Acts 11: 1-18, page 779
The apostles and the brothers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.”
Peter began and explained everything to them precisely as it had happened: “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air. Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’
“I replied, ‘surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’
“The voice spoke from heaven a second time. ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.
“Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’
“As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit cam on them as he had come on us at the beginning. Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ So if God gave them the same gift as God gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?”
When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God saying, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.”
Sermon
In a sermon series by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. titled “Paul’s Letter to American Christians” Dr. King assumed that “the mere fact we are at church might affirm that we believe in God, but we must remember that it’s possible affirm God’s existence with your lips, but deny God’s existence with your life. Churches are full of people who are willing to serve lip-service to God but aren’t willing to pay any life-service.”
Our first scripture lesson from the Gospel of John is one of those passages that all of us here present today would agree with: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” But I am convinced, that while we would all agree with this passage with our lips, from my own personal experience I am convinced also that we all have disagreed with this passage at some point or another in our actions.
Rather than just leave Jesus’ words at “love one another,” we have re-translated his words to something like, “love all the nice folks, but keep the dangerous ones as far away as possible,” or “love the ones who are in my family, the ones who have become my friends, but keep everyone else at a distance,” or “be open to the idea of loving the ones who look like me and talk like me, but as for everyone who looks different…maybe I’ll just be polite to them.”
What we lose by our re-translation of Jesus’ words is the essence of the gospel; what we miss out on is the chance to see incredible things happen in our lives.
The year after I graduated college and before I started seminary, I worked for a high-end lawn maintenance company. Sara and I had just gotten married. Somehow we convinced her parents that marriage was a good idea – I was after all making $7.50 cents per hour.
One morning I remember distinctly. I was approaching the shop a few minutes before 7 and I noticed that the car in front of me hit a rabbit and killed it. I didn’t think much about it, pulled into my normal parking spot and started loading up the lawn mowers, weed-eaters, and edgers on the truck I was assigned to drive like I did every day, when one of the guys on my crew rode up on his bicycle with one hand on the handle bar and the other holding that dead rabbit by the back legs.
Before he would help me finish loading up the truck he wanted to clean that rabbit, and somehow or another he convinced me that it would be a good use of our time to stop by his apartment on our way to our first job so he could put the rabbit in his refrigerator.
I had never seen anyone clean a rabbit, but I’ve grown up removed from agrarian culture. I’d never shot a gun before last week when Charlie Black taught me how, and I didn’t know folks still ate rabbit before that guy on my crew from a rural town on the gulf side of Mexico convinced me to stop by his apartment.
I guess all that happened on a Tuesday, and at the end of the day on Friday my friend with the rabbit invited me back to his apartment for a beer and something to eat. I was too polite to refuse, but was pleasantly surprised to see that steak tacos were on the menu and not rabbit enchiladas.
I was also surprised to see that not only my coworker but five other guys from the company all lived in that little one bedroom apartment, the same size as the one Sara and I shared. I was invited to sit on one of the coveted couch seats, and by the end of the afternoon my name was no longer Joe Evans, it was Bolio, don’t be impressed. Bolio is just slang for “white bread.”
Peter also knew what it meant to be given a new name. If you look into the preceding chapter of Acts you’ll see that as Peter debated with himself to go or not to go, to eat food that he wasn’t used to eating or not, to listen to the Holy Spirit or ignore it, he is referred to interchangeably as Simon, the name he was given at birth, and Peter, the name given to him by Christ.
As he is faced with an uncomfortable situation he vacillates between the two names as though he were deciding who he would become – Simon, one who paid lip-service to the gospel, or Peter, one who paid life-service.
It doesn’t seem like that big a stretch now, but at the time, what Peter was willing to do was radical. It wasn’t just as though he was sacrificing his popularity by changing tables in a high school cafeteria, he was breaking away from what he had always been taught, throwing away generations upon generations of tradition. We may assume from the day he was born he was taught the Mosaic Laws of diet, cleanliness, and social discipline, not as a matter of convenience, but as his life – follow these laws and you will live long and prosper in the land that I am giving you, says the Lord your God.
We may also assume that among these apostles and brothers throughout Judea who wanted Peter to explain his radical actions there was one or two who whispered to each other, “It sure is a blessing that his mother isn’t here to see this. Gone into the house of uncircumcised men, sitting down to supper. What’s next Simon Peter, eating out of a dog bowl?”
Up until this point there were Gentile converts but they had to first become Jews before they could become Christians – the men would be circumcised before they could be baptized; so what Peter was proposing is that there need not only be Jewish Christians – that these Romans don’t need to become Jews, they can stay Roman and be Roman Christians.
That crowd had reason for concern – Peter was breaking with tradition, but it wasn’t just tradition, he was breaking the Law – the Law that made the Jews a unique people who could preserve their culture despite generations of living in a foreign land. Peter was compromising his values, and I would think that there would have been more than one in that crowd who questioned his actions who were saying: “Peter you are playing with fire.”
To which I know he would have replied, “I know it, but don’t you see, it’s Pentecostal Fire! And the boundaries that once separated us have been burned down by its flames.”
This is a radical word for us today, not because we aren’t Christian, but because in addition to being Christian we are also members of a particular culture.
So we have a little bit of trouble with the idea of Homeless Christians, not because we believe that Christ came for us and not them, but because it would make us more comfortable if before homeless folks join our church they’d clean up a little and dress the way we dress.
So are we doing cotillion here, or are we doing church?
For the same reason we have trouble with the idea of Illegal Christians, not because we believe that the Gospel is too good for them, but because their residency here stretches our resources, slows our schools, and changes our towns, so before illegal immigrants join our church we’d at least like them to get their papers in order and learn our language.
But are we about making citizens or are we about making Christians?
And we have trouble with the idea of Homosexual Christians, not because we believe that they’re not Children of God, but before Gays and Lesbians join our church we’d like for them to adopt our life-style and turn their back on their homosexuality.
Peter stood alone before the Apostles that day, not because those apostles were disappointed that the Gospel was spreading, but because his actions brought up an uncomfortable question: Did Christ send us out to make Jews of all the nations or Christians?
And Peter brings that same question to us today: are we willing to give up some of the standards of our culture for the good of the Gospel?
Last Sunday the Sunday School class who meets at 11:00 took this question seriously at the encouragement of Gwen McDonald. She offered everyone in the class fudge, cream cheese squares, and chocolate chip cookies, but not to eat themselves. She charged them to go out and to give those delicious treats to someone else saying, “How often do you eat with someone who is not like you.” So off they went to fire departments, police departments, and check-out lines throughout our area, giving different kinds of folks something good to eat and inviting them to our church.
The world would prefer that we didn’t do this kind of thing as some laws work better when people whom the world has called different stay away from each other, never sitting down together at table.
The Law would not allow it, but the Gospel demands it – it must spread like the fire of the Pentecost – out into the whole world, out to all God’s people.
Amen.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Dedication
John 10: 22-30, page 760
Then came the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple area walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. The Jews gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
Sermon
I wonder if the Amish deal with resentment the way I do. It’s so easy for me to become envious of people around me who seem to have more than I have – more house, more money, more cars – or not necessarily more maybe just better – a better house, a better car, a better phone, so I wonder what it’s like for people whose religion demands that they go without so many things that I take for granted.
Last Wednesday I was sitting in the Senior Pastor’s office as my office was being used by a group for their Bible study, and I was sitting on the couch in there and started thinking – this couch sure is nicer than mine, this room is so much bigger than my office – it sure would be nice to just move in here, but I can’t – I am your associate pastor, and while I may function as your only pastor right now, the rules of our denomination prevent me from ever becoming the permanent senior pastor of this church.
There are rules that prevent it, as there are rules that prevent lots of people from doing lots of things, and it’s easy to resent whatever it is that keeps us from doing what we want – so I wonder if the Amish ever get resentful of construction folks who can build houses with power tools, who can lift heavy beams with cranes, and who can put up a house in half the time with half the labor - I wonder if they ever get resentful, look down at their simple hammers comparing it to a nail gun and start to grow resentful at the god who they follow and who they believe would keep them from having the things that everyone else takes for granted.
We all do that I think, and sometimes, when it comes to religion preventing us from doing the thing that we want, it’s easy to resent God. Ultimately if it’s the rules of religion that we resent we end up resenting the God who we believe is the source of those rules.
As though the Shepherd were keeping his sheep from doing what they would like – he’s holding them back from doing what they’d really like to be doing.
