Deliverance

Deliverance
Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21; John 20:1-18; Romans 3:6-11; Psalm 114

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the new Exodus. It is the ultimate exodus, the exodus to end all exoduses, just as everything Jesus did was the ultimate thing, just as his death on the cross was the ultimate sacrifice for once and for all time to accomplish what all the repeated and periodic sacrifices could not do. Easter is the final exodus for us who believe in the empty tomb and the risen Christ.

Remember that the Israelites – the descendants of Jacob – went to Egypt for a very good reason. There was a famine, they were hungry, and there was food in Egypt. Why was there food in Egypt? Because God had given a dream to Pharaoh and the interpretation of the dream to Jacob’s son Joseph. Why was Joseph in Egypt? Because his ten older brothers despised him and had sold him into slavery, telling their father that he had been killed by an animal. After a number of difficulties Joseph had interpreted several dreams which caused him to be noticed. He was sent for when Pharaoh was tormented by his dream and none of his advisors could interpret it.

Pharaoh’s dream was about seven years of bumper crops and seven years of poor crops. Pharaoh named Joseph to manage the public works program of stockpiling the extra grain for seven years and then disbursing it to meet the needs of people in the next seven years.

Jacob’s family was in need of grain. They went to Egypt to get some. Joseph recognized them and confronted them with his identity. Once they were reconciled, the brothers brought their entire families to Egypt, where they and their descendants prospered long after Joseph’s death.

But the time came when a new Pharaoh knew nothing of Joseph and only knew that the immigrant Hebrews were prospering to the disadvantage of the Egyptians. He caused them to be enslaved in order to make bricks to build palaces, temples, and tombs. It was hard, monotonous work, work that became increasingly harder as the oppression increased. Then God heard the cries of agony of the people and determined to free them.

Our stories are not a whole lot different. We too have lived oppressed lives, enslaved by powers and principalities that weighed heavier and heavier on us. The enslavements were many: addictions of many kinds – life-sapping substances, behaviors that demean others, gambling, even work. We have been slaves to broken relationships, faulty hopes, lost opportunities. Some of the things we have been enslaved by were good and honest activities that drew us in until they warped our understanding of life and wholeness. Those were the times when we desperately needed an exodus.

And we found it. Something happened that turned us around, set us free. It may have been a sudden change in the situation, or a family member or caring friend took us by the hand and guided us out of muck and mire of our life and helped us get reoriented and get a fresh start. We made the crossing of the sea, probably hounded all the way by the terrors that chained us. We thought we would never make it, that the past would catch us and bring us down again. But at the last moment a crucial opening happened and we were free.

But it wasn’t long until the bloom was off the rosiness of our freedom. We didn’t immediately and automatically change into new beings with nothing going wrong. Change wasn’t easy. We had to learn new ways, and it took time, inordinate time. We complained bitterly and railed against anything and everything. The old ways were familiar, the new ways were stressful and uncertain. Sometimes we wanted to go back. It had been bad, but it had been good in an odd way.

Nothing seemed to go the way we wanted it to go. We were thirsty and we cried out for a drink. Then we nearly drowned in the water that came. We were hungry and then food came and we overate thinking that there would never be any more. There was sustenance day in and day out and we got quickly bored with it. We complained about the heat and then the cold. We complained about the gray days and then the never-ending sunshine. There never seemed to be an appealing middle ground, a happy medium. And we all probably couldn’t agree on one anyway.

The promise of a future, of a land flowing with milk and honey seemed so distant, so improbable, so unlikely. We were enslaved in a new way and to a different master.

Once we got to the place we were told we were going to, things didn’t get all that much better. We had to toil to settle in and make our new found home ours. And it was so tempting at times just to fit in, to conform to the community, pal around with the people already there. That’s what they expected. When in Canaan, do as the Canaanites do. It made a lot of sense. Slowly we lost track of the noble ideals and sound practices which had we had been taught over the years by the generations who preceded us through the wilderness. We lost sight of God. We became embroiled in infighting. Surrounding powers overwhelmed us, and a new slavery was thrust upon us. We were uprooted, battered, bruised, beaten down, lost, alone.

Maybe all that sounds a bit melodramatic. But not only is that the story arc of the ancestors of the people out of whom Jesus came, that story arc is also ours. The details may vary. The depths and heights may not be as extreme, but the general flow is the way by which we get to Easter.

All that enslavement to sin and in sin and for sin is the weight that Jesus carried to the cross. The cross and the empty tomb is the exodus from the doomed-to-death old life into the new creation, the true promised land, the eternity which has only been at best a wispy dream.

We still go through the pain and misery of the wilderness. Withdrawal from the old ways, the old habits, is never easy. We say to ourselves:

• It must be too good to be true. 
• Why would God do that? After all, God must get his jollies condemning people not saving them. 
• Why me? I’m not worthy saving. 
• Why didn’t God do this sooner rather than later? 
• Does salvation include ‘”them”? 
• Will this really work? Will it last? 
• There must be some fine print somewhere. 
• What’s the quid pro quo? 

Like Thomas, we want proof. Ah, wilderness. Will it be another forty years of wilderness?

For some, I am sure it will be. It doesn’t have to be that way. The cross and the empty tomb declare once and for all time: You are delivered. You are set free. The chains of sin are broken. Stop cowering. Stand erect and know that deliverance has happened. Jesus is risen, and so are you..

The empty tomb means that there will never have to be another time of enslavement. Sin and death no longer hold any threat over us. There is no longer any more  wilderness of trying to do it on our own or in our own way. The empty tomb, like the Exodus, declare that God’s actions and God’s actions alone bring safety and freedom. We are never the authors of our own salvation, nor are we chosen for God’s gifts of grace because of any greatness in ourselves. We have been spoon-fed on the notion that we can be anything we wish to be; just dig in our heels, grit our teeth, and go for it. But it doesn’t work that way. Moses told the Israelites: “The Lord will fight for you. You just keep still.”

