Who’s Your Jailer?
Zechariah 9:9-12; Romans 7:14-25; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-27
Is it Palm Sunday already? you ask. That’s when we traditionally hear this reading from Zechariah. There’s a reason beyond the image of a king coming into Jerusalem “riding on an ass, on a colt, the offspring of a donkey” that this reading gets used for Palm Sunday. This king will speak peace to the nations. Peace – shalom – is not just the absence of war; it is the equilibrium of relationship with God and with humanity that is characterized by justice, integrity, humility, compassion, empathy, and worship and praise of God.
To put this into perspective, we need to know that Zechariah’s prophetic work belongs to the post-exilic period, when the remaining Jews were back in Judah, having been released from captivity in Babylon. Their captivity was traded for being subjects of the Persian Empire. Yet even Persia’s might was no guarantee of security, and the Jews lived under the possibility of being scattered once again due to the threat of attack by other nations. Most of the Jews were not well-off, and many still had dreams of someday living in a kingdom of their own under a messianic leader. But, for the present, that seemed impossible.
In that dark mood, chapter 9 begins with a prophetic word against various foreign nations, telling of God’s coming judgment passing through those lands, moving from north to south. Some of the cities named in these verses have great wealth and military might, yet they are all powerless when God’s judgment comes. Finally, having crushed these traditional enemies of Judah, God camps at the temple “as a guard, against anyone departing or returning. A slave driver will no longer pass through against them” (v. 8).
It’s in that context of “battle over ... mission accomplished” that the reading for today calls Jerusalem to “rejoice greatly” because of the messianic king’s entry into the city. This messiah arrives “triumphant and victorious,” yet also “"humble,” for he’s the proclaimer not of his own accomplishment, but of peace to the nations, a peace that God’s judgment has made possible.
Why is this message from Zechariah important for us today, when it isn’t Palm Sunday? Let me begin with a poem by colleague Thom Shuman, whose gift of words is so often a blessing. He calls it “internee (Zechariah 9:9-12).”
from the shadowed corner,
I used to stare
up at the small
window set high
up in the wall,
waiting for the moon
to appear (even if
only a sliver,
imagining you were
keeping an eye on me;
for hours on end,
I would stand
at the door, holding
onto the bars
worn smooth by
all the hands before me,
waiting for you
to come by with
your cart full of books,
handing me the
words you knew
I needed, brushing
the back of my hand
with fingers as light
as Emily’s feathers;
in the early morning,
when even the guard
is too bored to notice,
you tunnel in,
taking me by the hand
and leading me out to
where your muster
of misfits waits,
and you swing me
onto the bowed back
of that borrowed
farm animal,
and we follow
that route marked
Hope.(1)
What Zechariah tells us is that we have a choice between being a prisoner of despair or of hope. In fact, the phrase “prisoners of hope” is right out of the Zechariah text, with the prophet speaking for God, who says, “...by the blood of your covenant, I will release your prisoners from the waterless pit. Return to the stronghold, prisoners of hope; moreover, declare today that I will return double to you” (v. 12).
Zechariah was not speaking about literal prisoners. The people of Judah had been released from exile in Babylon and had returned to their homeland. But they had become prisoners in another sense. The destruction to which they had returned was overwhelming, and it required great energy just to cobble together the things needed for a subsistence-level existence. As a result, many had become prisoners of despair.
If Paul were here today, he would likely tell you that despair is sin. And sin is the Law, since Law enables sin because there is no way that any one of their own might or effort can obey every aspect of the law. “I don’t know what I’m doing, because I don’t do what I want to do....it’s sin that lives in me.... The desire to do good is inside of me, but I can’t do it.”
We are burdened by the guilt of doing the things we don’t want to do and not doing the things we know we want to do or should do. That is the despair of which we are prisoners, or as Paul calls, slavery.
None of us are going to claim that we even try to follow the Law which Moses mediated between God and the Israelites. After all, we eat shellfish, we poach veal in milk, we wear clothing of mixed fibers, we do work on the Sabbath, we pay or exact interest, and we don’t give up borrowed possessions every seventh year.