In high school that seemed true – what I believed about God and what I believed about how the church and the Bible said I should live kept me from doing a lot of things, that at the time I really would have liked to have been doing.
And to some degree the same is true today – and not just today in general – today, right now today, because I believe that God does call me to give 10% of what I’ve been given back, so I’m faced with thinking about all that my belief in God is keeping me from. Looking at the amount on my pledge card, doing what I believe God would have me do is keeping me from spending a good chunk of money on myself which would be fun, or, if I’m thinking responsibly, doing what I believe God would have me do is keeping me from spending a good chunk of money on Lily’s college education.
But instead I’ll be giving that money to the church and if I’m not careful I’ll get resentful of God because God is keeping me from spending my money the way I would like to be spending it.
Just as today is the day when we dedicate ourselves to the church once again, financially with our pledges, and with our time through the time and talent form, our scripture passage for the day occurs on the Feast of Dedication.
Then came the Feast of Dedication our scripture passage begins – it was winter and Jesus was walking. What was being dedicated isn’t exactly clear, but what we can assume is that it was the time of year when folks began thinking about where their allegiances lie, so a group comes up to Jesus saying, “if you are the Christ, then tell us plainly.”
Jesus isn’t one for plain answers, though his response here in John comes close: “I did tell you, but you do not believe.”
What they wanted I guess was a yes or no answer, what they got was something like – “it’s not what I can say that is going to make the difference, it’s what I’ve been doing. The miracles I do in my Father’s name should speak for me.”
And the miracles that he did in the Father’s name should speak for him, should convince us that Christ is not the kind of shepherd who keeps or holds his sheep back from something – Christ is the kind of shepherd who protects his sheep from harm, who even lays down his life for his sheep.
It was winter at the Feast of Dedication, and while today it’s nice out it is still winter for so many of you. So much is scarce, times are tight, and I know that you can think of a million things to do with whatever amount of money you’ve written down on your pledge card, or maybe you haven’t written anything down as times are so tight you’d rather hold close what you have for fear that there won’t be enough.
But remember this: the shepherd who calls you to follow him, who on this day of dedication calls you to obedience, doesn’t ask for you to give up something to keep you from spending that money as you would like, to keep you from having the financial security that you desire, but like a shepherd, Christ seeks to protect you from danger.
And danger is so truly lurking all around us, tempting us at every turn.
This past week I had the opportunity to attend a preaching conference at Emory University’s seminary, the Candler School of Theology, where one of the great preachers of our time, Dr. Fred Craddock was lecturing. He talked with us about greed by telling us a story.
“It’s good to go to the Waffle House,” he said. “They make a good BLT. You have to take a shower after, but it’s good to go to Waffle House.”
So Dr. Craddock sat down at the table and the waitress comes and says, “Do you know what you want?”
“Coffee,” he says.
She returns to the table with the coffee and Dr. Craddock looks around the table, sees the sugar but doesn’t see the cream. “Do you have any cream,” he asks.
She goes looking for it, patting around, “I can never find anything in this capricious apron.”
“Capricious,” Dr. Craddock says, impressed and thinking, capricious is not a word one often hears at the Waffle House. Capricious is not a word one often hears at the Candler School of Theology for that matter.
Once she locates the cream she puts down 7 on the table.
“But I only need one,” Dr. Craddock says.
“It’s better to not want and have than to want and have not,” the waitress returns.
“Are you a waitress or a philosopher?” Dr. Craddock asks.
“If you only want one then I’ll take the rest of way,” the waitress answers.
Dr. Craddock responds saying, “Yes, please take the rest away. Isn’t it best to know what you want? I know what I want so take the rest.”
The waitress, before leaving then says, “So few have reached such a level of freedom.”
Its only cream, but it’s the truth. And if you want to be free, free from constantly wanting more, free from turning into a bottomless pit that our economy would have you become, then listen to the shepherd, who would not keep you from salvation, but would ensure that you reach that green pasture, will lead you beside the quiet waters.
Do not be oblivious to the danger of holding money too tight.
Don’t be so idealistic to think that you’ll reach a point in time when you will have enough and be able to give away the extra, as our world will see to it that you’ll never feel like you have enough.
Give some of it away now and be free.
Give some of it away now and be free from the worry of not having enough, be free from the insatiable hunger for more, more, and more. Be free.
Then came the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple area walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. The Jews gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
Sermon
I wonder if the Amish deal with resentment the way I do. It’s so easy for me to become envious of people around me who seem to have more than I have – more house, more money, more cars – or not necessarily more maybe just better – a better house, a better car, a better phone, so I wonder what it’s like for people whose religion demands that they go without so many things that I take for granted.
Last Wednesday I was sitting in the Senior Pastor’s office as my office was being used by a group for their Bible study, and I was sitting on the couch in there and started thinking – this couch sure is nicer than mine, this room is so much bigger than my office – it sure would be nice to just move in here, but I can’t – I am your associate pastor, and while I may function as your only pastor right now, the rules of our denomination prevent me from ever becoming the permanent senior pastor of this church.
There are rules that prevent it, as there are rules that prevent lots of people from doing lots of things, and it’s easy to resent whatever it is that keeps us from doing what we want – so I wonder if the Amish ever get resentful of construction folks who can build houses with power tools, who can lift heavy beams with cranes, and who can put up a house in half the time with half the labor - I wonder if they ever get resentful, look down at their simple hammers comparing it to a nail gun and start to grow resentful at the god who they follow and who they believe would keep them from having the things that everyone else takes for granted.
We all do that I think, and sometimes, when it comes to religion preventing us from doing the thing that we want, it’s easy to resent God. Ultimately if it’s the rules of religion that we resent we end up resenting the God who we believe is the source of those rules.
As though the Shepherd were keeping his sheep from doing what they would like – he’s holding them back from doing what they’d really like to be doing.
In high school that seemed true – what I believed about God and what I believed about how the church and the Bible said I should live kept me from doing a lot of things, that at the time I really would have liked to have been doing.
And to some degree the same is true today – and not just today in general – today, right now today, because I believe that God does call me to give 10% of what I’ve been given back, so I’m faced with thinking about all that my belief in God is keeping me from. Looking at the amount on my pledge card, doing what I believe God would have me do is keeping me from spending a good chunk of money on myself which would be fun, or, if I’m thinking responsibly, doing what I believe God would have me do is keeping me from spending a good chunk of money on Lily’s college education.
But instead I’ll be giving that money to the church and if I’m not careful I’ll get resentful of God because God is keeping me from spending my money the way I would like to be spending it.
Just as today is the day when we dedicate ourselves to the church once again, financially with our pledges, and with our time through the time and talent form, our scripture passage for the day occurs on the Feast of Dedication.
Then came the Feast of Dedication our scripture passage begins – it was winter and Jesus was walking. What was being dedicated isn’t exactly clear, but what we can assume is that it was the time of year when folks began thinking about where their allegiances lie, so a group comes up to Jesus saying, “if you are the Christ, then tell us plainly.”
Jesus isn’t one for plain answers, though his response here in John comes close: “I did tell you, but you do not believe.”
What they wanted I guess was a yes or no answer, what they got was something like – “it’s not what I can say that is going to make the difference, it’s what I’ve been doing. The miracles I do in my Father’s name should speak for me.”
And the miracles that he did in the Father’s name should speak for him, should convince us that Christ is not the kind of shepherd who keeps or holds his sheep back from something – Christ is the kind of shepherd who protects his sheep from harm, who even lays down his life for his sheep.
It was winter at the Feast of Dedication, and while today it’s nice out it is still winter for so many of you. So much is scarce, times are tight, and I know that you can think of a million things to do with whatever amount of money you’ve written down on your pledge card, or maybe you haven’t written anything down as times are so tight you’d rather hold close what you have for fear that there won’t be enough.
But remember this: the shepherd who calls you to follow him, who on this day of dedication calls you to obedience, doesn’t ask for you to give up something to keep you from spending that money as you would like, to keep you from having the financial security that you desire, but like a shepherd, Christ seeks to protect you from danger.
And danger is so truly lurking all around us, tempting us at every turn.
This past week I had the opportunity to attend a preaching conference at Emory University’s seminary, the Candler School of Theology, where one of the great preachers of our time, Dr. Fred Craddock was lecturing. He talked with us about greed by telling us a story.
“It’s good to go to the Waffle House,” he said. “They make a good BLT. You have to take a shower after, but it’s good to go to Waffle House.”
So Dr. Craddock sat down at the table and the waitress comes and says, “Do you know what you want?”
