Called to Partnership
1 Corinthians 1:1-9; Isaiah 49:1-7; John 1:29-42
Before pastors were seminary-educated, a future pastor would study under an experienced pastor. One student was being coached in preaching. The old preacher said, “Every sermon has three parts. First, you tell the folks what you’re going to tell them. Then you tell them. After that you tell them what you told them.”
Paul does the same sort of thing in the letter we know as First Corinthians. We very quickly learn that this was probably not the initiating correspondence between the apostle and the congregation which he had founded and with which he had spent as much as eighteen months training and forming them into a vital community of Christ believers. Unfortunately the NSA wasn’t gathering data in those days or we would have every letter, email, and voice communication that Paul had been party to. And we wouldn’t have speculate about some of the missing pieces in the extended conversation.
The church in Corinth was probably a collection of several house churches. That is, it didn’t have a nice building like we are used to. They were still a new church development. They may have all gotten together periodically, not necessarily weekly. But small groups of the folks would gather in homes of certain leaders for Bible study, for prayer, for discussion of how keep safe from the authorities yet introduce other people to the Good News of Jesus Christ. Think of how we might do it here. We already have the Presbyterian Women’s circles as a kind of model. Some folks could meet my house a couple of times a week. Others might go to Audrey’s house, since she has lots of room. Another group might meet with Bob and Kitty Neely at the far country known as Lake White. There would likely be several other groups.
What would happen is that each group would develop its own identity, its own flavor of the gospel. The leaders would meet every so often to do their own Bible study, to compare notes from their groups, and to plan for the larger meetings. More than likely, however, the groups would begin to reflect the character and views of each leader.
That’s where the problems started, at least as Paul understood the messages which he was receiving from different members of the church. The leaders of the various groups and their viewpoints on the gospel were becoming more important than the gospel itself. People were starting to say that they followed Apollos or Paul or someone else, rather than Christ. The house churches of the larger congregation were becoming fractious factions disrupting the unity of the church and derailing the message of salvation in Christ.
From what we know of Paul, he was more than a little upset about this. But he counted to ten and wrote several drafts of his letter before posting it. Like the seasoned preacher, he alludes to what he is going tell the Corinthians. Then he begins with great wisdom and sensitivity. He doesn’t charge in ridiculing the various leaders, or picking one over another. That would only deepen the divisions that were forming.
Paul briefly reminds them of his credentials – “called by God’s will to be an apostle of Jesus Christ” – which he will touch on again several chapters later – and then moves on to talk about the Corinthians themselves. He addresses the whole church – “God’s church that is in Corinth” and “all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place.” Paul reaffirms the corporate consciousness which he had instilled in them in his year and a half ministry among them. Paul rises above the factions and reminds the people that all together they are the local expression of the universal church which meets in every place.
Not only are they the local manifestation of the whole church, they have a share in the universal calling. They are “those who have been made holy to God in Christ Jesus, who are called to be God’s people.” They are called to be “saints,” as the traditional language reads, or as Eugene Peterson phrases it in The Message, they are “set apart for a God-filled life.”
The apostle’s underlying thought here is, regardless of what faction the individual believers may be aligning themselves with, they are failing to live up to their call. They are forgetting that they have been washed, justified, and sanctified. That’s another thought that the apostle goes into later on in the letter.
Rather than upbraiding them from the start, Paul reminds them of the blessing that they have been. He give thanks for the Corinthians, “because of God’s grace that was given to you in Christ Jesus.” The incredible promise of the gospel is that no matter how messed up we were prior to meeting Jesus, once we’re connected to the world of the cross, through belief, through baptism, through our daily attempts at faithfulness, we are adopted daughters and sons, we are heirs to the riches of God’s eternal realm. No matter how often we slam the church for doing things we disagree with, no matter how often we accuse a “they” of being infidels and apostates, no matter how often we don’t live up to our meager understanding of obedience to Christ, God’s grace is not taken from us. We deserve death and destruction, but instead, we have been sentenced to love and life.
