Mama Was Right About Him

Scripture Lessons: Jeremiah 1: 4-10 and Luke 4: 21-20 Sermon Title: Mama Was Right About Him Preached on January 30, 2022 Have you ever read the book, Great Expectations? I haven’t. I was supposed to, but I didn’t. It was required reading in 9th grade English class at Marietta High School. Because I hadn’t read it, I had to frantically read through the cliff notes the night before my paper on it was due. That book is just so long! And there are too many details. If the author, Charles Dickens would have left out all the adjectives and adverbs it would have been about 30 pages. Maybe then I would have read it. Isn’t that a shame? Plus, it seemed like every one of my classmates hated it. In fact, one of my classmates, I just remembered this, threw her copy of Great Expectations out the second story classroom widow while the teacher wasn’t looking, so I’m sure that if my teacher had great expectations for us, how much we would be enriched by the book, and what all we would learn as we read it, she was sorely disappointed. Has anything like that ever happened to you? Have you expected something great to come from a group of people only to have them throw the book you gave them out the window, or worse, attempt to throw you off a cliff? Our Second Scripture Lesson is just the first time a crowd tries to kill Jesus. It won’t be the last, for this event described in our Second Scripture Lesson from the Gospel of Luke describes a habit of humanity which must be closely examined. It’s not enough just to ask why a village of people would try to throw the Savior off a cliff, or why, later, did the crowd call for his crucifixion; we must start by asking: Why high school students resist beautiful literature? Why do patients ignore what their doctors tell them? Or why don’t husbands listen to their spouses? A couple weeks ago I was at the church more than I should have been. I had several evening meetings in a row, and Sara’s always talking to me about this. All kinds of people are talking to me about this, but what was more a couple weeks ago was that when I was finally home for dinner our daughter Lily asked, “Have I grown any since you saw me last?” Then, Cece comes down with her right hand extended, “Hi Dad, I’m your daughter Cece. You might not remember me.” I could have just listened to Sara. Why didn’t I? Why don’t I just listen to people who love me enough to tell me the truth? I am convinced it’s because we all resist change. We are naturally programed to try and stay the same. I want to eat what I want. Namely, chili dogs from Brandi’s. I want to do what I want. Namely, work hard and then sleep late. And I want to listen to the kind of music that I like, so I’d struggle to tell you the name of a single song that’s come out in the last 10 years. Could you do it? If not, if you can’t name a single song that’s come out in the last 10 years, then you are also a little stuck in your ways, resisting new things, and have a lot more in common with the villagers of Nazareth than you’d care to admit. A truth about humanity is that we don’t like new things all that much. We don’t like change. Which probably means we’re not all that excited to hear what whomever God sends has to say, because God is all the time interrupting our routines and calling us to think about our actions. Remember that John the Baptist didn’t come proclaiming a message of: “Ya’ll are doing great, don’t change a thing,” but “repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Did people listen. Yes, but not everybody did. Herod killed him. So, what about you: do you listen to the prophets or try to throw them off cliffs? Think about it for a minute. Consider the prophets we’ve known. The change makers. The speakers of inconvenient truths. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wanted to change some things, and what happened to him? One cold winter when we were running short on natural gas, President Jimmy Carter told us to put on a sweater and he nearly got impeached. And maybe someone here remembers being a teenage girl who brought a boy home. He was a little bit older, had some money because he dropped out of high school and got a job, rode a motorcycle, had a leather jacket, seemed so mature at the time. Or maybe he seemed so smart, smarter than all the professors who didn’t know what they were talking about, yet he seemed to understand you and what you were saying. Maybe he lost his temper sometimes, but you said it was just because he’s so passionate. And maybe Mama sat you down and said, “Honey, he’s an idiot,” and maybe you stormed out and told her that she just didn’t understand true love, yet one day you work up and you said, “Mama was right about him.” Consider the prophets we’ve known. The speakers of truths we didn’t want to hear. Just think about them. Some people have voodoo dolls made in the image of Dr. Anthony Fauci. Why? I believe that this is just how we are, and if there’s anything we need to understand about ourselves it’s that we would rather continue in our way of life than listen to truth tellers and change our ways. For generations, who have we been but those who ignore the prophets? Later, Jesus will say, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” We’re not any different. We don’t like prophets either. You know who we do like? People who tell us what we want to hear. It must be in our DNA. But it’s strange because it doesn’t always do us any good. If Dr. Phil were here, he’d ask, “Ignoring the prophets, how’s that working for you?” In this time of COVID-19, I think it’s especially important not just to argue but to understand why anyone would fiercely deny the reality of the virus. I believe it is because we are all programmed to defend our way of life, even if our way of life is killing us, and the truth would set us free. And so, I’m grateful to Dr. Nelson Price who was bold enough to write down some sobering statistics in the paper last week. He was quoting the well-respected study conducted by the Pew Research Center, that: 30% of adults Americans are not affiliated with any religion. That’s 10% higher than a decade ago. 29% of adult Americans consider themselves atheists, agnostics, or nothing. That’s up 6% from 5 years ago. Americans are praying less. 45% say they pray daily, which is down from 58% five years ago. And only 4 in 10 adults in this country consider religion very important in their lives. “Not one of those statistics is positive,” he wrote, “Alone they are cause for concern. Together compounded they are highly disturbing.” I believe he’s right about all of that, but I want to issue one corrective to Brother Price’s article, which ends with how afraid he is that when the trumpet