Romans 6:3-11; Isaiah 65:17-25; John 20:1-18
It was sure dark in here. It was as dark as in an underground cavern when the guide turns off the lights. We couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces. It’s claustrophobic, like everything was closing in us. Like in a horror movie where the intended victims are caught in pitch darkness and there isn’t a sound to be heard. Yet there is this creepy feeling that there is something unseeable there that is going to get us. We don’t know what or where. Yes, it was dark in here. Dark as a tomb. That’s it. We were buried.
That’s the image that Paul uses. We were buried together with Christ. Before Christ came along, we were dying in sin. Living was like a zombie movie: Day of the Living Dead. Sin was slowly choking us, smothering us, squeezing the last remaining bit of life out of us. We had one foot in the grave and it was only a matter of time until the other one went in.
Then, just as we were about to take the last gasping breath, Christ came along sucked sin out of us. Instead of being totally swallowed up by sin, Christ swallows up our sin – everyone’s sin – and takes it with him to the grave. He allows sin to kill him so that we may have life. It’s like some of the stories of Jesus casting out demonic spirits from people. The demons are cast out and the victim is at first lifeless. Then Jesus presents them alive to their family and friends. In that brief moment, they died to the force that overpowered them. Then they receive the new life of Christ’s redemption. When Christ took away our sins, we died to those sins. Then the new life took over.
We were buried through baptism into Christ’s death. It was dark there, dark as a tomb. Then all of a sudden, we burst out into the light. It blinds the eyes. It boggles the mind.
If you watch a lot of police shows on television or read crime thrillers, you know that sometimes it is necessary to dig up the body of a victim to check for additional forensic details. The technical term is exhumation. The body is exhumed. We were buried, entombed in our sin until Christ came along. Then we were ex-tombed, taken out of death. In the risen Christ we have been ex-tomb-mated, dug out of death, born into the new life, born again, raised.
That’s the simple message of Easter: once we were dead and now we are alive. “Don’t you know,” says Paul, “that all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we were buried together with him through baptism into his death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too can walk in newness of life.”
Paul had not been to Rome, although he planned to go on his next trip. We don’t know that any apostle had made it to Rome by that time. Yet Paul states what must have been common knowledge: Christians have died to sin. And if they have died to sin, then they have been raised to new life with Christ. They have been ex-tomb-mated. Easter isn’t a glowing feeling or an emotional experience. It is the sure and certain knowledge that Christ died and that Christ was raised.
This knowledge is what we are baptized into. Greek has two words which we can translate as “baptism.” One is simple. It means to “dip” or “immerse.” The other word begins at immerse and gets stronger. It is the word which is used in the original texts of the New Testament. It always points to a change having taken place by some means. James Montgomery Boice cites an example provided by the Greek poet and physician Nicanor.(1) The Greek offers a recipe for pickles which uses both Greek words. First the vegetable should be dipped in boiling water. Then it is “baptized” in vinegar. It is this second action that changes the cucumber into a pickle.
When we are baptized, we are not merely rinsed. We are changed. Being baptized into the resurrection of Christ changes everything. We are born again, we are new creations. We are ex-tomb-mated from the coffin of sin and made alive in the glory of the Son of God. “This is what we know” says Paul, “the person that we used to be was crucified with him in order to get rid of the corpse that had been controlled by sin.”
When Christ was raised from death, when he was released from the tomb, this is what he did, he got rid of the corpse infected with sin – our sin – and brought us along with him in the new life. And because we have been united with him, we can’t go back. We can’t go back to the sinful life that was buried on that Friday afternoon. We are new creatures. We are changed. We have been ex-tomb-mated. We are freed from the tyranny of sin. To use the words of Augustine, union with Christ through baptism into his death and resurrection has changed us from the state of “not being able not to sin” into the state of “being able not to sin.” Easter is this new state of being for us.
Paul continues, “If we died with Christ, we have faith that we will also live with him. We know that Christ has been raised from the dead and he will never die again. Death no longer has power over him. He died to sin once and for all with his death, but he lives for God with his life.” Paul does not intend for us to think that living with Jesus refers to some future time or state. Yes, there is a future resurrection at the end of the age. In the here and now Jesus has moved from the sphere of existence where death reigned through crucifixion and burial to the sphere of the resurrection, from where he was to where he is now.
When Paul says that “we will also live with him,” he means that we also pass from the reign of death to the reign of grace, to a present resurrection. What Christ has done for us is not something for the end of time or the end of our bodily living. Resurrection – new life – ex-tomb-mation – is for the here and now.
Paul concludes this section of his letter to the Roman faithful with his first exhortation of the letter: “You also should consider yourselves dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus.” Paul has spent the first ten verses of the chapter telling us, reminding us, reassuring us of what God has already done. It has all been God’s work in Christ, through Christ, with Christ. We are joined to Christ not through anything we have done but through what God has done. The resurrection has sealed it once and for all for us.
Paul’s use of the word “consider” brings this home to us in a sharp way. Paul’s use of the word is more than just a pondering or musing about the possibility. The Greek word behind it is an accounting term which is very specific. It doesn’t call for an opinion. It denotes a fact: You ARE dead to sin and you ARE alive for God in Christ Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus and our participation is not wishful thinking. It is not pie-in-the-sky hopefulness. It is a God-given truth.
