Divine Things and Human Things

Scripture Lessons: Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16 and Mark 8: 31-38 Sermon Title: Divine Things and Human Things Preached on February 28, 2021 Last Thursday, the front page of the Marietta Daily Journal featured the headline, Kennesaw church expelled. Such a headline made the front page because the Towne View Baptist Church was (quote) “kicked out of the Southern Baptist Convention.” This was a painful article to read, for a number of reasons. One of those reasons being quite self-centered, for as a pastor, I felt sorry for the pastor of that church who said, “this is kind of like hearing from your family that you don’t belong anymore.” But I felt sorrier for the family who found themselves at the center of this controversy. They are a couple with three adopted children, who just wanted a church to belong to and not a denominational schism. Then, at the same time I felt pride and admiration because this church exemplifies the Gospel call in a particular way. Maybe like you, I know that sometimes a church must make a hard decision. And whenever a church chooses to embody the love of Jesus Christ over the approval of a governing body, I rejoice because I believe in doing so, they make the cost of discipleship plain. Following Jesus costs something. Doing the right thing, often costs something. And the Lord himself makes the cost of discipleship absolutely plain in this Second Scripture Lesson from the Gospel of Mark. For any who struggle to see that the Christian faith promises a cross and not a Cadillac, listen to this: Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. Why did Peter rebuke him? Why did Peter take Jesus aside? Because Peter didn’t want Jesus to be that kind of messiah. Peter didn’t think that suffering and rejection had anything to do with being the messiah. In a world of comfort, quick fixes, and simplified solutions, who would follow a messiah who suffers. Peter wanted a nice, quiet Messiah, who would be everyone’s hero. He wanted Jesus to be that someone everyone could cheer on in a great parade. A savior and friend who would one day retire with him to the beach and together Peter and Jesus could look back on all their years of ministry and Peter would say to his friend in the beach chair next to him, “Jesus, it’s been a wonderful life, hasn’t it?” Maybe there was a part of Jesus that wanted this kind of life too, so he must rebuke Peter just as he rebuked the devil back in the wilderness: “Get behind me, Satan! [he said to his friend] for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Isn’t it easy, to set your mind on human things? Isn’t it easy to get all caught up in what everyone thinks? But not everyone does, or not everyone does all this time. When the great evangelist Rev. Billy Graham died, I remembered one of his most famous quotes: “My home is in heaven. I’m just passing through this world.” That was him, maybe on a good day. For the rest of us, it’s easy to get stuck in this world. Isn’t it easy, to set your mind on human things? A Puritan prayer book that I love says it this way: “O Savior of Sinners, raise me above the smiles and frowns of the world, regarding it as a light thing to be judged by humans.” Do you know anyone who needs to pray that prayer? I know I need it. Maybe you do too. In this strange time of COVID-19, isn’t a prayer like that one what we all need? Parents have to help their children make even more difficult decisions than ever, because now, when your son finally makes the basketball team you have to decide whether or not to even let him play. Is loving our kids letting them do something that makes them feel normal or is loving them better embodied in going lengths to keep them safe and behind a mask? In every single decision we must weigh options like these. We must constantly ask ourselves: “How do I protect myself; how do I protect my children; how can I keep them from being social outcasts when I’m constantly faced with mollifying one group of people but disappointing another?” How can we even speak any more? These days, obvious statements like, Black Lives Matter, carry with them not just the undeniable value of human life, but allegiance to a particular group and a particular way of seeing the world. You know this struggle. It’s a fool’s errand to try and walk the middle path, agonizing over appearances, working to appease everyone, though I’ve been that fool again and again and again, and I bet you have too. You lean one way and you’re someone’s hero but someone else’s enemy, and it sure does feel like you’re dying a slow death if you are unable to rise above the smiles and frowns of the world. If it’s impossible for you to regard it as a light thing to be judged by humans, because your mind is set on human things. Jesus said to Peter: “you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things,” and if that’s the way we choose to live, persistently attempting to gain the approval of the crowd, the denomination, or the neighborhood, then it’s going to be nothing but torture from here on out. It was that way for me in my first year of ministry. I began my ministry at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church out in Lilburn, GA, and I was going to be everything to everybody even if it killed me. Someone asked me if I liked to listen to the Fish – that Christian radio station, and so I started to listen to it, even though I hated it. A group wanted to start a Bible study, and so I helped them get it going, then another group wanted one, then another, and before long I was leading a Bible study every day of the week, listening to the Fish in the car. There was no place of solace. I was trying to please someone everywhere I went. So, basically, the hardest thing about my first year of ministry was that I was trying to be, not the pastor who I was, not the pastor God created me to be, but the pastor who I thought they wanted me to be. Then one morning I woke up with a rash on my stomach. It started out red and itchy, and it wouldn’t go away. Sara finally sent me to the doctor. He told me that is was hives, and that he could give me some medicine for it, but really it was just from stress and what I needed to do was find a way to relax. “You’re a preacher, right?” my doctor asked. I told him that I was, and so he said again, “What you need to do is find a way to relax. Have you ever heard of prayer?” What is prayer, but the opportunity to remember again that our identity and our value comes