Paul tells the Corinthians, “You were made rich through him in everything: in all your communication and every kind of knowledge....you aren’t missing any spiritual gift while you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.” Yes, the Corinthians may be a ragtag bunch of broken believers, which we can sometimes identify with, yet they are a bunch of believers gifted by God with grace, hope, and the power of the Spirit. There is a deep well of gifts and talents that simply need to be let out of the prisons of doubt, reluctance, fear, anxiousness, and lack of God-vision.
We are graced. We are gifted. And we have a guarantee. “God is faithful, and you were called by him to partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” God is faithful. The future is secure because Christ has promised that in the end, no matter what, he will return, he will resurrect, he will find us faultless, he will establish his rule, and until all that happens, he will keep his church alive.
Very few people follow in the family profession any more. There too many other possibilities for career tracks. The economy is more volatile and the technology is changing at an increasingly rapid pace. Most of our children and grandchildren can no longer expect to work for the same company or have the same career for forty years. We grew up seeing shop signs like “Brown and Son Hardware” or “Stone and Sons Contractors.” Even family farms aren’t being handed down to the next generation.
That’s not the case with the gospel. God calls us to partnership with Christ. One of the few places were we can see this methodology at work is in law firms. A newly bar-examined lawyer is given an entry level position in a firm. She’ll probably have a mentor to help her get accustomed to the routines. After a number of years of steady, careful work, she’ll be asked to be a junior partner. And if she continues a successful career arc, she will become a senior partner. With each level of advance comes more responsibility. But each level also brings more benefits. Senior partners are responsible for the firm, and they reap a share in the firm’s profit.
We are partners with Christ in the ministry of the gospel. We are entrusted with great responsibility to take the Good News with us wherever we go. We are walking billboards, 3-D YouTube displays of God’s activity in the world. But we also get to have the joy of knowing that Christ is making it all possible. We are partners now so that future partners can also share in grace, mercy, love, hope, joy, and peace of being brothers and sisters of Christ and heirs of eternity.
The Church is not about us. That’s what Paul had to remind the Corinthians. We are no less divided than they were, following leaders more attuned with their own thinking than the thoughts of Christ. The Church is about God in Christ, reconciling the world to God’s self. What a fellowship, what a joy divine!
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Solemn Testimony
Solemn Testimony
Acts 10:34-47; Isaiah 42:1-7; Matthew 3:13-17
Allow me to date myself. One of my favorite television shows growing up was Perry Mason. I loved the skill and dedication he had as a lawyer, the loyalty of his secretary and private detective, and cocksure banter of the homicide detective and the district attorney that always got ripped apart in the end. It was there that I first heard those words of the oath that is the best known oath in our country. You know them. They are used in every courtroom drama (not to mention real courtrooms: “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” And as the drama unfolds, one attorney or the other will say to a witness, “Let me remind you that you are under oath.” Or she will say something like, “Perjury is criminal offense. Tell the court the truth.”
Testimony is a very interesting thing. It can be very compelling for jurors. Or it can have no effect on a jury, no matter how sincere the telling is. Some testimony can be easily ripped to shreds by a close cross-examination. Other testimony can be unassailable. For those of us with no knowledge of forensics or human psychology, some testimony is hardly comprehensible and you have to trust the experts. Sharp observers can get a pretty good read on a witness’ veracity by his or her body language.
Many years ago I hear someone ask, probably unoriginally, “If you were hauled into court and charged with being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” Substantial evidence, incontrovertible evidence, evidence that would withstand the fiercest cross-examination.
That’s an interesting proposition. We would much rather defend a charge that we aren’t a Christian. It is easier to say things like I go to worship, I tithe, I go to Bible study, I take a turn at the food pantry, I sing in the choir, I visit the nursing home, I go on mission work trips. Whereas if we were charged with being a Christian, we would have to say that going to worship doesn’t mean anything, that the tithe is only a part of our giving to charity, that we do this or that for the social connections, that we don’t really believe what we read or hear. Would we be able to pull off that kind of testimony, or would we get caught out?