What we are enslaved to are traditions, expectations, norms. Citing the work of sociologist Will Herberg, Diana Butler Bass says that some fifty years ago, Americans were unwaveringly and overwhelming religious. Herberg’s figures indicate that in 1960 three different surveys pegged belief in God at 95, 96, or 97% of the population. Church membership was 75%. Those who prayed occasionally were 90%. They believed in life after death, heaven, hell, the Bible as an inspired book, and the importance of giving religious instruction to children. They held religion to be of very great importance. However, Herberg noted that there were discrepancies in the data. When pushed, more then half of Americans admitted that these views had no impact on their political or business practices. He concluded that belief in God might well have been a social convention, more norms than committed beliefs.(2)
If religious practices were more social norms than committed beliefs, then they were a slavery which polls show that two generations later typical people have shed, as those who call themselves spiritual but not religious have grown to nearly a third of all people.
When Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest; put on my yoke, and learn from me,” he was not calling people into a slavery of norms and rituals and behaviors. He was not offering to exchange one imprisonment to despair with another. He called people to hope. Each of us lives with despair and hope. If you feed despair, eventually it will grow and devour hope. If you feed hope, it will starve despair of its reason for being.
Jesus’ “easy to bear” yoke and “light” burden is hope. He offers to exchange our despair for his hope. He offers himself physically as sign and seal of the reality that he is the donkey-riding messiah who humbly takes upon himself all despair and replaces it with hope. This table of bread and wine is our ever-present remembrance that redemption, hope, and freedom are all grace-filled acts of God which God alone, through the power of the Spirit and the compassionate obedient life of the Word made flesh, has accomplished. This is the table of life, of pardon, of freedom. We are no longer prisoners of a jailer called despair. We are free to choose to become bond servants of the one who gives life.
Let us respond to Jesus’ gracious invitation.
(1) Thom M. Shuman, http://www.prayersfortoday.blogspot.com/, July 2, 2014.
(2) Diana Butler Bass, Christianity After Religion (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), p.44f.
General Resource on Zechariah: “Prisoners of Hope,” Homiletics, July-August 2014, pp. 8-12.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Discipleship Comes After Apostleship
Discipleship Comes After Apostleship
Matthew 10:24-39; Romans 6:1-10
In classic church architecture, the sanctuary is often called the nave. This word comes from the Latin word navis which means ship. In the early church a simple line drawing of a ship was the icon for the church, to use a contemporary term. Pews are a modern version of the benches which were the seating arrangement in ancient galleys and triremes where the oarsmen pulled together to propel the ship. The people in the pews pull together to propel the gospel.
I often think of the church as having an armada of ships. There is wor-ship. That would be a fancy cruise ship because most of us just want to sit back and enjoy the ride with everything done for us. Then there’s steward-ship. That must be a battleship with big guns blazing, because everyone hates to see it coming.
There are two more ships of the line in the fleet: apostle-ship and disciple-ship. I think that apostle-ship must be something like the sleek, tall-masted clipper ships of the 19th century which sped across the seas. Discipleship is a cargo ship because it carries the weight laded with containers. Using those images, there is no way that a person can mistake a schooner for a cargo ship or vice versa. Yet people often do confuse apostleship and discipleship.
In A Theological Word Book of the Bible, Alan Richardson defines the two “ships” this way.
With that as background, we are accosted by the reading in Matthew 10. It is uncomfortable. It chafes. We like passages where Jesus lets others have it (deserving others, we would say). We like Jesus being friendly, caring, compassionate. We don’t find any of those qualities evident in Jesus in this reading. And we feel like we are in his sights as he speaks these words confront us.
The text is not some quirky invitation to delight in family dysfunction. On the contrary, in the words of William Goettler, assistant dean of ministry studies at Yale Divinity School and co-pastor of First Presbyterian Church, New Haven, it is a fine example of the biblical word not saying what, at first glance, it seems to be saying. This is not a proof text for a religious fanatics to divide families. Jesus is actually addressing the faithful who seek to live into their Christian faith while facing conflict and discouragement, and even threats to their physical well-being, because of the gospel’s calling.
Earlier in the chapter Jesus had sent out the twelve with authority to throw out unclean spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. He commissioned them to announce: “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” He told them that the work wasn’t always going to be light and easy and he told them how to respond when they were harassed. Jesus’ words in today’s reading are a follow-up on that.
The easy days of listening to Jesus and meandering around the countryside are over. A warm reception of the gospel won’t always be the case. The disciples will learn what it means to face opposition and struggle. They will ask the questions that every generation of believers has asked: What are we going to do when we can’t do it ourselves? Will our faith survive? Will the church survive?