blows too many will face the fires of hell. It is not fear that will change the world. It’s love. That’s the missing ingredient an awful lot of the time. Love. An old preacher once said, “Jesus love you just as you are, but he loves you too much to let you stay as you are.” That’s the truth, and so there are many people out in the world who want to change some things, but without love they’re just a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. You can’t change someone who doesn’t know he’s loved. Do you know how many children don’t know they’re loved? Do you know how many are stuck in isolation, feeling lost and alone? You don’t have to look hard to find someone in your neighborhood who is convinced that no one really cares about them. The joke I shared last Sunday that Ray Fountain shared with me about the man so lonely he enjoyed visiting with the telemarketer, that’s real life for someone you know, but we don’t always see it. That’s why Jesus, the greatest of all truthtellers says to the people of Nazareth: Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” And he said, “there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” In other words, Jesus was saying, “I know you want me to help you, but I’m here to help you by telling you to love the world.” This saying does two things at once: For one thing, it points us toward the world. A world of war and disease. A world where people are being priced out of their neighborhoods. There’s a lady up the road whose kids never call. We get tiered of going to the doctor while so many can’t afford to go. Think about the world, Jesus says, but this is the other thing: when we start to think about the world, when we start to think outside ourselves, we may find the healing that we’re looking for. Sometimes we become so consumed with our own pain, that the only way to heal is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Sometimes the only way to find comfort from our grief is to comfort others. Sometimes the only way to find a miracle is to be one to someone else. And so, the saying, “Doctor, heal yourself,” what it means is that sometimes the doctor is healed of his own wounds when he stops looking at them and instead, reaches out to care for someone else. Jesus loves us enough to tell us that. Just like your mother, who maybe loved you enough to tell you the truth about your boyfriend. Maybe she loved you enough to tell you to get off the couch and go play outside. Maybe she told you to say your prayers, to go to church, to study your Bible, and to trust in Jesus. Well, Mama was right about him too. Because like her, he loves us enough to tell us the truth, even when it’s hard. Amen.

Not Who They Were Expecting

Scripture Lessons: Nehemiah 8: 1-3, 5-6, 8-10, and Luke 4: 14-24 Sermon Title: Not Who They Were Expecting Preached on January 23, 2022 “Find out who you are and do it on purpose,” is a quote from Dolly Parton that I love, which fits in with this Gospel reading. Now in chapter four of Luke, we are still near the beginning of the Bible's account of Jesus life. His birth was predicted, he was born in a manger, he was baptized by John the Baptist, he gathered some disciples, last week we remembered his first miracle, turning water to wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. Today he comes out with his mission statement. Here in Luke, he tells everyone in his hometown after gaining a reputation as a preacher and miracle worker, “this is what I’m all about.” That’s not an easy thing to do. What are you all about? What is your true purpose? Those are hard questions to answer when it comes to human beings and the things that we create. Take Facebook as an example. If you’re not on Facebook, I can understand that. It can be used to spread misinformation and division, but if you’re on Facebook, I highly recommend that you become friends with Ray Fountain. Ray is a member of our choir, he’s an accomplished musician, he’s married to Judy, he’s a father, a grandfather, and Mark Zuckerberg should be taking notes, because Ray has mastered Facebook by showing us all what it should be used for, namely, sharing hilarious jokes. Last week he shared a post that said something like, It’s hard getting older, especially when the members of my family don’t call me as often as I’d like. Fortunately, a young man with a foreign accent calls me nearly every day. The only problem is that the only subject he really likes to talk about is the extended warranty for my car. Ray Fountain, true to his name, is a ray of light, a fountain of joy, and this joke helped me remember this poem from middle school English class where the poet dreamed, he was a butterfly, then he woke up asking: am I a man who dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly who is now dreaming that he’s a man? Life gets confusing, so we all must ask ourselves, are we distracted salesmen who should be making extended warranty sales rather than keeping Ray Fountain company or are we distracted Christians who have forgotten what we’re here to do? One of the most important things we can do is come to terms with our true purpose. Psychologists have proven that it’s even better to come to terms with our true purpose and then say it out loud, because if we say it out loud, we increase the chances that we’ll do it. But, first, consider how hard it is to identify what our true purpose is in this life with all those many demands and oh so many choices. Youth sports is a demand on many parents’ time. I was listening to a Podcast last week about parenting an athletic child. The host is a psychologist with a specialty in child development and her guest was an Olympic athlete, now raising kids who are very interested in sports. The Olympic athlete really got to me when she described walking through the Olympic village. She said, “No one there looks normal, but when you’re there you start to think that it’s normal to have zero percent body fat or be seven feet tall. What they ought to do is have an average sized person always standing next to them, so we see how different they are. Maybe then we’d realize that if our kid doesn’t have certain genetic advantages, they’re probably not going to make it to the Olympics.” That’s good advice, and that advice could be helpful for a lot of people. The other thing that I got from the podcast: when your kid is involved in sports, be sure you know what your goal is. Then, make sure that your goal is the same as your kid’s goal, and weigh your actions considering what you’re hoping to accomplish together. I like that advice even better. But not everyone does it, so some people think they’re encouraging their kids to play sports just because it’s fun, yet if they don't ever see