not from humans but from God. That our primary relationship must be between us and our creator. To quote that great prayer for illumination: “Lord, among all the changing words of this generation, speak to us your eternal Word which does not change.” We pray this prayer because it is God’s voice that defines us, not the whispers of the gossips or the pressure to conform. Jesus did ask his disciples “Who do they say that I am?” though the difference between him asking this question and us asking the same is that he didn’t really care who anybody said he was. He already knew. For us it takes a little more work, and a constant willingness to try and remember. We all have to slow down and accept it. We all have to listen for it, because it’s right there for us. Rather than speed up to try and earn it or buckle down to feel like we’ve gotten there, we have to silence the crowd whispering in our ears that we might listen to his voice, because we’ll never get there and none of us find rest until we rest in God and who God says we are. In our baptism the Lord told us all about who we are: “You are mine, my beloved, and with you I am well pleased.” The difference between all of us and Jesus is that he never forgot it. He was always bold to believe it. And he never depended on humans to tell him who he was or how he should live. Let our prayer be: “O Savior of Sinners, raise me above the smiles and frowns of the world, regarding it as a light thing to be judged by humans.” And may our song be like that great but lesser known hymn, “How Clear Is Our Vocation Lord”: If worldly pressures fray the mind and love itself cannot unwind Its tangled skein of care; our inward life repair. For how will we make it to the Kingdom of Heaven, if deep in our hearts we long for the approval of this broken world? We must set our minds, not on human things. But on divine things. Therefore, as you wrestle with the great balancing act of life in the 21st Century, know that those who choose love, no matter what it costs, live with far more joy in their lives than those who have gained the approval of this world. That preacher who is no longer a Southern Baptist, said it like this, “This little church in Kennesaw, we paid a price to do it, [but I’m not willing to tell people], ‘God made you, but God hates you because of how you are,’ so I’m not going to do it anymore.” I wish we all could be so brave, because with such willingness to face rejection in the name of love we choose the path that Christ chose for himself. In order to really live, we all must rise above the smiles and frowns of the world to follow him. To truly follow, we must leave the approval of this broken world behind. We must live so that in us they catch a glimpse of the reign of love and mercy that is to come. Doing so has ever been easy. And it won’t ever be easy. But listen to this: while most preachers settled into a society of segregation there was one who gave his life for the cause, and this is what he had to say: For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" This "Wait" has almost always meant “Never." [So] we must come to see, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied." Likewise, love too long delayed is love denied. We all must be so bold as to risk what we have to love people better. For who was Abraham but one who gave up his present circumstance to be a part of God’s great plan? Who was Dr. King but one who gave his life for the sake of a dream? Who was Christ but on who chose to be rejected by the powers and principalities of Rome that he might open his arms wide showing all generations that there is a power strong than fear or death, it is love? Let us follow him, risking something, but gaining everything. Amen.

One Foot In Front of the Other

Scripture Lessons: 2nd Kings 2: 1-12 and Mark 9: 2-9 Sermon title: One Foot In Front of the Other Preached on 2/14/2021 Both our first and second Scripture Lessons take place on top of a mountain. Both are momentous occasions, which makes sense to me, because some of the momentous occasions of my life have also taken place on mountain tops. The first time Sara kissed me, we were up on top of a mountain. I proposed to her a couple years later on that same mountain peak, and because she said yes, even more so, I think of mountain tops as meaningful places. As you can imagine that day, I was nervous on our way up, working up the courage to ask. At the top, I felt relief and joy when she said yes. But then, as we went back down it was clear that I suddenly had a whole new set of things to be nervous about that I haven’t even really considered on the way up. I hadn’t really thought about how much growing up is required of making that step from being someone’s boyfriend to being her husband. Maybe this is true of mountains: that we’re expecting the challenge of getting to the top of them, only what about the coming down? Sometimes mountain tops change us, so going down the mountain, I remember how she was talking about telling our friends and her family. Dates and location of the ceremony. Where would we live? What would happen next? Nervous the whole way up that mountain, I expected to be more relaxed coming back down, but I wasn’t because on top of that mountain everything had changed and now, we were on our way to some place new that I’d never been to before. Do you know what that’s like? Finding yourself on the way to some place new? Imagining yourself differently, so differently that you can’t really ever go back home. You have to rethink who you are closest to and which relationship are the most important? Thinking about mountain tops, how do you come back down? How do you re-integrate yourself into the world as a changed person? I suppose one way to do it, is to learn from people who have done it before. You noticed that Jesus isn’t alone in our Second Scripture Lesson. Moses makes his way into this event that we call the Transfiguration from the Gospel of Mark. You know all about Moses, and this is what occurs to me about Moses today, as he appears, dazzling white, beside Jesus up on top of that mountain: he’d already led the people out of Egypt and across the sea, but it’s only when coming down from a mountain top having received the 10 Commandments from Almighty God that we see how he’s changed, while the Hebrew people are busy building an idol out of gold, as though they’d never really left Egypt. Has it ever been this way with you? Have you ever noticed that something was different inside of you? That