The church in the early centuries knew a lot about being guilty of being Christian. From the slaying of Stephen by people in Jerusalem onward through the persecutions ordered many Roman emperors and their lieutenants, early Christians gave up their lives for the faith. And Christians still do. In sub-Saharan and equatorial Africa, in South Sudan, in Egypt, in Syria, in Iraq and Iran, in Pakistan and India, in southeast Asia, in China, in even the United States, Christians are martyred for the name of Christ which they bear. The word “martyr” comes from the Greek word for “witness.”
Witnessing is dangerous business. The federal government has a witness protection program to relocate and change the identities of key witnesses in certain kinds of criminal cases. In racketeering cases criminal organizations don’t think twice about rubbing out a witness before a trial to prevent testimony or after a trial in revenge for having given damaging evidence.
The church does lots of things. In good Pauline fashion, preachers preach, evangelists evangelize, exhorters exhort, disciples disciple. They interpret, explain, cajole, urge, encourage, support, uplift. As powerful as their messages – spoken and otherwise – are, what they do is derivative. On the other hand, to testify is to report the facts, to tell the truth – the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Twice, Peter tells the gathering in Cornelius’ house, “We are witnesses.” And he says, God “commanded us . . . to testify that [Jesus] is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead,” just as the “prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
I ended last week’s sermon with Ernest Nichol’s hymn words, “We’ve a story to tell to the nations.” In the words of John Shearman, “The Christian celebration of Epiphany is intended to mark the globalization of the gospel.”(1) This Jesus whom we call our Lord and Savior, is not a local deity based in Bethlehem or Galilee. He is, in Peter’s words, “Lord of all.” What is more astounding is that we – you and I – are the Gentiles which are referred to so often in the gospels and epistles.
The context from the Book of Acts is clear. The chapter before today’s reading, chapter nine, is the chapter in which the zealous Pharisee Saul, traveling to Damascus to persecute Christ-believers, encounters the risen Jesus, and is converted from foe to friend, from enemy to evangelist, from adversary to ambassador to the Gentiles. In chapter ten, Peter undergoes a parallel conversion, one he struggled with as mightily as Saul did. That is until he was brought face to face with Cornelius and his household. Only then did the dream become tangible and the words, “Never consider unclean what God makes pure,” made sense.
The non-Jewish magi followed a brilliant star. Saul was blinded by a great encircling light. Peter’s understanding was broadened. Cornelius and the people gathered with him heard Peter’s testimony about Christ and about the universal offering of God’s grace. And the Holy Spirit fell on them.
We have two epiphanies in Acts chapter 10: that of Peter that it is God who invites with grace, and that of Cornelius that even Roman military officers, and by exten-sion, anyone else, may receive the grace that God offers. God’s gift and call in Jesus is for all. The universalism of Christianity is not universal salvation for everyone who does what is right. The universalism of the Christian faith is that all are called, without regard to language, culture, tribe, gender, educational background, race, economic security, age, or any other measure by which we are prone to differentiate ourselves from others. If the other is a human being, then he or she is a child of God and our equal, not our superior, not our inferior, our equal, a brother or sister in Christ. Christ was not born for some, did not die for some, and was not raised for some. He was born, died, and was raised for every human being.
Through our baptism we are obligated to look and act with dignity on every person we encounter, alike or different, in agreement or disagreement with the way we see things. When we villainize others for any reason, we victimize ourselves in the witness box with perjury. We will fail to be convicted of being a Christian, and we will be denied by Christ.
Like Peter, we are witnesses whom God chose beforehand. And what is our testimony that is the very air we breathe whether we speak a word or not? It is this:
This is our solemn testimony. Thanks be to God!
(1) John Shearman, “Introduction to the Scripture, First Sunday After Epiphany, The Baptism of our Lord,” posted by David Shearman, Midrash, midrash@joinhands.com, Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 3:41 PM.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com
Copyright 2013 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Acts 10:34-47; Isaiah 42:1-7; Matthew 3:13-17
Allow me to date myself. One of my favorite television shows growing up was Perry Mason. I loved the skill and dedication he had as a lawyer, the loyalty of his secretary and private detective, and cocksure banter of the homicide detective and the district attorney that always got ripped apart in the end. It was there that I first heard those words of the oath that is the best known oath in our country. You know them. They are used in every courtroom drama (not to mention real courtrooms: “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” And as the drama unfolds, one attorney or the other will say to a witness, “Let me remind you that you are under oath.” Or she will say something like, “Perjury is criminal offense. Tell the court the truth.”