their kids smile while she's on the court, they should start asking some hard questions regarding what they're trying to accomplish. We all must think about these things. What are we trying to do. What’s our true purpose? Can we say it out loud? Are we distracted salesmen making small talk or distracted Christians trying to send extended warrantees? That's what today's gospel lesson is about. When he came to Nazareth, where he was brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath. He stood up to read: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To let the oppressed go free, To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. “That’s my true purpose,” he told them, “I just said it out loud.” So determined was he to be clear about his true purpose that he ends the reading by rolling up the scroll, giving it back to the attendant, and while the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were still fixed on him, he said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” He couldn't have been any clearer. And we know that then he went out into the world to do what he said he had come to do, only Jesus makes it look easy. It’s not easy. Think about how much courage it takes. I was 18 years old the first time I mustered the courage and dared tell someone I wanted to grow up and be a preacher. I had just graduated high school and I told Dr. Jim Speed in his office. Years later a mentor of mine asked me what I hoped to achieve in life. I felt like a crazy person telling her that I dreamed of having my sermons published in a book. At the time I said those things it never occurred to me that either would happen. I was just making audacious statements, saying my wildest dreams out loud. Have you ever done that? It’s not easy, especially when you consider how you might not do it. One might announce to his family, “This week I’m making dinner,” only to find himself driving through the Chick-fila drive through once again. Worse, one might say, “Tomorrow, we’re all getting up early and going to Sunday School,” and have an insurrection on her hands. When Jesus made his declaration in the synagogue, letting them all know what he planned to do with his life, I can imagine them saying, “But Jesus what about the economy?” “What about how bad King Herod treats us?” And “My grandchildren never call me. Will you talk to them?” We can understand what they'd be getting at if they had asked questions like these. There are all these problems in the world. Yet, Jesus just told them which of the problems he's here to address and which ones he's letting someone else deal with. This is a brave thing to do, and many of us never do it. How many of us can't say no to anything because we haven't yet determined what we must say yes to? Those of us who are trying to be all things to all people might take a lesson from Jesus here. If he couldn't be all things to all people neither can you, so what were you born to do? What is it that you can do that no one else can? There is a Howard Thurman quote that I love. Howard Thurman was the great theological mind behind the civil rights movement. It's been said that Martin Luther King Jr. carried two books with him when he traveled: the Bible and a book Howard Thurman wrote called Jesus and the Disinherited. He reportedly had Thurman's book with him when he was locked up in the Birmingham jail. Personally, my favorite Thurman quote is this one: Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs there's more people who have come alive. Have you come alive? Do you know what you're here to do? Are you willing to just look yourself in the mirror to say, This is what I'm about. This is who I am. I'm for one thing and not the other. I'm wanting to stand up for the poor which means I won't bow to the rich. I'm here to proclaim the captives release which means I can't just drive by the jail without thinking. I want the blind to see. The oppressed to go free. I must proclaim that this is the year of the Lord's favor so don't try to tell me that hope is lost. Dr. King often spoke about death, as though he didn't fear death nearly as much as not living. He said, “If a physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit then nothing can be more redemptive.” More than that he said, “a man who won't die for something is not fit to live. No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they die for.” What would you die for? What do you live for? These are hard questions to answer because the moment you start answering them you’re just a little accountable. The moment you say them out loud you likely start disappointing people who had other expectations for you. That’s how it was in our First Scripture Lesson. The Law was read, and the people cried. With Jesus it was the same. Jesus let them know who he was and what he was about and the people of Nazareth tried to throw him off a cliff. More on that next week. For today know this: Jesus wasn't who they were expecting. Jesus isn't who we were expecting either. Because we thought the savior would be who we wanted him to be. Instead, he was who he was born to be, and he is teaching us to be, not who the world wants us to be, but who we were born to be. It’s hard to stick to being who you were born to be, especially in the middle of a crisis. Schools exist to educate children. That sure would be a lot easier for them to do if they didn’t also have to respond to a viral pandemic. Likewise, a parent lost her job last week, which was a momentary relief. Why? Because she said to herself, “Now it won't be so hard to drive my kids everywhere they need to go.” Now, is that what she was created to do? It might be part of it, but there’s more to life than carpool. And so, a boy once loved dreaming of who he would be when he grew up. In his sandbox he played with a bulldozer and imagined himself on a construction site. In the woods behind his house, he fought battles and imagined he was in the army. He lettered in three sports in high school but never made the Olympics because he was only 5 – 3, so after graduating college, he suddenly didn't know exactly what to do so he settled for making as much money as he could. On the day he retired he started to wonder, “what now?” Then the phone rang and a young man with a foreign accent asked him about the extended warranty on his car. My friends, our Gospel lesson for today pushes us to one question in particular: what are you here for? What is your purpose? Jesus said it plain, now go and do likewise. Decide what to be and go be it. It’s never too late to decide who you’re going to be when you grow up. It is a statement of faith to dream, to imagine, and to say out loud what you believe God might do through you.