This reality causes us as post-Easter people to redefine the way we view church. It is not simply a building that we go to on a weekly basis. Church is who each of us is on a daily basis. I am the church, you are the church, we are the church, and we are called to reflect the image of Jesus in our everyday lives. When we take this reality to heart, every aspect of our lives then becomes a mission field, a space to worship in, and a realm to shine our light in. The world is our canvas, and the Holy Spirit wants to use you and me to create a masterpiece known as the Great Commission.(2)
That began when the risen Lord Jesus told Mary to go and tell the disciples what he was up to. And she does: “I have seen the Lord” (John 20:18). We are called to do the same, because we are dead to sin and alive for God.
I had an artistic idea yesterday with neither time nor skill to carry out. Wouldn’t it be something if, while we were in here this morning having our sunrise resurrection celebration, the outside Lobby wall of the Sanctuary was covered with brown craft paper all scrunched up to look like a rocky hillside and the open doors a carved cave entrance. More scrunched up craft paper could be formed into a stone. All this so that when we left this space at the end of the service we understood that we were coming out of the tomb with Christ, that we were ex-tomb-mated, that we were people raised from the death of sin into life for God. Right now. Today. This minute.
Friends, the resurrection good news is this: In Christ, you are dead to sin and alive for God.
Christ is risen! Alleluia! Alleluia! ALLELUIA!
(1) James Montgomery Boice, Romans (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992), vol. 2, 659.
(2) Jarrid Wilson, http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/275550-christianity-is-so-much-more-than-going-to-church.html.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Sunday, March 20, 2016
The Name
Luke 19:28-40; Isaiah 50:4-91; Philippians 2:5-11
We begin this week called “Holy” with the story of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. For three years, our Lord traveled the length and breadth of the country and ventured beyond its ethnic boundaries. He taught about the Kingdom of God and called the people into a relationship with God, whom he boldly called Father. In his ministry he cast out demons, offered forgiveness, healed sickness. He mentored a group of men and women to follow his leadership style and to tell the gospel after he was gone. He even raised people from the dead.
The crowds thought this was all prologue to what he intended, what they thought he intended. They rejoiced when they saw Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey because they thought he had finally accepted the inevitable: He would be their King.
The tide turned very quickly. He refused to live into the people’s image of the conquering hero. He didn’t call out militiamen as Paul Revere did, nor did he confront the Roman leaders who oppressed the people. Instead Jesus confronted the priests and religious professionals and took umbrage with the day to day attitudes and practices of faith. He attacked the very world the people thought was right.
Backed into a theological corner not all that different from our political landscape today, many, but not all, of the religious elite willingly supported Barabbas, a Jewish insurrectionist who was in Roman custody. Instead of choosing Jesus as their Messiah, they chose the man they thought would lead them to a victory against their oppressor. They thought he would make Judea great again. The leaders didn’t understand that they were oppressed by something greater.
The folks gathered long the road into Jerusalem didn’t have Luke’s hindsight. As we read Luke’s account, the trip into Jerusalem is preceded by a significant event and a powerful parable-story.
The event is Jesus spotting Zacchaeus in the crowded streets of Jericho and inviting himself to lunch at the tax collector’s house. Zacchaeus has two strikes against him. He is wealthy and his wealth was the result of his collaboration with Rome. He was the chief tax collector which meant that he not only gouged everyone, he took a cut from the collections of all the subordinate tax collectors. Zacchaeus has a Greek name, so we can’t be sure he wasn’t a mercenary brought in to oversee the collection of taxes or whether he was a local who had seen an opportunity to make money and seized it. The Greek name brands him as an outcast, as someone who identity has been tainted. He has lost his identity as one of God’s people.
Zacchaeus is one of the oppressors and he needs to be liberated as much as the Jews who were subject to his onerous collection practices and the rest of the Roman occupation enforcement. Zacchaeus is convicted of his sin when Jesus seeks out his presence. In response to his repentance, Jesus declares, “Today salvation has come to his household because he too is a son of Abraham” (Luke 19:9).
Then comes the parable. A man born into royalty has to go away to receive of his kingdom and while he is gone he entrusts portions of his assets to ten servants until his return. When he returned he called for an accounting. Several servants fared well and made the new-crowned king money. But one, knowing the man to be stern and unscrupulous, was afraid to do anything with the money other than keep it safe. The king stripped the man of the money and gave it to the man who had gotten the biggest return.
Because some of the citizens didn’t want the man to become their king, he ordered that his enemies be slaughtered. That would have been a typical response of a king seeking to secure his rule. That was how Rome dealt with people in newly occupied areas. Caesar worked through his local procurators – Pilate – and through puppet kings – Herod Antipas – to rule with impunity.
Many of the people hoped that Rome would be overthrown and driven out of Jerusalem and Judea. They put their hope in revolutionaries and insurrectionists. The Roman forces quickly quelled any rebellion that came along. The hope kept drifting to a future someday.
Luke seemed to say that God’s kingdom has come with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. The battle is set. Those who don’t want Jesus as king are line up against those who whose trust in God has been realigned through Jesus’ ministry and teaching. “Today salvation has come to this household.” And the household is the nation. Jesus does indeed enter Jerusalem as a king, following the royal protocol established ages before.
When Israel first got a king, Samuel tried to instill in the people the understanding that the king was God’s regent, God’s stand-in, God’s ambassador plenipotentiary. The king represented the people to God and represented God to the people. The liturgy of holy processions had the king processing to the Temple, to the accolades of the people, “Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” Unfortunately Saul didn’t do very well as the first king. David and Solomon did better, but most of the kings who came after them went from bad to worst. Yet "king” was the accepted understanding of rule. Kings led, and for the most part the advantages outweighed the disadvantages.