“Coffee,” he says.
She returns to the table with the coffee and Dr. Craddock looks around the table, sees the sugar but doesn’t see the cream. “Do you have any cream,” he asks.
She goes looking for it, patting around, “I can never find anything in this capricious apron.”
“Capricious,” Dr. Craddock says, impressed and thinking, capricious is not a word one often hears at the Waffle House. Capricious is not a word one often hears at the Candler School of Theology for that matter.
Once she locates the cream she puts down 7 on the table.
“But I only need one,” Dr. Craddock says.
“It’s better to not want and have than to want and have not,” the waitress returns.
“Are you a waitress or a philosopher?” Dr. Craddock asks.
“If you only want one then I’ll take the rest of way,” the waitress answers.
Dr. Craddock responds saying, “Yes, please take the rest away. Isn’t it best to know what you want? I know what I want so take the rest.”
The waitress, before leaving then says, “So few have reached such a level of freedom.”
Its only cream, but it’s the truth. And if you want to be free, free from constantly wanting more, free from turning into a bottomless pit that our economy would have you become, then listen to the shepherd, who would not keep you from salvation, but would ensure that you reach that green pasture, will lead you beside the quiet waters.
Do not be oblivious to the danger of holding money too tight.
Don’t be so idealistic to think that you’ll reach a point in time when you will have enough and be able to give away the extra, as our world will see to it that you’ll never feel like you have enough.
Give some of it away now and be free.
Give some of it away now and be free from the worry of not having enough, be free from the insatiable hunger for more, more, and more. Be free.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
We Would Like to See Jesus
John 12: 20-36, page 762
Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.”
Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.
Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
The one who loves his or her life will lose it, while the one who hates his or her life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant will also be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
“Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. But I , when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
The crowd spoke up, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ will remain forever, so how can you say, “The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this ‘Son of Man’?”
Then Jesus told them, “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. The one who walks in the dark does not know where he or she is going. Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you may become sons and daughters of light.”
When he had finished speaking, Jesus left and hid himself from them.
Sermon
On more than one occasion, I must confess, I’ve made fun of the great 20th Century governor of Texas Miriam A. Ferguson. Though she was a college graduate in a time when so many women were left uneducated, was the second female governor in United States history and the first female governor of the great state of Texas, was by most accounts, a great leader, a populist, a fiscal conservative, and a great opponent of the Ku Klux Klan, is perhaps most famous for saying, “If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for Texas schoolchildren.”
Jesus, you see, did not speak English. He spoke a language called Aramaic.
But seminary students, trained to read scripture, in the language scripture was first uttered in, learn to read, not Aramaic but Hebrew and Greek.
I knew why I was supposed to learn Hebrew, but on my first day of Greek class I had no idea why we were being forced to learn Greek and I couldn’t figure out why we weren’t learning Aramaic.
I was too embarrassed to ask anyone why we were learning Greek however, so I just went on learning it, not knowing why I was learning it, until one day I overheard a conversation on the subject: “Greek was the universal written language of Jesus’ world.” So the Gospels were not written in Aramaic as it was not a written language, not Hebrew as only Jews learned to read it, but Greek, the language of Asia Minor, Ethiopia, and Spain. It was at the time of Jesus, the written language of the Roman Empire, what Latin was to the world for much of the Common Era during the great expansions of the Roman Catholic Church, and what English is to the world today.
From Brookwood and Parkview to schools in Tokyo and Paris, even rock bands in Kabul, Afghanistan, English is the closest thing the world has today to a universal written language.
It is the language of the most powerful nation on earth. It is the language used in the most exciting movies anyone can see; it is the language of President Barak Obama, William Shakespeare, and Wall Street.
People who have something to say to the world today are saying it in English, just as people who had something that was worth saying in the ancient world wrote it in Greek. It was the language that people who were educated enough to be literate learned to read, it was the language of Homer and Plato, the language of democracy, power, empire, and influence.
So these Greeks go to Philip, we assume that something about living in Bethsaida in Galilee meant that he could understand their Greek or that they all could speak Hebrew, these Greeks go to Philip in the hope of seeing Jesus but it’s important to think about why.
They didn’t need Jesus the teacher – they were Greek and they had the greatest philosophers of the time – and as we still learn of them today you might argue that these Greeks had the best philosophers of any time. They had Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Diogenes who said that life was best lived impulsively, follow your desires he said – and should you take the opposite slant the Greeks also had the philosophy of the Stoics, suppressing passion, living life to the fullest by avoiding emotional investment.
Unlike so many I assume that these Greeks also did not need Jesus the healer to deliver a miraculous healing as they had Hippocrates and the most modern medicine available to help them avoid suffering, illness, and disease.
Nor did these Greeks need Jesus the Prince of Peace as they already had democracy, they trusted the voice of the people, and were able to avoid the tyranny of leaders too powerful through election.
They didn’t need any of the things that people often go to Jesus looking for, so maybe we should wonder why they went up saying, “We would like to see Jesus.”
As like the Greeks, you could say that we don’t need Jesus to teach us anything, anything worth knowing is already in English.
Like those Greeks who went to see him, you could say that we don’t need Jesus to heal common ailments necessarily, we have doctors and hospitals.
And you could say that we don’t need Jesus the Prince of Peace to deliver us from tyranny as we have the right to vote and can deliver ourselves from tyranny.
But maybe like us, this group of Greeks still knew that something was missing.
That despite all their wisdom there were still some questions left unanswered.
That despite all their medicine there was still something that plagued them.
That despite all their democracy there was still some power they still could not touch.
That despite all they had to enhance life something was wrong.
So Christ gives them death: “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.”
Everything in Greek culture, and possibly even more so in our culture, is focused, not on embracing this truth but on avoiding it – our literature celebrates life, our medicine extends it, our government’s purpose is to provide for the means of attaining life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – so what Jesus has to offer is not only foreign, it is completely different from anything else our culture has to offer.
The way of Christ is not the way of our culture, as Christ does not fear death!
What Christ offered those Greeks must have seemed foolishness then, but Paul would say, “the message of the cross is foolishness… but the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”
What we have in Christ is foolishness to much of the world – that life is to be lived, not by fearing suffering, hardship, and death, but that life is to be lived with all of these things in plain view for death is not to be feared as death is not the end but the pathway to the new beginning.
That what the world fears more than all else has been concurred for Christ has risen from the dead – out of the tomb has come life.
Out of hardship has come new life.
Out of shadow comes hope.
The Greeks came to see Jesus, and in him they found something they had not seen before.
In him may you find the truth, that out of hardship comes new life, and that hope bursts forth from shadow, and that life streams from the tomb.
May you see Jesus, the light, and become sons and daughters of the light.
Amen.
Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.”
Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.
Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
The one who loves his or her life will lose it, while the one who hates his or her life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant will also be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
“Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. But I , when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
The crowd spoke up, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ will remain forever, so how can you say, “The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this ‘Son of Man’?”
Then Jesus told them, “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. The one who walks in the dark does not know where he or she is going. Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you may become sons and daughters of light.”
When he had finished speaking, Jesus left and hid himself from them.
Sermon
On more than one occasion, I must confess, I’ve made fun of the great 20th Century governor of Texas Miriam A. Ferguson. Though she was a college graduate in a time when so many women were left uneducated, was the second female governor in United States history and the first female governor of the great state of Texas, was by most accounts, a great leader, a populist, a fiscal conservative, and a great opponent of the Ku Klux Klan, is perhaps most famous for saying, “If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for Texas schoolchildren.”
Jesus, you see, did not speak English. He spoke a language called Aramaic.
But seminary students, trained to read scripture, in the language scripture was first uttered in, learn to read, not Aramaic but Hebrew and Greek.
I knew why I was supposed to learn Hebrew, but on my first day of Greek class I had no idea why we were being forced to learn Greek and I couldn’t figure out why we weren’t learning Aramaic.
I was too embarrassed to ask anyone why we were learning Greek however, so I just went on learning it, not knowing why I was learning it, until one day I overheard a conversation on the subject: “Greek was the universal written language of Jesus’ world.” So the Gospels were not written in Aramaic as it was not a written language, not Hebrew as only Jews learned to read it, but Greek, the language of Asia Minor, Ethiopia, and Spain. It was at the time of Jesus, the written language of the Roman Empire, what Latin was to the world for much of the Common Era during the great expansions of the Roman Catholic Church, and what English is to the world today.
From Brookwood and Parkview to schools in Tokyo and Paris, even rock bands in Kabul, Afghanistan, English is the closest thing the world has today to a universal written language.