We are still very often chained to getting ahead – our own notion of success – under our own head of steam. Whatever victories we may experience – whatever escapes, exoduses, emancipations, freedom – are finally not a result of our own work at all, but are gifts from the God who desires our freedom, desires our resurrection, desires our ascent into the glorious new life which only a cross and an empty tomb can bring. And not just for any one of us. God’s will for good is for all of God’s children.

Sing to the Lord, for an overflowing victory!
Horse and rider he threw into the sea!

Sing to the Lord for a resurrection victory!
Sin and death God has banished forever!

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com 

Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

Which Way Is Up?

Which Way Is up?
Psalm 118:1-29; Isaiah 50:4-9a; Matthew 27:11-54

This past week marked the fiftieth anniversary of the well-known Disney song, “It’s a Small World.” We need a sequel: “It’s a short calendar.” Time seems to compress. Why, it was only yesterday.... Except yesterday was really a long time ago.

Speaking of a long time ago, do you remember the thrill as a child of marching into the sanctuary on Palm Sunday, waving the palm branches? How many of you wish you could to that today? After five Sundays of subdued Lenten discipline, we are all ready to break loose. We need a little celebration.

Except that Palm Sunday is not a rehearsal for Easter. So how are we to deal with it? Are we to suppress the joy? Are we supposed to rain on the Palm Sunday parade? After all, we know now the story comes out. It is a typical story line. We meet the characters, there is a conflict, the conflict takes a nasty turn, then the conflict is resolved. We know that, but the crowd that first Palm Sunday, hadn’t a clue what would happen in the next seven days.

The crowd seems to think that their Messiah has arrived – and if, as some scholars speculate, Pilate and his troops could have been entering the city through another gate – you can see how there might be some who were hoping Jesus would meet military force with divine force. Hosanna to the son of David. Hail to the one who comes to liberate the people!(1)

The conflict is set up. But the story doesn’t go according to “plan.” The triumphal entry is a momentary blip of excitement. Jesus doesn’t raise an army. He raises Cain. Jesus engages in several days of teaching and rabble rousing. According to Matthew’s telling of the story Jesus left the parade and immediately went to the Temple where he ran out the hucksters and the payday lenders. He already had a lot of black marks against him, but messing with the economy was the last straw for the people in power. He was betrayed, arrested, put through a sham trial, and executed.  The one hailed as Son of David was accorded a place among the enemies of the state who were executed by the powers and principalities – both religious and secular.  How does that reflect on the Palm Sunday victory parade? It is hardly more than photo op on Jesus’ journey to the cross.

We human beings are very good at grabbing the Palm Sunday celebrations of life and mistaking them for real victories. The real victories are disguised in surprising ways, ways that set our heads spinning, ways that turn things upside down. The eight days that begin today are a series of head-spinning reversals. By the end of the week we don’t know which way is up, which sets us up for one more massive reversal experienced in a variety of ways by those closest to Jesus. This roller coaster week ends with a transformational event of cataclysmic proportions.

Psalm 118 is about transformation. The psalmist recounts how things had changed for him:

In tight circumstances, I cried out to the Lord.
The Lord answered me with wide open spaces.

From that depth of need, the psalmist concludes with a call for praise and thanksgiving:

Give thanks to the Lord because he is good,
because he faithful love lasts forever.

The psalmist had experienced a transformation from defeat to victory:

I thank you because you answered me,
because you were my saving help.

When we contrast the words of the psalmist with the details of the last week, indeed the last day, of Jesus’ ministry, the psalm, in the words of Stephen Farris(2), becomes a metaphor for the magnificent reversal that takes place in the passion of Jesus Christ. And so it is also a metaphor for the experience of all those who trust in him.

Here’s a brief grammar lesson. A metaphor is a figure of speech which makes an implicit, implied or hidden comparison between two things or objects that are very different from each other but have some characteristics common between them. In other words, a resemblance of two different  or contradictory objects is made based on a single characteristic or a set of common characteristics.

The reversal metaphor can be applied to this week we call “Holy.” Cries of “Hosanna” become chants of “Crucify him.” A joyous welcome turns into a jeering rejection. Jesus is transformed from an irksome busybody in the eyes of the religious establishment into a cancer that must be surgically removed to save the patient. Following the raising of Lazarus, high priest Caiaphas said, “It is better for you that one man die for the people rather than the whole nation be destroyed” (John 11:50)  Yet reversal and transformation also go from the negative to the positive, for Jesus is transformed from rejected to risen, or more simply, from death to resurrection.

This 118th Psalm anticipates this. That is why it is frequently cited by the New Testament writers, and surely was echoed by many early Christian writers whose work never made into the canon of scripture. Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, and 1 Peter all have references the psalm’s verse 22:

The stone rejected by the builders
is now the main foundation stone!

The early church used this image as a metaphor both for the resurrection and for the establishment of the church founded on the life of the one who is both rejected and raised.

The “Hosannas” of the entrance into Jerusalem are not the “Hurrays” that we might use for an Olympic athlete, or a political candidate or office holder, or some glad tiding of great joy. “Hosanna” is actually a prayer. It is the rough transcription of the urgent imperative, pleading Hebrew phrase, “Save us, we beseech you!” Little did the crowd know that that was exactly what Jesus would do, albeit not in the way they might have expected (another great reversal). So it is little wonder that what seemed like “Hurrays” quickly faded into the violent calls for death. The triumphal entry turns into a trial before Pilate. The disciples thoroughly fail Jesus, scattering to the four winds, with the only one plucky enough to stick around denying his relationship to Jesus three times.

