jesus shows us how. Think about him – the Creator of the Universe, who comes down from heaven to wash the Disciples Feet. The all-powerful God – who takes on human sin and dies a criminal’s death. We know that he is full of mercy and truth, that he all divinity and majesty, but he lived a human’s life to proclaim a mighty Gospel. “Live this way,” he says. Not like those Pharisees who teach one thing and then do another – no – remember that “The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” Think about that. And remember – there’s no more miserable person than the one who always tries to get ahead without thinking of her neighbors. Joanne and Jim Taylor are different. You might know Joanne and Jim. They don’t live far from here – just over the railroad tracks and off Maple Street. Joanne and Jim Taylor were sitting on their porch one evening, talking about the lot across from their house, thinking that if the lot every came for sale, how they’d like to buy it. Well, two weeks later it did come up for sale, and Jim was out of town so Joanne called him and told him that she was ready to make an offer. Jim asked her what she’d like to do with the property. She didn’t want to fix up the little house that was on it; she’d rather just tear the house down, plant some flowers and turn it into a little park for the neighbors – that’s what she told her husband. Jim thought that sounded fine, just so long as she didn’t put any tacky yard art out in it. Well, you might know, especially if you live somewhere along Maple, that Jim relented on the tacky yard art. In fact, the 6-foot cowboy boot that sits out there is his doing, and he just ordered his wife Joanne a life size cow statue to put out there for Christmas. These two bought a park, and I wanted to understand why they did it, so as Marti Moore and I were talking to Joanne last Tuesday (Marti and I, we like to patrol the neighborhood every once in a while) and as we were talking with her you could just tell that Joanne loved her park, and she didn’t even mind it when other people use it. In fact, she was on vacation and her neighbors called to tell her that someone was having a wedding out there and did she know anything about it. She didn’t, and she doesn’t mind at all, because the park, it doesn’t make her any money. It doesn’t do anything in particular that she can put her finger on, it just makes her happy. That’s a big deal, and she’s not the only one. Herald is like that. A lady named Dawn Taylor told me his story. She wrote about it and it appeared in the local paper back in our town in Tennessee. She’s the lady in charge of the Family Center, an organization there that’s a lot like our MUST Ministries, so people who need something to eat go there, homeless people who need a shower go there, and every year there’s a big drive to raise money for Thanksgiving turkeys, so that every family in Columbia, Tennessee has a big, happy, Thanksgiving. Well, Herold heard about it. Herold sleeps in his car and every month he receives a disability check, so he has money to eat, but he sleeps in his car and he uses the shower at the Family Center, and last week he walked right in Dawn Taylor’s office and gave her $23.00. “I saw you were collecting turkeys form the newspaper. I want to help, I want to buy someone a turkey.” That’s what he said. Dawn wouldn’t take the money. She said, “Herold, you’re homeless. You can’t give me any money. You need that money.” But he insisted saying, “I saw the article in the paper. I want to help. It’s not Thanksgiving unless you are eating turkey and watching the ball game, I want to help someone do that.” Can you imagine? Where’s he going to watch the ballgame? Where’s he going to cook his turkey? Why is he giving away his last $23.00? Because it is better to give than to receive. Because there is something there in our hearts. We’ve been preprogramed to think of the needs of others. We stop being who God created us to be when we become self-consumed like the Pharisees, and so Jesus taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves. And Herold wasn’t giving until it hurt. No, he gave and as a result there’s this joy that just oozes out of him. Don’t you want some of that? You can have it. I know that so many of you already do. Because you gave it to me. One of the most wonderful things that’s happened since coming here is introducing my two daughters to my 3rd Grade Sunday School teacher. Mrs. Florrie Corley – for years she did that. And then there was Tim Hammond who drove me back and forth to Mexico beginning when I was about 14 years old. This was back when he was about 10 feet tall. He’s still doing it, and there are plenty of people who would like to know why. Why would Jimmy Scarr show up here every Sunday night to feed our youth group? Or these days - what is Mike Velardi doing with an apron around his neck every Wednesday by 1:00 in our church kitchen and why does he stay from then until the last pot is clean? Why does Melissa Ricketts work 60 hours every week and then sit up there with the cameras for two services every Sunday morning? Why? Why? Because it feels good – that’s why. Our Stewardship theme this year came from 2nd Corinthians: “Share abundantly in every blessing,” and I want you to know that I’m not talking about sharing abundantly in every burden. Sharing abundantly in every bill. Or sharing abundantly in every