Luke 12:13-21; Hosea 11:1-11; Psalm 107:1-9
Last Sunday in our thoughts about prayers, I noted that when we shut ourselves in our rooms to pray in solitude we are often distracted. I mentioned wandering minds, ambient noise, pressing schedules, tiredness, boredom with praying about the same topics over and over, as well as nagging questions about the need for prayer and its efficacy. We get distracted when we try to pray.
Those aren’t the only times we get distracted. Our lives are filled with distractions. Studies have found that people’s attention spans are getting shorter. Just think of that in terms of television. A 60-second commercial seems interminable – you know, the ones that tell you what could go wrong if you take this new drug. No way you can pack all that into a brief commercial. A lot of commercials are now only 15 seconds long, and some are just 10 seconds.
Advertisers and marketers deliberately try to distract us. Why do you suppose they put displays of certain products at the ends of the check-out lines, or on shelves at eye-level?
Even though many of us no longer put in eight-hour days, we still get distracted by all the events that we need to remember, all the people that pass through our lives, all the noise that goes on – from the white noise of air conditioners to the beeping of the myriad electronic devices we live with every day. You know, the chime that tells us to buckle our seat belts, the dinging of the refrigerator when we stand with the door open staring into it, and the sounds our cell phones make when a text, an email, or some other notification comes in.
Instant communication keeps us on tenterhooks, always afraid that we are going to miss something, the next Facebook post, the next Twitter feed, the next Instagram. The very things that should alleviate our distractions have become distractions in and of themselves.
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus wants us to deal with a particular distraction, one which he says is significant. This distraction is greed. If we can get beyond this distraction, we can accept Jesus’ invitation to a renewed relationship with God. In order for this to happen, Jesus has to expose our human greed and anxiety about money. The parable he tells singes away any illusion that the godly life is synonymous with the American ideals of prosperity and success.
Edward Friedman developed family systems theory and Peter Steinke has been the chief herald of it for over a generation. Their studies have shown that money matters often reveal the true heart of our individual households as well as the household of God. Money is always about more than money. Our spending, our saving, and our general attitude toward material wealth are all invested with emotions and memories.
A case in point. I was born a generation after the Wall Street crash that ushered in the Great Depression. My parents were in their teens when the bottom fell out. While I was growing up, I heard their oft-retold stories about the deprivation their families experienced. At times it felt that we were still in the depression. And there were times in my youth when they didn’t have very many nickels to rub together. I know that my own attitude to money have been formed in part by that. I wrestle with the things they didn’t spend money on and the things they did spend money on, as well as their spoken and unspoken reasons for doing so. You may be able to think of similar situations in your own history.
Not having money can be as distracting as having money and trying to keep what you have as well as trying to get more. There are deep trust issues involved. Do we trust more in money than in God? Do our attitudes about money – both poverty and wealth – distract us from the relationship that we are to be having with God? A capacity to trust in God can deepen only as these matters lessen their grip in our lives.
The man who interrupts Jesus’ group teaching was probably the younger of two brothers. By Jewish inheritance law, he would get a third of the estate while the older brother would get two-thirds. He wanted Jesus to be the arbitrator to broker the deal. That’s a role Jesus had no interest in performing.
Jesus keeps on speaking to the crowd, but using the interruption, tells them in no uncertain terms that they need to be watchful for insatiable greediness in their lives. I am sure that they didn’t see that coming. Many of them would have sided with the brother wanting his share of the pot. Jesus declared that the meaning and value of a person’s life was not established through amassing barns full of possessions.
The economic reality of Jesus’ world was that insatiable greediness had implications for communities as well as individuals. If one person became richer and richer, it meant others conversely would become poorer and poorer. The issue of the one-percent people is as old as human society. Economics was, and still is, a zero-sum game. The individual’s life always has been intertwined with the lives of others as well as with God. Recent studies on hoarding show that the cause is the same for poor and rich, namely fear. Only the price tags are different.
So we have this rich man. “Filthy rich” might be a better description. He wasn’t just a gentleman farmer. He controlled much of the agricultural production for a whole region, a multi-county area, if you will. If that didn’t load the image sufficiently, the prevailing theological perspective of Jesus’ time would have regarded this rare bumper crop as a tremendously generous blessing from God.
Instead of a blessing, however, the rich man reacts to the banner crop yield with anxiety and fear. “Where am I going to put all this?’ he asks himself. He has nowhere to store his crops. He’s not looking for a short-term or temporary solution. The farmer thinks this is going to be an on-going problem. He has no intention of either selling or sharing his crops at this point in time, in order to pass along the good fortune he has received. No, he wants a long-term solution, which quite simply is more barns, bigger barns, better barns. It is mostly about him. The grain does have to be stored. It can’t be left out in the open to spoil.
The rich agri-businessman may have been outwardly think about protecting the crop, but inwardly he was telling himself to relax, eat, drink, and be merry. After all had a huge inventory of good things stored up for years to come. His business acumen was probably telling himself today’s storage dilemma was tomorrow’s balance sheet increase. A year or two down the road when there was a bad crop year, he can sell his grain holdings at a premium. After all, it wasn’t his fault that the weather didn’t cooperate.
This man is so totally self-absorbed that he does not take others into account; neither does he bring his own mortality or God into his thinking. God, however, has taken note. The contrast between the rich man’s self-perception and God’s perception is quite stark. The rich man thinks he will have the life of ease for years to come.
God has a completely different thought. God judges the man to be a fool and demand’s the man’s life that very night. The man has made elaborate preparations to guarantee himself a comfortable, self-indulgent future but took no preparation for his own mortality. He has been so distracted with his good harvest and with his own enjoyment of the good life, that he has gone off the rails and has failed to discern that God’s understanding of the good life was very different.
While this single reading doesn’t tell us what is involved in being rich toward God, Luke has surrounded it with texts that make it very clear. Being rich toward God means using one’s resources for the benefit of one’s neighbor in need, as the Samaritan did (10:25-37, the reading three weeks ago). Being rich toward God includes intentionally listening to Jesus’ word, which is what Mary did (10:38-42, the reading two weeks ago). Being rich toward God consists of prayerfully trusting that God will provide for the needs of life (11:1-13, last week’s reading). Being rich toward God involves selling possessions and giving alms as a means of establishing a lasting treasure in heaven (12:32-34, the gospel reading for next week).
These parables and stories, and many more, invites us to shed the distractions that keep us from discerning the graciousness of God, a graciousness that cannot be ignored or run roughshod over by piques of self-importance, self-indulgence, or out and out greed. Don’t let the distractions of your life derail your ability to discern God’s presence in your life and in the lives of others. Shed the distractions and receive the life which is truly rich before God.
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, July 31, 2016
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Praying Something Is Better than Praying Nothing
Luke 11:1-13; Hosea 1:2-10; Colossians 2:6-15
Did you know that only one out of two children are likely to know “The Lord’s Prayer”? That’s what a 2012 survey published by the British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph discovered. They surveyed a group of 1,000 children ages 6-12 and a group of 1,000 adults who were in that age group 40 years ago. It found that 92 percent of the adults said they knew the Lord’s Prayer as a child, while only 55 percent of today’s children knew it. My unscientific observation would support those findings. In recent years when I have invited congregations at weddings and funerals to join in the Lord’s Prayer, the participation is not as vibrant as one would expect.
