It's Not Fair

Scripture Lessons: Genesis 45: 3-11 and Luke 6: 27-38 Sermon Title: It’s Not Fair Preached on February 24, 2019 You know what’s not fair? I’ll tell you what’s not fair. It’s not fair that some people never get what they deserve. And it’s not fair that Jesus tells us to keep being nice to them anyway. It’s not fair. For as long as I’ve lived such injustice has burned me up. It began with the unearned attention lavished upon my cute little sister. There are some big brothers and big sisters in the congregation this morning who know exactly what I’m talking about, and I’m just going to say it. It’s not fair. It’s just not fair, how everyone things they’re so cute. I remember when my Dad came home with a camcorder – it was the big kind, and by the time this technology was inexpensive enough for him to buy one, I was an awkward pre-teen that wanted to hide from the camera, but my sister was little and really cute, with curly red hair. So, today if you watch our family’s old home movies, it’s basically just one long tap dance routine featuring Elizabeth Evans. Everyone thinks little sisters are so cute. It’s not fair. You know what else isn’t fair – not only do little brothers and sisters get all the attention, they also get to do everything sooner. Some big sister here remembers how her little sister got her ears pierced sooner than she did. Some big brother resents how his little sister didn’t have to wait as long to get a cell phone. I remember how I wanted to go see a PG movie. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It had bad words in it, so my parents said I had to wait to see it until I was 12, but you know when my little sister got to see it? The day I turned 12 and she was 8, because my Mom couldn’t take us to two separate movies. It’s just not fair – and it would burn me up – the injustice of it all. But you know what my Mom would say? You can guess. “Life’s not fair, Joe.” That’s what she would say, and believe it or not, that didn’t make me feel any better. For generations this has been the case. The youngest gets special treatment. The consolation from Scripture for those of us who are older siblings this morning is twofold: 1. No matter how much favoritism our little brothers and sisters received, it probably wasn’t as much as the favoritism little Joseph received from his father Jacob in the book of Genesis. 2. In the book of Genesis, we get to see this favored little brother get what he deserves. That’s right. I said it. And if you never had the urge to sell your little brother into slavery, then clearly your sibling experience was not the same as mine. Little Joseph was their father’s favorite, and old Jacob didn’t even hide this fact. In fact – he broadcast it for everyone to see. You’ve heard about Joseph’s multi-colored coat that his daddy gave him. If you look that up in our new Bibles, which are the New Revised Standard Version you’ll see that scholars now believe, based on better translations of the ancient scrolls, that the special robe was not multi-colored but long sleeved. This detail may not seem so important until you think about how much work people do in short sleeves compared to long sleeves. It’s as though all the sons of Jacob were lined up as a work crew. Jacob, their father, handed all the brothers a shovel, but gave to young Joseph the clipboard. Do you know what I’m talking about? But it gets worse – much worse! Joseph dreamed, you see. Young Joseph, at the age of 17, told his brothers, “Listen to this dream that I dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.” How do you think his brothers responded to that? Scripture tells us that “they hated him even more because of his dreams,” and after he had another one involving eleven stars bowing down to Joseph, center of the universe, his brothers decided to get rid of him. They were all out watching the flock. Jacob sent Joseph out there to check on them (Of course, he did). When they saw him coming they decided to kill him, throw him into a pit, and tell their father that a wild animal had devoured him. Fortunately, Reuben spoke up: “Let’s just throw him in the pit and teach him a lesson.” Well, before Reuben could do all that, Judah, another brother, saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels on their way down to Egypt. So, they pulled Joseph up and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. From this point, the story gets worse of course. It all gets worse for Joseph before it gets better. Once the Ishmaelites make it to Egypt, Joseph is sold to Potiphar, whose wife tries to seduce him, then accuses him of forcing himself upon her after he refuses. Despite the baseless nature of the accusations, like many powerless people, he’s thrown into prison. Can you imagine how nasty that prison must have been? There was no TV to watch. No weights to lift. I can just imagine Joseph spending all his time drawing pictures on the cell wall of all the horrible things he would do to his brothers if he ever got back home. Vengeance gives us something to occupy our minds, but it rots our souls, so it’s a good thing his new cell mates started dreaming. At this point in the last service, while I was telling this story, I noticed that a couple men on the back row started dreaming too. This is a long story I know, but we have to know it. It will change our lives, so let me keep going. Folks began to seek Joseph out, and eventually his ability to interpret dreams reaches Pharaoh. Pharaoh keeps having these bad dreams, and he seeks out the young man locked up in prison. Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing on the bank of the Nile; and seven cows, fat and sleek, come up out of the Nile and feed in the reed grass. Then seven other cows came up after them, poor, very ugly, and thin. The thin and ugly cows ate up the first seven fat cows, but when they had eaten them no one would have known that they had done so, for they were still as ugly as before. Joseph said to Pharaoh, “This is what your dream means. There will come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt. But after them there will rise seven years of famine, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt; the famine will consume the land. The plenty will no longer be known.” This is a bad dream, but fortunately, Joseph also has in mind a solution. He says to Pharaoh: “So, during the years of plenty, let Pharaoh select a man who is discerning and wise and set him over the land of Egypt, that he might take one fifth of the produce of the land during the seven plenteous years. That food shall be a reserve for the land against the seven years of famine.” Pharaoh thinks this is a good idea, and so he said to Joseph: “Since God has shown you all this, I will set you over the land of Egypt to do it.” Imagine that – instantly he goes from the jail cell to the corner office. He goes from plotting revenge, to saving an empire from famine. In one moment, he’s consumed with his bad luck, but in the next – he’s amazed by his good fortune, only he’s also faced with the difficult reality that none of it ever would have happened had his brothers not sold him in the first place. What do you do with that? What do any of us do with the reality, that despite what ever unfairness we’ve faced, still we receive God’s blessing? What do we do with the truth – that even when we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of death, we will fear no evil? And how will we treat our enemies and all those who have wronged us, once we realize that in all things God has done wonderful things for us and for our salvation? Joseph is about to find out what he’ll do, for while Joseph goes from slave to prisoner, to high office in the Empire, life for his brothers has been difficult. The first two of those seven years of famine has come, and the only nation anywhere who has any food is Egypt. In desperation, the brothers make their way to Egypt, and bow their heads before Pharaoh’s right-hand man. In this moment, Joseph’s dream that his brothers would bow down before him like sheaves in the filed or stars in the sky comes true. But what will Joseph do? What will he do when his brothers, once so much bigger, now bow before him? What do any of us do to those who have hurt us, considering how God provides us, not with just punishment, but with a cup of blessing? Certainly, Joseph doesn’t kill them. How could he? That’s what they expect, but that’s not what Joseph could possibly do, for God’s love has changed things – changed the definition of fairness for evermore. So, Joseph says: “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth. It was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.” Do you see what happened? All our lives we’ve been demanding fairness, so we naturally want to see the bad guys punished and the bullies get a return on the abuse they’ve dished out. We might naturally say that it’s not fair that these brothers, who threw him into a pit aren’t thrown into a jail cell. We might say that it’s not fair that these brothers, who sold him into slavery, aren’t sold into slavery themselves. That it’s not fair – that these brothers deserve, exactly what they subjected Joseph to – years away from their family, forced to survive in a foreign land – that they too deserve to spend several years of long dark nights wondering if they’ll ever make it back home again or if they’ll even survive until the next day. But for Joseph, in all of that suffering some other power was at work, some other hand was making a way – placing Joseph in a seat of power that he might not only save himself, but his entire family. You see – based on human definitions of fairness, based on what they’ve done, these brothers deserve punishment, but in all those long years leading up to this moment, Joseph learned that there’s another definition of fairness at work in our lives – and God’s grace which defines us, isn’t what we call fair. My mother was right. Life isn’t fair, and we Christians know it, for instead of punishment for our sins, what do we receive from God? Forgiveness. Rather than judgement, grace. God’s fairness isn’t like our fairness – for God’s grace isn’t fair. It takes the sin of jealous brothers and saves them from themselves. It takes broken men and women and ends their suffering by putting them back together. God takes us, in all our depravity, and provides us with life and love and sunshine. You see – God’s idea of fairness is embodied in Christ up on the Cross who looked down on those who put him there and said, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” That’s why we can’t be surprised that he says, “Love your enemies,” for God hasn’t stopped loving them any more than God has stopped loving us. Our God “is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked,” and we must be merciful, just as our Father is merciful to us. That’s not fair – it’s so easy to say. Grace isn’t fair, but we’ve received it – and must not nullify it by failing to pass it on. Amen.