Luke understood that Jesus went along the palm- and cloak-strewn road as the king who came in the name of the Lord.
In the name of the Lord. We probably don’t fully appreciate that phrase. We are used to having people act as “powers of attorney” on our behalf when we are not able to act. We are used to having attorneys or agents negotiating contracts for us. They act for us with our permission and authority. Jesus was more than that. He was the Lord. He acted on his own authority.
We also don’t appreciate the value of a name. With Shakespeare we ask, “What’s in a name?” Contrary to the Bard of Avon, the answer is everything. That’s the Semitic understanding. A name made or broke a person’s life. A child could be forever branded good or evil, adept or klutzy, revered or scorned by the name given her or him.
As powerful as all that was, it all paled in comparison to the name of the Lord. The name of the Lord was so sacred, it wasn’t spoken. Rabbis reading scripture automatically replaced the written name with another word. Just as a person couldn’t see the face of God and live (Moses and Elijah learned that), so the name of God was thought to be so holy that it couldn’t be said aloud. One of the ten commandments was to not take the Lord’s name “as if it were of no significance” (Exodus 20:7). That’s what “in vain” means. The understanding developed that uttering God’s name could violate that commandment. That has nothing to do with cursing and swearing. I wonder how the scribes could even write it. The name was holy because it was thought to represent or contain the very power of God.
So if Jesus enters Jerusalem “in the name of the Lord,” then the very power and presence of God is riding lowly on that donkey. We can say whatever we want about the fickleness of the crowd whose shouts change from “Hosanna” to “Crucify” by the end of the week. The parade is not about the bystanders. Jesus is in charge. Jesus knows exactly what he is doing. As we will see later in the week, he wishes that there was another way, he wishes that he didn’t have to proceed, yet he knows that this is the only way to accomplish the gift of life which God has determined to grace the world.
The name is everything. Jesus is the all in all. He doesn’t hide behind his divinity, but sets it aside in order to do what needs to be done. In spite of his pending death, Jesus rode in triumph, wearing the muted non-pomp that befits no one other than the Son of God. In that way, after death is conquered and life is affirmed, there will be nothing else believers can do other than bow their knees, their hearts, their spirits at the name of Jesus and confess him Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
As we approach the crucial events of our faith – Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection – what is God’s name for you? Is it just another name or is it the name above all names? Do you accord it the significance that cannot be usurped by any other name? Is it the blessing which goes with you? Is it life itself? The palmed and hosannaed journey down the Mount of Olives can help you decide.
Come, Lord Jesus. Blessed are you who comes in the name of the Lord!
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
We begin this week called “Holy” with the story of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. For three years, our Lord traveled the length and breadth of the country and ventured beyond its ethnic boundaries. He taught about the Kingdom of God and called the people into a relationship with God, whom he boldly called Father. In his ministry he cast out demons, offered forgiveness, healed sickness. He mentored a group of men and women to follow his leadership style and to tell the gospel after he was gone. He even raised people from the dead.
The crowds thought this was all prologue to what he intended, what they thought he intended. They rejoiced when they saw Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey because they thought he had finally accepted the inevitable: He would be their King.
The tide turned very quickly. He refused to live into the people’s image of the conquering hero. He didn’t call out militiamen as Paul Revere did, nor did he confront the Roman leaders who oppressed the people. Instead Jesus confronted the priests and religious professionals and took umbrage with the day to day attitudes and practices of faith. He attacked the very world the people thought was right.
Backed into a theological corner not all that different from our political landscape today, many, but not all, of the religious elite willingly supported Barabbas, a Jewish insurrectionist who was in Roman custody. Instead of choosing Jesus as their Messiah, they chose the man they thought would lead them to a victory against their oppressor. They thought he would make Judea great again. The leaders didn’t understand that they were oppressed by something greater.
The folks gathered long the road into Jerusalem didn’t have Luke’s hindsight. As we read Luke’s account, the trip into Jerusalem is preceded by a significant event and a powerful parable-story.
The event is Jesus spotting Zacchaeus in the crowded streets of Jericho and inviting himself to lunch at the tax collector’s house. Zacchaeus has two strikes against him. He is wealthy and his wealth was the result of his collaboration with Rome. He was the chief tax collector which meant that he not only gouged everyone, he took a cut from the collections of all the subordinate tax collectors. Zacchaeus has a Greek name, so we can’t be sure he wasn’t a mercenary brought in to oversee the collection of taxes or whether he was a local who had seen an opportunity to make money and seized it. The Greek name brands him as an outcast, as someone who identity has been tainted. He has lost his identity as one of God’s people.
Zacchaeus is one of the oppressors and he needs to be liberated as much as the Jews who were subject to his onerous collection practices and the rest of the Roman occupation enforcement. Zacchaeus is convicted of his sin when Jesus seeks out his presence. In response to his repentance, Jesus declares, “Today salvation has come to his household because he too is a son of Abraham” (Luke 19:9).
Then comes the parable. A man born into royalty has to go away to receive of his kingdom and while he is gone he entrusts portions of his assets to ten servants until his return. When he returned he called for an accounting. Several servants fared well and made the new-crowned king money. But one, knowing the man to be stern and unscrupulous, was afraid to do anything with the money other than keep it safe. The king stripped the man of the money and gave it to the man who had gotten the biggest return.
Because some of the citizens didn’t want the man to become their king, he ordered that his enemies be slaughtered. That would have been a typical response of a king seeking to secure his rule. That was how Rome dealt with people in newly occupied areas. Caesar worked through his local procurators – Pilate – and through puppet kings – Herod Antipas – to rule with impunity.