It is the language of the most powerful nation on earth. It is the language used in the most exciting movies anyone can see; it is the language of President Barak Obama, William Shakespeare, and Wall Street.
People who have something to say to the world today are saying it in English, just as people who had something that was worth saying in the ancient world wrote it in Greek. It was the language that people who were educated enough to be literate learned to read, it was the language of Homer and Plato, the language of democracy, power, empire, and influence.
So these Greeks go to Philip, we assume that something about living in Bethsaida in Galilee meant that he could understand their Greek or that they all could speak Hebrew, these Greeks go to Philip in the hope of seeing Jesus but it’s important to think about why.
They didn’t need Jesus the teacher – they were Greek and they had the greatest philosophers of the time – and as we still learn of them today you might argue that these Greeks had the best philosophers of any time. They had Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Diogenes who said that life was best lived impulsively, follow your desires he said – and should you take the opposite slant the Greeks also had the philosophy of the Stoics, suppressing passion, living life to the fullest by avoiding emotional investment.
Unlike so many I assume that these Greeks also did not need Jesus the healer to deliver a miraculous healing as they had Hippocrates and the most modern medicine available to help them avoid suffering, illness, and disease.
Nor did these Greeks need Jesus the Prince of Peace as they already had democracy, they trusted the voice of the people, and were able to avoid the tyranny of leaders too powerful through election.
They didn’t need any of the things that people often go to Jesus looking for, so maybe we should wonder why they went up saying, “We would like to see Jesus.”
As like the Greeks, you could say that we don’t need Jesus to teach us anything, anything worth knowing is already in English.
Like those Greeks who went to see him, you could say that we don’t need Jesus to heal common ailments necessarily, we have doctors and hospitals.
And you could say that we don’t need Jesus the Prince of Peace to deliver us from tyranny as we have the right to vote and can deliver ourselves from tyranny.
But maybe like us, this group of Greeks still knew that something was missing.
That despite all their wisdom there were still some questions left unanswered.
That despite all their medicine there was still something that plagued them.
That despite all their democracy there was still some power they still could not touch.
That despite all they had to enhance life something was wrong.
So Christ gives them death: “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.”
Everything in Greek culture, and possibly even more so in our culture, is focused, not on embracing this truth but on avoiding it – our literature celebrates life, our medicine extends it, our government’s purpose is to provide for the means of attaining life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – so what Jesus has to offer is not only foreign, it is completely different from anything else our culture has to offer.
The way of Christ is not the way of our culture, as Christ does not fear death!
What Christ offered those Greeks must have seemed foolishness then, but Paul would say, “the message of the cross is foolishness… but the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”
What we have in Christ is foolishness to much of the world – that life is to be lived, not by fearing suffering, hardship, and death, but that life is to be lived with all of these things in plain view for death is not to be feared as death is not the end but the pathway to the new beginning.
That what the world fears more than all else has been concurred for Christ has risen from the dead – out of the tomb has come life.
Out of hardship has come new life.
Out of shadow comes hope.
The Greeks came to see Jesus, and in him they found something they had not seen before.
In him may you find the truth, that out of hardship comes new life, and that hope bursts forth from shadow, and that life streams from the tomb.
May you see Jesus, the light, and become sons and daughters of the light.
Amen.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
That You May Believe
John 20: 19-31, page 769
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”
After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his or her sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”
A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them.
Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Sermon
Believing can get to be tricky business, especially for educated adults.
That point was illustrated in an email forwarded to me by Peggy Trettel this week:
A little boy opened the big family Bible, and he was fascinated by it as he fingered through the pages, that seemed to his eyes to be ancient.
Suddenly something fell out of the Bible. He picked the object up to find that it was an old leaf someone had pressed between the pages.
“Mama, look what I found,” the boy called out.
“What have you got there dear?”
With astonishment in the young boy’s voice he answered, “I think it’s Adam’s underwear.”
I guess it happens slowly that we stop expecting to see the Mighty Acts of God unfold right before our eyes. We see a leaf and we don’t see Adam’s underwear, we just see a leaf, but worse than that, what we read in the Bible becomes, not historical events that we expect to see the evidence of, but stories not unlike any other story we’ve heard.
Slowly but surely we associate, not with the young boy from the story, but with Thomas – known down through generations of history as the great Doubter.
And Thomas is easy to associate with. He simply asks to do the thing that we all want to do. If what the disciples say is true, if what the church says is true, if what the Bible says is true than let me see something that proves it!
Essentially I think we all, wisely, feel that way from time to time.
Not many people sign up for experimental surgery, as there is no data telling you whether or not the procedure will be worth the risk.
I don’t expect anyone went up to Orval and Wilbur Wright asking for a lift the first time they defied gravity in the airplane – someone had to try it first to prove that it was safe.
And Thomas wasn’t going to just take the disciples word for it, but wanted himself to touch Christ’s wounds before he would believe.
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
This statement is for us – gone is the time to touch the wounds for proof, and while when we were children we may have been trusting enough to believe just because its what we were taught, we now must face the reality that Christ is not here to prove himself to us – so for many of us, doubt is a locked door that stands in the way of living out the Christian life – we don’t talk about our belief to others very often, because all too often we’re afraid that we might be asked to answer a question we’re not prepared to answer: so you’re a Christian, do you really believe that all of humanity came from one man and one woman?
So you’re a Christian, do you really believe that Jesus rose from the dead?
So you’re a Christian, do you really believe all those stories in the Bible are true?
Like a locked door, our fear of having to face the questions that may in fact expose heart our own doubts, ensure that we keep the gospel to ourselves.
If we study our scripture passage closer we’ll find that the disciples we’re not very different at all in this respect. They were shut in by a literal locked door. For fear of the Jews they were together in hiding behind a locked door when Jesus came to them to prove to them that he had in fact risen from the dead, and to send them all out that they would not keep this truth to themselves:
Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his or her sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
You would think that after such an encounter the disciples would have been beating that locked door down to get to the work of spreading the Gospel, but instead, Jesus comes to them again through that door locked out of fear. They had not gone anywhere; they had not done anything though they had proof that Christ had risen from the dead.
A locked door kept them from living out their calling, just as doubt, like a locked door often keeps us from ours.
Fear of death kept them from emerging from their safe room, just as fear that we might not know what to say keeps us from speaking out about our faith – and if you really think about it, we have a better excuse than they did as statistics show that people fear public speaking more than anything else, more even than death.
Rev. Jim Fisher, a minister who is able to worship with his family here often and who regularly attends the Men’s Breakfast Bible study joked last Thursday – “What do you get when you mix a Presbyterian and a Jehovah’s Witness?”
“Someone who knocks on the door but doesn’t know what to say.”
So often we don’t know what to say, but more than that I think we doubt the power of our words. That’s why what Jesus said about words is so important: “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
A great preacher of our time, Barbara Brown Taylor said of this very verse: “seeing is not superior to hearing” as here Jesus puts on equal ground the proof of his resurrection and the word spoken of his resurrection.”
We do not have proof – but do not doubt the power of your words.
I say so because in today’s world your words will do more than you can imagine.
This past week a group of men cut down a whole bunch of trees that grant our church greater exposure from the road. I think we all hope that greater exposure from the road will bring more people into our church – but just because people can see a restaurant doesn’t mean people are going to try it.
What every business owner knows is that nothing matters more than word of mouth – and interestingly one of those men asked our own Dave Adcock about our church, what we are about, and what makes us special. Dave wasn’t sure what to say at first he told a group of us, but after going on about this and that the man told him, “Oh don’t worry about it. We live up in Monroe.” Dave told him plainly, “We’ll, this church would be worth the drive.”
He’s right of course, and I can tell you why this church is worth the drive again and again, but you already know why.
Because you have been here you know, but let’s be thinking about those who have not yet seen but need to know.
The disciples had to take the gospel of Christ out beyond their locked doors, and you must take it out beyond your locked doors of fear and doubt to offer what we have here to a people who need what we have.
If you are looking for something to say, don’t worry about Adam and Eve or the proof of the resurrection:
-Just tell someone who loves music how fantastic this choir is
-Just tell someone who needs a community, that here people pray for each other, care for each other, and most of the time, will take the time to learn your name.
-Just tell some parent with young kids about our preschool bursting forth with light and laughter and love.
-Just tell some parent with teenage kids about our youth group where they can actually get to know their leader, call her on the phone, and be friends with her on facebook.