Testimony is a very interesting thing. It can be very compelling for jurors. Or it can have no effect on a jury, no matter how sincere the telling is. Some testimony can be easily ripped to shreds by a close cross-examination. Other testimony can be unassailable. For those of us with no knowledge of forensics or human psychology, some testimony is hardly comprehensible and you have to trust the experts. Sharp observers can get a pretty good read on a witness’ veracity by his or her body language.
Many years ago I hear someone ask, probably unoriginally, “If you were hauled into court and charged with being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” Substantial evidence, incontrovertible evidence, evidence that would withstand the fiercest cross-examination.
That’s an interesting proposition. We would much rather defend a charge that we aren’t a Christian. It is easier to say things like I go to worship, I tithe, I go to Bible study, I take a turn at the food pantry, I sing in the choir, I visit the nursing home, I go on mission work trips. Whereas if we were charged with being a Christian, we would have to say that going to worship doesn’t mean anything, that the tithe is only a part of our giving to charity, that we do this or that for the social connections, that we don’t really believe what we read or hear. Would we be able to pull off that kind of testimony, or would we get caught out?
The church in the early centuries knew a lot about being guilty of being Christian. From the slaying of Stephen by people in Jerusalem onward through the persecutions ordered many Roman emperors and their lieutenants, early Christians gave up their lives for the faith. And Christians still do. In sub-Saharan and equatorial Africa, in South Sudan, in Egypt, in Syria, in Iraq and Iran, in Pakistan and India, in southeast Asia, in China, in even the United States, Christians are martyred for the name of Christ which they bear. The word “martyr” comes from the Greek word for “witness.”
Witnessing is dangerous business. The federal government has a witness protection program to relocate and change the identities of key witnesses in certain kinds of criminal cases. In racketeering cases criminal organizations don’t think twice about rubbing out a witness before a trial to prevent testimony or after a trial in revenge for having given damaging evidence.
The church does lots of things. In good Pauline fashion, preachers preach, evangelists evangelize, exhorters exhort, disciples disciple. They interpret, explain, cajole, urge, encourage, support, uplift. As powerful as their messages – spoken and otherwise – are, what they do is derivative. On the other hand, to testify is to report the facts, to tell the truth – the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Twice, Peter tells the gathering in Cornelius’ house, “We are witnesses.” And he says, God “commanded us . . . to testify that [Jesus] is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead,” just as the “prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
I ended last week’s sermon with Ernest Nichol’s hymn words, “We’ve a story to tell to the nations.” In the words of John Shearman, “The Christian celebration of Epiphany is intended to mark the globalization of the gospel.”(1) This Jesus whom we call our Lord and Savior, is not a local deity based in Bethlehem or Galilee. He is, in Peter’s words, “Lord of all.” What is more astounding is that we – you and I – are the Gentiles which are referred to so often in the gospels and epistles.
The context from the Book of Acts is clear. The chapter before today’s reading, chapter nine, is the chapter in which the zealous Pharisee Saul, traveling to Damascus to persecute Christ-believers, encounters the risen Jesus, and is converted from foe to friend, from enemy to evangelist, from adversary to ambassador to the Gentiles. In chapter ten, Peter undergoes a parallel conversion, one he struggled with as mightily as Saul did. That is until he was brought face to face with Cornelius and his household. Only then did the dream become tangible and the words, “Never consider unclean what God makes pure,” made sense.
The non-Jewish magi followed a brilliant star. Saul was blinded by a great encircling light. Peter’s understanding was broadened. Cornelius and the people gathered with him heard Peter’s testimony about Christ and about the universal offering of God’s grace. And the Holy Spirit fell on them.