Every Wedding Needs a Miracle

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 62: 1-5 and John 2: 1-11 Sermon Title: Every Wedding Needs a Miracle Preached on January 16, 2022 The wedding. The wedding is always a big day, but this wedding, the wedding at Cana of Galilee, is an especially big day, because according to the Gospel of John, this was “the first of his signs” revealing his glory. This is a major step, then, in his journey. Since Christmas Eve we’ve been watching, following Jesus as he grows, learning about his life. We were there when his birth was announced, when he was just a baby in a manger with the shepherds, and the magi brought him gifts. Then, he was a child who nearly got left behind in Jerusalem for wanting to be with the teachers in the Temple, and just last week he was baptized in the Jordan by John. These major events in the Savior’s life don’t come to us from any single account. As you well know, instead of one comprehensive biography, the ancients passed down to us four different Gospels. Each one is different, but that doesn’t mean they’re not true. I remember so well this illustration from one of Dr. Jim Speed’s books, “The Apostles’ Creed: Fresh Water from an Ancient Spring.” If you’d like a copy, I can get you one. This church gave me one when I graduated high school. It’s signed by the author and everything. I read it the following summer, and I’ve always remembered how Dr. Speed talked about the differences between the Gospels. They don’t tell the exact same story. The details are different. There are shepherds in Luke but wise men in Matthew. How do we tell who got the story right? They all did. But they’re different, and that just means they’re telling the truth, for if four boys sneak out of their beds in the middle of the night to throw all the pool furniture into the neighborhood pool (just to give hypothetical example) they’ll get together to come up with an alibi. And because they’re young they’ll think, “now all our stories must be exactly the same,” not realizing that it’s when four boys tell the exact same story it reveals their guilt and not their innocence. So, John doesn’t have a Christmas story like Luke does. There’s no account of the wise men like there is in the Gospel of Matthew. Look it up. It’s not there. The way John tells it, first there’s John the Baptist who meets Jesus when he’s baptized. After that Jesus calls a few disciples and invites them to come with him to a wedding in Cana. This is where we get to today’s Second Scripture lesson. Have you ever wondered why the family didn’t have enough wine at their daughter’s wedding? They probably had plenty. They just hadn’t expected their neighbor Jesus to bring his new friends with him. I can imagine the mother of the bride whispering to somebody when they all came in, “The invitation said bring a plus one, not plus 12.” There they all were. A group of young men doing the things that young men do. Likely, Jesus was doing something more holy than the rest of his disciples. That’s how Jesus always was, but then the wine gave out. That’s what happened. It was sure to happen. It was sure to happen, not only because someone brought a bunch of extra people with him, but because something always happens. Every wedding needs a miracle because something at every wedding goes wrong. Do you remember? The first wedding I officiated was in Florence, South Carolina. I was so excited to officiate at my friends’ wedding. I was so excited that I forgot to pack my robe. Or my suit. They were both laying out on the bed. I took them out of my closet but never packed them in the car. I remember it like it was yesterday. Do you remember? Do you remember what happened at your wedding? Every wedding needs a miracle, because every wedding is planned by a group of imperfect human beings. Every wedding is the joining together of two imperfect human beings. They make promises to each other. They make big promises, but if you were to summarize all the vows you make, the preacher might just have them say, “he’s not perfect. Neither are you. Will you stick together anyway?” Every wedding needs a miracle. Every marriage needs a miracle. Every person needs a miracle. But not every person is willing to admit that out loud. It’s true. We’ve been watching Women of the Movement on ABC. The episode that’s airing now is about Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmitt Till’s mother. It’s not an easy show to watch. It’s easier to believe it wasn’t as bad as it was. Last Monday we were watching it all unfold. Emmitt was raised up north, so when he spends a couple weeks in Jim Crow Era Mississippi, he suffers from culture shock. His mind can’t wrap around the evil reality of the place. When his cousins tell him to keep his eyes down and to say, “yes