From Whom All Blessings Flow

Scripture Lessons: Jeremiah 17: 5-10 and Luke 6: 17-26 Sermon Title: From Whom All Blessings Flow Preached on February 17, 2019 Isn’t it amazing how things can change? Our two Scripture Lessons deal with change. Jeremiah reminds us that those who put their trust in their own strength are cursed. Why? Because human bodies change. Human strength may be here one day but gone the next. Jesus reminds us of the same thing – those who are blessed now will not be forever, and those who are poor today may not be tomorrow, for no one but God can completely control the way things are. That’s more obvious sometimes than others. Last Tuesday it was obvious. That’s because last Tuesday I got caught in the rain and it became obvious how things change and how little control I have over it. Do you remember how much it rained last Tuesday? Back in Tennessee they’d call it a gully washer. In South Georgia they call it a frog strangler – and Justis Brogan and I were walking back from lunch at Stockyard, that place with the really good hamburgers on the Square. Neither of us had an umbrella or anything, so just we ran to take cover. The first place safe to stand was under an awning at Jane Pratt’s office. Jane Pratt works right on the corner there, and she has great big windows in front of her office, so she saw us standing out there looking pathetic. She invited us in and gave us both plastic bags, that was the best she could do – but at least our perms wouldn’t go flat. Jane was very helpful and kind, but there wasn’t really anything she could do. It was raining too hard, and sometimes that’s how it is. We don’t always have control over these things – and one might be dry one minute but wet the next. We don’t have control over all our blessings or our woes. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” is what Jesus said – but that only makes sense – to say that the poor are blessed - if you recognize that the way things are now isn’t how they’ll always be. We don’t always recognize that. We tend to take blessings for granted, and wind up feeling stuck in our woes. Natalie Foster was nearby working the car rider line for our preschool when Justis and I ran up soaking wet. Natalie notices every time I go out to lunch, because she never gets to. She works at the preschool as their assistant director, so she has to eat lunch here and her lunch probably always gets sneezed on by preschoolers. So, she looked at me all wet, like a drowned rat and said, “You might expect me to feel sorry for you, but I don’t.” I mean – I was soaked. I was so wet, but Natalie Foster said, “Ate lunch out again, I see. Even if you’re all wet, that’s still better than some people’s lunch hour.” I thought I had it pretty bad, but sometimes you don’t know how good you have it. You take blessings for granted and get stuck in your woes. That’s true. There have been plenty of times when I was ignorant as to just how good I have it. I learned over lunch that Justis works at the airport. 45-minute commute. I can ride my bike back and forth from our house to here 7 or 8 times in the amount of time it takes him to get to work once. Sometimes you don’t know how good you have it – until you look around and see what it’s like for other people. That’s one of the things that happened to me when we went to Mexico on a Mission Trip with this church back when I was in High School. I’d gone my whole life thinking that I was born into a middle class, average American family. Two cars in the garage, running water, heat in the winter, AC in the summer, biggest problem: teenage acne. I’d gone my whole like thinking those things made me average, but in Mexico I went to a neighborhood that made me realize just how lucky I was. Do you know what I mean? To get water in that neighborhood we went to, not unlike the neighborhood in Mexico where we go and build houses now – you walked to the store to buy it. I’m not talking about buying fancy drinking water in 12 packs at the store. See, we buy water at the store by choice, they have to buy water at the store because clean drinking water piped into the house is a luxury not available to all God’s children. One of the many problems with our society today, isn’t just that some have, and others have not – it’s also that many of us who have, are blind to how good we have it. The problem with that can be obvious after