We fail him, too. We are reticent to claim him as our Lord. We hesitate to seek the grand entrance into the realm of God’s rule so vividly evoked by the psalmist’s call for the doors of the Temple to be opened wide. Rather than boldly proclaiming Christ and walking confidently into the power of his Spirit that he offers us, we slink into the shadows of creation and deny him if not by words, then by action or lack of action.

The “Hurray” fades from our lips. Surely the more sober prayer, “Save us,” is more appropriate. Save us form our sins. Save us from our indifference. Save us from our own failures to follow Jesus. Turn our worlds upside down and help us welcome the Christ into our lives a little more completely.

Anyone who in heart and mind accompanies Jesus through the week to come will find a world turned upside down. You will see the hand of God in all that follows in the story, and you will join the psalmist in singing at the top of your lungs:

Give thanks to the Lord because he is good,
because his faithful love lasts forever.

(1) Bob Cornwall, “Gathering Voices, The Thoughtful Christian Blog,” http://blog.thethoughtfulchristian.com/2014/04/triumphal-processions-and-rejected-stones-a-reflection-for-palm-sunday.html? Posted Tuesday, April 08, 2014 at 05:50 AM. 

(2) Stephen Farris, “Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 – Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year A, Volume 2, p. 149.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com 

Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

Beyond Our Power

Beyond Our Power
Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 11:1-45

Today’s readings are among the most vivid and  dramatic of all Scripture. Both remind us that God gives life, that God restores life, that life is God’s ultimate objective, not death. Death will not have the last word, even when every last vestige of life seems to have been taken away. Even when the tomb is sealed.

Both passages happen on multiple levels. In the raising of Lazarus, we glimpse the convergence of both the human Jesus and the divine Jesus. We also have a foretaste of what awaits believers in a very short time. It is actually the new life of Lazarus which seals the death warrant for Jesus.

In the reading from Ezekiel, as have catastrophic image of Israel following the destruction of Israel by the army of Babylon. Do the dry bones represent the nation as a political entity or the people as a people set apart for God’s affection and service? Or are the dry bones the desiccated remains of the relationship which once existed between God and the people called by God’s name?

Ezekiel’s visit to the valley of bones was not a brief tourist stop on a busy itinerary. He didn’t skirt the edge of the valley. He was plopped down in the middle of it and was led around through them in an apparently intentional and thorough fashion. That is how he realized the immensity of the setting. There were great many bones and they were very dry. These were not recent bones. They were parched and dried by the sun and heat. Death is real; there can be no illusion otherwise.

If the raising of Lazarus is a premonition of what Jesus will be doing very soon, if it is a foretaste of what God’s purpose holds for believers in some future time and space dimension, then Ezekiel is past and present focused. There are allusions to the Exodus. Ezekiel is led out and set down, just as Israel was led out of Egypt and set down, ultimately in the promised land. Unlike the promised land being a destination, the valley however is a passage, much as the wilderness was a passage. The valley of bones is both opportunity and challenge. “Can these bones live again?”

Lent is the same kind of challenge and opportunity. How quickly we forget our Lord. How quickly we wander from God’s paths. How quickly we begin to breathe spirits other than the Spirit of the Lord. And it’s only been a year since we went through this discipline. On Ash Wednesday we started afresh, marked with ashes, reminding us that we come from the earth, that we share much in common with all of creation for we share the atoms and molecules of the elements God brought into being with a massive “Let it be!” and then sorted out and arranged and rearranged into all of the creation we know which currently exists, used to exist, and may yet come to exist. Lent begins, in the beginning.

But then we know what happened after that. The constraints of the garden were not enough to keep headstrong humanity from trying to do its own thing. After that came death, Babel, the Flood, and then the promise of people set aside for God-service. All that was accompanied by interpersonal highs and lows in that ever growing family until envy and greed set the stage for God to intervene in a new way through emigration, subjugation, and finally exodus. But the post-exodus experience was more like house-arrest than freedom. And parole was broken so much that a whole generation of people had to pass away before the next steps could be taken.

The land of milk and honey was both promising and pathetic. The moving in and settling down was poorly done. There were high points of leadership mixed with considerable low points. Then finally the kingdoms imploded and the powers of the world overran them, first the Northern Kingdom, Israel, and lastly Judah.
Dead, sere, strewn. Can these bones live? Can we live? Can we rise from the dry and barren times in our lives? That is the Lenten question? What can we learn from the periods in our lives which are filled with hopelessness, depression, fear, and heightened anxiety? When we feel as disconnected and brittle as the bones of Ezekiel’s valley?
Rather than trying to hurry past the dryness and get to the new life, perhaps we need to really wander around in it with our eyes wide open, as Ezekiel did. What can our spiritual dry bones teach us? What can we learn about ourselves and our relationship with the world through this spiritual aridness?
Ponder these words by Dempsy R. Calhoun:

Bone lay scattered and artifactual
Wind-rowed like dead branches
Whose tree bodies repeat the desiccation
All hope bleached and lost
Living moisture evaporated

Calcified memories of what was
Or seeds of what could be
Wandering shards and vessels
That once thrummed with pure energy
Where honor and dishonor wrestled

Stripped of living water to walk the hills
Needing only gravity to line the valley

It was never about the bones anyway
Rather a glimpse of pure power
A reminder of who’s in charge of restoration
Real hope lies in the Source.(1)

A key word in the Ezekiel vision is breath – ruach in Hebrew. “I will put breath in you, and you will live again.” The vision doesn’t stop there. Life might have been good enough for the bones, but it isn’t good enough for God. The vision goes another step and the breath grafts life to the knowledge of God. We aren’t talking 98.6 degrees body temperature, 72 heart beats a minute, 122/68 blood pressure and cholesterol readings to put all of us to shame. No. We are talking about life lived in the fullness of God.