sir” and “no mam,” to step off the sidewalk and let the white folks pass, he does it, but he doesn’t understand it. He can’t comprehend it, so when all the local boys call him Chicago and dare him to go ask a white store clerk on a date, he does it. And when she goes to her car to get a gun, they all run and won’t tell anyone about it. This is the moment when my wife Sara said to our children, “I wish they would have told someone. Why didn’t they tell someone? They could have gotten him out of there.” It’s because they’re like all boys. They’re scared to get into trouble, so they don’t ask for help. They make up a story or they keep silent. They’re like every person I know. The hardest part is saying it out loud. I made a mistake. I need some help. I have a problem. We’re out of wine. The question is not whether you need a miracle. The question is: have you told Jesus about it? Have you done that nearly impossible thing? Have you admitted to yourself that’s something’s wrong? And have you mustered up the courage to ask for help? In the end, the story of Mamie Till-Mobley is so inspiring. Because this one woman who’s willing to stand up and talk about the brokenness of a nation did something about it. “I want everyone to see what they did to my son,” she said, again and again, while the whole guest list of a wedding feast was scared to say anything. Don’t you know that if no one says anything, nothing gets better? Every wedding needs a miracle. Every person needs a miracle. But have you told Jesus about it? Back during the Great Recession, I was the pastor at a church in Lilburn. The church was hit so hard financially that we feared it would close. Instead, we ended that year with a 25% surplus. People have asked me, “how’d you do that Joe?” I’ve tried to come up with a good answer. I told one group, “Well, I’m a financial genius.” Unfortunately, that’s not true. What is true is that I stood up in the pulpit and I said to the whole church, “Something is wrong. We’re in trouble. We need a miracle. Will you help me?” Don’t you know that every wedding needs a miracle, and the miracle worker is never so far away that he can’t hear? The wood around our stained-glass window has rotted out. Did you know that? Maybe you heard about it, but just in whispers, because only few people knew. Not too many. Those who knew, we were wringing our hands about it. “Where will the money come from? What are we going to do?” My friends, two couples heard our whisper and the whole project is paid for. Can you believe that? You need to. Because every wedding needs a miracle. Every person needs a miracle. But has anyone told Jesus? Have you told Jesus? Mary went to her son and said to him, “They have no more wine.” And what the author of the Gospel of John left out is how she also said, “It’s because of those drunk fishermen you brought that they ran out.” Did you know she also said that? Well, she did. Then Jesus said, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” This is where it really gets good, because, Jesus, thinking about how it’s not the right time for this miracle which will reveal his divinity, just gets ignored completely by his mother who says to the servants standing there, “Do whatever he tells you,” as she knows that even Jesus sometimes needs a little nudge. He told the servants to fill up the purification jars and they filled them to the brim. “Now, draw some out,” he said. The opposite of this is what happened in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve need a miracle, they need forgiveness. Instead, they hide. Do you know anyone who hides? Anyone who got COVID-19 will tell you, the worst part is calling your friends. No one wants to do that. No one wants to come out and say it, so instead we hide. What are you hiding now? Every wedding needs a miracle, so don’t let shame confine you to the shadow. Every one of us needs a miracle, so don’t let fear hold you back. We read from our Old Testament Lesson: “For Zion’s sake, do not keep silent.” Call on the Lord for help “until vindication shines out like the dawn and salvation like a burning torch.” Yesterday I heard about a lady walking through Kroger with her shoe untied. Only then a lady who works there named Miss Philomena came over to tie it. Remember that. Don’t hide the emptiness. Everyone gets so tiered of pretending their full when they’re running on empty. Instead, let him know, for the Lord delights in you. He’s at the wedding with you. It might be his friend’s fault that all the wine is gone. So, don’t hide what’s broken from the miracle worker. Every wedding needs a miracle. Every marriage needs a miracle. Every person needs a miracle. And when we let the savior know, the wine that has run out will be replaced but the wine that’s even better. Alleluia. Amen.