We have two epiphanies in Acts chapter 10: that of Peter that it is God who invites with grace, and that of Cornelius that even Roman military officers, and by exten-sion, anyone else, may receive the grace that God offers. God’s gift and call in Jesus is for all. The universalism of Christianity is not universal salvation for everyone who does what is right. The universalism of the Christian faith is that all are called, without regard to language, culture, tribe, gender, educational background, race, economic security, age, or any other measure by which we are prone to differentiate ourselves from others. If the other is a human being, then he or she is a child of God and our equal, not our superior, not our inferior, our equal, a brother or sister in Christ. Christ was not born for some, did not die for some, and was not raised for some. He was born, died, and was raised for every human being.
Through our baptism we are obligated to look and act with dignity on every person we encounter, alike or different, in agreement or disagreement with the way we see things. When we villainize others for any reason, we victimize ourselves in the witness box with perjury. We will fail to be convicted of being a Christian, and we will be denied by Christ.
Like Peter, we are witnesses whom God chose beforehand. And what is our testimony that is the very air we breathe whether we speak a word or not? It is this:
Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit and endowed with power, who traveled around doing good and healing everyone oppressed by the devil because God was with him, both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him up on the third day and allowed him to be seen by us, who ate and drank with him after God raised him from the dead. He is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead and everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.Friends, this is the table where we eat and drink with Jesus after his resurrection, as we break the bread as his body was broken for us and share the cup remembering his blood shed for us. This is the joyful feast of the people of God because it testifies to what God has already done in Christ and proclaims the glorious reality of what Christ does for us now and forever from now.
This is our solemn testimony. Thanks be to God!
(1) John Shearman, “Introduction to the Scripture, First Sunday After Epiphany, The Baptism of our Lord,” posted by David Shearman, Midrash, midrash@joinhands.com, Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 3:41 PM.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com
Copyright 2013 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
The First Stewardship Sermon of 2014
The First Stewardship Sermon of 2014
Ephesians 3:1-12; Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14; Matthew 2:1-12
It’s the 35th day of the current church year. It’s the 12th day of Christmas. It’s the 5th day of calendar year 2014. Regardless of which year you are following, what are you doing with your year? If you are following the church year, it’s already one twelfth gone. Time flies when you are having fun!
A lot of people make resolutions at the beginning of the year. My observation is that fewer people are doing that. I think that is because making resolutions is a futile business. Many new year’s resolutions never get achieved, usually because the individual resolution is unrealistic or because there are too many of them. In one of this past week’s comic strips Morris Middleton tells his wife Midge that he has made two resolutions – to quit swearing and to fix the snow blower. She wants to watch, so she can see him break two resolutions at the same time.
Christmas is a new beginning. Yes, it does mark the end of the shortest days and longest nights. The bright lights help to lengthen the days. But that only holds for us who live north of the equator. Our Chilean, Aussie, and South African friends are heading towards Fall not Spring. So we need to remember that the new beginning of Christmas has nothing to do with weather or climate. Christmas is about God, and more specifically, God-with-us. Christ is the first gift of what we have come to call Christmas. Jesus has nothing to do with season of commercial activity that starts imposing itself on us sometime in October. If human living were likened to the ocean, then the Christmas shopping season is a barnacle encrustation on the good ship Church. There is no way that we can emulate God’s gift of Christ. Our hearts and our pocketbooks will never be big enough.
Because we can’t out-gift God, that takes a huge burden off of us. And at the same time it puts a large and precious responsibility on us. Paul writes to the Ephesian believers to remind them of “the responsibility to distribute God’s grace,” which God gave to him for the Ephesians. God revealed to Paul what may be variously translated as a “mystery,” a “secret plan,” “mysterious ways,” an “inside story.” That responsibility, that grace, has been handed down from generation to generation until it was handed to us.
God’s grace. What a gift! What a responsibility! Even the database of Amazon.com can’t cover all the aspects of God’s grace, which is a transforming power that is able to heal, restore, and renew broken lives, communities, institutions, and even nations. Johnny Hill, who teaches homiletics at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, says that this part of the Ephesian letter presents the church as a cosmic organism for revealing and understanding God’s divine will for humanity and all creation. God discloses God’s self through the Epiphany.(1) And because we are the current holders of the gift of Christ, we have the same responsibility that was laid on Paul.