Apostles send disciples. Discipleship is a journey that includes learning. Learning is not easy. Perhaps you remember trying to learn the multiplication tables or French or the connections of the Plantagenet kings of England or the steps of cell division. Learning is painful. How many scraped knees and elbows did it take before you learned to ride or bicycle or roller skate? Learning never ends. You had first to learn how to dial, yes, rotary dial a phone. Then push buttons came along, followed by cordless phones, flip phones, and now smart phones. The first microwaves only had a dial to turn for so much heating. Now you have to program them.
The over-arching question today’s reading pushes on us has to do with discovering and coming to terms with what Jesus is trying to teach us. Teachers don’t teach us what we already know. I don’t know about you, but I feel like I have wasted my time if I go to a workshop or seminar and only hear what I already know or what I already agree with.
When Jesus talks about a sword that will divide, he is talking about confronting and challenging the things we think we know already, the things that we have been taught from early on in a very prejudicial kind of way. I know that I am not as racist as my parents were. I also know that there is still some of that in me. I know that my children are less racist than I am, they probably have something them that has carried forward.
Jesus is talking about dividing us off from the comfortable certainties that we take for granted, the party lines that we have never questioned critically or researched. He was continually doing that. He challenged a man rich in material goods to think deeply about the things he really needed to have eternal life. He challenged synagogue leaders about their attention to detail that blinded them to the bigger picture of God-given dignity and faithful reliance on God’s providence. He challenged social mentalities that isolated individuals from community and devalued those who were made every bit as much in the image of God as they were.
Jesus talked about freeing those who were imprisoned. And the reality is that we are all prisoners to attitudes, ideas, habits, beliefs that need to be severed from our lives in order to become better learners, more faithful disciples.
We have been sent. You are sent every time you leave this place of worship. You are sent to heal and to cast out unclean spirits. You are sent to proclaim with words and actions the reality of the here and now presence of God at work. But you are sent to learn as you go. Not every thing you want to know or need to know can be learned in class or from reading books or from listening to sermons. It comes from on the job training, from life experience, from the school of hard knocks. Conversely not everything you want to know or need to know is learned in the world. You need to spend time with a challenging teacher wrestling with questions for which you do not yet have responses. You need to develop the skills and resources for struggling to understand how God operates in a complex, often inscrutable world. And the confounding thing about discipleship, about learning, is that the more you learn the more questions and viewpoints arise that seem to joust with what we thought we knew.
When Jesus divides us from all the things that prevent our active, vital discipleship, we are left with the raw reality that we have no option other than to depend on the God whose love for us took on the whole world. The world attempted to destroy him. It didn’t succeed. Not only did he rise from the grave, he breathed the mighty God Spirit into the world to keep on severing the chains of sin, of complacency, of ignorance, of deception, of delusion, of hatred, of arrogance.
The message of Matthew’s passage for us today is that we will survive, that the church will survive. Every time the General Assembly meets there are those who say the church is going to hell in a handbasket and there are those who say that the church is surviving by the wonderful grace of God. It doesn’t matter what the issues are, be it divestment of stock in companies seemingly more interested in war and profits rather than peace and community responsibility, or wrestling with the ways of human relationships in church and state traditionally called marriage, or being faithful in ministry through innovative or antiquated church structures, or speaking peace to a fearful world caught in a spiraling escalation of gun adoration and violence.
We are not called to be apostles of any one narrowly defined and usually God-diminishing view point, however good and true and righteous. We are called to be disciples, listening for God’s word among all the words that assail us on a daily basis. Jesus stilled the storm on the sea. Jesus can and will still the storms that prevent us from serving him in an ever growing discipleship.
Let us pray.
Ever-teaching God, Jesus Christ is the word, the way, the truth, the life that we need. Grant your Spirit to so teach us that as we are buffeted by doubt and rejection, by complacency or controversy, we will grow into the strength of faith that will lose the dross of living and gain the joyous life of our salvation in the risen and reigning Christ. Amen.
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.
Matthew 10:24-39; Romans 6:1-10
In classic church architecture, the sanctuary is often called the nave. This word comes from the Latin word navis which means ship. In the early church a simple line drawing of a ship was the icon for the church, to use a contemporary term. Pews are a modern version of the benches which were the seating arrangement in ancient galleys and triremes where the oarsmen pulled together to propel the ship. The people in the pews pull together to propel the gospel.
I often think of the church as having an armada of ships. There is wor-ship. That would be a fancy cruise ship because most of us just want to sit back and enjoy the ride with everything done for us. Then there’s steward-ship. That must be a battleship with big guns blazing, because everyone hates to see it coming.