-Go and tell someone who hates church because the pastor talks for too long that your pastor preached an Easter Sunday sermon that lasted 7 minutes.
And if you really want to get at what matters – go and tell someone that Good Shepherd has nurtured your relationship with God, and if you don’t think that that’s exactly what every person alive wants and needs than you are mistaken.
If the disciples had stayed behind their locked door you would never have heard the life changing Gospel of Jesus Christ – so don’t keep what you have found here to yourself.
Unlock the door, go out, and tell someone about what you have here.
-Amen.
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”
After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his or her sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”
A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them.
Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Sermon
Believing can get to be tricky business, especially for educated adults.
That point was illustrated in an email forwarded to me by Peggy Trettel this week:
A little boy opened the big family Bible, and he was fascinated by it as he fingered through the pages, that seemed to his eyes to be ancient.
Suddenly something fell out of the Bible. He picked the object up to find that it was an old leaf someone had pressed between the pages.
“Mama, look what I found,” the boy called out.
“What have you got there dear?”
With astonishment in the young boy’s voice he answered, “I think it’s Adam’s underwear.”
I guess it happens slowly that we stop expecting to see the Mighty Acts of God unfold right before our eyes. We see a leaf and we don’t see Adam’s underwear, we just see a leaf, but worse than that, what we read in the Bible becomes, not historical events that we expect to see the evidence of, but stories not unlike any other story we’ve heard.
Slowly but surely we associate, not with the young boy from the story, but with Thomas – known down through generations of history as the great Doubter.
And Thomas is easy to associate with. He simply asks to do the thing that we all want to do. If what the disciples say is true, if what the church says is true, if what the Bible says is true than let me see something that proves it!
Essentially I think we all, wisely, feel that way from time to time.
Not many people sign up for experimental surgery, as there is no data telling you whether or not the procedure will be worth the risk.
I don’t expect anyone went up to Orval and Wilbur Wright asking for a lift the first time they defied gravity in the airplane – someone had to try it first to prove that it was safe.
And Thomas wasn’t going to just take the disciples word for it, but wanted himself to touch Christ’s wounds before he would believe.
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
This statement is for us – gone is the time to touch the wounds for proof, and while when we were children we may have been trusting enough to believe just because its what we were taught, we now must face the reality that Christ is not here to prove himself to us – so for many of us, doubt is a locked door that stands in the way of living out the Christian life – we don’t talk about our belief to others very often, because all too often we’re afraid that we might be asked to answer a question we’re not prepared to answer: so you’re a Christian, do you really believe that all of humanity came from one man and one woman?
So you’re a Christian, do you really believe that Jesus rose from the dead?
So you’re a Christian, do you really believe all those stories in the Bible are true?
Like a locked door, our fear of having to face the questions that may in fact expose heart our own doubts, ensure that we keep the gospel to ourselves.
If we study our scripture passage closer we’ll find that the disciples we’re not very different at all in this respect. They were shut in by a literal locked door. For fear of the Jews they were together in hiding behind a locked door when Jesus came to them to prove to them that he had in fact risen from the dead, and to send them all out that they would not keep this truth to themselves:
Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his or her sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
You would think that after such an encounter the disciples would have been beating that locked door down to get to the work of spreading the Gospel, but instead, Jesus comes to them again through that door locked out of fear. They had not gone anywhere; they had not done anything though they had proof that Christ had risen from the dead.
A locked door kept them from living out their calling, just as doubt, like a locked door often keeps us from ours.
Fear of death kept them from emerging from their safe room, just as fear that we might not know what to say keeps us from speaking out about our faith – and if you really think about it, we have a better excuse than they did as statistics show that people fear public speaking more than anything else, more even than death.
Rev. Jim Fisher, a minister who is able to worship with his family here often and who regularly attends the Men’s Breakfast Bible study joked last Thursday – “What do you get when you mix a Presbyterian and a Jehovah’s Witness?”
“Someone who knocks on the door but doesn’t know what to say.”
So often we don’t know what to say, but more than that I think we doubt the power of our words. That’s why what Jesus said about words is so important: “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
A great preacher of our time, Barbara Brown Taylor said of this very verse: “seeing is not superior to hearing” as here Jesus puts on equal ground the proof of his resurrection and the word spoken of his resurrection.”
We do not have proof – but do not doubt the power of your words.
I say so because in today’s world your words will do more than you can imagine.
This past week a group of men cut down a whole bunch of trees that grant our church greater exposure from the road. I think we all hope that greater exposure from the road will bring more people into our church – but just because people can see a restaurant doesn’t mean people are going to try it.
What every business owner knows is that nothing matters more than word of mouth – and interestingly one of those men asked our own Dave Adcock about our church, what we are about, and what makes us special. Dave wasn’t sure what to say at first he told a group of us, but after going on about this and that the man told him, “Oh don’t worry about it. We live up in Monroe.” Dave told him plainly, “We’ll, this church would be worth the drive.”
He’s right of course, and I can tell you why this church is worth the drive again and again, but you already know why.
Because you have been here you know, but let’s be thinking about those who have not yet seen but need to know.
The disciples had to take the gospel of Christ out beyond their locked doors, and you must take it out beyond your locked doors of fear and doubt to offer what we have here to a people who need what we have.
If you are looking for something to say, don’t worry about Adam and Eve or the proof of the resurrection:
-Just tell someone who loves music how fantastic this choir is
-Just tell someone who needs a community, that here people pray for each other, care for each other, and most of the time, will take the time to learn your name.
-Just tell some parent with young kids about our preschool bursting forth with light and laughter and love.
-Just tell some parent with teenage kids about our youth group where they can actually get to know their leader, call her on the phone, and be friends with her on facebook.
-Go and tell someone who hates church because the pastor talks for too long that your pastor preached an Easter Sunday sermon that lasted 7 minutes.
And if you really want to get at what matters – go and tell someone that Good Shepherd has nurtured your relationship with God, and if you don’t think that that’s exactly what every person alive wants and needs than you are mistaken.
If the disciples had stayed behind their locked door you would never have heard the life changing Gospel of Jesus Christ – so don’t keep what you have found here to yourself.
Unlock the door, go out, and tell someone about what you have here.
-Amen.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Then They Remembered
Luke 24: 1-12, page 748
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!
Remember how he told you while he was still with you in Galilee: The son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.”
Then they remembered his words.
When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles.
But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.
Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
Sermon
Many a preacher has spent his or her Easter Sunday sermon on what theological types call “apologetics,” that is, rational argument to convince listeners of the truth of the resurrection.
But it occurs to me that this task is pretty difficult when you consider what all the disciples heard, and yet, they could not believe it.
The disciples rejected what the women were saying as nonsense our pew Bibles say, but this word has also been translated as “an idle tale”, “legend”, “foolishness”, or “mere fantasy”.
Jesus had warned them, and they knew enough about this man to take him at his word. They had seen him do the impossible – heal so many people who had been waiting for someone to do what a doctor could not; but not only that, they had seen him raise others from the dead. So when he fulfilled the prophecy about himself that he spoke to them they should not have been unbelieving, they should have been expecting it all along.
Instead, fearing that they might be discovered and meet the same death on the cross that their leader had suffered, they hid as though they had no idea what was going to happen next and wanted nothing more than to survive.
When you really think about it, if they had been paying attention to what Jesus had been saying, they should never have let those women waste their money on burial materials because they should have known that there would be no body to bury – that there would be no corpse to embalm.
On hearing that what Jesus said would happen had actually happened, the disciples acted as though they didn’t have time for stories and wouldn’t hear anything of it.
What should have been expected had become for the disciples nothing more than foolishness; some broken promise that they knew now would never come true. They had given up on their dream of a new Kingdom, and now was the time to put foolish stories away.
The same is true for so many of us today – now is certainly not a good time for stories.
Families of Russian subway victims, mothers, wives, children, husbands, and friends – their tear- stained cheeks laid down on loved one’s caskets don’t want to hear stories about how everything is going to be hunky-dory.
The unemployed don’t need a children’s story to boost their self-esteem, they need jobs.
And the disciples had watched their leader suffer from a distance, but not a distance far enough away to avoid his screams as they nailed him to the cross, not far enough to miss the brutality of his death by human hands – not far enough away to mistake the cruel message Rome sent anyone who would stand in its way.
The Gospel was a good ideal for a while, but this is not the time for stories, they said, this is the time for survival.
So they abandoned their heritage of faith out of fear, as though faith were not for just such a time as this.