Many of the people hoped that Rome would be overthrown and driven out of Jerusalem and Judea. They put their hope in revolutionaries and insurrectionists. The Roman forces quickly quelled any rebellion that came along. The hope kept drifting to a future someday.
Luke seemed to say that God’s kingdom has come with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. The battle is set. Those who don’t want Jesus as king are line up against those who whose trust in God has been realigned through Jesus’ ministry and teaching. “Today salvation has come to this household.” And the household is the nation. Jesus does indeed enter Jerusalem as a king, following the royal protocol established ages before.
When Israel first got a king, Samuel tried to instill in the people the understanding that the king was God’s regent, God’s stand-in, God’s ambassador plenipotentiary. The king represented the people to God and represented God to the people. The liturgy of holy processions had the king processing to the Temple, to the accolades of the people, “Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” Unfortunately Saul didn’t do very well as the first king. David and Solomon did better, but most of the kings who came after them went from bad to worst. Yet "king” was the accepted understanding of rule. Kings led, and for the most part the advantages outweighed the disadvantages.
Luke understood that Jesus went along the palm- and cloak-strewn road as the king who came in the name of the Lord.
In the name of the Lord. We probably don’t fully appreciate that phrase. We are used to having people act as “powers of attorney” on our behalf when we are not able to act. We are used to having attorneys or agents negotiating contracts for us. They act for us with our permission and authority. Jesus was more than that. He was the Lord. He acted on his own authority.
We also don’t appreciate the value of a name. With Shakespeare we ask, “What’s in a name?” Contrary to the Bard of Avon, the answer is everything. That’s the Semitic understanding. A name made or broke a person’s life. A child could be forever branded good or evil, adept or klutzy, revered or scorned by the name given her or him.
As powerful as all that was, it all paled in comparison to the name of the Lord. The name of the Lord was so sacred, it wasn’t spoken. Rabbis reading scripture automatically replaced the written name with another word. Just as a person couldn’t see the face of God and live (Moses and Elijah learned that), so the name of God was thought to be so holy that it couldn’t be said aloud. One of the ten commandments was to not take the Lord’s name “as if it were of no significance” (Exodus 20:7). That’s what “in vain” means. The understanding developed that uttering God’s name could violate that commandment. That has nothing to do with cursing and swearing. I wonder how the scribes could even write it. The name was holy because it was thought to represent or contain the very power of God.
So if Jesus enters Jerusalem “in the name of the Lord,” then the very power and presence of God is riding lowly on that donkey. We can say whatever we want about the fickleness of the crowd whose shouts change from “Hosanna” to “Crucify” by the end of the week. The parade is not about the bystanders. Jesus is in charge. Jesus knows exactly what he is doing. As we will see later in the week, he wishes that there was another way, he wishes that he didn’t have to proceed, yet he knows that this is the only way to accomplish the gift of life which God has determined to grace the world.
The name is everything. Jesus is the all in all. He doesn’t hide behind his divinity, but sets it aside in order to do what needs to be done. In spite of his pending death, Jesus rode in triumph, wearing the muted non-pomp that befits no one other than the Son of God. In that way, after death is conquered and life is affirmed, there will be nothing else believers can do other than bow their knees, their hearts, their spirits at the name of Jesus and confess him Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
As we approach the crucial events of our faith – Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection – what is God’s name for you? Is it just another name or is it the name above all names? Do you accord it the significance that cannot be usurped by any other name? Is it the blessing which goes with you? Is it life itself? The palmed and hosannaed journey down the Mount of Olives can help you decide.
Come, Lord Jesus. Blessed are you who comes in the name of the Lord!
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, March 13, 2016
The New Beginning
Philippians 3:4-14; Isaiah 43:16-21; John 12:1-8
Do you want God? I am sure you do. How much do you want God? That’s hard to quantify. Do you want God more than everything else? There’s the rub. If God isn’t at the top of your want list, you aren’t alone. It’s hard. It’s like riding a roller coaster. We go great guns for a while and then we get distracted by something new and glitzy or enthralling.
This is one way of looking at what the first commandment requires: “You must have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:30). All our likings and desires, our hopes and dreams, our fears and our trust should always be directed to God alone. Lutheran pastor R. J. Grunewald notes that “sin, at it's heart, is wanting something else more than God. Anybody who suggests that they truly have no other gods is a liar. The Scriptures call us to love God above all else, to be fully satisfied in Christ alone.”(1)
Paul told us in last week’s reading from 2 Corinthians (5:17), “if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived.” That same thought that is behind what Paul tells the Philippians in today’s reading.
Paul hadn’t really desired God more than anything else. He had put all his hope and energy into external activities and milestones: circumcision, lineage, theological association, doctrinal purity, and the Law. But not God.
In our own ways each of us asks, What is the least I can do and still be a Christian? It’s the same thing we do in this year of political puffery. What is the least I can agree with candidate A, B, or C, and still vote for him or her. It’s a difficult task, because most of us are not one issue voters, but which responses to which issues are deal breakers for a particular candidate. With God we go through the same kind of mental gymnastics. I’ll give you my full attention between 10:45 and noon on Sunday (I won’t even fall asleep in church), but don’t press me on things during th rest of the week. Allow me my bigotries, my prejudices, my unwillingness to listen to other views.