That reality is not surprising given the smaller percentages of Christians who regularly attend worship services. If the survey sample included only people who claim to be Christian – regardless of church attendance – then there is a serious situation for individual believers as well as the church to deal with.
The Lord’s Prayer could be likened to the ABCs of prayer. It provides a tangible and unique framework by which we can formulate our prayers. Most of us have advanced a great deal beyond that basic vocabulary. That is where we started, lo those many years ago. Yet, not every church attendee finds praying so easy, and some people with little or no religious training find the whole idea of praying downright intimidating.
Many of us have the words of certain hymns etched in our minds or verses of scripture which we learned when memorizing came easy. We take great comfort in those lyrics or when, in the words of the psalmist, we walk through dark valleys (Psalm 23:4) or when we are elated at unexpected blessings: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless God’s holy name” (Psalm 103:1). Whether we need the Source of light or have experienced it, words come in handy.
Today’s gospel reading includes Luke’s version of the Lord's Prayer, along with a parable and commentary from Jesus about persistence in prayer. You noticed that Luke’s version of the prayer is shorter than the more familiar one from Matthew 6. It has five petitions compared to Matthew’s seven. The five are all key petitions. At first hearing the contemporary translation seems to do violence to the words we memorized decades ago. Yet the new words can cause us to think deeply about the prayer’s meaning. The first two petitions – “uphold the holiness of your name” (“hallowed be thy name”) and “bring in your kingdom” (“thy kingdom come” – are points of connection with the God to whom the prayer is addressed. The other three – for daily bread, for forgiveness of sins, and for being spared from temptation – ask for help with daily life. Of course, neither Matthew nor Luke include the doxology tradition has tacked on to the end. So whether we pray following Matthew’s wording or Luke's, we're covering important ground.
You will remember that Matthew has Jesus pronouncing the prayer as part of his Sermon on the Mount. In Luke’s gospel, he gives it in direct response to a request from one of his disciples, who says, “Lord, teach us to pray....” We have to wonder why that disciple made that request. The disciples were all children of the synagogue. They had grown up going to worship and hearing public prayers. So didn’t they already know how to pray? The reference to John’s teaching his disciples may suggest that John had formula prayer which he used. Did the disciples want a mantra?
Perhaps the disciples felt that the synagogue prayers were inadequate in light of what they were discovering about God in Jesus’ presence. Maybe the prayers they'd heard were too formal for an easy, personal conversation with God. That Jesus responded by giving this prayer as a model suggests that he understood that praying is something with which people need help.
Praying is often as difficult for long term Christians as it is for newcomers or for people claim the church a couple times during a year. There are various kinds of prayers. There are prayers for public worship, prayers in the public arena, private prayers with individuals, and personal prayers all by one’s self, the ones Jesus referred to when he said, “Go into your room and shut the door...” (Matthew 6:6). Those prayers are so often beset by wandering minds, ambient noise, pressing schedules, tiredness, boredom with praying about the same topics over and over.
Another problem with praying is the haunting of philosophical questions, such as, “If God knows what is in my heart, then why do I have to tell him?” and “Why should I have to pray about the same things day after day; isn’t once enough?” Those are rabbit trails Jesus had no desire to run along.” His answer was simple, “When you pray, say ....” Jesus may be saying that it is more helpful to speak – even to recite – a set prayer than not to pray because we have unanswered (and probably unanswerable) questions about conversing with God. Jesus’ straightforward direction about praying reminds us that he was never as “spiritual” as some of his later followers. There was no “You have to do thus and such before God will listen to you.” He simply said, “When you pray, say....”
The apostle Paul frequently talks about different Christians having different spiritual gifts – talents and abilities that can be put to work for the church. Paul loves lists. His spiritual gift inventory includes such things as prophecy, serving, teaching, preaching, giving aid, doing acts of mercy, discerning. The gifts are handed out in different measure to different people. Prayer is surely a gift as well. Some people have the gift to be “prayer warriors” and some people don’t. Whether we’re “good” at prayer or not, our daily lives can benefit from making the effort, and the Lord’s Prayer is a place to start.
I know that you already know the Lord’s Prayer. And whether you use Matthew’s or Luke’s version, whether you use “sins,” “debts,” or trespasses” doesn’t matter. How can you use Christ’s prayer to advance your prayer life?
Think of the Lord’s Prayer as a “choke” to get a cold engine started. Some of you may be old enough to remember having to set the choke on an automobile engine in order to start it. Then when the engine got warm you took the choke off. The choke in the on position fed a rich fuel mixture to the cylinders. A warm engine runs quite well on a lean fuel mixture. So start your cold prayer spirit by reciting the Lord’s Prayer to “warm your spirit” so that you can more easily enter into other praying and meditation.
Another useful approach is to pray the prayer in pieces. Say a phrase and let the phrase fade off into silence, thinking about the meaning of that petition. Ask yourself questions such as,
Allow for silence between petitions and meditate on it. Prayer is our opportunity to speak to God. Meditation is God’s opportunity to speak to us.
You can also pray Jesus’ words when your heart is aching so bad that you can’t form your own petitions. It may become a channel through which God’s Spirit can flow to you.
Pray the prayer when your mind rebels against praying your own prayers. Praying something is better than praying nothing.
Centuries ago, God told Israel, “Israel, listen! Our God is the Lord! Only the Lord! Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your strength. These words that I am commanding you today must always be on your minds. Recite them to your children. Talk about them when you are sitting around your house and when you are out and about, when you are lying down and when you are getting up” (Deuteronomy 6:4-7). As Christians, we can do the same with the Lord’s Prayer.
Let’s not overstate the case. Praying the Lord’s Prayer isn’t likely to turn the world around spiritually or be the start of a worldwide religious revival.
But let’s not understate the case either. The Lord’s Prayer is a spiritual starting point, a way to reach out toward God when we're too numb, too much in pain, too blind, too angry, even too tired to do much else. Children and adults of all ages will benefit from it, and God hears us when we pray it.
Praying something is better than praying nothing.
And the Lord’s Prayer is really something.
General Resource: “Relearning the Lord’s Prayer,” Homiletics, July 28,2013.
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.
Did you know that only one out of two children are likely to know “The Lord’s Prayer”? That’s what a 2012 survey published by the British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph discovered. They surveyed a group of 1,000 children ages 6-12 and a group of 1,000 adults who were in that age group 40 years ago. It found that 92 percent of the adults said they knew the Lord’s Prayer as a child, while only 55 percent of today’s children knew it. My unscientific observation would support those findings. In recent years when I have invited congregations at weddings and funerals to join in the Lord’s Prayer, the participation is not as vibrant as one would expect.
That reality is not surprising given the smaller percentages of Christians who regularly attend worship services. If the survey sample included only people who claim to be Christian – regardless of church attendance – then there is a serious situation for individual believers as well as the church to deal with.
The Lord’s Prayer could be likened to the ABCs of prayer. It provides a tangible and unique framework by which we can formulate our prayers. Most of us have advanced a great deal beyond that basic vocabulary. That is where we started, lo those many years ago. Yet, not every church attendee finds praying so easy, and some people with little or no religious training find the whole idea of praying downright intimidating.