grueling task that it takes to keep this church going – I’m talking about inviting you to share in the blessing of living out your life for a bigger purpose. Thinking of others besides yourself. Knowing the true joy that giving brings. And finding out that when you do – God takes what you offer, and does far more than you could ever imagine. Think about Mike’s pig. Think about how God used Mike’s pig. You see – some would say, “But I’m just a regular guy. Or I’m just a little old lady. Or who am I to be used by God for some great big purpose?” But that’s the strength of our Scripture Lesson for today – we clergy are tempted to think that we know everything and that God can use only us, but again and again experience teaches me that the Church is the sign of God doing miraculous things through you. I remember the first Sunday our Lily got to sit in big church with her friend, McKennon Jones. They were 3 or 4 and I walked in the sanctuary and got up to the pulpit, and McKennon looks to Lily and says, “What’s Joe doing up there?” And Lily says, “I don’t know.” A long time ago I knew that I wanted to give my life to ministry. When I meet my Maker I want to hear, that sure I binge watched the 2nd Season of Stranger Things on TV, but for the most part I used my life to do some good. How much more will that be said of each veteran who stood this morning – they who have given their lives for a higher purpose. Have not they been Good Stewards of their lives, setting an example for us to follow? They were Stewards of our lives, and their example calls us to do the same, because our church today and our world out there – it needs our voice and our example now more than ever – and if you look into your heart you’ll know that you need it too. Take your pledge card – consider your gift – and use your life, your treasure, your time to make this church stronger – to make the witness of this Church louder so that our world in need will hear some good news. Be a Good Steward of Your Life, and Share Abundantly in Every Blessing.

The Great Ordeal Will Not Stop Them

Scripture Lessons: 1 John 3: 1-3 and Revelation 7: 9-17 Sermon Title: The Great Ordeal Will Not Stop Them Preached on November 5th, 2017 Revelation is really something. There’s a part of me that always wants to avoid it. It’s a book of the Bible that’s hard to understand, but plenty of people think they know what it means, and so many people who don’t know have tried to tell us, and now we all carry baggage to this book of the Bible with all its symbols and prophecy. But we can’t just avoid Revelation because it’s a wonderful book of the Bible, an important book of the Bible, and if we let fear of this book get the best of us than we’d miss out on all the beauty that it contains. The passage that I’ve just read is full of beauty. There’s this great multitude – so big that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages. They’re all there in heaven and they’re singing, “Salvation belongs to our God.” This is a powerful image. And just the composition of this group is enough of a subject to preach a sermon – there is this great big diverse group there in heaven and one of the elders addresses the author of the book who’s also the narrator, the visionary. This one elder asks John, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” The Elder wants to know who this great big diverse group that just arrived in heaven is, and the meaning of his question is like that old joke Presbyterians tell about Baptists. One Presbyterian, arrives in heaven and says to another Presbyterian, “Why all the whispering up here?” And the other Presbyterian says, “Because God put the Baptists just on the other side of that hill and they think they’re the only ones who made it here. We don’t want to spoil it for them.” There are all kinds of people in this world, aren’t there? And some people believe that they’re the only ones with the answers, that they’re the only ones who have a right to the Kingdom, but in our world, there are all kinds of people who believe different things and who come from different places. Every color, shape, and size, they are precious in his eyes, Jesus loves the little children of the world. We’ve been singing some version of that song for a long time, but the words are still radical. An old friend back in Tennessee told me one time, that it’s not just that the members of West 7th Street Church of Christ think that Presbyterians are going to Hell, it’s that the members of West 7th Street Church of Christ think that the folks over at Graymere Church of Christ are going to Hell, and so are the members of Mt. Calvary Church of Christ. They think they’re the only ones going, just like this Elder who asks, “Who are these, robed in white?” So, according to Scripture, who are these, robed in white? They’re the children of God, that’s who they are. And I’m one. So are you. As are the little children who come to Club 3:30. As are our neighbors in this great big diverse county that we find ourselves in. There are all kinds of people in God’s Kingdom, and that’s good. I met a different kind of a person last Wednesday morning. I was standing on the corner at the cross walk waiting for the cars to stop so I could walk, but you know this kind of lady. She wasn’t waiting for anyone, and she just walked right into that crosswalk with authority and the traffic stopped for her. Or it