What can we learn from our spiritual dry bones? Would a spiritual anthropologist be able to tell that we lived a spiritual diet deficient in prayer, sabbath, meditation? Would our dry bones give any evidence of the vitaminic nurture of the gifts of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? Can these bones live? God is willing to breathe into us and fill us once more with the transformation that beckons, orders us, to come out of the tombs of death. Will this Lent be a time of bringing bones back to life?

Just as the baptismal waters poured over us, just as the Spirit of Christ poured over us, so the Spirit of true life can pour over us once more and more so than ever before. It has happened. The bones of a crucified man did live. We can live in him, with him, through him, and for him. Life is beyond our power, but not beyond the power of God. Can these bones live? The power beyond us says, “Yes, most certainly.” Will you say “Yes,” too?

(1) Unpublished. Cited by Katherine E. Amos, “Ezekiel 37:1-14 – Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year A, Volume 2, p. 124.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com 

Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

Cataracted Christians

Cataracted Christians
1 Samuel 16:1-13; John 9:1-7, 15-17, 25-41

The word from God to Samuel is direct: “God doesn’t look at things like humans do.” How do human beings look on things?

• If the human being is a loan officer at the bank, she’s looking at your bank balance and your FIFO score – are you credit worthy?
• If the human being is the professor, he’s looking at the term paper that is two weeks late and looks a lot like something copied from Wikipedia – Is this work original and did you really try?
• If the human being is a doctor, she’s looking at your MRI, CT scan, ultrasound, and blood tests – What is this patient’s diagnosis and what is the prognosis of wellness?
• If the human being is a human resources director, he’s looking at your employment application and checking primary and secondary references – Does this person have the skills necessary for the position and can she grow with the position?

In all these situations, and countless more, the human being – perhaps you and me – is looking at specific sets of metrics for particular requirements. But if these are examples of how human beings look at people, how then does God see?

Samuel is cast as the human resources director in today’s reading. He’s done this before. He had been in on the anointing of Saul. The donkeys of Saul’s father had wandered off and Saul had no luck in finding them. The servant boy searching with him finally suggested that they find the seer – Samuel – who knew everything. Samuel had been alerted by God that a man from the tribe of Benjamin would be seeking him and Samuel was to anoint him leader of God’s people Israel. Saul was the most handsome young man in all Israel and he stood head and shoulders above everyone else. Saul found Samuel, who relieved his mind about the donkeys, gave him a feast, anointed him as Israel’s leader, and told him how his commission would be confirmed (1 Samuel 9).

Unfortunately Saul's ruling became problematic. He broke the commands which God had given him. Samuel was forced to revoke Saul’s commission, declaring, “The Lord will commission [another] as leader over God’s people, because you didn’t keep the Lord’s command” (1 Samuel 13:14). At a later time, Samuel announced to Saul, “The Lord has ripped the kingdom of Israel from you today. He will give it to a friend of yours, someone who is more worthy than you” (1 Samuel 15:28).

So God sent Samuel to Bethlehem and Jesse’s family to anoint a new king. That was a politically risky move. It could have been seen by Saul to be an act of rebellion. But Samuel went in peace to perform a ritual.

Samuel was all set to find another Saul  – hand-some, strong, massive. Jesse’s eldest son fit that description. Samuel was ready to pounce, but God reined him in. I don’t “look at things like humans do.”  The divine perception of reality differs significantly from our limited human view. When Samuel stopped using just his eyes and relied instead on the spirit of God, he immediately “saw” that the “ruddy,” harp-playing, dancing shepherd-son of Jesse offered the spiritual strength and leadership that Israel would need from its next king.

How many of us, if we were in Samuel’s place as God’s human resources director, would have jumped at the chance to pick Eliab? All right, we might have looked at Abinadab and then chosen between the two. But as God told Samuel, “Humans see only what is visible to the eyes, but the Lord sees into the heart.” God sees what people are made of. Remember the psalmist said “You have examined me. You know me. You know when I sit down and when I stand up. Even from far away, you comprehend my plans” (Psalm 139:1-2). God sees very differently than we do. A comment made by Sherlock Holmes comes to mind: “My dear Watson, you see, but you do not observe.” How many of us are “seeing” but not really “observing” because we aren’t seeing from a spiritual perspective?

Samuel was invited to see spiritually, to see as God sees, when it came to anointing David as the next king of Israel. Seeing spiritually amounts to believing before seeing. Samuel had to align his faith with God’s will in order to see a king in the ruddy-faced, gangly teen, runt of the Jesse litter, which is how everyone – Jesse included – saw David. The fundamental principle of quantum physics is this: First you believe it, then you see it. If you want examples of this, just watch the new “Cosmos” television series hosted by Neal deGrasse Tyson. Believe then see. In the Christian tradition it was Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury in the 11th century, who said, “I believe, in order that I might understand.”

The man blind from birth to whom Jesus gave sight not only came to see physically, he came to see spiritually, see as God sees. Following his healing he encountered Pharisees who could not see as God sees. The man’s spiritual sight allowed him to see how the Pharisees couldn’t see. The once blind man knew that Jesus was at the very least a prophet. And at a second interrogation by the Pharisees, the man observed,

“This is incredible! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he healed my eyes! We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners. God listens to anyone who is devout and does God’s will. No one has ever heard of a healing of the eyes of someone born blind. If this man wasn’t from God, he couldn’t do this.”

Then when the man met Jesus again, Jesus asked him, “Do you believe in the Human One – the Son of Man?” The man said that he wanted to believe. “You have seen him. In fact, he is the one speaking with you.”

Jesus continued, saying he came into the world to exercise judgment so that those who don’t see can see and those who see will become blind and that failure to see is the consequence of sin.

There are many reasons we can’t physically see. Just look around and see how many of us wear glasses. Then there are some who wear contacts. And many of us have had issues with cataracts that impair our vision. Those can be fixed in several ways: removal, implants, laser surgery. And we are glad for that when any of those are appropriate for our situation.