Many of us have the words of certain hymns etched in our minds or verses of scripture which we learned when memorizing came easy. We take great comfort in those lyrics or when, in the words of the psalmist, we walk through dark valleys (Psalm 23:4) or when we are elated at unexpected blessings: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless God’s holy name” (Psalm 103:1). Whether we need the Source of light or have experienced it, words come in handy.
Today’s gospel reading includes Luke’s version of the Lord's Prayer, along with a parable and commentary from Jesus about persistence in prayer. You noticed that Luke’s version of the prayer is shorter than the more familiar one from Matthew 6. It has five petitions compared to Matthew’s seven. The five are all key petitions. At first hearing the contemporary translation seems to do violence to the words we memorized decades ago. Yet the new words can cause us to think deeply about the prayer’s meaning. The first two petitions – “uphold the holiness of your name” (“hallowed be thy name”) and “bring in your kingdom” (“thy kingdom come” – are points of connection with the God to whom the prayer is addressed. The other three – for daily bread, for forgiveness of sins, and for being spared from temptation – ask for help with daily life. Of course, neither Matthew nor Luke include the doxology tradition has tacked on to the end. So whether we pray following Matthew’s wording or Luke's, we're covering important ground.
You will remember that Matthew has Jesus pronouncing the prayer as part of his Sermon on the Mount. In Luke’s gospel, he gives it in direct response to a request from one of his disciples, who says, “Lord, teach us to pray....” We have to wonder why that disciple made that request. The disciples were all children of the synagogue. They had grown up going to worship and hearing public prayers. So didn’t they already know how to pray? The reference to John’s teaching his disciples may suggest that John had formula prayer which he used. Did the disciples want a mantra?
Perhaps the disciples felt that the synagogue prayers were inadequate in light of what they were discovering about God in Jesus’ presence. Maybe the prayers they'd heard were too formal for an easy, personal conversation with God. That Jesus responded by giving this prayer as a model suggests that he understood that praying is something with which people need help.
Praying is often as difficult for long term Christians as it is for newcomers or for people claim the church a couple times during a year. There are various kinds of prayers. There are prayers for public worship, prayers in the public arena, private prayers with individuals, and personal prayers all by one’s self, the ones Jesus referred to when he said, “Go into your room and shut the door...” (Matthew 6:6). Those prayers are so often beset by wandering minds, ambient noise, pressing schedules, tiredness, boredom with praying about the same topics over and over.
Another problem with praying is the haunting of philosophical questions, such as, “If God knows what is in my heart, then why do I have to tell him?” and “Why should I have to pray about the same things day after day; isn’t once enough?” Those are rabbit trails Jesus had no desire to run along.” His answer was simple, “When you pray, say ....” Jesus may be saying that it is more helpful to speak – even to recite – a set prayer than not to pray because we have unanswered (and probably unanswerable) questions about conversing with God. Jesus’ straightforward direction about praying reminds us that he was never as “spiritual” as some of his later followers. There was no “You have to do thus and such before God will listen to you.” He simply said, “When you pray, say....”
The apostle Paul frequently talks about different Christians having different spiritual gifts – talents and abilities that can be put to work for the church. Paul loves lists. His spiritual gift inventory includes such things as prophecy, serving, teaching, preaching, giving aid, doing acts of mercy, discerning. The gifts are handed out in different measure to different people. Prayer is surely a gift as well. Some people have the gift to be “prayer warriors” and some people don’t. Whether we’re “good” at prayer or not, our daily lives can benefit from making the effort, and the Lord’s Prayer is a place to start.
I know that you already know the Lord’s Prayer. And whether you use Matthew’s or Luke’s version, whether you use “sins,” “debts,” or trespasses” doesn’t matter. How can you use Christ’s prayer to advance your prayer life?
Think of the Lord’s Prayer as a “choke” to get a cold engine started. Some of you may be old enough to remember having to set the choke on an automobile engine in order to start it. Then when the engine got warm you took the choke off. The choke in the on position fed a rich fuel mixture to the cylinders. A warm engine runs quite well on a lean fuel mixture. So start your cold prayer spirit by reciting the Lord’s Prayer to “warm your spirit” so that you can more easily enter into other praying and meditation.
Another useful approach is to pray the prayer in pieces. Say a phrase and let the phrase fade off into silence, thinking about the meaning of that petition. Ask yourself questions such as,
- “With this line, what am I asking God to do?”
- “What am I (or should I be) offering of myself in making this petition?”
- “Which petitions are the hardest for me to really mean when I pray them – and why?”
- “What do I need to rethink, redo or repent of in light of what I am requesting?”
- “What else should I pray for as a result?”
Allow for silence between petitions and meditate on it. Prayer is our opportunity to speak to God. Meditation is God’s opportunity to speak to us.
You can also pray Jesus’ words when your heart is aching so bad that you can’t form your own petitions. It may become a channel through which God’s Spirit can flow to you.
Pray the prayer when your mind rebels against praying your own prayers. Praying something is better than praying nothing.
Centuries ago, God told Israel, “Israel, listen! Our God is the Lord! Only the Lord! Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your strength. These words that I am commanding you today must always be on your minds. Recite them to your children. Talk about them when you are sitting around your house and when you are out and about, when you are lying down and when you are getting up” (Deuteronomy 6:4-7). As Christians, we can do the same with the Lord’s Prayer.
Let’s not overstate the case. Praying the Lord’s Prayer isn’t likely to turn the world around spiritually or be the start of a worldwide religious revival.
But let’s not understate the case either. The Lord’s Prayer is a spiritual starting point, a way to reach out toward God when we're too numb, too much in pain, too blind, too angry, even too tired to do much else. Children and adults of all ages will benefit from it, and God hears us when we pray it.
Praying something is better than praying nothing.
And the Lord’s Prayer is really something.
General Resource: “Relearning the Lord’s Prayer,” Homiletics, July 28,2013.
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, July 17, 2016
Are You a Little Icon?
Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-42; Amos 8:1-12
We are all familiar with logos. They are symbols that represent a known company or group. When you see the multi-colored stylized peacock, you know that it is NBC. The same is true of the CBS eyeball. The red dot within a larger red circle means Target. MLB stands for Major League Baseball. An “F” on a blue square is Facebook.
Those of us who use computers or smart phones all the time are quite familiar with the icons on our screens. Each one stands for an application (app for short) and if you click on one, the app opens and you can do whatever that app allows you to do – send email, take pictures, write a letter, do your taxes, play music, count your steps, just to name a few.
Another definition of icon is a person or thing that is revered or idolized. We could say that Elvis Presley is a cultural icon of the 20th century or that Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr., were icons of non-violent socio-political change.
Going back the linguistic family tree, the Greek word eikon meant an image or a representation. During the history of the church through the early centuries of the second millennium icons developed as paintings of Jesus Christ or another holy figure, typically in a traditional style on wood. These were venerated and used as an aid to devotion in the Byzantine and other Eastern Churches. Orthodox icons are not just pictures. They are windows that open onto God, and for some, windows of God opening on the human soul.
Paul uses the Greek word eikon to describe Jesus: “The Son is the image [icon] of the invisible God, the one who is first over all creation.” As we listen to Paul’s words, we realize that he is not just speaking of the Christ who confronted him on the road to Damascus. Paul is singing of the cosmic Christ. This is a Christ who is the one and only one to have this status of being the firstborn of all creation. He outranks Adam; in fact, he was present for Adam’s creation.