There are two more ships of the line in the fleet: apostle-ship and disciple-ship. I think that apostle-ship must be something like the sleek, tall-masted clipper ships of the 19th century which sped across the seas. Discipleship is a cargo ship because it carries the weight laded with containers. Using those images, there is no way that a person can mistake a schooner for a cargo ship or vice versa. Yet people often do confuse apostleship and discipleship.
In A Theological Word Book of the Bible, Alan Richardson defines the two “ships” this way.
- An apostle is one sent forth, a messenger, especially one authorized to act in a particular matter for the one who sends him. In nearly every instance Paul understood himself to have been personally sent by Jesus Christ to the peoples and places his travels took him, including places he hadn’t intended to go, like Macedonia and Malta, where the storm-blown ship landed on his rough imprisoned journey to Rome.
- Disciple is the English form of a Latin word derived from a verb meaning to learn. Hence a disciple is a learner, a scholar, a pupil, and sometimes an apprentice. Richardson notes that in the gospel the twelve are hardly ever unambiguously called “the disciples.” Rather they are “his disciples.” Disciples were primarily students who attached themselves to a mentor or teacher to receive, retain, and pass on the knowledge that the teacher had. So we have John the Baptizer telling some of his disciples that Jesus is a greater teacher than John is. Some left John and went to Jesus. We could say that John exercised apostleship because he sent them to learn from Jesus.
With that as background, we are accosted by the reading in Matthew 10. It is uncomfortable. It chafes. We like passages where Jesus lets others have it (deserving others, we would say). We like Jesus being friendly, caring, compassionate. We don’t find any of those qualities evident in Jesus in this reading. And we feel like we are in his sights as he speaks these words confront us.
The text is not some quirky invitation to delight in family dysfunction. On the contrary, in the words of William Goettler, assistant dean of ministry studies at Yale Divinity School and co-pastor of First Presbyterian Church, New Haven, it is a fine example of the biblical word not saying what, at first glance, it seems to be saying. This is not a proof text for a religious fanatics to divide families. Jesus is actually addressing the faithful who seek to live into their Christian faith while facing conflict and discouragement, and even threats to their physical well-being, because of the gospel’s calling.
Earlier in the chapter Jesus had sent out the twelve with authority to throw out unclean spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. He commissioned them to announce: “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” He told them that the work wasn’t always going to be light and easy and he told them how to respond when they were harassed. Jesus’ words in today’s reading are a follow-up on that.
The easy days of listening to Jesus and meandering around the countryside are over. A warm reception of the gospel won’t always be the case. The disciples will learn what it means to face opposition and struggle. They will ask the questions that every generation of believers has asked: What are we going to do when we can’t do it ourselves? Will our faith survive? Will the church survive?
Apostles send disciples. Discipleship is a journey that includes learning. Learning is not easy. Perhaps you remember trying to learn the multiplication tables or French or the connections of the Plantagenet kings of England or the steps of cell division. Learning is painful. How many scraped knees and elbows did it take before you learned to ride or bicycle or roller skate? Learning never ends. You had first to learn how to dial, yes, rotary dial a phone. Then push buttons came along, followed by cordless phones, flip phones, and now smart phones. The first microwaves only had a dial to turn for so much heating. Now you have to program them.
The over-arching question today’s reading pushes on us has to do with discovering and coming to terms with what Jesus is trying to teach us. Teachers don’t teach us what we already know. I don’t know about you, but I feel like I have wasted my time if I go to a workshop or seminar and only hear what I already know or what I already agree with.
When Jesus talks about a sword that will divide, he is talking about confronting and challenging the things we think we know already, the things that we have been taught from early on in a very prejudicial kind of way. I know that I am not as racist as my parents were. I also know that there is still some of that in me. I know that my children are less racist than I am, they probably have something them that has carried forward.
Jesus is talking about dividing us off from the comfortable certainties that we take for granted, the party lines that we have never questioned critically or researched. He was continually doing that. He challenged a man rich in material goods to think deeply about the things he really needed to have eternal life. He challenged synagogue leaders about their attention to detail that blinded them to the bigger picture of God-given dignity and faithful reliance on God’s providence. He challenged social mentalities that isolated individuals from community and devalued those who were made every bit as much in the image of God as they were.
Jesus talked about freeing those who were imprisoned. And the reality is that we are all prisoners to attitudes, ideas, habits, beliefs that need to be severed from our lives in order to become better learners, more faithful disciples.