almost did. One car scooted in front of her and she yelled at the driver, “I’m walking here!” And I said, “Lady, I like your style,” and she showed me this whistle she has around her neck that she uses to blow at the cars who don’t respect the cross walk, and I laughed so she told me that her husband said he’s going to buy her a paintball gun so she can mark the cars who don’t stop for pedestrians. I was amazed by this lady. And only later did I put it together that here was this lady, standing up to oncoming traffic, the day after a man in a rented truck from Home Depot killed eight people driving down a bike path in Manhattan. And what’s worse – he did it in the name of religion. Now he claims to be a fundamentalist Muslim, and some people get caught up in that, but I want to say that this crazy idea of one person having all the answers and everyone else being so wrong that they’re less than human is an idea that infects every religion and every person, but any Christian who falls for this idea that religion is about you being right and everyone else being wrong, has never met the Jesus that I know. There’s this whole multitude up there. And one elder is wondering who they are because that’s a weird human defect we suffer from – the idea that I have it right and everyone else must have it wrong. The idea that I matter more. And that my agenda is so important that these other people in my way aren’t people but speed bumps. The extreme version, the sick version, is what we saw last Tuesday in Manhattan, but there’s a problem when any and all of us are so busy rushing through life with an overblown sense of our own importance that we fail to stop and consider the people in the crosswalk. Hurrying as though eternity depended on what happens in the next 15 minutes. We can’t speed through life. And, we can’t get so caught up in our daily routine that we are fooled into thinking that our lives constantly hang in the balance. I’m prone to that kind of anxiety, but not everybody is. Rev. Joe Brice seems immune to it. I was rushing around doing something one day and I realized I had forgotten to give Joe some piece of important information. Worried that he’d be as anxious about it as I was, I apologized to him and Joe responded, “Man, that’s no big deal. Don’t worry about me. Everything that really matters to me already happened.” Everything that really matters to me has already happened, says the sage of Paulding County. And like Joe Brice, these saints in the book of Revelation - they are defined by what has already happened. You see, they are those who have come out of the great ordeal. And we don’t know exactly what that is, but from the book of Revelation we can infer that the great ordeal is a time of suffering and religious persecution. A time in human history when life is challenging, when money is in short supply, when life is lived under the shadow of an oppressive government. When war is the rule and not the exception. When hardship surrounds us and every day seems a grueling struggle to make it from one day to the next. And what makes this multitude dressed in white exceptional, is that these saints, they have come out of the great ordeal, but the great ordeal has not stopped them from singing. They can see what God has done. They know the gift that God has given. And no matter the hardship and pain, it can’t overshadow the redemption and the joy. No matter the oppression, it can’t touch the freedom that they have in Christ. No matter the struggle, they say, “How can I keep from singing?” For my life goes on in endless song Above earth’s lamentation. I hear the real, thought far off hymn That hails the new creation. Above the tumult and the strife, I heard the music ringing; It sounds an echo in my soul How can I keep from singing? That’s what they sing. Because everything that really matters has already happened. For Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again, That’s why tyrants tremble, sick with fear, They hear their death-knell ringing, And friends rejoice both far and near, So how can I keep from singing. Life can seem like a struggle, but the struggle cannot be what defines us, because what defines us, we whose robes have been washed in the blood of the lamb, is the great act of Christ’s salvation. Our lives, then, which have already been saved from the pit, must not be a hurried mess or a stress-filled struggle, but a great song lifted to the one who created us, redeemed us, and sustains us still. Our first Scripture Lesson from 1st John said it all: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.” So, live your life, not complacent in the struggle, but singing your part with the great choir of angels and all the saints in light, giving your time, your talent, your treasure, to the glory of God the father, like so many saints of this church who we will remember later in the service, those saints who were such stewards of their lives that they made this church what it is today. . A pledge card was given to you this morning with your bulletin, and it’s important to consider what it is and what it means. I pray that it will cause you to stop, to take a break from the fever of life so that you can reflect on the gifts that you have received, and to take the time to show your thanks to the one who always gives us a reason to sing. For the Great Ordeal of Life – it must not stop us either. Amen.