We also realize that the humanity of the earthly Christ is inseparably united with the preexistent and cosmic Christ. These two aspects of Christ cannot be wrenched from each other without destroying any basis of belief in him.
And, for Paul, the saving work of Christ as well as the creative form of the church as his body could not have been conceived of without the cosmic reality of Christ.
Paul’s theology always runs very deep. But here he manages to do it without some of his often lengthy and convoluted sentence structure. Yet for all the unfathomable depth of his theology, his faith boils down to a simple, unerring belief that Jesus is Lord and has been from forever ago and will be forever from now.
Paul says that everything – thrones, powers, rulers, authorities – were created through Christ and for him. That little word ‘for” shows the purpose of all creation – to glorify Christ. We have to step back to see that. Increasingly we have little confidence in and great disdain for the thrones, powers, rulers, and authorities that we are stuck with. Surely God in his mercy wouldn’t give us any of the political candidates that we will have to choose from. Surely God wouldn’t have brought Britain into the European Economic Community only to have them leave years later. Surely God would have kept the National Socialists from rising to power in Germany in the 1930's. Surely God will find a solution to the racially-inspired violence that fills the news. We have our doubts about God.
In some ways we have not gotten much further in our belief than the folks in Colossae and other places in Paul’s time. False teachers stirred up the fledgling church people by telling them that the physical world was evil. If that was the case, then God himself could not have created it. If Christ were God, they reasoned, he would be in charge only of the spiritual world. But Paul explained that all the thrones, powers, rulers, and authorities in heaven and on earth, of both the visible and invisible world (physical government and spiritual forces) were under the authority of Christ himself.
Paul listed these particular categories because of the people’s belief that the world was inhabited by powers and beings that worked against humanity. Because the false teachers may have given undue prominence to these, Paul quickly put them under Christ’s rule. Christ has no equal and no rival. Because Christ is the Creator of the world, all powers, whether the spiritual forces the Colossians wished to study or any material force, were under Christ’s final authority.
Scripture commentators sometimes have a field day trying to order and rank and explain the words that Paul has used. I think we get bogged down if we try to define them in political terms. The things that rule and have power over us, the things we allow to be authoritative for us are not necessarily personalities and people. What often rules our lives are attitudes. We are frequently governed by fear. We are hemmed in by ignorance. We find blustering arrogance authoritative. We bow before the throne of hatred, regardless of what it names itself.
One of the results of bowing to the thrones, powers, rulers, and authorities of the world is that we downsize Jesus. We make Jesus manageable, palatable, acceptable. He becomes our pet rather than our Lord. We tame him so that he is no longer an active force in our lives. That allows us to appreciate Jesus, rather than bow before him and serve him all our days.
But what if Jesus is the image of God? What if Jesus is an icon that takes to the very center of creation where God’s ongoing creative power is mixed with God’s grace and mercy as well as God’s judgment? If Jesus is creator of all that is, both seen and unseen, if Christ is the “firstborn of all creation,” then these thrones and powers, rulers and authorities which were created by him have now been “dethroned” by means of the cross and the empty tomb. They can no longer enslave. They hold no sway over us. In spite of what things look like, in spite of what our gut reaction is to the events of the world, everything holds together in Christ, the One who is the image of God. We can’t see all that from our angle of vision. We can’t see around corners unaided. Christ calls us to trust that if he can create, he can also redeem and rule as only God can.
One popular iconographic representation of Jesus depicts him as the ruler of the universe, Christ the Pantocrator. The haloed Christ looks at the viewer with a solemn, loving stare. His right hand is extended to teach, and in his left hand he holds the Holy Scriptures. In that form he is the head of the church. His work is to teach and to put the word of God into the hearts of his people. While all the thrones, powers, rulers, and authorities have a multitude of names, there is only one name for the one who is head of the church, the one who is our head. So as we have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, through Christ we become little icons for him. Representatives of the one who has no equal, the one who rules rulers, empowers power, undergirds true authority, and who is the basis for any throne.
Sometimes when I reload or update a program on my computer, I have to remove the icon from the task bar and reinstall it so that the new program is the one that comes up when I click on it. When we come to this table, we are reinstalling in our lives the one who is oversaw our creation, the one who is our savior and our only authority. In that way we can keep on being little icons for the one who is the visible image of the invisible God, the one who defines power and authority, the one who combines spiritual and physical, the one who judges and blesses with mercy and love.
Friends, this is the Lord’s table. Here we see the preeminence of the one who is the anointed of God, our Lord and Savior, our Christ.
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 all familiar with logos. They are symbols that represent a known company or group. When you see the multi-colored stylized peacock, you know that it is NBC. The same is true of the CBS eyeball. The red dot within a larger red circle means Target. MLB stands for Major League Baseball. An “F” on a blue square is Facebook.
Those of us who use computers or smart phones all the time are quite familiar with the icons on our screens. Each one stands for an application (app for short) and if you click on one, the app opens and you can do whatever that app allows you to do – send email, take pictures, write a letter, do your taxes, play music, count your steps, just to name a few.
Another definition of icon is a person or thing that is revered or idolized. We could say that Elvis Presley is a cultural icon of the 20th century or that Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr., were icons of non-violent socio-political change.
Going back the linguistic family tree, the Greek word eikon meant an image or a representation. During the history of the church through the early centuries of the second millennium icons developed as paintings of Jesus Christ or another holy figure, typically in a traditional style on wood. These were venerated and used as an aid to devotion in the Byzantine and other Eastern Churches. Orthodox icons are not just pictures. They are windows that open onto God, and for some, windows of God opening on the human soul.
Paul uses the Greek word eikon to describe Jesus: “The Son is the image [icon] of the invisible God, the one who is first over all creation.” As we listen to Paul’s words, we realize that he is not just speaking of the Christ who confronted him on the road to Damascus. Paul is singing of the cosmic Christ. This is a Christ who is the one and only one to have this status of being the firstborn of all creation. He outranks Adam; in fact, he was present for Adam’s creation.
We also realize that the humanity of the earthly Christ is inseparably united with the preexistent and cosmic Christ. These two aspects of Christ cannot be wrenched from each other without destroying any basis of belief in him.
And, for Paul, the saving work of Christ as well as the creative form of the church as his body could not have been conceived of without the cosmic reality of Christ.
Paul’s theology always runs very deep. But here he manages to do it without some of his often lengthy and convoluted sentence structure. Yet for all the unfathomable depth of his theology, his faith boils down to a simple, unerring belief that Jesus is Lord and has been from forever ago and will be forever from now.
Paul says that everything – thrones, powers, rulers, authorities – were created through Christ and for him. That little word ‘for” shows the purpose of all creation – to glorify Christ. We have to step back to see that. Increasingly we have little confidence in and great disdain for the thrones, powers, rulers, and authorities that we are stuck with. Surely God in his mercy wouldn’t give us any of the political candidates that we will have to choose from. Surely God wouldn’t have brought Britain into the European Economic Community only to have them leave years later. Surely God would have kept the National Socialists from rising to power in Germany in the 1930's. Surely God will find a solution to the racially-inspired violence that fills the news. We have our doubts about God.