Grunewald notes,
Anyone who has tried to diet, quit smoking, learn to play an instrument, take up a sport, make any significant behavioral change comes to realize that they can’t do it by themselves. The self-help books notwithstanding, we need tutors, we need coaches, we need fellow travelers, we need guides who have gone this way before and who know the pitfalls and rapids. It takes a community.
We all need to lean on each other. That sounds a lot like a row of dominoes set on their ends in such a way that you push the first one and they all go down. In reality the community of Christ – the church – is like the interlocking girders of trestle bridge or the rafters that support the roof above us right now. Each member bears and distributes the weight so that no one member has to do it all.
As Paul struggles to want God more than everything else, he knows his reality.
It is a continual battle. Every day we are issued a helping of manna equivalent to 86,400 seconds. We get a bye for somewhere between 25,000-30,000 of those seconds when we are asleep. But each and every one of the rest of them are up for grabs. Will we want God or will we want a second of life filled with God-denying, God-restricting, God-ignoring less-than-full life?
Paul recognizes the struggle. He wishes it weren’t so. But he also knows that if wanting God completely without any competing wants weren’t difficult then he, and each of us, would never grow into the depth of appreciation for all that God provides through the saving work of Christ Jesus empowered into us through the Spirit.
The other two readings for the day reaffirm this. Isaiah delivers the message of God to the beleaguered, exiled, refugee Israelites caught in the no hope of the future and the fond memories of a time which seems a lot better in retrospect than it did in the immediacy of the moment.
God does not cease to want us. I “give water to my people, my chosen ones, this people whom I formed for myself, who will recount my praise.” (Isaiah 43:20-21)
In the reading from John we see two differing desires. Judas, behind th facade of thinking of the poor, is desiring his own way of life, whether it is for the possibility of dipping into the common treasury as John suggests, or maybe grabbing the glory of being the one to distribute the alms to the needy. (Jesus once noted that even those who are evil know how to make friends for themselves.)
Judas is contrasted with Mary who anoints Jesus with the expensive perfume. Her giving of herself and the perfume – which Jesus declared was preparation for his burial – was a moment of total desire for God whom Mary recognized in Jesus, sitting in her living room, eating at her table. The burial preparation, signaled a coming new beginning. And even though Lazarus had been raised from the dead, no one yet understood the import of that act and of the greater one which Mary was helping to inaugurate with her perfume.
All the new beginnings that God creates are not just for God’s amusement. God earnestly desires each one of us. God wants our God-focused desire to stretch as far as it can so that one day, when the new heaven and new earth become the final reality of creation, our desire for God will climax in its fullness completely removing all other desires.
However much you want God today, keep wanting God more tomorrow, and every day after, until the new beginning promised by God is the reality of your life.
Yes, indeed.
(1) http://www.rjgrune.com/blog/want-god, March 10, 2016.
(2) Ibid.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Do you want God? I am sure you do. How much do you want God? That’s hard to quantify. Do you want God more than everything else? There’s the rub. If God isn’t at the top of your want list, you aren’t alone. It’s hard. It’s like riding a roller coaster. We go great guns for a while and then we get distracted by something new and glitzy or enthralling.
This is one way of looking at what the first commandment requires: “You must have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:30). All our likings and desires, our hopes and dreams, our fears and our trust should always be directed to God alone. Lutheran pastor R. J. Grunewald notes that “sin, at it's heart, is wanting something else more than God. Anybody who suggests that they truly have no other gods is a liar. The Scriptures call us to love God above all else, to be fully satisfied in Christ alone.”(1)
Paul told us in last week’s reading from 2 Corinthians (5:17), “if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived.” That same thought that is behind what Paul tells the Philippians in today’s reading.
Paul hadn’t really desired God more than anything else. He had put all his hope and energy into external activities and milestones: circumcision, lineage, theological association, doctrinal purity, and the Law. But not God.
In our own ways each of us asks, What is the least I can do and still be a Christian? It’s the same thing we do in this year of political puffery. What is the least I can agree with candidate A, B, or C, and still vote for him or her. It’s a difficult task, because most of us are not one issue voters, but which responses to which issues are deal breakers for a particular candidate. With God we go through the same kind of mental gymnastics. I’ll give you my full attention between 10:45 and noon on Sunday (I won’t even fall asleep in church), but don’t press me on things during th rest of the week. Allow me my bigotries, my prejudices, my unwillingness to listen to other views.
Grunewald notes,
[H]ere’s the tension of the Christian life. Being a Christian isn’t about sinning less and wanting God more. Being a Christian is about realizing that sin is an even bigger problem than you thought and that the cross is even more gracious than you dreamed.The new beginning is always difficult. That’s the first message which the Georgie Harris House guests heard yesterday from several speakers who testified about their trials with addiction. But their message was two-fold. The second part was that making the new beginning was well worth the effort.
When I don’t sin, it is the supernatural work of Christ in me, but when I do sin it’s not evidence that I'm not a Christian – it's evidence that my sinful flesh still battles against the new creation.(2)
Anyone who has tried to diet, quit smoking, learn to play an instrument, take up a sport, make any significant behavioral change comes to realize that they can’t do it by themselves. The self-help books notwithstanding, we need tutors, we need coaches, we need fellow travelers, we need guides who have gone this way before and who know the pitfalls and rapids. It takes a community.
We all need to lean on each other. That sounds a lot like a row of dominoes set on their ends in such a way that you push the first one and they all go down. In reality the community of Christ – the church – is like the interlocking girders of trestle bridge or the rafters that support the roof above us right now. Each member bears and distributes the weight so that no one member has to do it all.