We have been sent. You are sent every time you leave this place of worship. You are sent to heal and to cast out unclean spirits. You are sent to proclaim with words and actions the reality of the here and now presence of God at work. But you are sent to learn as you go. Not every thing you want to know or need to know can be learned in class or from reading books or from listening to sermons. It comes from on the job training, from life experience, from the school of hard knocks. Conversely not everything you want to know or need to know is learned in the world. You need to spend time with a challenging teacher wrestling with questions for which you do not yet have responses. You need to develop the skills and resources for struggling to understand how God operates in a complex, often inscrutable world. And the confounding thing about discipleship, about learning, is that the more you learn the more questions and viewpoints arise that seem to joust with what we thought we knew.
When Jesus divides us from all the things that prevent our active, vital discipleship, we are left with the raw reality that we have no option other than to depend on the God whose love for us took on the whole world. The world attempted to destroy him. It didn’t succeed. Not only did he rise from the grave, he breathed the mighty God Spirit into the world to keep on severing the chains of sin, of complacency, of ignorance, of deception, of delusion, of hatred, of arrogance.
The message of Matthew’s passage for us today is that we will survive, that the church will survive. Every time the General Assembly meets there are those who say the church is going to hell in a handbasket and there are those who say that the church is surviving by the wonderful grace of God. It doesn’t matter what the issues are, be it divestment of stock in companies seemingly more interested in war and profits rather than peace and community responsibility, or wrestling with the ways of human relationships in church and state traditionally called marriage, or being faithful in ministry through innovative or antiquated church structures, or speaking peace to a fearful world caught in a spiraling escalation of gun adoration and violence.
We are not called to be apostles of any one narrowly defined and usually God-diminishing view point, however good and true and righteous. We are called to be disciples, listening for God’s word among all the words that assail us on a daily basis. Jesus stilled the storm on the sea. Jesus can and will still the storms that prevent us from serving him in an ever growing discipleship.
Let us pray.
Ever-teaching God, Jesus Christ is the word, the way, the truth, the life that we need. Grant your Spirit to so teach us that as we are buffeted by doubt and rejection, by complacency or controversy, we will grow into the strength of faith that will lose the dross of living and gain the joyous life of our salvation in the risen and reigning Christ. Amen.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Keeping the Window Open
Keeping the Window Open
John 17:1-11; Acts 1:6-11; 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor Randy Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and succumbed to the disease in 2008. He left a wife and three young children, the youngest of which would hardly remember him. He wanted to leave a legacy for his children, a personal statement about who he was, what he believed, what he dreamed of, what he loved and celebrated. He gave one last lecture at Carnegie Mellon, and expanded it into a book which became a best seller.
This past week a true American treasure died at the age of 86. Maya Angelou matured from a damaged childhood through a tumultuous young adulthood to become more than merely adept as a singer, an actor, a linguist fluent in six languages, a writer, a professor, a mentor, a legend, and a purveyor of poetry for presidents and world leaders. Her early memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, began a literary publishing career that ended with a poem on behalf of the American people on the occasion of the death of Nelson Mandela, “His Day Is Done.” Her final public statement, via her Twitter account, sums up so much of what she has said and written for seven decades. She wrote May 23, “Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.”
According to the gospel writer John, Jesus gave the disciples a long (five chapters), urgent, passionate, prophetic last speech as they were gathered in the upper room that night before he went to the garden to be betrayed, arrested, tried, and executed. He began the farewell discourse by washing the feet of the disciples and concluded it with a poignant petitioning prayer. Like Maya Angelou’s last tweet and Randy Pausch’s last lecture, Jesus’ words were meant to be a legacy. They were for more than the ears of the immediate disciples.
Just hours from his crucifixion, Jesus focused on those things that mattered most from his entire ministry. For one last time, he wished to sum up and reiterate the things that were at the center of his life. Jesus spoke knowing that the Spirit, whom he has promised to attend the disciples, is already present and active in the hearts of believers and is more than able to keep his message alive.
The sum of Jesus’ message can be stated in two words: “Know God.” He had said earlier in his discourse in response to Philip’s request for Jesus to show the disciples the Father, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been with you all this time? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
Jesus’ final hopes are not a celebration of himself, but the recognition that his life and ministry are windows into God’s love and saving purposes. Jesus prays that people will come to know God through him.
We are too used to thinking of “knowing” in terms of data, such as knowing the multiplication table or the periodic table or Morse Code. Knowing God is not an intellectual activity. Knowing God has nothing to do with the cognitive domain. We may know some things about God, but that is not what knowing God means.