When Paul wrote the Ephesian letter, he was a prisoner of Caesar. When he was accused by the Jewish religious authorities in Jerusalem of subverting the Jewish faith, Paul pulled a legal maneuver on the plaintiffs, claiming that they had no legal standing to accuse him since he was a Roman citizen. That set in motion a whole legal process that took him to Rome and, ultimately, to death. He was a technically a prison of Caesar. And that would give him a lot of street credibility. He was in the position to be a kind of cause célèbre of the oppressed. Here was someone every Christ believer could identify with and get behind. But Paul didn’t put that spin on his situation. He described himself as a prisoner of Christ. He was in manacles of the gospel. For Paul, that meant that the link between him and Jesus Christ was unbreakable. Paul’s identifying as a follower of Christ was not a whim or a passing fad. And it certainly was not something to be taken lightly, something to be added to his Facebook or LinkedIn profile to puff it up. The privilege of being connected with Christ did not make life easier or more luxurious.
Paul says that anyone connected with Christ is a prisoner. Perhaps all of us should be wearing day-glo colored jumpsuits to identify us as Christ’s prisoners, like the orange jumpsuits worn by prisoners held by the Sheriff’s Department. If we are prisoners, then we are held to a stricter accountability enforced by the shackle that connects us with Christ. That shackle is the responsibility of being a steward of God’s grace.
God’s grace is not like a windfall surprise that we can either hoard up for a rainy day emergency, use for some hitherto unmet need, blow on some wished-for but unnecessary bauble, or evaporate in a fit of recreational self-indulgence. To be a steward of God’s grace is to be constantly aware of its significance and treasure which are not to be taken for granted. Grace is not something that only a select few can receive. Nor is it a commodity that can be bought, sold, bartered, or earned. It is freely given. It pours forth from God’s abundant love made absolutely clear in God’s redemptive plan for humanity birthed into the world in the manger child. This grace must be cared for, cherished, respected. It’s not to be tossed carelessly in the corner, shoved under the bed, or hidden in the back of the closet.
Paul said that earlier generations weren’t let in on the details of God’s plan. But in Paul’s own lifetime the holy mystery has been revealed the apostles and contemporary prophets through the working of the Holy Spirit. This plan, this mystery, “is that the Gentiles would be coheirs and parts of the same body, and that they would share with the Jews in the promises of God in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”
The world of today, which lives mostly for the pleasures of the moment, would see the hope of the gospel as just another worthless new year’s resolution, overblown, unattainable, and easily broken. And it would be, if only one of us had to carry the whole responsibility. Thanks be to God that isn’t the case. All of us share it. The seventy of us here, the hundreds of people in the village of Waverly who are Christ-followers, the millions of believers in the United States, and the several billion all over the world. As the saying goes, many hands make light work.
But work it is. Hard work, important work. We cannot shirk our duty. This is our stewardship of the gospel which we have received. This stewardship has little to do with our checkbooks, although they could be a useful tool. The responsibility of God’s grace entrusted to us means that we are stewards of ourselves as conduits of God’s grace to others. In a blog post last summer, Shane Blackshear wrote,
We are stewards of our stories. We have encountered our own faith and the faith of others in strange and mysterious as well as ordinary ways. Grace lives as the intricate web of God’s connecting Spirit work – that shackle that binds us to Christ.
You are the steward of your faith story, woven lovingly by the Holy Spirit together with the faith stories of others. Stewardship of the God’s gospel of grace is not to be treated like a new year’s resolution, to be quickly discarded. It is from forever ago to forever to come. Shane Blackshear wrote,
“Sadly many people go through life thinking the perfect church is just around the corner, or as many young evangelicals do, they decide that they don’t need church at all and embark on solo-Christianity.”(4)
Solo-Christians deny the gospel and break faith with God. They are not stewards of the mystery, the inside story, the secret plan revealed in Christ. Epiphany, represented by the magi, means that the Good News is truly good, and it is for all the world.