There are plenty of people in the world who believe things about Christianity that just are not true – that for Christians every day is sunshine and roses, that smiles are permanently pasted on our faces – but I’ve read the Bible and I feel confident in saying that not a single one of the good books was written when everything was going great, but when everything was falling apart.
Faith was not given to us so that we would best enjoy the spring time, but it was given to us so that when the waters rise, when Pharaoh tightens his grip, or when Pilate sentences Christ to die, we do not give up, but go on believing.
Unfortunately, like the disciples, it is during hardship and when we are most afraid that we turn away from the very thing that will help us through.
The recession has hit hard and businesses have cut back, but where unemployment hurts the worst is when it gets at how you feel about yourself. When unemployment strikes we forget our faith; we forget to have faith in ourselves.
Finances get tight and the very first thing to be cut from our budget is benevolences. When finances get tight we forget our faith, we forget to have faith in the God who will provide enough.
Believing that there is a reason things happen, that there is a God working on our behalf, these are convenient truths that we forget when life gets hard, and so we forget to have faith in the God who works for good in hardship, who makes all things new, who parts the waters and makes a way where there was no way before.
We leave these stories behind as though they were just foolishness, push them away as though they were fairy tales in favor of what would seem to be the truth.
So those men in clothes like lightening stand before us today, calling us to remember what he said so that we might make sense of the world around us:
“Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: The son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.”
Then that group of brave women remembered his words.
Only in remembering did any of it make any sense – only in trusting that all of it was part of some divine plan could they see beyond their fear and into the future.
-That before there was Rome there was God, and God is still here today while Rome has crumbled to ruins
-That before this recession there was God, and God is still here for you today, will be here tomorrow, outlasting unemployment, foreclosure, and self-doubt.
-That before there was even an earth there was God, and when all of this falls away there will still be this God’s love, outlasting all your fear and all your doubt.
It is so easy to forget and so you must remember that Christ promised death would not have the final word – now open your eyes, remember and believe that Christ has risen!
Alleluia.
Amen.
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!
Remember how he told you while he was still with you in Galilee: The son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.”
Then they remembered his words.
When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles.
But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.
Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
Sermon
Many a preacher has spent his or her Easter Sunday sermon on what theological types call “apologetics,” that is, rational argument to convince listeners of the truth of the resurrection.
But it occurs to me that this task is pretty difficult when you consider what all the disciples heard, and yet, they could not believe it.
The disciples rejected what the women were saying as nonsense our pew Bibles say, but this word has also been translated as “an idle tale”, “legend”, “foolishness”, or “mere fantasy”.
Jesus had warned them, and they knew enough about this man to take him at his word. They had seen him do the impossible – heal so many people who had been waiting for someone to do what a doctor could not; but not only that, they had seen him raise others from the dead. So when he fulfilled the prophecy about himself that he spoke to them they should not have been unbelieving, they should have been expecting it all along.
Instead, fearing that they might be discovered and meet the same death on the cross that their leader had suffered, they hid as though they had no idea what was going to happen next and wanted nothing more than to survive.
When you really think about it, if they had been paying attention to what Jesus had been saying, they should never have let those women waste their money on burial materials because they should have known that there would be no body to bury – that there would be no corpse to embalm.
On hearing that what Jesus said would happen had actually happened, the disciples acted as though they didn’t have time for stories and wouldn’t hear anything of it.
What should have been expected had become for the disciples nothing more than foolishness; some broken promise that they knew now would never come true. They had given up on their dream of a new Kingdom, and now was the time to put foolish stories away.
The same is true for so many of us today – now is certainly not a good time for stories.
Families of Russian subway victims, mothers, wives, children, husbands, and friends – their tear- stained cheeks laid down on loved one’s caskets don’t want to hear stories about how everything is going to be hunky-dory.
The unemployed don’t need a children’s story to boost their self-esteem, they need jobs.
And the disciples had watched their leader suffer from a distance, but not a distance far enough away to avoid his screams as they nailed him to the cross, not far enough to miss the brutality of his death by human hands – not far enough away to mistake the cruel message Rome sent anyone who would stand in its way.
The Gospel was a good ideal for a while, but this is not the time for stories, they said, this is the time for survival.
So they abandoned their heritage of faith out of fear, as though faith were not for just such a time as this.
There are plenty of people in the world who believe things about Christianity that just are not true – that for Christians every day is sunshine and roses, that smiles are permanently pasted on our faces – but I’ve read the Bible and I feel confident in saying that not a single one of the good books was written when everything was going great, but when everything was falling apart.
Faith was not given to us so that we would best enjoy the spring time, but it was given to us so that when the waters rise, when Pharaoh tightens his grip, or when Pilate sentences Christ to die, we do not give up, but go on believing.
Unfortunately, like the disciples, it is during hardship and when we are most afraid that we turn away from the very thing that will help us through.
The recession has hit hard and businesses have cut back, but where unemployment hurts the worst is when it gets at how you feel about yourself. When unemployment strikes we forget our faith; we forget to have faith in ourselves.
Finances get tight and the very first thing to be cut from our budget is benevolences. When finances get tight we forget our faith, we forget to have faith in the God who will provide enough.
Believing that there is a reason things happen, that there is a God working on our behalf, these are convenient truths that we forget when life gets hard, and so we forget to have faith in the God who works for good in hardship, who makes all things new, who parts the waters and makes a way where there was no way before.
We leave these stories behind as though they were just foolishness, push them away as though they were fairy tales in favor of what would seem to be the truth.
So those men in clothes like lightening stand before us today, calling us to remember what he said so that we might make sense of the world around us:
“Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: The son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.”
Then that group of brave women remembered his words.
Only in remembering did any of it make any sense – only in trusting that all of it was part of some divine plan could they see beyond their fear and into the future.
-That before there was Rome there was God, and God is still here today while Rome has crumbled to ruins
-That before this recession there was God, and God is still here for you today, will be here tomorrow, outlasting unemployment, foreclosure, and self-doubt.
-That before there was even an earth there was God, and when all of this falls away there will still be this God’s love, outlasting all your fear and all your doubt.
It is so easy to forget and so you must remember that Christ promised death would not have the final word – now open your eyes, remember and believe that Christ has risen!
Alleluia.
Amen.
Monday, March 29, 2010
When Darkness Reigns
Luke 22: 47-53, page 747
While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”
When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.
But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.
Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? Everyday I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour – when darkness reigns.”
Sermon
People who ask questions are not always looking for answers.
Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who you know is not listening to you? They’re nodding their head as you’re talking, but you can tell that they’re not paying any attention at all – when my wife Sara thinks that’s what I might be doing she’ll stop talking, and ask me a question – not because she wants to know the answer, but because she wants to know whether I’m paying attention or not. I’ll have to scramble for something to say and I’ll just hope I’ve said something that’s close enough: “I’m so sorry your boss is acting that way,” or “I just think Lily is doing great.”
Something else that’s sometimes hard to deal with are those questions that aren’t really questions, but an accusation: “Joe, have you had a chance to sweep the floor?” my wife Sara might ask, knowing full well that I haven’t given all the dust and dog hair on Lily’s knees that she’s accumulated crawling all over the house, but wanting to say something more kind than, “Joe, you’ve had all day to sweep the floor so why on earth are my baby girl’s knees so dirty, it looks like she’s been crawling all over a supermarket!”
But worst of all is that question that won’t wait for an answer because the people who ask it have already decided what they’re going to do: “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” If you look closely at this sentence I suppose you do have to call it a question as it ends in a question mark, but verse 49 doesn’t say that the disciples asked Jesus this question. Instead, “they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?”
And not waiting for answer, one of them struck the servant of the high priest with his sword, cutting off his right ear.
The disciples’ rashness shouldn’t be surprising. They are defending Christ – and all of us who know the love that he has for us can imagine doing the same thing – wanting to show that same love he has for us by defending him from the arrest and execution that they now know is waiting for him.
They knew what they were going to do before they asked; so they weren’t really asking at all as they weren’t listening for an answer.
The approaching gang armed with swords and clubs isn’t interested in listening to anything either. They had not gone out to find Jesus for a nice conversation, but to silence him before he went and did something that might catch the Roman’s attention.
As he marched into Jerusalem the Pharisees were there and one said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
These religious authorities knew that this crowd celebrating Jesus was going a little too far, that Jesus wasn’t just a teacher, but was one that threatened stability, who was pressing for things to change, and who had captured the imagination of the people to such a degree that they cheered for him in the street, welcoming him into the city with shouts of:
“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
With those words, most especially that dangerous word “king,” the Pharisees knew what they had to do – they had to stop this man before he tried to take the power that the people seemed to want him to have.