Knowing God is an experience that draws believers into a new reality. Knowing God changes, shifts, transforms people in such ways that eternal realities impinge upon temporal realities. God’s vision for love and justice and service is realized in relationships and communities of faith right now, not just at some far distant time. Our knowing God will be visible in the manner in which we love.
That commandment to love is also part of Jesus’ farewell discourse: “I give you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other” (John 13:34-35).
That’s the contrast between God’s realm and the realm of human governance. When God’s rule is in full effect, everyone will love each other. The rule of the world is love yourself first and if there is any love left over, then you love other people. That’s why Jesus told his hearers the second part of the great commandment: “You will love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). If we love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves, that is, if we accord our neighbor the dignity, the grace, the recognition of humanity that we expect to get and demand to receive, then we declare that our neighbor is our equal, not our inferior, not our superior, for we are all created in the image of God. Abusing another person physically, socially, mentally, sexually, psychologically, economically, or politically is an affront to God and an admission that we do not know God.
If truly knowing God is an attribute of a disciple of Christ, one of the original twelve or one two millennia removed, then that same approach is true for communities of disciples. Jesus prayed earnestly for the disciples whom God had given to him. “They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you.... I’m praying for them...because they are yours.”
It is hard to be prayed for. That suggests some sort of weakness, illness, need. Yet all of us, as the choir’s anthem several weeks ago affirmed, are “standing in the need of prayer.”
We routinely pray for our friends in long-term health care and those experiencing temporary physical need. We pray for health, for discernment, for release, for strength (as we have been praying for Meriam Ibrahim). We pray for safety and success, for ourselves and others. But to be the object of the prayers of other people is a very different experience. We have experienced the effect of prayer on our lives. We have felt spiritual energy that can only be explained as the work of God lifted up on the thoughts and words and sighs and tears of others.
It is a humbling, awe-striking realization to think that Christ two thousand years ago prayed for you and for me. He prayed for our strength. He prayed that we would truly know God. He prayed that we would withstand the pressures of the world, so many of which go against the ways of God by demeaning and debasing people by ripping their dignity and humanity from them. Jesus prayed for us because we all need God’s protection from our own worst impulses as well as those of other people whom God also created and loves. Jesus prayed for God’s grace and providential care. We can rely on it as he did.
Great divisions threaten the unity of Christ’s community more today than at any time in our memory, and seemingly as great as at any time in the history of the church. The poignancy of Jesus’ prayer that believers be one cannot be missed. He prays from the context of the profound intimacy which he enjoys with the Father and with the Spirit (variously described as advocate, companion, or comforter). The Trinitarian relationship gives a model for how Christians are to interact. Father, Son and Spirit are related but dynamically independent. But they are not necessarily identical in thought and practice. Yet together, following Christ’s lead, they provide a window in order to know God, the full God, the complete God, the God who creates, empowers and redeems the groaning creation, including human beings.
As we experience the work of the Spirit enabling us to love each other more perfectly and fully, we participate in the work of revealing God to the world. We need to keep open the window which Christ was. The Spirit helps us to see the dirt, the smudges, the grime that makes our windows less than useful in presenting God to the world, or for that matter, in knowing God ourselves. May we confess our dirty windows and seek Christ’s forgiving Windex wipe.
May we know God through Christ, who has shown God to us. May the world see Christ in us and know God through us. May we be one with Christ and with each other, unified in love for each other, for creation, for eternity.
General source: Nancy J. Ramsey, “John 17:1-11, Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Lousiville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year A, vol. 2, p. 538ff.
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.
John 17:1-11; Acts 1:6-11; 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor Randy Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and succumbed to the disease in 2008. He left a wife and three young children, the youngest of which would hardly remember him. He wanted to leave a legacy for his children, a personal statement about who he was, what he believed, what he dreamed of, what he loved and celebrated. He gave one last lecture at Carnegie Mellon, and expanded it into a book which became a best seller.
This past week a true American treasure died at the age of 86. Maya Angelou matured from a damaged childhood through a tumultuous young adulthood to become more than merely adept as a singer, an actor, a linguist fluent in six languages, a writer, a professor, a mentor, a legend, and a purveyor of poetry for presidents and world leaders. Her early memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, began a literary publishing career that ended with a poem on behalf of the American people on the occasion of the death of Nelson Mandela, “His Day Is Done.” Her final public statement, via her Twitter account, sums up so much of what she has said and written for seven decades. She wrote May 23, “Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.”