It is harder to deal with spiritual cataracts. What are those things in us that God can see but we cannot see which prevent us from seeing spiritually? What makes us cataracted Christians? When we are looking for Sauls and Eliabs and Abinadabs, God is looking for people of faith.

Paul told the Corinthian faithful that the first Christians included those who by ordinary standards were not wise, powerful, or from the upper classes. God chose those the world considered foolish to shame the wise, those considered weak to shame the strong, and those considered low-class and low-life – considered by the world as nothing – to reduce what the world considered something to nothing (1 Corinthians 1:26-28).

But look how God used unacceptable people to do wondrous and mighty things. Ordinary people like Moses, who couldn’t talk before people; ordinary people like the twelve disciples, none of them rich, or famous, or studied – just twelve common men with uncommon faith. And if you read the Bible with an eye toward whom God chooses, you will see over and over again that God has let the gospel hang by a thread, committing the future to insignificant people, unnamed and unknown in many cases, but ordinary, not outlandish, in their talents. Look at the young David, a scrawny adolescent chosen to replace the hand-some and charismatic Saul. But David’s obedience to God's word, his faith in God’s presence in his life, and his humility before God when he failed, established him as Israel’s greatest ruler.

So we have two kinds of cataracts: the one which can’t imagine that God can use us for anything to advance the Gospel; and the one which can’t see how God can use someone around us to further Christ’s presence in the world. There is a larger cataract. The cataract that prevents us from seeing that God is still active in the world, that the crucifixion and resurrection still have meaning for the world – not just for me personally, but for every human being other than me, regardless of their worldly status.

Whatever our cataract may be, Christ can remove it. A little spiritual spittle and mud, some confession and repentance, some believing to bring seeing. God sees us as followers, believers, servants, redeemed children of the kingdom.

Once I was blind, but now I see.

Thanks be to God.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 

Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

Massah and Meribah

Massah and Meribah
Exodus 17:1-7; Romans 5:1-11; John 5:5-26, 28-30, 39-42

Is there anything as miraculous as water? Search the cosmos for other signs of life. So far, planet Earth is the only truly blue planet. Buried ice crystals don’t count. The vast oceans of our world have made it possible for all the life forms we know to develop on our planet. The first creation story in Genesis begins with its feet wet. Before any other creating could occur, God contained the waters. We cannot perceive the primordial beginnings of life without water. And like the earth, we are three-fourths water.

The word “water” comes from an Arabic word for luster and splendor. Often it is used about the luster and transparency of the finest jewels. Water is nature’s jewelry, the very elixir of life.

The readings from Exodus and John deal with the human need for water. In the Exodus reading, the people are so thirsty they threaten Moses’ life and wish themselves back in Egypt. What the people don’t realize, however, is that the water they most desperately need is the living water of faith that God provides. Despite Moses’ warnings, the people seem oblivious to anything but the dust in their throats.

The gospel reading tells of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. In response to Jesus’ words about “living water,” this woman shows great enthusiasm for such a drink. Yet her first response seems to indicate that she looks at this living water as a labor-saving device freeing her from the wearying walk to the well to draw up water for herself and her household. The living water Jesus offers will make her free, but not in the way she imagines.

The two passages of scripture play off each other for a discussion of insecurity and freedom. The woman is greatly insecure because she apparently is not an accepted part of the community. The gift of living water, her acceptance of it, her telling her neighbors, and their welcoming of Jesus, brought the Samaritan woman from insecurity to freedom.

The Israelites were suddenly free from the oppression of the Egyptians. They were also lost because the routine of their lives had suddenly been torn away. Like someone newly retired after forty years in the same assembly line job, they didn’t know what to do with themselves. Being slaves and making bricks for building palaces and temples was hell, but it was their hell, a familiar framework that moved them through their days. And now, after the hurried celebration and the mad dash to the sea, the miraculous crossing through it, and the foundering of the pursuing Egyptian troops, the routine of the people was now pack, tramp, unpack, pack, tramp, unpack, pack, tramp, etc. There was no shelter, no change of scenery, no rest. There was no longer any security in knowing that as hard as it was, there were bricks to make and walls to build. At least there was an end product, however difficult the process was.

It’s not as if the people hadn’t seen any miracles. They knew of the plagues that God had sent. They had seen the results of the lamb’s blood on the lintels and doorposts over which the power of death passed. They had safely crossed the sea which became an avenue of safety for them rather than a barrier of destruction. They had seen the demise of the Egyptian army. They had danced the celebration with Moses and Miriam: “Sing to the Lord, for an overflowing victory! Horse and rider he threw into the sea!”

In the aftermath of victory, there was the realization arising from the security vacuum: “What do we do now? We don’t know what to do. We’ve never had to think for ourselves before.” That insecurity came out and got focused into the need for water. They are no longer in the lush valley of the Nile. They are in the middle of nowhere, in the wilderness. Mob psychology takes over. The chant goes up: “Give us water! Give us water! Give us water!”

The Israelites’ thirst completely wiped out their collective memories of all that God had done for them in the past. They now believed that God had, in a cruel twist of cosmic devilry, brought them into the wilderness to let them perish. So they fling up their nervous prayers to God, asking, “Don’t you love us anymore?”

How quickly they forgot the gracious kindness which God had shown them. How quickly they became ready to snatch defeat from the throes of victory. It was a pattern that would recur throughout the years in the wilderness, the years of settling in the promised land, and the years of the kings. God was constantly faithful, the people were repeatedly ungrateful, right up to the destruction of Israel and Judah by foreign powers.