As Paul struggles to want God more than everything else, he knows his reality.
It’s not that I have already reached this goal or have already been perfected, but I pursue it, so that I may grab hold of it because Christ grabbed hold of me for just this purpose. Brothers and sisters, I myself don’t think I’ve reached it, but I do this one thing: I forget about the things behind me and reach out for the things ahead of me. The goal I pursue is the prize of God’s upward call in Christ Jesus.Like Paul, we are constantly failing to choose God over ourselves in the business of living. But even in our failures, God still wants us. God still reaches out to grasp us, to grab us close to God’s self and embrace us in holy and eternal love.
It is a continual battle. Every day we are issued a helping of manna equivalent to 86,400 seconds. We get a bye for somewhere between 25,000-30,000 of those seconds when we are asleep. But each and every one of the rest of them are up for grabs. Will we want God or will we want a second of life filled with God-denying, God-restricting, God-ignoring less-than-full life?
Paul recognizes the struggle. He wishes it weren’t so. But he also knows that if wanting God completely without any competing wants weren’t difficult then he, and each of us, would never grow into the depth of appreciation for all that God provides through the saving work of Christ Jesus empowered into us through the Spirit.
The other two readings for the day reaffirm this. Isaiah delivers the message of God to the beleaguered, exiled, refugee Israelites caught in the no hope of the future and the fond memories of a time which seems a lot better in retrospect than it did in the immediacy of the moment.
Don’t remember the prior things; don’t ponder ancient history.Look! I’m doing a new thing; now it sprouts up; don’t you recognize it?I’m making a way in the desert, paths in the wilderness. (Isaiah 43:18-19)When we make an idol of the past, remembering the better parts and forgetting the rough parts, we diminish our ability to want God above everything else. We diminish the possibility of faith in a God who has never given up creating and who renews and upgrades life all the time. We close our eyes to the new things that God is constantly doing – the creation of relationships, the healing of broken ones, the growth of new dimensions of relating and the inclusion of new participants in existing relationships.
God does not cease to want us. I “give water to my people, my chosen ones, this people whom I formed for myself, who will recount my praise.” (Isaiah 43:20-21)
In the reading from John we see two differing desires. Judas, behind th facade of thinking of the poor, is desiring his own way of life, whether it is for the possibility of dipping into the common treasury as John suggests, or maybe grabbing the glory of being the one to distribute the alms to the needy. (Jesus once noted that even those who are evil know how to make friends for themselves.)
Judas is contrasted with Mary who anoints Jesus with the expensive perfume. Her giving of herself and the perfume – which Jesus declared was preparation for his burial – was a moment of total desire for God whom Mary recognized in Jesus, sitting in her living room, eating at her table. The burial preparation, signaled a coming new beginning. And even though Lazarus had been raised from the dead, no one yet understood the import of that act and of the greater one which Mary was helping to inaugurate with her perfume.
All the new beginnings that God creates are not just for God’s amusement. God earnestly desires each one of us. God wants our God-focused desire to stretch as far as it can so that one day, when the new heaven and new earth become the final reality of creation, our desire for God will climax in its fullness completely removing all other desires.
However much you want God today, keep wanting God more tomorrow, and every day after, until the new beginning promised by God is the reality of your life.
Yes, indeed.
(1) http://www.rjgrune.com/blog/want-god, March 10, 2016.
(2) Ibid.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, March 6, 2016
The New Reality
2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Joshua 5:9-12; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
We are approaching the midway point of Lent. Our Lenten disciplines have varied and we have wavered in how well we have followed them. Giving things up or taking things on for Lent has about the same track record as New Year’s resolutions. It is hard to do this on our own. Twelve-step recovery programs have known this for years. It takes a village to accomplish many things. It takes a village plus Christ to accomplish the new reality that is faith.
Over the first three weeks of Lent we have focused on community. All the faces at the cross remind us that there was a veritable crowd of unique individuals who faced the cross. Paul reminds us that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. Jesus’ stories and activities throughout his ministry were aimed at enlarging the kingdom. Most of Paul’s letters are addressed to communities of faith.
Our Lenten discipline has far less to do with giving up chocolate or donuts and lot more with living into a broad and generous understanding of what being the people of Christ is all about. We can participate in lots of spiritual exercises. Saying extra prayers, doing more Bible reading, attending mid-week services, memorizing scripture, or singing hymns around the house may be good in themselves, but none of them assures us of spiritual perfection or being right with God.
Paul understood this first hand. As a Pharisee he had tried zealously to achieve a fully satisfying relationship with God. But he had failed. In the midst of this failure he was overwhelmed by the realization that he now had friendship with God through Christ Jesus. He likened it to being a new creature or, as the gospel writer John termed it, “born anew.” By the gracious gift of God in Christ, we, like Paul, now possess the right relationship God desires to have with us. What a new reality that is!
Three key words jump out at us in this brief passage from Paul: reconciliation, world, ambassador. All three reflect the new reality which the gospel of Christ inserts into the lives of believers.
Paul has a passion for the word reconciliation, as well he should, based on his experience with Christ claiming him and commissioning him to deliver the gospel. In one grammatical form or another, he uses reconciliation five times in the space of three verses. For Paul reconciliation means a renewed relationship with God established through Christ’s life, death and resurrection.
The verse before today’s reading, 2 Corinthians 5:15, offers the key to how reconciliation can be experienced day by day. Eugene Peterson (The Message) renders it this way: Christ “included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.” Our new reality is that we have a far better life with Christ than we would have without Christ.