In some ways we have not gotten much further in our belief than the folks in Colossae and other places in Paul’s time. False teachers stirred up the fledgling church people by telling them that the physical world was evil. If that was the case, then God himself could not have created it. If Christ were God, they reasoned, he would be in charge only of the spiritual world. But Paul explained that all the thrones, powers, rulers, and authorities in heaven and on earth, of both the visible and invisible world (physical government and spiritual forces) were under the authority of Christ himself.
Paul listed these particular categories because of the people’s belief that the world was inhabited by powers and beings that worked against humanity. Because the false teachers may have given undue prominence to these, Paul quickly put them under Christ’s rule. Christ has no equal and no rival. Because Christ is the Creator of the world, all powers, whether the spiritual forces the Colossians wished to study or any material force, were under Christ’s final authority.
Scripture commentators sometimes have a field day trying to order and rank and explain the words that Paul has used. I think we get bogged down if we try to define them in political terms. The things that rule and have power over us, the things we allow to be authoritative for us are not necessarily personalities and people. What often rules our lives are attitudes. We are frequently governed by fear. We are hemmed in by ignorance. We find blustering arrogance authoritative. We bow before the throne of hatred, regardless of what it names itself.
One of the results of bowing to the thrones, powers, rulers, and authorities of the world is that we downsize Jesus. We make Jesus manageable, palatable, acceptable. He becomes our pet rather than our Lord. We tame him so that he is no longer an active force in our lives. That allows us to appreciate Jesus, rather than bow before him and serve him all our days.
But what if Jesus is the image of God? What if Jesus is an icon that takes to the very center of creation where God’s ongoing creative power is mixed with God’s grace and mercy as well as God’s judgment? If Jesus is creator of all that is, both seen and unseen, if Christ is the “firstborn of all creation,” then these thrones and powers, rulers and authorities which were created by him have now been “dethroned” by means of the cross and the empty tomb. They can no longer enslave. They hold no sway over us. In spite of what things look like, in spite of what our gut reaction is to the events of the world, everything holds together in Christ, the One who is the image of God. We can’t see all that from our angle of vision. We can’t see around corners unaided. Christ calls us to trust that if he can create, he can also redeem and rule as only God can.
One popular iconographic representation of Jesus depicts him as the ruler of the universe, Christ the Pantocrator. The haloed Christ looks at the viewer with a solemn, loving stare. His right hand is extended to teach, and in his left hand he holds the Holy Scriptures. In that form he is the head of the church. His work is to teach and to put the word of God into the hearts of his people. While all the thrones, powers, rulers, and authorities have a multitude of names, there is only one name for the one who is head of the church, the one who is our head. So as we have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, through Christ we become little icons for him. Representatives of the one who has no equal, the one who rules rulers, empowers power, undergirds true authority, and who is the basis for any throne.
Sometimes when I reload or update a program on my computer, I have to remove the icon from the task bar and reinstall it so that the new program is the one that comes up when I click on it. When we come to this table, we are reinstalling in our lives the one who is oversaw our creation, the one who is our savior and our only authority. In that way we can keep on being little icons for the one who is the visible image of the invisible God, the one who defines power and authority, the one who combines spiritual and physical, the one who judges and blesses with mercy and love.
Friends, this is the Lord’s table. Here we see the preeminence of the one who is the anointed of God, our Lord and Savior, our Christ.
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, July 10, 2016
The Road Taken
Luke 10:25-37; Deuteronomy 30:9-14; Psalm 25:1-10
How many sermons have you heard preached on the parable of the good Samaritan? More than your fingers can count. Maybe more than fingers and toes. You know the parable forwards and backwards. You can recite it in your sleep. What more could any of us possible learn from it?
The parable is multi-layered. It is more than a variation on “Be helpful when you come across people in trouble.” Jesus wasn’t planting a little conscience thought-bomb to make us feel guilty when we ignore a homeless person or a panhandler.
James Wallace says that the parable “not only lays down a big challenge but makes an even bigger offering of gospel or good news.” He goes on to claim that this is “a story for people who recognize that they are on a journey—not just a journey from womb to tomb, but from birth to rebirth, from partial life to abundant life. The gospel proclaims what God pours into the hearts of all those who journey in a dangerous world.”(1)
Unfortunately the events of the past week – the shootings by law enforcement officers of African-American men in Louisiana and Minnesota and the ambush of Dallas police officers resulting in five of them dying – reinforce just how dangerous our world is. And that doesn’t even include all the people killed in robberies, bad drug deals, and domestic violence, not to mention the still to be solved murders two months ago of the Rhoden family here in Pike County.
Jesus was not unaware of the dangers that his world presented. The threat of over-policing by the occupying Roman forces was always present. That’s why he told his followers early on in his ministry, “When they force you to go one mile, go with them two” (Matthew 5:41). And it wasn’t just the military. People behaved badly. Jesus said, “If people slap you on your right cheek, you must turn the left cheek to them as well. When they wish to haul you to court and take your shirt let them have you coat too” (Matthew 5:39-40).
Jesus was on a journey. He was determined to go to Jerusalem. He was going to his death. There he would, in effect, be passed by. Priests, Levites, and legal experts like the one who accosted him will steer clear of him, except to rob him of his personhood and leave him for dead in the hands of the Roman authorities. Little did they know that he would recover victoriously.
The legal expert’s story arc is similar. He too was also on a journey. He was seeking life or perhaps a greater intimacy with God. He asked an honest question, “What must I do to gain eternal life?” When Jesus probed his understanding of what he was asking, the man rightly cited the applicable teachings from the Torah. Jesus commended him and told him that if he did what he has said, he will gain life.
But the legal expert, true to his training, wanted to prove that he was right. So he asked, “And who is my neighbor?” This is a question of distance or boundaries. Remember when Peter was talking with Jesus about forgiving and suggested that it would be generous to forgive someone seven times. To which Jesus responded, “seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:22). Peter was trying to find the limit beyond which he didn’t have to go. The legal expert was trying the same tactic. Where’s the boundary? Who’s in? Who’s out?
Jesus won’t go down that road.
So Jesus tells a story. In various sermons heard in our lifetimes, we have been excoriated for living like the priest and Levite, that is, crossing the road to go around the victim, not wanting to get involved. And we have been urged to be like the Samaritan, generous, caring, disregarding the fact that the victim was a Jew, a persona non grata for a Samaritan. If we pay attention to details, we would have to ask what a Samaritan was doing on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem. That is clearly Judean territory and not near Samaria.
I made an illusion earlier which could be taken to suggest that if we were handing out parts in this little play, Jesus would be cast as the victim. I have heard a sermon taken that way. I want to offer a different casting. What if the Jesus were the Samaritan? After all, increasingly he was becoming a pariah to the religious establishment which ultimately engineered his arrest, trial, and execution.
You and I have been beaten up and robbed. That’s the upshot of sin in our lives. If it weren’t for Jesus, we would have been left for dead on the roadside of life. But Jesus came along, risked his life to bind our wounds, and bring us to the inn of redemption, and pay for our care. We were in no state to argue or refuse. He did it. Imagine the surprise of the innkeeper when the Samaritan brought a half-dead Jew to his hostelry and paid in advance for the man’s care. And he promised to pay any additional expenses that might arise. Tell me you know a health insurance company that will do that! But Jesus does. Jesus will do whatever is necessary to bring us to wholeness and health.