Glory to God in heaven and on earth peace among those whom God favors. Amen.
(1) Johnny B. Hill, “Ephesians 3:1-12: Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word; David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press), Year A, volume 1, page 206.
(2) Shane Blackshear, “Five Ways to Be Unsatisfied with Your Church,” www.shaneblackshear.com posted July 15, 2013; accessed January 4, 2013.
(3) H. Ernest Nichol.
(4) Blackshear, op. cit.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Ephesians 3:1-12; Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14; Matthew 2:1-12
It’s the 35th day of the current church year. It’s the 12th day of Christmas. It’s the 5th day of calendar year 2014. Regardless of which year you are following, what are you doing with your year? If you are following the church year, it’s already one twelfth gone. Time flies when you are having fun!
A lot of people make resolutions at the beginning of the year. My observation is that fewer people are doing that. I think that is because making resolutions is a futile business. Many new year’s resolutions never get achieved, usually because the individual resolution is unrealistic or because there are too many of them. In one of this past week’s comic strips Morris Middleton tells his wife Midge that he has made two resolutions – to quit swearing and to fix the snow blower. She wants to watch, so she can see him break two resolutions at the same time.
Christmas is a new beginning. Yes, it does mark the end of the shortest days and longest nights. The bright lights help to lengthen the days. But that only holds for us who live north of the equator. Our Chilean, Aussie, and South African friends are heading towards Fall not Spring. So we need to remember that the new beginning of Christmas has nothing to do with weather or climate. Christmas is about God, and more specifically, God-with-us. Christ is the first gift of what we have come to call Christmas. Jesus has nothing to do with season of commercial activity that starts imposing itself on us sometime in October. If human living were likened to the ocean, then the Christmas shopping season is a barnacle encrustation on the good ship Church. There is no way that we can emulate God’s gift of Christ. Our hearts and our pocketbooks will never be big enough.
Because we can’t out-gift God, that takes a huge burden off of us. And at the same time it puts a large and precious responsibility on us. Paul writes to the Ephesian believers to remind them of “the responsibility to distribute God’s grace,” which God gave to him for the Ephesians. God revealed to Paul what may be variously translated as a “mystery,” a “secret plan,” “mysterious ways,” an “inside story.” That responsibility, that grace, has been handed down from generation to generation until it was handed to us.
God’s grace. What a gift! What a responsibility! Even the database of Amazon.com can’t cover all the aspects of God’s grace, which is a transforming power that is able to heal, restore, and renew broken lives, communities, institutions, and even nations. Johnny Hill, who teaches homiletics at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, says that this part of the Ephesian letter presents the church as a cosmic organism for revealing and understanding God’s divine will for humanity and all creation. God discloses God’s self through the Epiphany.(1) And because we are the current holders of the gift of Christ, we have the same responsibility that was laid on Paul.
When Paul wrote the Ephesian letter, he was a prisoner of Caesar. When he was accused by the Jewish religious authorities in Jerusalem of subverting the Jewish faith, Paul pulled a legal maneuver on the plaintiffs, claiming that they had no legal standing to accuse him since he was a Roman citizen. That set in motion a whole legal process that took him to Rome and, ultimately, to death. He was a technically a prison of Caesar. And that would give him a lot of street credibility. He was in the position to be a kind of cause célèbre of the oppressed. Here was someone every Christ believer could identify with and get behind. But Paul didn’t put that spin on his situation. He described himself as a prisoner of Christ. He was in manacles of the gospel. For Paul, that meant that the link between him and Jesus Christ was unbreakable. Paul’s identifying as a follower of Christ was not a whim or a passing fad. And it certainly was not something to be taken lightly, something to be added to his Facebook or LinkedIn profile to puff it up. The privilege of being connected with Christ did not make life easier or more luxurious.
Paul says that anyone connected with Christ is a prisoner. Perhaps all of us should be wearing day-glo colored jumpsuits to identify us as Christ’s prisoners, like the orange jumpsuits worn by prisoners held by the Sheriff’s Department. If we are prisoners, then we are held to a stricter accountability enforced by the shackle that connects us with Christ. That shackle is the responsibility of being a steward of God’s grace.