The Pharisees’ concern sounds strange to those of us who know that Jesus wasn’t interested in political power. We know that Jesus could have explained to them how he wasn’t interested in becoming the Prince of Jerusalem; he was the Prince of Peace. That he didn’t care about gaining power, he already had the power of God at his command. But the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders had not gone out to find Jesus to straighten this misunderstanding out or to hear what he had to say, and after some impulsive disciple attacked the very thing used for hearing had been cut off.
What we have in this scripture lesson are two groups bent on facing each other head on – not in a discussion, not to find some compromise, but with minds made up, one group bent on defending Jesus, the other bent on maintaining the order that Christ threatened by arresting him and keeping him quiet, there is no peaceful solution left.
Neither group was interested in hearing anything, but both had already made up their minds.
A situation not too unlike rallies I’ve seen recently outside the White House – two opposing sides, both having already made up their minds, and certainly not interested in hearing what the other side has to say.
Judging from the placards, protestors are shooting to offend their opponents, not dialogue with them:
“If socialized medicine is best then why didn’t Ted Kennedy go to Canada?”
Or “what moron wouldn’t want free health care?”
It would seem as though everyone has already decided what it is that they believe, what they believe the other side believes, and they are no more interested in working together or hearing what the other side has to say than Jesus was in picking which side he would like to be on.
What so captivates me about our scripture lesson for today is that I bet both sides also thought they knew what Jesus would be doing – that the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, the elders, and their servants assumed that Jesus would be putting up a fight, that they had better come armed, poised to defend themselves and to bring down this band of disciples with a strong hand.
The disciples may have assumed the same thing – that Jesus would be ordering them to defend themselves, that he would stand behind them and pray that God would deliver them from their enemies and support them in their triumphant assault on the corrupt religious establishment.
But Jesus defies both groups’ expectations. He doesn’t even side with his disciples, but as the two groups face each other we see that Christ is present to the injured man, touching his wound and healing his ear.
Like a rally outside the white house, no one went out to hear what the other side had to say, those banners and chants aren’t for educating the other side but for rallying supporters, the disciples had decided they would be fighting, the chief priests, guards, servants and elders had already decided that they would be arresting, but Christ is not for or against either of these groups, he is not on one of those two sides, he is serving the wounded man.
I believe this wounded man was the only one who truly heard something that night, that night when people stopped listening and started fighting, that night when darkness reigned. It is so ironic that the man without an ear would be the only one who heard the good news but it is this man who is changed, it is this man who knew in that moment of chaos who Christ truly was and what Christ came to earth to do.
In that moment, that moment when darkness reigned, the light that shown in the darkness was a sign of kindness when all around was hate, a moment of seeing not two sides but two people with a common humanity, it was just a flicker there, but when darkness reigned all around, when the disciples stopped listening, when the religious authorities had already made up their mind, there was one man who saw Christ plainly.
In a world where issues divide us, where the news would keep you worried and threatened, in a world perfectly happy to keep you from listening to anyone who thinks differently – it would seem that we too live in a world where darkness reigns.
Hold fast then to this truth – Christ doesn’t care about your issues – Christ cares about you.
Christ sides, not with the Democrats or the Republicans, but with the hurt, the afflicted, and the lost – and if you follow him you will most certainly never be lost.
Listen then; hear his voice – and trust that when darkness reigns there is a light that will never go out.
Amen.
While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”
When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.
But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.
Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? Everyday I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour – when darkness reigns.”
Sermon
People who ask questions are not always looking for answers.
Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who you know is not listening to you? They’re nodding their head as you’re talking, but you can tell that they’re not paying any attention at all – when my wife Sara thinks that’s what I might be doing she’ll stop talking, and ask me a question – not because she wants to know the answer, but because she wants to know whether I’m paying attention or not. I’ll have to scramble for something to say and I’ll just hope I’ve said something that’s close enough: “I’m so sorry your boss is acting that way,” or “I just think Lily is doing great.”
Something else that’s sometimes hard to deal with are those questions that aren’t really questions, but an accusation: “Joe, have you had a chance to sweep the floor?” my wife Sara might ask, knowing full well that I haven’t given all the dust and dog hair on Lily’s knees that she’s accumulated crawling all over the house, but wanting to say something more kind than, “Joe, you’ve had all day to sweep the floor so why on earth are my baby girl’s knees so dirty, it looks like she’s been crawling all over a supermarket!”
But worst of all is that question that won’t wait for an answer because the people who ask it have already decided what they’re going to do: “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” If you look closely at this sentence I suppose you do have to call it a question as it ends in a question mark, but verse 49 doesn’t say that the disciples asked Jesus this question. Instead, “they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?”
And not waiting for answer, one of them struck the servant of the high priest with his sword, cutting off his right ear.
The disciples’ rashness shouldn’t be surprising. They are defending Christ – and all of us who know the love that he has for us can imagine doing the same thing – wanting to show that same love he has for us by defending him from the arrest and execution that they now know is waiting for him.
They knew what they were going to do before they asked; so they weren’t really asking at all as they weren’t listening for an answer.
The approaching gang armed with swords and clubs isn’t interested in listening to anything either. They had not gone out to find Jesus for a nice conversation, but to silence him before he went and did something that might catch the Roman’s attention.
As he marched into Jerusalem the Pharisees were there and one said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
These religious authorities knew that this crowd celebrating Jesus was going a little too far, that Jesus wasn’t just a teacher, but was one that threatened stability, who was pressing for things to change, and who had captured the imagination of the people to such a degree that they cheered for him in the street, welcoming him into the city with shouts of:
“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
With those words, most especially that dangerous word “king,” the Pharisees knew what they had to do – they had to stop this man before he tried to take the power that the people seemed to want him to have.
The Pharisees’ concern sounds strange to those of us who know that Jesus wasn’t interested in political power. We know that Jesus could have explained to them how he wasn’t interested in becoming the Prince of Jerusalem; he was the Prince of Peace. That he didn’t care about gaining power, he already had the power of God at his command. But the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders had not gone out to find Jesus to straighten this misunderstanding out or to hear what he had to say, and after some impulsive disciple attacked the very thing used for hearing had been cut off.
What we have in this scripture lesson are two groups bent on facing each other head on – not in a discussion, not to find some compromise, but with minds made up, one group bent on defending Jesus, the other bent on maintaining the order that Christ threatened by arresting him and keeping him quiet, there is no peaceful solution left.
Neither group was interested in hearing anything, but both had already made up their minds.
A situation not too unlike rallies I’ve seen recently outside the White House – two opposing sides, both having already made up their minds, and certainly not interested in hearing what the other side has to say.
Judging from the placards, protestors are shooting to offend their opponents, not dialogue with them:
“If socialized medicine is best then why didn’t Ted Kennedy go to Canada?”
Or “what moron wouldn’t want free health care?”
It would seem as though everyone has already decided what it is that they believe, what they believe the other side believes, and they are no more interested in working together or hearing what the other side has to say than Jesus was in picking which side he would like to be on.
What so captivates me about our scripture lesson for today is that I bet both sides also thought they knew what Jesus would be doing – that the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, the elders, and their servants assumed that Jesus would be putting up a fight, that they had better come armed, poised to defend themselves and to bring down this band of disciples with a strong hand.
The disciples may have assumed the same thing – that Jesus would be ordering them to defend themselves, that he would stand behind them and pray that God would deliver them from their enemies and support them in their triumphant assault on the corrupt religious establishment.
But Jesus defies both groups’ expectations. He doesn’t even side with his disciples, but as the two groups face each other we see that Christ is present to the injured man, touching his wound and healing his ear.
Like a rally outside the white house, no one went out to hear what the other side had to say, those banners and chants aren’t for educating the other side but for rallying supporters, the disciples had decided they would be fighting, the chief priests, guards, servants and elders had already decided that they would be arresting, but Christ is not for or against either of these groups, he is not on one of those two sides, he is serving the wounded man.
I believe this wounded man was the only one who truly heard something that night, that night when people stopped listening and started fighting, that night when darkness reigned. It is so ironic that the man without an ear would be the only one who heard the good news but it is this man who is changed, it is this man who knew in that moment of chaos who Christ truly was and what Christ came to earth to do.
In that moment, that moment when darkness reigned, the light that shown in the darkness was a sign of kindness when all around was hate, a moment of seeing not two sides but two people with a common humanity, it was just a flicker there, but when darkness reigned all around, when the disciples stopped listening, when the religious authorities had already made up their mind, there was one man who saw Christ plainly.