I wish Paul Harvey were still around. I would like to know the rest of the story. What happened to the man so graciously deposited at the inn? Did the event change his life? I am sure that the innkeeper told him about the Samaritan who brought him to the healing shelter of the inn. What road did the man leave on from the inn?
You know Robert Frost’s poem:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.(2)
Did the recovered Jew take the less traveled road of life away from that inn and make a difference in his life?
In the May issue of The Atlantic, Robert H. Frank wrote that luck matters more than we think. The more prosperous a person is, the more likely the person will credit her or his own skills rather than a certain ordering of events or conjunction of people that resulted in their being in the right place at the right time. Academic studies have shown that people who recognize luck as a force in their lives are 25% more generous that self-made individuals.
The traveler in Jesus’ parable started out with bad luck, being beset by thugs who robbed him and beat him near to death. And the fact that two important, respectable people failed to minister to him didn’t help his luck factor. But then his luck changed. The Samaritan came along and the whole story changed.
According to Frank, social scientists have found that luck “produces a remarkable array of physical, psychological, and social changes.” In one study, a portion of the respondents diaried for thirty weeks things that made them grateful. “The newly grateful had less frequent and less severe aches and pains and improved sleep quality. They reported greater happiness and alertness. They described themselves as more outgoing and compassionate, and less likely to feel lonely and isolated.”(3)
Did the patched-up and healed victim feel gratitude because of the care the Samaritan had given him? Do we feel gratitude for what Jesus has done for, taking us from the ditches of our lives and restoring us to wholeness and spiritual health? Did the man have a new understanding of “neighbor” as a result of his bad luck and greater good luck? Did he see Samaritans – today’s immigrants, people of color, people from different economic classes, people with different educational backgrounds, people who understand their sexuality in different ways – did the man see all people differently? Would he pass by on the other side of the road if he ever came across someone in the same condition he had been in? Would all lives matter to him when he takes the road away from the inn? Will he be neutral or will he take action?
In the aftermath of the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and before the Dallas shootings, Dan Rather posted this reflection on Facebook:
Jesus concluded his parable and asked his hearer: “‘What do you think? Which one of these three was a neighbor to the man who encountered thieves?’ Then the legal expert said, ‘The one who demonstrated mercy toward him.’ Jesus told him, ‘Go and do likewise.’”
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to you, Lord, our rock and our redeemer.
(1) James A. Wallace, C.Ss.R, “Luke 10:25-37 – Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year C, vol. 3, 239.
(2) From The Poetry of Robert Frost by Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1916, 1923, 1928, 1930, 1934, 1939, 1947, 1949, © 1969 by Holt Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Copyright 1936, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1951, 1953, 1954, © 1956, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962 by Robert Frost. Copyright © 1962, 1967, 1970 by Leslie Frost Ballantine.
(3) Robert H. Frank, “Why Luck Matters–Much More Than You Think,” The Atlantic, vol. 317, no. 4, (May 2016), 22.
(4) Dan Rather, Facebook, July 7, 2016, 2:17 p.m. EDT.
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.
How many sermons have you heard preached on the parable of the good Samaritan? More than your fingers can count. Maybe more than fingers and toes. You know the parable forwards and backwards. You can recite it in your sleep. What more could any of us possible learn from it?
The parable is multi-layered. It is more than a variation on “Be helpful when you come across people in trouble.” Jesus wasn’t planting a little conscience thought-bomb to make us feel guilty when we ignore a homeless person or a panhandler.
James Wallace says that the parable “not only lays down a big challenge but makes an even bigger offering of gospel or good news.” He goes on to claim that this is “a story for people who recognize that they are on a journey—not just a journey from womb to tomb, but from birth to rebirth, from partial life to abundant life. The gospel proclaims what God pours into the hearts of all those who journey in a dangerous world.”(1)
Unfortunately the events of the past week – the shootings by law enforcement officers of African-American men in Louisiana and Minnesota and the ambush of Dallas police officers resulting in five of them dying – reinforce just how dangerous our world is. And that doesn’t even include all the people killed in robberies, bad drug deals, and domestic violence, not to mention the still to be solved murders two months ago of the Rhoden family here in Pike County.
Jesus was not unaware of the dangers that his world presented. The threat of over-policing by the occupying Roman forces was always present. That’s why he told his followers early on in his ministry, “When they force you to go one mile, go with them two” (Matthew 5:41). And it wasn’t just the military. People behaved badly. Jesus said, “If people slap you on your right cheek, you must turn the left cheek to them as well. When they wish to haul you to court and take your shirt let them have you coat too” (Matthew 5:39-40).
Jesus was on a journey. He was determined to go to Jerusalem. He was going to his death. There he would, in effect, be passed by. Priests, Levites, and legal experts like the one who accosted him will steer clear of him, except to rob him of his personhood and leave him for dead in the hands of the Roman authorities. Little did they know that he would recover victoriously.
The legal expert’s story arc is similar. He too was also on a journey. He was seeking life or perhaps a greater intimacy with God. He asked an honest question, “What must I do to gain eternal life?” When Jesus probed his understanding of what he was asking, the man rightly cited the applicable teachings from the Torah. Jesus commended him and told him that if he did what he has said, he will gain life.
But the legal expert, true to his training, wanted to prove that he was right. So he asked, “And who is my neighbor?” This is a question of distance or boundaries. Remember when Peter was talking with Jesus about forgiving and suggested that it would be generous to forgive someone seven times. To which Jesus responded, “seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:22). Peter was trying to find the limit beyond which he didn’t have to go. The legal expert was trying the same tactic. Where’s the boundary? Who’s in? Who’s out?
Jesus won’t go down that road.
So Jesus tells a story. In various sermons heard in our lifetimes, we have been excoriated for living like the priest and Levite, that is, crossing the road to go around the victim, not wanting to get involved. And we have been urged to be like the Samaritan, generous, caring, disregarding the fact that the victim was a Jew, a persona non grata for a Samaritan. If we pay attention to details, we would have to ask what a Samaritan was doing on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem. That is clearly Judean territory and not near Samaria.
I made an illusion earlier which could be taken to suggest that if we were handing out parts in this little play, Jesus would be cast as the victim. I have heard a sermon taken that way. I want to offer a different casting. What if the Jesus were the Samaritan? After all, increasingly he was becoming a pariah to the religious establishment which ultimately engineered his arrest, trial, and execution.
You and I have been beaten up and robbed. That’s the upshot of sin in our lives. If it weren’t for Jesus, we would have been left for dead on the roadside of life. But Jesus came along, risked his life to bind our wounds, and bring us to the inn of redemption, and pay for our care. We were in no state to argue or refuse. He did it. Imagine the surprise of the innkeeper when the Samaritan brought a half-dead Jew to his hostelry and paid in advance for the man’s care. And he promised to pay any additional expenses that might arise. Tell me you know a health insurance company that will do that! But Jesus does. Jesus will do whatever is necessary to bring us to wholeness and health.
I wish Paul Harvey were still around. I would like to know the rest of the story. What happened to the man so graciously deposited at the inn? Did the event change his life? I am sure that the innkeeper told him about the Samaritan who brought him to the healing shelter of the inn. What road did the man leave on from the inn?
You know Robert Frost’s poem:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.(2)
Did the recovered Jew take the less traveled road of life away from that inn and make a difference in his life?