There very few pastors who haven’t had their Moses moments. The same is true for anyone who has chaired a church committee or task force at the local, regional, or national level. And putting on my presbytery hat, I can say that mid-council staff experience Moses moments as well. “What should I do with this people? They are getting ready to stone me.” We usually think of church work as leading the sheep. Sometimes sheep hear the shepherd’s voice, and sometimes they are too busy looking for choice morsels of grass to listen for the voice of the master. It’s little wonder that leadership is sometimes compared with herding cats or pushing rope or swimming with piranhas.

At the same time, it is not hard to comically imagine God wondering about Moses, “What am I doing to do with you?” After all, Moses frequently ran to God with complaints about the people. His father-in-law, Jethro, had to show him how to delegate the small problems so that he could competently deal with the difficult ones.

It’s a social reality that trivialities do kidnap our attention. Sometimes that is how we cope. We can’t deal with the big problems, the elephant-in-the-middle-of-the-room issues, so we throw up smoke screens and diversions to keep us, so we think, from the unmentionable.

While the Israelites’ craving and need for water was real — water is essential for life — the water is also a metaphor for something more, something deeper. It is about relationship, connection with God. The Israelites had only experienced God indirectly through the plagues, through the Passover, through the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. Moses had spoken with God, and would later be engulfed by God in the cloud of Mt. Sinai. In their insecurity the Israelites wanted the same level of intimacy with God. They were torn between the comforts they knew in a life of slavery and the promise of comforts yet to come in a life of freedom.

The church today lives at Massah and Meribah, arguing with and testing the Lord, wondering, asking, “Is the Lord really with us or not?” And the answer we give ourselves frequently is, “I don’t know.” That’s one reason that people don’t bother to seek out a church. It’s also a reason that there are so many “spiritual, but not religious” folk registering in surveys.

We are in the wilderness after having grown up in fertile but enslaving times of buildings full of people, classrooms overflowing with youth, organizations teeming with people locked into the routines of doing everything imaginable in the name of Christ. Now, in the wilderness, the thundering herds of youth and adults are no longer around. But the routines have to go on. Do this, do that, do this, do that, the same way we have done it for fifty, sixty, seventy years. Why isn’t it working? Isn’t God with us? Is there no water?

Do you remember the first time you ran into a faucet without any hot and cold water handles. We take them for granted now. But when they first came out with an electric eye to turn the water on and off, we were baffled. Is there no water? Moses isn’t whacking rocks any more. The water laden rocks now come in some other form. And we have to find them. It is an ongoing process.

Nearly three years ago we entered into a time of reflection on ministry, a time of appreciative inquiry led by Tim Jones. That process got us through a significant transition which is beginning to yield some wonderful blessings of the Spirit in our midst. Now is the time to take the next steps, to build on what we have learned and experienced, and to move forward with more focused study of the wilderness which is our home.

Two months ago session agreed to join seven other churches in the presbytery in an effort to answer the question, “What is God calling this congregation to do and to be in this time and place?” We could be affirmed in what we are currently doing or we could be challenged by hitherto unthought-of new possibilities. Where is God’s water going to flow for us in 2014 and the next few years?

We know it will flow. And that God’s water will change us in unexpected ways. Just ask the woman at Jacob’s well who met Jesus and learned of his living water. That meeting, that water changed her life and changed the life of her community. What would it be like for us to be changed by Christ’s living water? What would it be like for Waverly?

Massah and Meribah aren’t remembered fondly in the lore of the church. Yet they were a turning point, a pivotal expression of faithful living as the belief that God is indeed with us. Massah and Meribah offer us the opportunity to obey the ever-present God, whom we have come to know in Christ. Faithful living is not finding plentiful resources and comfortable surroundings, but knowing that God is our resource, that God is the basis of our surroundings, that God is indeed with us.

Thanks be to God.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com 
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

Surrogate Father

Romans 4:1-5, 13-22; Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121; John 3:1-17

Have you ever try standing on one leg for any length of time? For us this should come with the warning, “Don’t try this at home.” It’s not easy. All our weight is resting on a fairly small area. From a physics standpoint, our weight is not situated close to the foot, but at a distance from it. That means there is a torque force involved that wants to bring our torso weight to a point where it is more stable, that is, the floor. On one foot we wobble and sway until the only way we can have stability is by putting our other foot down. Think of it as self-induced vertigo. As I said, don’t try this at home.

This one-legged instability helps us understand how Paul describes the relationship of his Jewish brothers and sisters to God. They were forever wobbling on the one leg of works. Righteousness – being in a right relationship with God – is the torso weight that is so precariously balanced on the leg of works – obedience to the Law. And they wobble all over the place because of the impossibility of fulfilling all of the Law, not to mention the often competing interpretations of the Law offered by different rabbis.

Paul suggests is that there is another way of diagraming this relationship. His Jewish friends need to put their second foot on solid ground. This second leg is faith. Then what they have in their torsos – righteousness – is now stabilized on two legs, on faith as well as works. “Abraham had faith in God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Abraham believed God. Eugene Peterson’s The Message puts it this way: “Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own.”

The Jewish concept of being right with God included only works. Even Abraham was “justified by works,” according to their view. Paul had a different interpretation of scripture: “Abraham had faith in God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Righteousness happens only as faith stabilizes works. This became for Paul “the righteousness of faith.” In other words, for Christians, regardless of their background (Jewish or Gentile heritage) righteousness and the works that follow from it proceed only because of faith.

One of the things we have to realize is we use a pretty watered-down understanding of belief. We use it for everything from deeply spiritual matters to “I believe it’s going to rain.” The Greek word which Paul used conveyed the sense of trust in, loyalty to, or commitment to a person. That’s how the our English word “believe” was used in medieval and Elizabethan times. That’s how the King James translators used the word as they were putting their editorial mark of the Bible we came to have. Abraham trusted God, stuck by God.