According to the gospel writer John, Jesus gave the disciples a long (five chapters), urgent, passionate, prophetic last speech as they were gathered in the upper room that night before he went to the garden to be betrayed, arrested, tried, and executed. He began the farewell discourse by washing the feet of the disciples and concluded it with a poignant petitioning prayer. Like Maya Angelou’s last tweet and Randy Pausch’s last lecture, Jesus’ words were meant to be a legacy. They were for more than the ears of the immediate disciples.
Just hours from his crucifixion, Jesus focused on those things that mattered most from his entire ministry. For one last time, he wished to sum up and reiterate the things that were at the center of his life. Jesus spoke knowing that the Spirit, whom he has promised to attend the disciples, is already present and active in the hearts of believers and is more than able to keep his message alive.
The sum of Jesus’ message can be stated in two words: “Know God.” He had said earlier in his discourse in response to Philip’s request for Jesus to show the disciples the Father, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been with you all this time? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
Jesus’ final hopes are not a celebration of himself, but the recognition that his life and ministry are windows into God’s love and saving purposes. Jesus prays that people will come to know God through him.
We are too used to thinking of “knowing” in terms of data, such as knowing the multiplication table or the periodic table or Morse Code. Knowing God is not an intellectual activity. Knowing God has nothing to do with the cognitive domain. We may know some things about God, but that is not what knowing God means.
Knowing God is an experience that draws believers into a new reality. Knowing God changes, shifts, transforms people in such ways that eternal realities impinge upon temporal realities. God’s vision for love and justice and service is realized in relationships and communities of faith right now, not just at some far distant time. Our knowing God will be visible in the manner in which we love.
That commandment to love is also part of Jesus’ farewell discourse: “I give you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other” (John 13:34-35).
That’s the contrast between God’s realm and the realm of human governance. When God’s rule is in full effect, everyone will love each other. The rule of the world is love yourself first and if there is any love left over, then you love other people. That’s why Jesus told his hearers the second part of the great commandment: “You will love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). If we love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves, that is, if we accord our neighbor the dignity, the grace, the recognition of humanity that we expect to get and demand to receive, then we declare that our neighbor is our equal, not our inferior, not our superior, for we are all created in the image of God. Abusing another person physically, socially, mentally, sexually, psychologically, economically, or politically is an affront to God and an admission that we do not know God.
If truly knowing God is an attribute of a disciple of Christ, one of the original twelve or one two millennia removed, then that same approach is true for communities of disciples. Jesus prayed earnestly for the disciples whom God had given to him. “They were yours and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you.... I’m praying for them...because they are yours.”
It is hard to be prayed for. That suggests some sort of weakness, illness, need. Yet all of us, as the choir’s anthem several weeks ago affirmed, are “standing in the need of prayer.”
We routinely pray for our friends in long-term health care and those experiencing temporary physical need. We pray for health, for discernment, for release, for strength (as we have been praying for Meriam Ibrahim). We pray for safety and success, for ourselves and others. But to be the object of the prayers of other people is a very different experience. We have experienced the effect of prayer on our lives. We have felt spiritual energy that can only be explained as the work of God lifted up on the thoughts and words and sighs and tears of others.
It is a humbling, awe-striking realization to think that Christ two thousand years ago prayed for you and for me. He prayed for our strength. He prayed that we would truly know God. He prayed that we would withstand the pressures of the world, so many of which go against the ways of God by demeaning and debasing people by ripping their dignity and humanity from them. Jesus prayed for us because we all need God’s protection from our own worst impulses as well as those of other people whom God also created and loves. Jesus prayed for God’s grace and providential care. We can rely on it as he did.
Great divisions threaten the unity of Christ’s community more today than at any time in our memory, and seemingly as great as at any time in the history of the church. The poignancy of Jesus’ prayer that believers be one cannot be missed. He prays from the context of the profound intimacy which he enjoys with the Father and with the Spirit (variously described as advocate, companion, or comforter). The Trinitarian relationship gives a model for how Christians are to interact. Father, Son and Spirit are related but dynamically independent. But they are not necessarily identical in thought and practice. Yet together, following Christ’s lead, they provide a window in order to know God, the full God, the complete God, the God who creates, empowers and redeems the groaning creation, including human beings.
As we experience the work of the Spirit enabling us to love each other more perfectly and fully, we participate in the work of revealing God to the world. We need to keep open the window which Christ was. The Spirit helps us to see the dirt, the smudges, the grime that makes our windows less than useful in presenting God to the world, or for that matter, in knowing God ourselves. May we confess our dirty windows and seek Christ’s forgiving Windex wipe.