In the May issue of The Atlantic, Robert H. Frank wrote that luck matters more than we think. The more prosperous a person is, the more likely the person will credit her or his own skills rather than a certain ordering of events or conjunction of people that resulted in their being in the right place at the right time. Academic studies have shown that people who recognize luck as a force in their lives are 25% more generous that self-made individuals.
The traveler in Jesus’ parable started out with bad luck, being beset by thugs who robbed him and beat him near to death. And the fact that two important, respectable people failed to minister to him didn’t help his luck factor. But then his luck changed. The Samaritan came along and the whole story changed.
According to Frank, social scientists have found that luck “produces a remarkable array of physical, psychological, and social changes.” In one study, a portion of the respondents diaried for thirty weeks things that made them grateful. “The newly grateful had less frequent and less severe aches and pains and improved sleep quality. They reported greater happiness and alertness. They described themselves as more outgoing and compassionate, and less likely to feel lonely and isolated.”(3)
Did the patched-up and healed victim feel gratitude because of the care the Samaritan had given him? Do we feel gratitude for what Jesus has done for, taking us from the ditches of our lives and restoring us to wholeness and spiritual health? Did the man have a new understanding of “neighbor” as a result of his bad luck and greater good luck? Did he see Samaritans – today’s immigrants, people of color, people from different economic classes, people with different educational backgrounds, people who understand their sexuality in different ways – did the man see all people differently? Would he pass by on the other side of the road if he ever came across someone in the same condition he had been in? Would all lives matter to him when he takes the road away from the inn? Will he be neutral or will he take action?
In the aftermath of the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and before the Dallas shootings, Dan Rather posted this reflection on Facebook:
“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.”(4)The Samaritan took the side of the victim, the one tormented. He interfered in the way of the world. He stood up for human dignity. Jesus takes the side of all victims, all who tormented, even when good churchly people do the tormenting. Wherever that happens, Jesus is there, kneeling at the side of the road, binding wounds. There is the center of the universe, the heart of God’s own self.
Jesus concluded his parable and asked his hearer: “‘What do you think? Which one of these three was a neighbor to the man who encountered thieves?’ Then the legal expert said, ‘The one who demonstrated mercy toward him.’ Jesus told him, ‘Go and do likewise.’”
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to you, Lord, our rock and our redeemer.
(1) James A. Wallace, C.Ss.R, “Luke 10:25-37 – Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year C, vol. 3, 239.
(2) From The Poetry of Robert Frost by Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1916, 1923, 1928, 1930, 1934, 1939, 1947, 1949, © 1969 by Holt Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Copyright 1936, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1951, 1953, 1954, © 1956, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962 by Robert Frost. Copyright © 1962, 1967, 1970 by Leslie Frost Ballantine.
(3) Robert H. Frank, “Why Luck Matters–Much More Than You Think,” The Atlantic, vol. 317, no. 4, (May 2016), 22.
(4) Dan Rather, Facebook, July 7, 2016, 2:17 p.m. EDT.
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, July 3, 2016
What Matters Is a New Creation
Galatians 6:7-16; Psalm 30; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
One thing that we cannot miss in any of the writings bearing Paul’s signature is that he is passionate about Jesus Christ. There is nothing lukewarm about his devotion to the man who illuminated his world and changed his life. He is fired up. We know that he can be very persuasive and he relates the gospel in a gentle but compelling way so that people sit up and take notice. He is able to be pastoral with those who need to be comforted and he can be rhetorical with those who insist on debating. In all situations, though, he is firm in his faith.
His passion for Jesus goes up like 4th of July fireworks when people who should know better try to con new believers into going back to old ways of doing things and being shackled by Jewish ritual practices that Jesus superceded with his commands to love God and neighbor, to forgive as one receives forgiveness, and to take his name and his healing power to the ends of the earth.
Paul is finishing up his personal letter to the believers in Galatia, believers whom he had gathered and taught and blessed and commissioned to live out Christ’s embracing grace. Unfortunately he has received reports that the Galatian believers have increasingly come under the sway other teachers who are convincing them that they have to be circumcised and have to observe other parts of the Jewish ritual law in order to be proper Christians. Paul is so angry that he has worked himself up into a frenzy, pacing back and forth, barely containing his composure as he dictates his message to his amanuensis. We get a sense that Paul is, in a phrase my mother used to use, spitting nails. I suspect that he is so worked up that he is sputtering and spitting.
How can the Galatian church people be so gullible that they believe the theological trash that they are being given by people who themselves ought to know better? Paul is so worked up that if he were there with the Galatians and the wrong-headed teachers, he would be right in those teachers’ faces demanding that they wise up and think again about what the gospel means and what the gospel teaches.
Paul thunders: “God is not mocked!” A chapter earlier Paul had said to his readers, “Christ has set us free for freedom. Therefore, stand firm and don’t submit to the bondage of slavery again” (Galatians 5:1). In other words, live into the freedom which Christ has so richly lavished on you and for which he endured the utter ravishes of death in order to rise triumphantly to accomplish life for us.
You and I face the Galatian dilemma every day. Either we find that we must meet certain expectations in order to accepted as true God-fearers, Christ-lovers, and Spirit-bearers. Or we are on the other side, setting impossible standards for people to meet before we accept them as true disciples.
Each of the first three gospels note that Jesus said, “It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble” (Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2). Paul tells the Galatian readers that the false teachers are hanging millstones around their necks. As Paul understands the gospel, followers of Christ are not obligated to wear the millstones that others impose. Their only obedience is to Christ: “Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other” (John 13:34).
What are the millstones which are hanging on us? What are the millstones we consciously or unconsciously hang around others so that their faith meets our expectations? We don’t have to deal with circumcision issues today. And for the most part dietary issues don’t come into play. There are still a lot of millstones around. Who of us hasn’t experienced someone else’s distress that we haven’t used the right words or images when discussing our faith? Who hasn’t been put off when someone finds out that we don’t use the right translation of scripture, the one Jesus himself used?
None of us are perfect. None of us, myself included, have an encyclopedic knowledge of scripture to make Bible quotes on any and every subject. None of us, myself included, read scripture enough devotionally. But there are those who look down their noses at us because they read through the entire Bible every six months or every year. Like a gunslinger out of the old west, they have notches in their Bibles for every time they have completed the reading.
Or are we the millstone providers? Do we say to other Christians to validate their belief, “Your experience must mirror mine”?
Or “You must be born again”?
Or “You must wear a coat and tie or a dress”?
Or “You must give away all that you possess”?
Or “You must be heterosexual”?
Or “You must sing hundred year old four-part hymns”?
Or “You must vote Republican or Democrat”?
Or “You must believe everything you hear on Fox News, and nothing you hear on NPR”? Or vice versa?
Paul breathes down our necks. Don’t do it, he says. Don’t limit the gospel. Don’t tell God what is right or wrong. It is so tempting to make our experience of God’s truth the quintessential and only valid experience of God’s truth. Sometimes it is conscious, but often it is unconscious. We don’t think about it, it is how we grew up. It is the most human—in Paul’s terms, the most “fleshly”—tendency in the world. A. J. Conyers notes: “All religion, and every practice of religion, and in fact all of human life is in danger of being marshaled into the service of the human ego.”(1)
Paul has had a long-running theological feud with Peter. While Peter did have the dream from God that all are acceptable to God for the gospel, he has been fence-sitting about it. Yes, maybe. Perhaps thinking about Peter’s indecision (or is it hypocrisy?) Paul makes his final point. He’s red in the face, hoarse from ranting, and sore from pounding his fist on the table. “What matters is the new creation.”