Today’s understanding of “believe” derives from the influence of the Enlightenment, the intellectual era that rose in the second half of the 17th century, continued into the 19th century, and still holds a significant sway over our thinking in the 21st century. Philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill described human thinking in terms of a proposition: if A, then B. So that having faith in God, trusting in God, believing God became subjective: “I believe that God....” The object of trust, loyalty, commitment isn’t a person but a fact or an assertion. The stress of the belief is on the believer, the subject of the “I believe...” statement, rather than on the object, the one who is believed in, trusted in, and who is the recipient of loyalty, namely God. When I say that I believe that God did this or that, it is all about me. I choose to accept the proposition that God does something. It has nothing to do with God’s overwhelming grace which offers me no other choice than to believe and commit myself to God.

We don’t just snap to one day and believe. Paul notes that Abraham “didn’t hesitate with a lack of faith in God’s promise [of a permanent home and of multitudinous heirs], but he grew strong in faith and gave glory to God.” Before he was Abraham, he was Abram and his faith started out only the size of a mustard seed and it faltered more than once. So did Sarah’s faith. They both laughed when they first heard the promise that they would have an heir. Twice Abram gave Sarai away or at least pretended she was his sister, putting the promise of an heir in jeopardy. He adopted a son as his heir (Eliezer of Damascus) lest he die without one. Sarai used Hagar to give Abram a blood heir. Hagar had Ishmael. But Abraham and Sarah both grew in faith and the climax of it all came when Abraham took Isaac and was about to sacrifice him. That’s when Abraham truly and finally came to trust God. He was willing to give up his own offspring — the tangible evidence of God’s grace, presence, and promise — and not trust in his own actions. Could he lose Isaac and still somehow believe God would still fulfill those promises? Abraham was willing to stake his life and that of his son that God could be so trusted.

We live in a results oriented world. There has to be productivity. We are our work. Doing something and getting something for it is the chief end of the economic human being. It’s not new. Jesus tussled with that mind set. He told a parable about workers who were hired at different times during the day and, when they collected their pay at the end of the day, all had received the wage allotted for a full day’s work. The laborers who worked the full shift thought the others should have gotten their wages pro-rated. That’s who we are. We want what’s coming to us and we don’t want anyone getting more than they deserve.

The only problem with that is what we have coming to us, is not something that we really want. We have earned condemnation, not acclamation.

In our church life we think that there ought to be discipleship before doxology (works before faith). Our emphasis too often is on what we are to do for God, what we need to accomplish for God, what we need to provide for God, for God’s church, and for God’s kingdom. We hem and haw around and never really admit to it, but our underlying thought is that if we don’t do all that stuff, we aren’t going to get any of God’s love.

All this colors our thinking about how the world is supposed to work, how people are to perform in a highly individualistic and competitive world. Obviously someone who has a corner office with windows is worth hundreds or thousands of times more than someone in a cubicle in shipping with no windows.

Every time that Abraham tried to work his way into God’s promised future, things fell apart. When he let go of the need to cling to the things of his own making and the things that fell into his life, his faith soared. We don’t work to hoard. Jesus told the story of the landowner who needed bigger barns and lost everything by trying to have everything.

As Paul tells the Romans, “Faith is credited as righteousness to those who don’t work, because they have faith in God who makes the ungodly righteous.” Paul is not talking about idlers. He is talking about those who know that no amount of work that they can do can gain them the eternal blessing. Paul goes on to say, “The promise to Abraham and to his descendants, that he would inherit the world, didn’t come through the Law but through the righteousness that comes from faith.” That doesn’t mean that wishing will make it so. That doesn’t mean that whatever we think the eternal reward might be will be what it is. It doesn’t mean that we believe that if God, then everything will be hunky-dory between now and the kingdom and in the kingdom, too. It means that we put our unreserved trust in God for whatever God’s grand plan for us is. And that plan is our salvation.

We learn a lot from our parents, whether they are biological or not. What we learn from Sarah and Abraham is faith. Abraham “didn’t hesitate with a lack of faith in God’s promise, but he grew strong in faith and gave glory to God,” just as “Jesus matured in wisdom and years, and in favor with God and with people” (Luke 2:52). We can grow in maturity of faith and life as we put every last ounce of our trust in the one whose promise is sure and whose word is not just truth, but life as well. Let us give thanks that we have Abraham as our surrogate father. May our faith be formed as his was.


Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com 
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

Fiber Optic Communication

Fiber Optic Communication
2 Peter 1:16-21; Exodus 24:12-18; Matthew 17:1-9

When you ask a person why they climb a mountain, often the answer will be. “Because it is there.” A follow-up question might be, “What did you see when you got to the top?” “More mountains.”

That might be the biblical answer. Think about who many mountains are mentioned in the Bible. There is Mt. Ararat, where the ark bearing Noah, his family and all of life came to rest following the great flood. There is mountain in the land of Moriah where God provided a ram caught in a thicket to be the sacrifice, not Isaac. Then there is Sinai where Moses encountered God first in a burning bush and later, to the amazement of the Israelites, in the cloud and lightning. Of course, there is Mt. Carmel where God through Elijah bested the prophets of Baal, an event which caused a scared Elijah to flee to another mountain only to find God in the sound of silence telling him not worry and to get back to work.

We have spent the last four weeks on another mountain, working our way through the first third of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ opening declaration of what God’s rule was all about. Now we find ourselves on another mountain with Jesus, a mountain where he is transfigured before the eyes of three of his disciples. From this mountain we can theologically see the Mount of Olives from which he initiated his final visit to Jerusalem, often referred to as Mt. Zion. And if we look off into the distance, we can see Mt. Calvary where Jesus will be crucified, and beyond that an unidentified mountain where the risen Jesus blessed his disciples, commissioned them for ministry, and took his physical leave from them.

No wonder the psalmist says that he raises his eyes to the mountains, the likely source of God’s help. It is not that God doesn’t act everywhere – God does – but God seems to do some of God’s most memorable work on mountains.