watching the news. The government shut down recently. It may be shutting down again, and maybe that has to happen every now and then. Maybe it’s too much to ask that politicians deal with controversy in a decent and civil manner, but it’s not too much to ask that wealthy politicians be empathetic to those government employees who live pay check to pay check. “Let them take out loans,” someone said, which is too much like Marie Antionette saying, “Let them eat cake,” and what they don’t realize is that any second everything could change, and they could end up in the same boat with those employees losing their homes. In our world today, many wealthy people suffer from a certain kind of arrogance. Some suffer from an absence of empathy – unable to understand what it’s like when you’re working 9 to 5. Dolly Parton understood: Tumble out of bed and stumble in the kitchen Pour myself a cup of ambition. You know that song? It’s catchy, but it’s also pretty radical. It’s a rich man’s game no matter what they call it And you spend your life putting money in his wallet. And she keeps going: In the same boat with a lot of your friends Waitin’ for the day when your ship’ll come in And the tide’s gonna turn And it’s gonna roll your way. That sounds like the Beatitudes. Sounds like the whole Gospel of Luke as a matter of fact. Mary sang about it in the Magnificat way back in Luke chapter 1: He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, And lifted up the lowly; He has filled the hungry with good things, And sent the rich away empty. Throughout this whole book of Luke runs the theme that Dolly sang about: But the tide’s gonna turn And it’s all gonna roll your way. Why? Because God’s in charge. “Blessed are you who are poor,” Jesus said, “for yours is the kingdom of heaven.” “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.” “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” “Blessed are you when people hate you, for surely your reward is great in heaven.” In the Gospel of Luke, he said these things to a crowd assembled on a level place – not on a mountain, but in a place where all people sat on one level; no one higher than the other. There was no partiality – no Jew or Gentile, no slave or free – just one people sitting before the Son of God hearing the truth – that those who have nothing now have everything to gain, but those who have everything now – they have everything to lose. “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.” “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep,” These are harsh words for those of us who go out to lunch on the Square every day of the week to eat $10.00 hamburgers. These are harsh words for most all of us – but they’re important to hear, because too many of us have forgotten that we’re only doing just fine, because it hasn’t started raining. Then once the rain has started – we forgot how to see rain for the blessing that it is, and we’re too slow to give thanks to God who is the source of it. Rev. Joe Brice, the Sage of Paulding County, he told me that last year on Father’s Day his son called him up, and he said, “Dad, since it’s Father’s Day, I’m wanting for us all to come over to your house, so you can cook us anything that we want. And, while you’re at the store buying the food, why don’t you pick yourself out a card from all of us. Something real nice.” CS Lewis once wrote that we’re all like Joe’s kids – our Father in Heaven, He gave us $10.00 so we could go to the store to buy him a birthday present, but we spent $9.00 on ourselves and $1.00 on the present. And that’s if we’re tithing. We don’t know how good we have it, and we’re ignorant as to where it came from, as though wealth and blessings just fell from the sky. What’s more entitled than that? “Blessed are the poor,” Jesus said – but “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation” and you never even stopped to thank God for it. Jeremiah said it like this: Blessed are those who trust in the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves will stay green; In the year of drought, it is not anxious. Why – because they know from whom all blessings flow. Let us live as those who daily thank the source of all our blessings – who put our trust in the Lord, and who daily live caring for our brothers and sisters who have less, knowing that any minute we could be in the same boat with them. Amen.