In a world where issues divide us, where the news would keep you worried and threatened, in a world perfectly happy to keep you from listening to anyone who thinks differently – it would seem that we too live in a world where darkness reigns.
Hold fast then to this truth – Christ doesn’t care about your issues – Christ cares about you.
Christ sides, not with the Democrats or the Republicans, but with the hurt, the afflicted, and the lost – and if you follow him you will most certainly never be lost.
Listen then; hear his voice – and trust that when darkness reigns there is a light that will never go out.
Amen.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Another Chance
Luke 13: 1-9, page 738
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.
Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?
I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.
Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?
I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
Then he told this parable:
“A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
“’Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”
Sermon
You have to be careful with people, because if they don’t know the answer, they may well just make something up.
About two years ago a group of us were flying over Haiti in a little propeller plane driven by a Cuban Pilate.
The turbulence was horrible and we were all thankful to finally be on solid ground again, and Jane Carney, I think it was, says to someone else from our congregation, “I wasn’t worried. Our pastor was head bowed in prayer the whole flight.”
And I’m glad that when she saw me with my head bowed on that turbulent flight that’s what she thought I was doing – that description paints me in a much holier light than what I was actually doing – putting my head down between my legs because I thought doing that would keep me from throwing up.
Sometimes we make up what we need to hear in the moment – and whether what we make up is the truth or not may not matter because what we make up may be more comforting than the truth.
There was a group of Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices – this phrase isn’t as descriptive as it could be, but what we may assume is that they were murdered, perhaps unjustly, by Pilate while on pilgrimage to make a sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem.
And then there were the 18 who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them.
When confronted with such bad things we want an answer, and whether the answer is true or not may not matter because having an answer feels better than not knowing.
Why do bad things happen?
Why did Pilate murder those people?
Why did that tower fall?
Any answer to these questions will do, just so long as there is a reason, an answer, because living with the reality that stuff just happens isn’t very comfortable.
An answer that the masses seemed to cling to was that of retribution for sin – that bad things happen to bad people – that suffering is deserved – that when people suffer, when they are punished, you need not worry about falling to the same fate as long as you keep your nose clean and mind your own business.
This is a Biblical enough answer – we read from Deuteronomy that disobedience results in punishment laid out, not only on the disobedient, but the children, even unto the grandchildren.
Experience would testify to this truth – as my mom has said, when there is an alcoholic in the family no one leaves unscathed, even when only one member of the family embodies that alcoholism.
But when the crowd comes to Jesus pointing fingers – first at Pilate – though poised in a campaign for King of the Jews, Jesus does not seize an opportunity for mud-slinging, but calls the crowd to account for their own infractions.
“But unless you repent,” he says.
“Unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
So Christ calls us to focus not on what lies outside of our control because what does judgment of our neighbors serve but to build up our self-righteousness? Christ calls us to focus on what we are in control of.
Something that I love are nights when sleep comes so easy I realize I am dreaming before I’ve put my book down. On those nights I place my book on my bedside table, turn out my lamp, kiss my wife – on the lips or the cheek, but if I can’t find her lips or her cheek I’ll settle for her shoulder. Then I’ll close my eyes and rest sweeps over me.
Something that I hate are nights when worry about tomorrow preoccupies me, thoughts flashing back in forth about things I need to do, that I’m worried about doing, and I don’t have enough time to do it all before the day has even started.
But who really knows about tomorrow?
“Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?” The vineyard owner says to the gardener.
“Sir, the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.”
The scripture lesson ends with that – an ambiguous ending if ever there was one.
But if we have today we can all assume we have been spared the ax, unlike the men, women, and children victim to the tragedies of life.
So what will you do with today?
Our church has surely been spared the ax having bounced back from a huge deficit. We’ve been given another year thanks be to God – but should we use God’s blessing as an opportunity to return to old ways that got us into trouble in the first place?
Whatever yesterday was like, disappointments, mistakes, we have all been given the gift of today – and today the gardener is ready to work through you, nourishing you by his Spirit, forgiving you your sins by his almighty grace – that you might bear fruit.
In this time of lent – you are called to give thanks to the one who has spared you from the ax and given you the gift of today.
Do not squander this gift by returning to the ways of sin, but be about the practice of examination – not to the examination of your neighbors to fuel self-righteousness – but to examine something you can actually change.
Do not waste this gift.
You have been given today – so turn away from your own sin and live into the new life that our Lord Jesus Christ has provided you.
No you do not deserve it.
No you could never earn it.
But here it is – here today is – a chance for new life.
-Amen.
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.
Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?
I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.
Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?
I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
Then he told this parable:
“A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
“’Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”
Sermon
You have to be careful with people, because if they don’t know the answer, they may well just make something up.
About two years ago a group of us were flying over Haiti in a little propeller plane driven by a Cuban Pilate.
The turbulence was horrible and we were all thankful to finally be on solid ground again, and Jane Carney, I think it was, says to someone else from our congregation, “I wasn’t worried. Our pastor was head bowed in prayer the whole flight.”
And I’m glad that when she saw me with my head bowed on that turbulent flight that’s what she thought I was doing – that description paints me in a much holier light than what I was actually doing – putting my head down between my legs because I thought doing that would keep me from throwing up.
Sometimes we make up what we need to hear in the moment – and whether what we make up is the truth or not may not matter because what we make up may be more comforting than the truth.
There was a group of Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices – this phrase isn’t as descriptive as it could be, but what we may assume is that they were murdered, perhaps unjustly, by Pilate while on pilgrimage to make a sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem.
And then there were the 18 who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them.
When confronted with such bad things we want an answer, and whether the answer is true or not may not matter because having an answer feels better than not knowing.
Why do bad things happen?
Why did Pilate murder those people?
Why did that tower fall?
Any answer to these questions will do, just so long as there is a reason, an answer, because living with the reality that stuff just happens isn’t very comfortable.
An answer that the masses seemed to cling to was that of retribution for sin – that bad things happen to bad people – that suffering is deserved – that when people suffer, when they are punished, you need not worry about falling to the same fate as long as you keep your nose clean and mind your own business.
This is a Biblical enough answer – we read from Deuteronomy that disobedience results in punishment laid out, not only on the disobedient, but the children, even unto the grandchildren.
Experience would testify to this truth – as my mom has said, when there is an alcoholic in the family no one leaves unscathed, even when only one member of the family embodies that alcoholism.
But when the crowd comes to Jesus pointing fingers – first at Pilate – though poised in a campaign for King of the Jews, Jesus does not seize an opportunity for mud-slinging, but calls the crowd to account for their own infractions.
“But unless you repent,” he says.
“Unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
So Christ calls us to focus not on what lies outside of our control because what does judgment of our neighbors serve but to build up our self-righteousness? Christ calls us to focus on what we are in control of.
Something that I love are nights when sleep comes so easy I realize I am dreaming before I’ve put my book down. On those nights I place my book on my bedside table, turn out my lamp, kiss my wife – on the lips or the cheek, but if I can’t find her lips or her cheek I’ll settle for her shoulder. Then I’ll close my eyes and rest sweeps over me.
Something that I hate are nights when worry about tomorrow preoccupies me, thoughts flashing back in forth about things I need to do, that I’m worried about doing, and I don’t have enough time to do it all before the day has even started.
But who really knows about tomorrow?
“Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?” The vineyard owner says to the gardener.
“Sir, the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.”
The scripture lesson ends with that – an ambiguous ending if ever there was one.
But if we have today we can all assume we have been spared the ax, unlike the men, women, and children victim to the tragedies of life.
So what will you do with today?
Our church has surely been spared the ax having bounced back from a huge deficit. We’ve been given another year thanks be to God – but should we use God’s blessing as an opportunity to return to old ways that got us into trouble in the first place?
Whatever yesterday was like, disappointments, mistakes, we have all been given the gift of today – and today the gardener is ready to work through you, nourishing you by his Spirit, forgiving you your sins by his almighty grace – that you might bear fruit.
In this time of lent – you are called to give thanks to the one who has spared you from the ax and given you the gift of today.
Do not squander this gift by returning to the ways of sin, but be about the practice of examination – not to the examination of your neighbors to fuel self-righteousness – but to examine something you can actually change.
Do not waste this gift.
You have been given today – so turn away from your own sin and live into the new life that our Lord Jesus Christ has provided you.
No you do not deserve it.
No you could never earn it.
But here it is – here today is – a chance for new life.
-Amen.
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