something had changed? That you were not the same, and you no longer fit in with those you used to fit in with, because suddenly you’d been transformed? In this season of mask wearing and physical distancing, surely, we’re all feeling a little of that still. I preached a funeral for a long-time church member, Joan Young, last Saturday, and the funeral home staff member said that they’ve had four times as many funerals last month than they did January of last year. For some of us, everything has changed because of this virus, but then you get around certain people who act as though nothing’s changed. How do you handle that? How do we handle the change that takes place within us, even as the rest of the world is slow to change? Moses knew what it was like and so did Elisha. There are two prophets in our First Scripture Lesson with dangerously similar sounding names: Elijah and Elisha. Elijah is there with Moses in our Second Scripture Lesson up on top of the mountain with Jesus, so maybe you know a lot about him already. What about Elisha? In our First Scripture Lesson Elijah and Elisha make their way up a mountain. On their way to the mountain Elijah took his mantle, rolled it up, and struck the Jordan River so that the water was parted to the one side and to the other. Together they walked through the water on dry land as Moses and the Hebrew people did through the sea, but then they went to the top of the mountain and Elijah was taken up into heaven by a whirlwind. Elisha had to go back down the mountain as a changed man, walking into an unchanged world, now without the person who’d always shown him the way. Do you know what that’s like? Taking a most important step, without anyone to hold your hand? I feel sure that you do. Last week we had a special church-staff lunch to celebrate Alesia Jones and her ministry among us. Her parents were there, and her father told me that he still remembered how brave she was walking across the stage at a large auditorium, nothing on the stage but his 10-year-old girl and a grand piano she intended to play in front of this huge crowd. This is how it is. To grow, we take steps into the unknown, without always having someone by our side, and sometimes it’s even taking a step into the valley of the shadow of death. Jesus led the Disciples up the mountain, then started back down. Where was he going? You know, and so did Peter. Peter didn’t like it. Of course, he didn’t. Something that’s funny to think about is how many leaders we know of will do anything to hold onto their power and influence. Some will fight tooth and nail to be re-elected, or they keep going to the office long after they should. They can’t pass leadership to anyone new, while Jesus spends this huge part of his ministry trying to get Peter to lead and Peter won’t do it. Peter doesn’t want to come down from the mountain. He’s not ready to take the next step. He says to Jesus, up on top of that mountain, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” There’s no reason for us to go back down. Let’s just stay right up here. It’s just us. We’re fine. We’ll make some dwellings, James will start a fire, and John will gather some pinecones or something for us to eat. Let’s just stay right up here for a while, because I’m not ready to take the next step. I’m not ready to leave this place. I’m not ready for us to go any further. I’m fine where I am. Do you know that feeling? Sure, you do. Everyone does. It’s the feeling we’ve been having since we were babies. We took our first step, and as soon as it’s done being exciting, we wanted to be back in our mother’s arms. We remember how Peter wants to walk on the water, only then he looks down and starts to sink. “Help me Jesus!” he yelled, and Jesus did. But what’s going to happen when Jesus isn’t there to bail him out? For Peter, this moment up on top of the mountain brings with it this horrible realization: that all the time Jesus has been talking about being the son of God, he was serious. That when he said he had to go on the Jerusalem to fulfill his purpose, he wasn’t joking. And that when Jesus had been talking about his death, he meant it. What that means for Peter is that his old life is over. His true purpose is right on the horizon, and any doubts he has within himself might as well be left behind on the mountain top. The time for playing at being the Rock of the Church has come to an end and the time to be the Rock of the Church is coming because Jesus is going to Jerusalem to die. How do you cope with that? How do you become someone new? How do you walk into the unknown without the person who’s always been there? That’s an important question for us to ask ourselves today, as Alesia Jones, who’s been on that rug for our kids all through this pandemic, and for so many years before that, is moving on to make a difference in this world in new and different ways. She’s made a difference to our kids, and now she’s leaving. How do we cope with that? I ask that question as a parent. You might imagine that our daughters have received several Bibles in their lives. They have. People give Bibles to preacher’s kids, but the only Bibles I’ve seen them read voluntarily are the Bibles Alesia Jones gave them. She’s been leading all our children on their journey of faith for 22 years now. And because she’s retiring, I call your attention to this truth: that the very best leaders are those who teach us how to stand on our own. The journey is long. The path is rarely easy. But God gives us companions on the journey, and the best of those companions aren’t always there to hold our hand. The very best are those who show us that we have the strength within us to step out on our own, because that’s what it takes. Step by step we walk down the mountain, not always to the sound of applause and a supportive crowd, but sometimes to shouts and jeers. When that happens, we cannot cease being transformed though the world remains the same. We must be a part of the transformation of this entire world. Challenge after challenge. Change after change. Doing, not what’s easy, but what’ right. Not what’s popular, but what’s true. Moving towards the Promised Land, not like sheep without a shepherd, but like disciples, who have made the faith of their mothers and fathers their own. Thank you, Alesia Jones, for walking with my children, and for helping them along their journey. Thank you, on behalf of so many parents and so many children of this church. We are all better because of you, and we will continue on. Amen.