Caught Red Handed

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 6: 1-8 and Luke 5: 1-11 Sermon Title: Caught Red Handed Preached on February 10, 2019 Today we remember two beautiful and revealing accounts of how two faithful people – two pillars of our faith tradition – started out on their journey to change the world as they knew it. From the book of Isaiah, we read about how this prophet was called – how he responded when he found himself standing in the presence of God, and in our Second Scripture Lesson there’s a similar account. The Gospel of Luke told us the story of how the Apostle Peter, the rock that Christ’s Church would be built upon, reacted when he realized one man aboard his ship was no ordinary man at all. Jesus told Peter, who was then called Simon, to “put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch… When they had done so, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break… They signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them” but when they came and filled both boats with fish, the boats began to sink. How does Peter respond? “He fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”” This is the picture of repentance and humility. It’s a picture of complete vulnerability and confession. His boats are sinking, his livelihood is disappearing before his eyes and yet “he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.”” Can you imagine? This place that Peter finds himself in is a humbling place to be – to be in the presence of God and feel your sinfulness become fully revealed. Do you know what that’s like? I do. I’m a parent. Most recently it was Lily who made it happen. She’s our nine-year-old daughter, our first born, she was with her basketball team, and because she’s playing in the church league over there at Roswell Street Baptist Church, the coach was admonishing them to memorize their weekly Scripture Verse – Hebrews 11: 1. “Girls,” he says, “I want you to have that verse memorized by next practice.” Lily says, “But we don’t have a Bible at home.” Do you know how the other parents looked at me? I wanted to shield my face, “Go away from me, for I am a sinful man.” And of course, we have a Bible. We have a hundred Bibles, but this moment last Monday reminded me of that place of humility that Peter found himself in. In light of our Scripture Lessons for this morning, that experience made me wonder – what should we faithful people do when we are caught red handed and our sin becomes obvious? This morning we have two good examples of what to do from Scripture. And we can contrast these two examples with what we see on the news and in the paper, for out in the world today we have at least one example of what not to do when we’re caught red handed. I’m talking about one Governor’s yearbook photos this morning of course, but before I name his name let me first make the obvious statement that should anyone have a copy of the 1998 Marietta High School yearbook, I’ll pay top dollar if it never sees the light of day. The thing about yearbooks is that even if you weren’t pictured in yours wearing a racist Halloween costume like the Governor of Virginia was, the person you were then probably doesn’t resemble the person you are now. Whether you were a long haired, rebellious, class clown like me with a distaste for respectable citizens and authority, or a medical student with a lack of empathy for his African-American neighbors like Governor Northam, I am sure there are parts of who you once were that you are now embarrassed of. There are things that you once did that you now regret. There may be photographic evidence that you too are or once were “a sinful man” or woman who would feel ashamed to be in the presence of God, because that’s part of being young and because that’s just part of the human condition. I was reminded of that last weekend. Last weekend I was out of town. I hated to miss Youth Sunday. I watched it last Sunday afternoon and I’m so proud of our youth group. I’m proud of Melissa Gilbert who was given the Jimmy Scarr Award for all the work she’s done to make our youth group so strong. But I missed being here, because I’ve made a commitment to my college roommates. Every year we get together for one weekend in February, and if I miss it then I’ll be the one they talk about. Actually, none of us ever miss it. When we get together it’s as though, for that short time, nothing has changed. Our friendship is timeless. And I was playing horseshoes with my old friend Sam, and I asked him, “Does being together like this make you miss college?” Sam said, “I miss all of us having the freedom to spend so much time together, but I don’t miss being as stupid as we were then.” Neither do I – but I still mistakes. I’m human, and you are too, so maybe we all need to look to Peter and Isaiah to see what it is that we should do when we’re caught red handed. When the person we aspire to be and the decisions we’ve made don’t match up. When