One of the metaphorical mountains of show business – the movie business in particular – is tonight’s annual presentation of the Academy Awards, the Oscars. There are perennial nominees, some of whom have won multiple times and others who have never won. There are some new nominees who will go on to be favorites, and there are some who may have one great film and will become lost in obscurity. It is a mountaintop experience for everyone. Who wouldn’t like some red carpet to strut down? We know that Jesus never got a red carpet. He did get palm branches and cloaks.

At the Oscar ceremony, we never know what will happen, who will win, and how they will respond. Many will babble on trying to thank everyone from Adam onward. Others will acquit  themselves smartly with few words. One actor many years ago reportedly strode to the microphone, said, “Thank you,” and walked off the stage. After the show is over, few will remember what was said; even Ellen Degeneres’ jokes won’t last long. And the whole mountain will disappear into the clouds of memory until it rises Brigadoon-like a year from now.

Jesus’ words are not so short-lived. That’s one thrust that the author of the Second Peter letter wished to give the readers. The number of years was growing from the time of Jesus’ transfiguration to the writer’s time. The first-hand memory of the event was getting worn with age. More or less was remembered. The accuracy of memory wasn’t as sharp as it once was. And for those who only knew the event second-, third-, or fourth-hand, the impact of the mountaintop experience was growing less.

Christians were beginning to wonder if the risen Jesus on whom they had pinned all their hope really was special. Perhaps he wasn’t who everyone said he was after all. Perhaps his fifteen minutes of limelight had run its course. Perhaps his light was fading. People had banked their lives on the message which people like Peter, James, John, Paul and others had passionately and courageously spoken. Had the gospel had its day? The blessings didn’t seem to be there. The persecution was mounting. That was a strange way of confirming the hope of peace and life. The people were feeling anything but blessed.

Blessing has nothing to do with choosing God. Jesus didn’t choose God. God chose him: “This is my Son whom I dearly love. I am very pleased with him.” God chose the believers to whom the Peter letter was written. God chose us. Our blessing is being chosen by God, not how many cars are in the garage or shoes in the closet or books on the shelf. The blessed life is not a “cosmic lottery where every sincere prayer buys another scratch-off ticket.”(1)

The view from the mountain of the transfiguration didn’t face heavenly bliss. It faced a world laced with oppression, a world filled with indignities done by human beings to human beings, a dynamic world where rocks quakes, wind blows, fires rage, floods sweep, and pestilence spreads. Life is weird as well as wonderful. Life is stupid as well as smart. Living can be two-faced. A pundit has quipped that if a politician knew there were cannibals in the audience, he would promise a missionary in every pot.

The world is filled with wannabe messiahs and over-achieving purveyors of religious pablum of all kinds. Jesus pulls no punches about the world. He does not hide his head in the sand. When the mother of James and John sought the seats of honor in the kingdom for them, he asked with irony if they are able to drink the cup that he was about to drink. In ignorance, delusion, and naivete they quickly said they could. To which Jesus replied that they would indeed get to drink that cup.

Going back to the Oscar image, the mountaintop experience of Jesus is not like getting the award for best supporting actor. It is more akin to the lifetime achievement award. After all, Jesus didn’t give it to himself. Some starlet or hunk didn’t mangle his name into the microphone. This recognition was given by God – the biggest actor, director, producer, script writer, lyricist, casting director, set-designer, cinematographer, film editor, etc., etc., etc.

And if it were a lifetime achievement award, it would be based on a body of work. Look who Jesus was standing with: Moses and Elijah. These were the heart of the Hebrew scripture. The scene is set in such a way as to subtly say that their work was really Christ’s work in disguise. “This is my Son whom I dearly love. I am very pleased with him,” is a recognition that Christ’s divinity and his emerging kingdom has been an ongoing work since the beginning of time.

For Peter the implications are clear. If the transfiguration really took place, which Peter as an eyewitness is staking his life on, then despite persecution, despite false teachers, and despite a kingdom that’s seen only in part but still longed for in full, this Christ is worth hitching our hope to. He cannot fail us. Likewise, his truth — both captured in what would be known as the Old Testament, and proclaimed among his first-century hearers in what would become the New Testament — is absolutely trustworthy. After all, when someone rises from the dead, you believe what he tells you. You trust him. And when the most respected religious figures in history come back from the dead to say the same the thing, you really, really trust Jesus and what he has to say.

But Peter goes even further. He refers to this truth of Christ, this “prophetic word,” as more than a revelation in the past that we can trust today. He speaks of it in the present tense, as an active reality in our lives: a lamp currently, actively “shining in a dark place.” We tend to think of light being a beam or emanating glow from a source. What makes are telecommunication so cheap today is fiber optics. Signals are transmitted along wires translucent material. One of the great attributes of fiber optics is that light will travel along the transmitting fiber and go around corners and into places that a beam of light can’t reach. More than that, a single strand of fiber optic material can transmit hundreds, if not thousands, of signals, all at different wavelengths of light.

We, like Peter, are at the end of one of those optical fibers and the prophetic, gospel word of Jesus is reaching us across the centuries and seas, across geography and language. Jesus needs no Oscar acceptance speech. All we need is the light-communicated word, “Listen to him!” That message is still meaningful. Sure, he's long since left the mountain, but, like a good movie that never, ever gets old, his words are still echoing, still reaching, still relevant and still cutting a streak of light into our world of darkness.(2)

May it indeed be so. Amen.

(1) Scott Dannemiller, “The One Thing Christians Should Stop Saying,” The Huffington Post, Posted: 02/27/2014 3:43 pm EST;  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-dannemiller/christians-should-stop-saying_b_4868963.html
(2) General source: Homiletics, March 2014, pp. 8-10.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com 
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.