The next key word is world. The Greek word kosmos occurs 46 times in the Paul’s writings. It can mean the inhabited world around Paul, but it could also represent the whole of creation. Given Paul’s theological training, it is likely that he saw the kosmos as the reality where human rebellion and alienation from God existed and festered, and where humanity was under the domination of evil. Christ died to remove this alienation and hostility and to break the power of sin and evil enslaving humanity.
Reconciliation between humanity and God was an absolute necessity. That reconciliation must happen in the world. How? Through believers. But Paul says that it is more than believing. Believing is an internal thing. It is in the mind or the heart. Reconciliation has to happen in the world, and that means that it happens outside of individuals. It happens in the world which is thirsty for a new, living relationship with God. Yes, God can and does work in individuals. But God also works through individuals with individuals for individuals.
That’s where the concept of an ambassador comes in. An ambassador represents and interprets his/her country to the government of another nation. It was an ancient and honorable profession even in Paul’s time. Having an embassy with an ambassador in another nation’s capital demonstrates respect for the other nation and the goodwill which should exist between nations. Withdrawing an ambassador is a sign of strained or deteriorating relations.
Paul believed that because we have been given a new relationship with God through Christ, we are now God’s representatives in the world which God has destined for re-creation. We are not people of high rank, of great esteem, of noble birth. Yet God has made us ambassadors to the world. It’s a perfect match, because the world we inhabit is not a world of A-list celebrities, tenured faculty of world-renowned universities and think tanks, or government officials of the highest level. We are ordinary people who live among ordinary people. Jesus put aside his divinity to rub shoulders with humanity. Jesus asks us to put aside the pretense of our imagined greatness and allow our humanity to mingle with the humanity of those around us, to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to express God’s reconciling love.
Whether apocryphal or not, there is a splendid story that illustrates the centrality of this text. It is reported that Swiss theologian Karl Barth was once asked what he would say to Adolf Hitler if he ever had the chance to meet the monster who was destroying Europe. Barth’s interviewer assumed that he would offer a scorching prophetic judgment against Hitler. However, Barth replied that he would do nothing other than quote Romans 5:8: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Only the unparalleled mercy and forgiveness of God, the unstinted gladness and grace of the gospel, could prompt the Führer’s genuine repentance.(1)
Because we have been reconciled to God, we have the privilege of encouraging others to accept God's free gift, to become reconciled as well. This is called the ministry of reconciliation. Since Paul experienced reconciliation through Christ, it became his mission to preach that message: “If we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son while we were still enemies, now that we have been reconciled, how much more certain is it that we will be saved by his life?” (Romans 5:10).
The new reality is that we are reconciled to God. We didn’t do it for ourselves, we couldn’t do it for ourselves. Only Christ could and did. What a joyful reality for us to receive. Yes, we have to receive it, believe it with our whole being that it really is true, no matter what deep stains soil our past. We are reconciled. Thanks be to Christ.
Today, the church owes it to the world to keep on spreading the message of this new reality. We are continually living into new realities. The Israelites experienced the new reality of the promised land when they survived on the fruit of the land instead of God’s manna. Both the younger and the elder son experienced the new reality of grace when the prodigal father welcomed the wandering son back home. What the father did in dividing the family’s resources, then later celebrating the younger son’s return, was an outrageously wasteful, careless, and unprecedented deed. It was unconscionable to forgive and renew the broken relationship in this way. Yet this is how grace functions in God’s realm.(2)
Brother Roger wrote in The Rule of Taizé, “Never resign yourself to the scandal of the separation of Christians, all who so readily confess love for their neighbor, and yet remain divided. Be consumed with burning zeal for the unity of the Body of Christ.”(3)
As we move toward the new reality of a risen Savior, let us live into that new reality by receiving God’s reconciliation for ourselves, by knowing that God’s reconciliation is for the whole world, and by being the empowered bearers of that reconciliation in order to break down the divisions of the world.
Welcome the new reality in your life. Be the new reality for the lives around you.
(1) Cited by Ralph C. Wood, “2 Corinthians 5:16-21: Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009) Year C, Volume 2, 110.
(2) Cited by John Shearman, “Opening Comments for Sunday March 6 2016 which is the Fourth Sunday of Lent. Year C,” midrash@joinhands.com, Sun, Feb 28, 2016 at 3:48 PM
(3) Brother Roger, The Rule of Taizé (Taizé: Les Presses de Taizé, 1961), 14-16.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
We are approaching the midway point of Lent. Our Lenten disciplines have varied and we have wavered in how well we have followed them. Giving things up or taking things on for Lent has about the same track record as New Year’s resolutions. It is hard to do this on our own. Twelve-step recovery programs have known this for years. It takes a village to accomplish many things. It takes a village plus Christ to accomplish the new reality that is faith.
Over the first three weeks of Lent we have focused on community. All the faces at the cross remind us that there was a veritable crowd of unique individuals who faced the cross. Paul reminds us that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. Jesus’ stories and activities throughout his ministry were aimed at enlarging the kingdom. Most of Paul’s letters are addressed to communities of faith.
Our Lenten discipline has far less to do with giving up chocolate or donuts and lot more with living into a broad and generous understanding of what being the people of Christ is all about. We can participate in lots of spiritual exercises. Saying extra prayers, doing more Bible reading, attending mid-week services, memorizing scripture, or singing hymns around the house may be good in themselves, but none of them assures us of spiritual perfection or being right with God.