For Paul, the true gospel creates a church in which unity exists with remarkable diversity. Paul models radical freedom. God isn’t interested in a cookie-cutter Christian. God wants each of us to be the sister or brother Christ has called us to be. We have one Lord. The one Lord has many different relationships.
And also for Paul, the true gospel produces a church of miraculous unity. You remember a few years ago when a man went into the Nickel Mines Amish school where he killed five girls and wounded seven more. The Amish community responded to the horrific event with love and forgiveness, embracing the man’s family with a Christ-like presence. Do we have to give up cars and electricity in order to live out faith? Paul says we don’t. The trappings of culture – whatever culture it might be – can be the millstones that hang on our necks or that we hang on the necks of others.
“Let’s not get tired of doing good, because in time we’ll have a harvest if we don’t give up,” is Paul’s response. “What matters is the new creation.” We will attain the new creation when we know Jesus Christ as Lord and when we know that the power of his resurrection was for each and every one of us. Jesus invites us to be with him in his new creation. No baggage, no secret handshakes, no coded mottoes. Just knowing, believing, living the earliest of creeds: “Jesus is Lord.”
(1) A. J. Conyers, The Loss of Transcendence and Its Effect on Modern Life (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine Press, 1999), 131.
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.
One thing that we cannot miss in any of the writings bearing Paul’s signature is that he is passionate about Jesus Christ. There is nothing lukewarm about his devotion to the man who illuminated his world and changed his life. He is fired up. We know that he can be very persuasive and he relates the gospel in a gentle but compelling way so that people sit up and take notice. He is able to be pastoral with those who need to be comforted and he can be rhetorical with those who insist on debating. In all situations, though, he is firm in his faith.
His passion for Jesus goes up like 4th of July fireworks when people who should know better try to con new believers into going back to old ways of doing things and being shackled by Jewish ritual practices that Jesus superceded with his commands to love God and neighbor, to forgive as one receives forgiveness, and to take his name and his healing power to the ends of the earth.
Paul is finishing up his personal letter to the believers in Galatia, believers whom he had gathered and taught and blessed and commissioned to live out Christ’s embracing grace. Unfortunately he has received reports that the Galatian believers have increasingly come under the sway other teachers who are convincing them that they have to be circumcised and have to observe other parts of the Jewish ritual law in order to be proper Christians. Paul is so angry that he has worked himself up into a frenzy, pacing back and forth, barely containing his composure as he dictates his message to his amanuensis. We get a sense that Paul is, in a phrase my mother used to use, spitting nails. I suspect that he is so worked up that he is sputtering and spitting.
How can the Galatian church people be so gullible that they believe the theological trash that they are being given by people who themselves ought to know better? Paul is so worked up that if he were there with the Galatians and the wrong-headed teachers, he would be right in those teachers’ faces demanding that they wise up and think again about what the gospel means and what the gospel teaches.
Paul thunders: “God is not mocked!” A chapter earlier Paul had said to his readers, “Christ has set us free for freedom. Therefore, stand firm and don’t submit to the bondage of slavery again” (Galatians 5:1). In other words, live into the freedom which Christ has so richly lavished on you and for which he endured the utter ravishes of death in order to rise triumphantly to accomplish life for us.
You and I face the Galatian dilemma every day. Either we find that we must meet certain expectations in order to accepted as true God-fearers, Christ-lovers, and Spirit-bearers. Or we are on the other side, setting impossible standards for people to meet before we accept them as true disciples.
Each of the first three gospels note that Jesus said, “It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble” (Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2). Paul tells the Galatian readers that the false teachers are hanging millstones around their necks. As Paul understands the gospel, followers of Christ are not obligated to wear the millstones that others impose. Their only obedience is to Christ: “Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other” (John 13:34).
What are the millstones which are hanging on us? What are the millstones we consciously or unconsciously hang around others so that their faith meets our expectations? We don’t have to deal with circumcision issues today. And for the most part dietary issues don’t come into play. There are still a lot of millstones around. Who of us hasn’t experienced someone else’s distress that we haven’t used the right words or images when discussing our faith? Who hasn’t been put off when someone finds out that we don’t use the right translation of scripture, the one Jesus himself used?
None of us are perfect. None of us, myself included, have an encyclopedic knowledge of scripture to make Bible quotes on any and every subject. None of us, myself included, read scripture enough devotionally. But there are those who look down their noses at us because they read through the entire Bible every six months or every year. Like a gunslinger out of the old west, they have notches in their Bibles for every time they have completed the reading.
Or are we the millstone providers? Do we say to other Christians to validate their belief, “Your experience must mirror mine”?
Or “You must be born again”?
Or “You must wear a coat and tie or a dress”?
Or “You must give away all that you possess”?
Or “You must be heterosexual”?
Or “You must sing hundred year old four-part hymns”?
Or “You must vote Republican or Democrat”?
Or “You must believe everything you hear on Fox News, and nothing you hear on NPR”? Or vice versa?
Paul breathes down our necks. Don’t do it, he says. Don’t limit the gospel. Don’t tell God what is right or wrong. It is so tempting to make our experience of God’s truth the quintessential and only valid experience of God’s truth. Sometimes it is conscious, but often it is unconscious. We don’t think about it, it is how we grew up. It is the most human—in Paul’s terms, the most “fleshly”—tendency in the world. A. J. Conyers notes: “All religion, and every practice of religion, and in fact all of human life is in danger of being marshaled into the service of the human ego.”(1)
Paul has had a long-running theological feud with Peter. While Peter did have the dream from God that all are acceptable to God for the gospel, he has been fence-sitting about it. Yes, maybe. Perhaps thinking about Peter’s indecision (or is it hypocrisy?) Paul makes his final point. He’s red in the face, hoarse from ranting, and sore from pounding his fist on the table. “What matters is the new creation.”
For Paul, the true gospel creates a church in which unity exists with remarkable diversity. Paul models radical freedom. God isn’t interested in a cookie-cutter Christian. God wants each of us to be the sister or brother Christ has called us to be. We have one Lord. The one Lord has many different relationships.
And also for Paul, the true gospel produces a church of miraculous unity. You remember a few years ago when a man went into the Nickel Mines Amish school where he killed five girls and wounded seven more. The Amish community responded to the horrific event with love and forgiveness, embracing the man’s family with a Christ-like presence. Do we have to give up cars and electricity in order to live out faith? Paul says we don’t. The trappings of culture – whatever culture it might be – can be the millstones that hang on our necks or that we hang on the necks of others.
“Let’s not get tired of doing good, because in time we’ll have a harvest if we don’t give up,” is Paul’s response. “What matters is the new creation.” We will attain the new creation when we know Jesus Christ as Lord and when we know that the power of his resurrection was for each and every one of us. Jesus invites us to be with him in his new creation. No baggage, no secret handshakes, no coded mottoes. Just knowing, believing, living the earliest of creeds: “Jesus is Lord.”
(1) A. J. Conyers, The Loss of Transcendence and Its Effect on Modern Life (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine Press, 1999), 131.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)