Baptized in Water, Sealed in the Spirit

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 43: 1-7 and Luke 3: 15-22 Sermon Title: Baptized in Water, Sealed in the Spirit Preached on 1/9/22 When meeting someone new, for generations, the advice has been to steer away from politics or religion. Instead, ask about your new friend’s health or just talk about the weather. That used to work. In our world today, a conversation about health can lead right into a debate over COVID-19 and talking about the weather might turn towards carbon emissions, and why it’s 70 one day and 32 the next. Making conversation these days may feel something like navigating a minefield, yet there have always been those touchy subjects that set off something unexpected in our conversation partners. For example, a session of premarital counseling once turned into a debate over the validity of infant baptism, because the young groom I was meeting with was raised in the Church of Christ, while the bride, raised in the Presbyterian Church, was baptized as an infant. From time to time I’ll find myself in such a conversation: why baptize infants? By a Baptist I’ve been asked: “why would you do that? Babies can’t talk, they can’t walk, they haven’t yet even had the chance to sin, so why wash their sins away in the water of baptism?” That’s a fair question, but it’s also a reflection of a little bit of biblical illiteracy, for you could ask the same question of Jesus. Why was Jesus baptized? We often associate these two things: baptism and having your sins washed away. That’s part of it, yet why was Jesus baptized? If he was perfect, what was washed away? In 1561, Swiss and German protestants met to write the First and Second Helvetic Confessions. There they defined it, saying: Now to be baptized in the name of Christ is to be enrolled, entered, and received into the covenant and family, and so into the inheritance of the children of God. In other words, baptism has so much to do with initiation. It’s not just about washing sins away. It’s our adoption papers. Because we’ve been baptized, according to the Lord’s will and testament, we are heirs to inherit our place in the Kingdom of Heaven. Infants, children, teenagers, adults who are baptized here become a part of this family of faith. They are welcomed into that great cloud of witnesses. Those who are baptized gather beside the foremothers and forefathers of the faith in this age and every age, who forever sing of the Glory of God’s name. They are heirs to the promise. Therefore, we are members of this church and the church universal. But have you heard about the Church? I’ve told you once before that those experts in the field expect that one in four churches have either closed during the pandemic or will close because of it. I can think of a few. Only, not only that. So many say that the age of the great institutions of our society is ending; not only are bowling leagues a thing of the past, but civic clubs, PTAs, churches, all kinds of voluntary organizations that made up such a big part of our parent’s and grandparent’s social lives are declining in membership. The Church is declining in membership. Now then, why was Jesus baptized? Why would Jesus want to be initiated into this? I’ve heard all kinds of great baptism stories, and I’ve lived a couple of them. I’ve heard about infants who’d held it and held it until the moment the pastor took her and then the floodgates opened, and the diaper almost held all of it… almost. I’ve heard about pastors who never checked the baptismal font for water, and so one just pretended that there was water in there and baptized a baby with air. Even still: When all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Did you hear that? Jesus was baptized in the Jordan by John. Were there sins within him that needed to be washed away? No. Were there imperfections that he needed to be cleansed from? No. Why then was Jesus baptized? Looking down from heaven on all of us, we who can’t even have civil conversations with each other about the weather anymore: why was Jesus baptized? I’ll tell you. It’s because when you see a problem in the world, there’s only one thing to do about it, and it’s not write about it on Facebook. Back when “the customer is always right” was a slogan that more businesses lived by, there was a Rich’s department store manager who refused a return on a dented up old lawn mower. “Must have been sold to this man 20 years ago, and he came in asking about a warrantee,” the manager said. Well, when this man was denied a return of his antique lawn mower, it wasn’t but a day or two that Dick Rich’s driver parked his car in that store’s parking lot, so that the leader of the whole network of department stores was having a one-on-one conversation with this renegade store manager who wouldn’t live by “the customer is always right” slogan. Why was Jesus baptized? Because when God sees a problem in the world, God shows up in person. We heard it first in our Old Testament reading from the Prophet Isaiah: For thus says the Lord, He who created you, He who formed you, Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. Do not fear, for I am with you. That’s how the Prophet Isaiah said it because that’s how it is with God. That’s how it is with Jesus. How is it with us? I’ll tell you. There’s a story about a shipwrecked man on an island. Eventually he was found, and even though he was all alone, he had made three huts. His rescuers asked him about them, and he said, “That one’s my house where I live. And that second one is my church. The third one is the church I used to go to. I don’t go there anymore.” There are plenty of good reasons to leave churches. I can think of several. While the only way to save the church is to join one. I’ve heard it said a hundred times: “If you want to make the public schools stronger, enroll your kids in one.” If you don’t like the politicians in power, run for office or at least vote. If you’re worried about those who are locked up, volunteer at the jail. If you’re concerned about kid’s these days, become a youth group advisor. Join up. Don’t quit. Nothing gets betting if you stay home, and everything could get better. I heard the most inspirational story the other day. It came at the end of an article