Paul understood this first hand. As a Pharisee he had tried zealously to achieve a fully satisfying relationship with God. But he had failed. In the midst of this failure he was overwhelmed by the realization that he now had friendship with God through Christ Jesus. He likened it to being a new creature or, as the gospel writer John termed it, “born anew.” By the gracious gift of God in Christ, we, like Paul, now possess the right relationship God desires to have with us. What a new reality that is!
Three key words jump out at us in this brief passage from Paul: reconciliation, world, ambassador. All three reflect the new reality which the gospel of Christ inserts into the lives of believers.
Paul has a passion for the word reconciliation, as well he should, based on his experience with Christ claiming him and commissioning him to deliver the gospel. In one grammatical form or another, he uses reconciliation five times in the space of three verses. For Paul reconciliation means a renewed relationship with God established through Christ’s life, death and resurrection.
The verse before today’s reading, 2 Corinthians 5:15, offers the key to how reconciliation can be experienced day by day. Eugene Peterson (The Message) renders it this way: Christ “included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.” Our new reality is that we have a far better life with Christ than we would have without Christ.
The next key word is world. The Greek word kosmos occurs 46 times in the Paul’s writings. It can mean the inhabited world around Paul, but it could also represent the whole of creation. Given Paul’s theological training, it is likely that he saw the kosmos as the reality where human rebellion and alienation from God existed and festered, and where humanity was under the domination of evil. Christ died to remove this alienation and hostility and to break the power of sin and evil enslaving humanity.
Reconciliation between humanity and God was an absolute necessity. That reconciliation must happen in the world. How? Through believers. But Paul says that it is more than believing. Believing is an internal thing. It is in the mind or the heart. Reconciliation has to happen in the world, and that means that it happens outside of individuals. It happens in the world which is thirsty for a new, living relationship with God. Yes, God can and does work in individuals. But God also works through individuals with individuals for individuals.
That’s where the concept of an ambassador comes in. An ambassador represents and interprets his/her country to the government of another nation. It was an ancient and honorable profession even in Paul’s time. Having an embassy with an ambassador in another nation’s capital demonstrates respect for the other nation and the goodwill which should exist between nations. Withdrawing an ambassador is a sign of strained or deteriorating relations.
Paul believed that because we have been given a new relationship with God through Christ, we are now God’s representatives in the world which God has destined for re-creation. We are not people of high rank, of great esteem, of noble birth. Yet God has made us ambassadors to the world. It’s a perfect match, because the world we inhabit is not a world of A-list celebrities, tenured faculty of world-renowned universities and think tanks, or government officials of the highest level. We are ordinary people who live among ordinary people. Jesus put aside his divinity to rub shoulders with humanity. Jesus asks us to put aside the pretense of our imagined greatness and allow our humanity to mingle with the humanity of those around us, to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to express God’s reconciling love.
Whether apocryphal or not, there is a splendid story that illustrates the centrality of this text. It is reported that Swiss theologian Karl Barth was once asked what he would say to Adolf Hitler if he ever had the chance to meet the monster who was destroying Europe. Barth’s interviewer assumed that he would offer a scorching prophetic judgment against Hitler. However, Barth replied that he would do nothing other than quote Romans 5:8: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Only the unparalleled mercy and forgiveness of God, the unstinted gladness and grace of the gospel, could prompt the Führer’s genuine repentance.(1)
Because we have been reconciled to God, we have the privilege of encouraging others to accept God's free gift, to become reconciled as well. This is called the ministry of reconciliation. Since Paul experienced reconciliation through Christ, it became his mission to preach that message: “If we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son while we were still enemies, now that we have been reconciled, how much more certain is it that we will be saved by his life?” (Romans 5:10).
The new reality is that we are reconciled to God. We didn’t do it for ourselves, we couldn’t do it for ourselves. Only Christ could and did. What a joyful reality for us to receive. Yes, we have to receive it, believe it with our whole being that it really is true, no matter what deep stains soil our past. We are reconciled. Thanks be to Christ.
Today, the church owes it to the world to keep on spreading the message of this new reality. We are continually living into new realities. The Israelites experienced the new reality of the promised land when they survived on the fruit of the land instead of God’s manna. Both the younger and the elder son experienced the new reality of grace when the prodigal father welcomed the wandering son back home. What the father did in dividing the family’s resources, then later celebrating the younger son’s return, was an outrageously wasteful, careless, and unprecedented deed. It was unconscionable to forgive and renew the broken relationship in this way. Yet this is how grace functions in God’s realm.(2)
Brother Roger wrote in The Rule of Taizé, “Never resign yourself to the scandal of the separation of Christians, all who so readily confess love for their neighbor, and yet remain divided. Be consumed with burning zeal for the unity of the Body of Christ.”(3)
As we move toward the new reality of a risen Savior, let us live into that new reality by receiving God’s reconciliation for ourselves, by knowing that God’s reconciliation is for the whole world, and by being the empowered bearers of that reconciliation in order to break down the divisions of the world.
Welcome the new reality in your life. Be the new reality for the lives around you.
(1) Cited by Ralph C. Wood, “2 Corinthians 5:16-21: Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009) Year C, Volume 2, 110.
(2) Cited by John Shearman, “Opening Comments for Sunday March 6 2016 which is the Fourth Sunday of Lent. Year C,” midrash@joinhands.com, Sun, Feb 28, 2016 at 3:48 PM
(3) Brother Roger, The Rule of Taizé (Taizé: Les Presses de Taizé, 1961), 14-16.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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