God’s grace is not like a windfall surprise that we can either hoard up for a rainy day emergency, use for some hitherto unmet need, blow on some wished-for but unnecessary bauble, or evaporate in a fit of recreational self-indulgence. To be a steward of God’s grace is to be constantly aware of its significance and treasure which are not to be taken for granted. Grace is not something that only a select few can receive. Nor is it a commodity that can be bought, sold, bartered, or earned. It is freely given. It pours forth from God’s abundant love made absolutely clear in God’s redemptive plan for humanity birthed into the world in the manger child. This grace must be cared for, cherished, respected. It’s not to be tossed carelessly in the corner, shoved under the bed, or hidden in the back of the closet.
Paul said that earlier generations weren’t let in on the details of God’s plan. But in Paul’s own lifetime the holy mystery has been revealed the apostles and contemporary prophets through the working of the Holy Spirit. This plan, this mystery, “is that the Gentiles would be coheirs and parts of the same body, and that they would share with the Jews in the promises of God in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”
The world of today, which lives mostly for the pleasures of the moment, would see the hope of the gospel as just another worthless new year’s resolution, overblown, unattainable, and easily broken. And it would be, if only one of us had to carry the whole responsibility. Thanks be to God that isn’t the case. All of us share it. The seventy of us here, the hundreds of people in the village of Waverly who are Christ-followers, the millions of believers in the United States, and the several billion all over the world. As the saying goes, many hands make light work.
But work it is. Hard work, important work. We cannot shirk our duty. This is our stewardship of the gospel which we have received. This stewardship has little to do with our checkbooks, although they could be a useful tool. The responsibility of God’s grace entrusted to us means that we are stewards of ourselves as conduits of God’s grace to others. In a blog post last summer, Shane Blackshear wrote,
“If I had to say the one thing holding the American church back today, it would be a consumeristic culture. We’ve come to expect that the latest technology comes standard in our cars. Our movie theaters should have wide rows with extra padded seats and that lean way back.God in Christ does not call us to be the entertained, but to be those who entertain, those who tell the Good News. A song out of the American gospel tradition begins, “We’ve a story to tell to the nations, that shall turn their hearts to the right, a story of truth and mercy, a story of peace and light.”(3) That story began with Christ, was passed to the apostles and Paul, and handed down across the centuries to us. Like an ongoing internet blog, each of us adds a post, a chapter – our story, the story of God’s love active in our lives lived in relationship to Christ and to each other.
“Unfortunately, we think our church should be no different. Just like the movie theater, we come when the production starts, sit in our seats, are entertained, and think we should leave satisfied when it’s over.”(2)
We are stewards of our stories. We have encountered our own faith and the faith of others in strange and mysterious as well as ordinary ways. Grace lives as the intricate web of God’s connecting Spirit work – that shackle that binds us to Christ.
You are the steward of your faith story, woven lovingly by the Holy Spirit together with the faith stories of others. Stewardship of the God’s gospel of grace is not to be treated like a new year’s resolution, to be quickly discarded. It is from forever ago to forever to come. Shane Blackshear wrote,
“Sadly many people go through life thinking the perfect church is just around the corner, or as many young evangelicals do, they decide that they don’t need church at all and embark on solo-Christianity.”(4)
Solo-Christians deny the gospel and break faith with God. They are not stewards of the mystery, the inside story, the secret plan revealed in Christ. Epiphany, represented by the magi, means that the Good News is truly good, and it is for all the world.
Glory to God in heaven and on earth peace among those whom God favors. Amen.
(1) Johnny B. Hill, “Ephesians 3:1-12: Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word; David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press), Year A, volume 1, page 206.
(2) Shane Blackshear, “Five Ways to Be Unsatisfied with Your Church,” www.shaneblackshear.com posted July 15, 2013; accessed January 4, 2013.
(3) H. Ernest Nichol.
(4) Blackshear, op. cit.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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