I was reading. A family went to their synagogue and met the old rabbi. “What’s your son’s name” the rabbi asked, and his father told him it was Elijah.” “Ah, the prophet of unlikely redemption,” the rabbi said, smiling. “With them, the good news is almost as hard as the bad.” That’s an interesting thing to say, isn’t it? So, it took the author a while to sort out what the rabbi meant, and this is what she decided, “Sometimes the task of rebuilding – of accepting what has been broken and making things anew – is so daunting that it can almost feel easier to believe it can’t be done. But it can.” It can. Only how do we do it? What do we do? Where do we start? Start where Jesus does, for our entire hope lies in our connections. The hope for the world still lies in relationships. The way to rebuild our society is the way Johnny Isakson did it. He was famous for saying that there are only two kinds of people: friends, and future friends. That’s how it must be, because before people will even think about changing, they must feel scene and heard, valued, and appreciated. All this separating of the wheat and the chaff business that John the Baptist is talking about: before anyone will let go of their chaff, they must know that there’s wheat inside them. It’s just so easy to read this passage and be terrified, isn’t it? I don’t think I’d like to be there to hear John preach, and it scares me how he describes Jesus. “His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” That sounds scary, yet I believe that’s true. There’s so much in this world that must be refined. There’s so much chaff that must be swept away with the wind or else burned in the fire, but don’t ever forget what is precious and good. I think about the Church all the time. I don’t just mean this church. I mean, the Church. The Church full of slick televangelists and power drunk megachurch pastors. I think about how, growing up and going to some youth groups, it wasn’t a matter of whether I was going to hell, it was just a matter of when. The Church is a mess. It’s just like every other human institution. It’s just like every college football program and every bowling league. It’s full of imperfect people, yet Jesus joins up and was baptized by John. Why? To remind us again that there is something so sacred here. And I don’t just mean a little sacred. I mean, sacred sacred. Did you know that we’ve distributed a million meals out of the parking lot? Did you know that I cut myself shaving on Christmas Eve and had toilet paper stuck to my face? But now I have not just one but two styptic pencils, so that next time it happens I’ll be ready. Who gave them to me? Two members of this church who were so thoughtful to find them, buy them, and bring them up here. My friends, Christ came down from heaven to join a group of believers at the river. It was a congregation, just like this one. Just like us. That’s why he was baptized. To remind us that along with all the mess, there is so much precious here. Don’t ever forget that. Amen.

Don't Return to Herod

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 60: 1-6 and Matthew 2: 1-12 Sermon Title: Don’t Return to Herod Preached on January 2, 2022 Pulling into the driveway on either Christmas Eve or the day before, my neighbor Jamie Tuck, who’s kids are grown, parents are gone, and who just retired, told me to enjoy it because it goes so fast. I stood there with him, and I felt the truth of those words. I took a deep breath thinking about how while his kids are grown, ours are still little. While his parents are gone, mine are full of life. I stood there in the driveway with my neighbor Jamie, and it was something like having an epiphany. “Jamie’s exactly right,” I said to myself, and then I pledged that I would be full of Christmas cheer. Can you guess how long that lasted? Well, I walked into a kitchen full of family asking me to do things. We went to the zoo to see the Chinese Lanterns and I lost my wedding ring. I later found it, but my Christmas cheer got lost somewhere in the process and I never fully got it back. On this 2nd day of the new year, our church celebrates Epiphany. That word, epiphany, has multiple meanings. It’s defined by Miriam-Webster, first as: a Christian festival held in January in honor of the coming of the three kings to the infant Jesus Christ, and second as, a moment in which you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way. Thinking of an epiphany that second way, as a moment in which you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way, I say we also must take a lesson from the three kings or wise men, because while my epiphany may have only lasted as long as some new year’s resolutions, the wise men do two things in our Second Scripture Lesson that enables them to take that most profound epiphany of the Christ child, and be permanently changed by it. Now, what did they do? For one thing, they go home by another road. Did you notice that? I read through the New Year’s resolutions of so many community leaders published in the Marietta Daily Journal yesterday. Chief Judge Rob Leonard of the Cobb Superior Court is going to take his wife on a date once a week. City Councilmen Joseph Goldstein is going to listen more to his constituents. Michelle Cooper Kelly is going to read more books. All aspire to do great things and be better people. Yet, how many will go from making a resolution while standing on their bathroom scale to abandoning that resolution once they walk into the kitchen? How many receive an epiphany that then promptly fades into memory? Plenty of us. So, notice that the wise men travel to Jerusalem, then Bethlehem, and on seeing the Christ child take a different road back home. They change something about how they’re traveling. That’s such an important thing to do, for those who hang out in barbershops will get a haircut sooner or later and those who resolve to drink less can’t stand so closely to the beer fridge. If we want to change, we must find new roads to travel down. If we receive an epiphany, we can’t just go back to what we were doing. If we just go back to what we were doing, that’s a wasted epiphany, isn’t it? Epiphanies are meant to take root and change us. Why don’t they work like that always? For one thing, we don’t realize that if we travel down the same road, we should expect to wind up exactly where we were before. For another thing, there’s King Herod. We just read: In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem asking, “where is this child who has been born king of the Jews?” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened… then Herod secretly called for the wise men… sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word.” Now why was King Herod frightened? In this passage from the Gospel of Matthew, King Herod reminds me of the main character in that new show on HBO called Succession. Have you seen it? You probably shouldn’t. It’s a show about this miserable and extremely wealthy family. The patriarch is based on Rupert Murdoch. He owns a media empire that he’s obsessively afraid of losing, and his four kids kneel before him, attempting to gain his favor by stabbing each other in the back. It doesn’t always make sense why people serve King Herod like figures. Maybe it’s fear, maybe it’s habit, but we all must examine the true character of those we pay homage to. Should Herod be trusted? No. Afraid of losing his throne, Herod will order that every child in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under be killed so that no king but him would live in Israel. This is the way that people like Herod operate. So, don’t return to Herod. That sounds obvious, but the hard part is that all of us have some version of King Herod in our lives and we’re so used to trying to gain his approval, we haven’t yet accepted that we’re never going to get it, nor have we realized that we can get along just without it. In fact, seeking out Herod’s approval can even hold us back from being fully who we were created to be. I once heard a joke about the first woman elected president. She invited her father to the inauguration. When he didn’t RSVP, she called him, and he told her that he couldn’t be there. He said he didn’t have suit. “Dad, I’ll buy you suit,” she said, but then he said he didn’t have a ride, so she arranged for a helicopter to pick him up in the backyard. The helicopter took him directly to the National Mall, where he was escorted to his seat on the ceremonial porch, and while his daughter took the oath of office as the first female president of the United States of America, he elbowed the guy next to him and said, “you see that woman down there? She’s my daughter. Her brother played for Georgia.” Now, how many of us are still working to gain the approval of a father who will never give it? How many of us will never achieve our New Year’s resolution because there’s a person in our lives who we’re scared we’ll disappoint if we really change? Who among us relentlessly pursues perfection while a voice in their head never stops letting them know when they don’t achieve it? We’d be so much better if we could just “Enjoy it because it goes so fast.” Why can’t I? It’s because it takes more than an epiphany. It also takes making a change: a commitment to travel by another road, while recognizing that we really can live without the approval of people like King Herod. The wise men did it. How did they do it? I imagine they were able to walk down that new road without the approval of Herod because they already had the approval of the King of Kings. A daily devotional book that I’ve used and appreciate begins with this introduction from the author: Steve had a particularly intriguing job. He was in charge of all Secret Service agents working in the White House. He approached my wife and I after Sunday evening service and offered an invitation. He said he would like the two of us to come to the White House the next morning to meet the president of the United States. Of course, we were blown away. We couldn’t believe it. Standing in the back of the church we worked through the logistics of the next morning. Steve made it very clear we needed to meet him at the west gate of the White House promptly at 7:30 AM – we’d have to leave the home where we were staying by 6:30 AM. That meant rise and shine no later than 5:30! That Sunday night we went to bed with our heads spinning. We couldn’t believe we were going to be standing in the Oval Office in eight short hours. It took us a while to settle down to sleep, but finally we drifted off. In what seemed like the middle of the night, we were awakened by a ringing phone. We couldn’t figure out who would be calling at such an hour, so we ignored it and went back to sleep. A moment later there was a knock at the door. It was Steve saying, “It’s 7:45. I was calling just to make sure you were on your way. At this point there’s no way you’ll make it. We’re going to have to cancel the whole thing. I’m sorry.” I went back to our bedroom, and while I couldn’t see the expression on my wife’s face, I knew exactly what she was thinking because we had just slept through a meeting with the president of the United States. That’s a story the author made up because he’d never been invited to meet the President, nor would he have missed it. No one would! However, “people just like us, on days just like this one, miss the opportunity to enter the throne room of almighty God and talk to the Creator of the universe. Every new day offers each of us a chance to get out of bed and spend some quality time with God almighty, but most of us blow it off for a few extra minutes of sleep.” Why? Because we are stuck in set routines and too often, we bow to people like Herod rather than the King of Kings. Even after encountering the Christ child, we turn back towards the palace in Jerusalem to serve the power of sin and death when we are invited to travel by another road, towards a new life of liberation and hope. Yet I saw my epiphany again, this time walking down the sidewalk from here. Words of that great preacher Frederick Buechner: One life on this earth is all that we get, whether it is enough or not enough, and the only conclusion would seem to be that at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can. Isn’t that the truth? So, travel by new roads that lead you to new places. Don’t seek the approval of those who will never give it. Don’t serve your fear but live with courage. Do what you know is right. Serve the Lord. And it enjoy it because it goes so fast. Amen.