the ghosts of the past rise up to haunt us. When the skeletons won’t stay in the closet. When Jesus comes to see us, and we are ashamed to stand in his presence. What should we do? Look to Isaiah. When he was in God’s presence, when the doorways shook, and the house of God filled with smoke, he didn’t dare double down on his lie or make up excuses, but was bold to say, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” And look to Peter. He didn’t deny that he was the man in the hood. He didn’t pretend he didn’t recognize himself in the picture, but fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Do you know how faithful you have to be to do something like that? Do you know how courageous you have to be to do something like that? In our world today, too many see confession as failure. Too many see needing forgiveness as a weakness. But as imperfect people, how are we ever to stand before God in truth if we deal with being caught by pretending that we aren’t guilty? I think about my grandfather. My grandfather who was bold to tell me how, even way out in the wilderness of the Caw Caw Swamp where he grew up, even there the lines of race were drawn so severely that when a group of men came to work at his family’s farm, the white workers were welcomed into the house to eat in the kitchen while the African American men were served lunch on the back steps of the house. He once told me, “As a young adult, I resented everything that Martin Luther King Jr. said, but he saved us from ourselves, Joe, he saved us from ourselves.” If only we too, can be bold enough to fall at his feet when we’ve been caught red handed, rather than double down on the lie that we’ve been telling. If only we too can be bold enough to confess our sins and name it out loud, rather than pretend that we’re not guilty. If only we too can say it – “I am a sinful man” – rather than say, “The man in the picture, he’s not me.” And I know it’s hard. Of course, it’s hard. It’s seems as though the world doesn’t believe in forgiveness any more. It seems as though the world is running short on grace. Because the world will take your vulnerability and will post it on the headlines for everyone to see – but I tell you this – that’s not so with Jesus. In me, there’s unworthiness, but in him there’s grace. In me, there’s sin, but in him there’s forgiveness. In me, there’s regret, but in him there’s the invitation to live a new life. And that’s what I want. Is that what you want? Of course it is – but it’s not only the thing that we want, it’s the thing that the world needs. So, the Lord took that Peter, and he picked him as one of his disciples, and he said to him and his friends, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” At first that must have sounded funny. Catching people? I don’t know about you, but once I catch a fish, I gut it then I fry it. And that doesn’t sound so good. So, listen to this – imagine instead that what Jesus means here is that we are a people, drowning under water, and he called on Peter to start pulling some people out. A Bible Scholar named Gay L. Byron said that’s what Jesus is really getting after here, and I believe her because I know that Jesus isn’t like the media who is prone capitalize on weakness in order to sell more papers. He’s not interested in that, “for God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Do you know that one? That’s a good one to memorize, but you might not have a Bible at home, so write it down before you leave today. My poor Lily. Ray Fountain posted on Facebook the other day, “It’s dangerous to live with a preacher, because anything you do might be used as a sermon illustration.” That’s true. I’m always looking for sermon illustrations. In fact, I can’t help but see them. Everything that I see in this world is either proving to me that God is at work or is proving to me that something has to change. And today, what I know has to change – is that you and I, sinful men and women who have fallen at the feet of Jesus and found forgiveness must get to work pulling up drowning people. Fishing for people - pulling up those who are drowning in the past – letting them know that a past of racism need not result in a future of it. That a past ignorance, failures, or mistakes – they’re not a Scarlet Letter ensuring condemnation – but the proof that what Christ offers is exactly what we need. We must go fishing. Fishing for people, that all those who are drowning in shame, regret, and fear of condemnation, might come up out of the water to feel the fresh air that the Holy Spirit blows, the warm rays of forgiveness and acceptance that shine forth from the Son of God, the brother and sisterhood of all people regardless of race, creed, nationality, orientation, gender, or language – for every one of us is red handed – but to every one of us he issues this call: Go, and fish for people, letting them know that we’re just a bunch of forgiven sinners, and they can be too. Amen.