May we know God through Christ, who has shown God to us. May the world see Christ in us and know God through us. May we be one with Christ and with each other, unified in love for each other, for creation, for eternity.
General source: Nancy J. Ramsey, “John 17:1-11, Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Lousiville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year A, vol. 2, p. 538ff.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Speak Your Hope
Speak Your Hope
1 Peter 3:13-22; Acts 17:22-31; John 14:15-22
“Whenever anyone asks you to speak of your hope, be ready to defend it” (1 Peter 3:15 CEB). Eugene Peterson reads Peter’s words this way: “Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy.” Can you do that? Can you explain the hope you have in Jesus Christ?
Here’s an old joke. What do you get when you cross a Presbyterian with a Jehovah’s Witness? Someone who knocks on doors but doesn’t have anything to say. In fairness to Presbyterians, the joke works with almost any old line Protestant denomination (Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians). Can you explain your hope in Jesus Christ?
Karen and Bruce Henderson have been telling us about Meriam Yehye Ibrahim, the Sudanese woman who has been sentenced to a 100 lashes for adultery because she married a Christian and to be hung because she refused to recant her declaration that she is a Christian. She is the kind of believer to whom Peter was writing. When Peter’s letter was circulating, Christians were being persecuted by Roman imperial edict. He was addressing real suffering for the faith.
Thankfully, and regretfully, we don’t have to face that oppression. But our lives aren’t completely devoid of persecution. It isn’t physical, but it is verbal. “What do you mean you can’t come on Sunday morning?” “You would rather go to a meeting at church than have me drop by for a visit?” “Why don’t you shop on Sunday? Everyone does.” Speak your hope. Don’t mumble apologies.
Back to our speechless door-knocker joke. What is your hope? You don’t need a dissertation. Fifty or a hundred words ought to do it. Is your hope located in the future? Is it pearly gates, golden streets, multi-roomed mansions the opposite of unmitigated heat and flames and eternal agony? Or is your hope an on-going reality of a right relationship with God and with neighbors made possible through the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ?
Our hope starts out very simply. We probably learned the core of it as a child: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” As we grow and mature, we wrestle with that simple statement. What does it really mean? What does it mean to me? We wander around in our thinking. The statement is too simplistic. We don’t understand the Bible. Only parts of It make sense. We latch on to a few verses and try to hang our whole faith on it. That works for a while until something upsets the equilibrium. Perhaps we reach the point where we realize that our hope is not something static or unchanging. God does something that knocks down the security of a narrow or rigid understanding we had grown comfortable with. And we need to re-examine what it is that we believe.
I saw a post on Facebook this past week which said: “Your life is your message to the world. Make sure it is inspiring.” That’s the kind of situation that Peter envisions. The believers he was writing to and for would be persecuted for their faith alone because unbelievers would have no charges to bring against them except to question them on their “hope.”
Unbelievers can see that Christians have something different; only “hope” gives us strength and joy in hardships and persecutions. Unbelievers will ask about it; believers must be ready to tell them. Christians need not worry about what they should say if accused, for they could prepare their defense ahead of time! Even in a hostile situation, believers can witness for Christ; their words might cause an accuser to come to faith. Paul certainly took advantage of every situation, no matter how hostile. Peter says that all Christians can and should be ready and able to give a reasonable defense of their faith. No one expects us to be a theologian like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Julian of Norwich, Theresa of Avila, Karl Barth, Rosemary Radford Reuther, or Martin Luther King, Jr.
But every Christian ought to be able to clearly explain his or her own reasons for being a Christian. Some Christians believe that faith is a personal matter that should be kept to oneself. It is true that we shouldn’t be boisterous or obnoxious in sharing our faith, but we should always be prepared to give an answer, gently and respectfully, when asked about our belief, our lifestyle, or our Christian perspective.
You and I can witness our hope without becoming theological scholars. In preparation we can pray, read the Bible, and review God’s promises every day. We can make praising Christ our daily practice. A focus on his power and glory will fortify us. We are to be ourselves in our witnessing, not imitating anyone else. Find the clues in your life that help explain God’s Good News to others. Plumbers can talk about God’s love like running water. Doctors can portray God’s love as a healing force. Respond with care. Leave melting stony hearts to God. Always listen to your audience. Where are their heads and hearts? What burdens them? Listen long and hard. Frame your witness in the words and at the level your audience will understand. If we aren’t questioned about our faith, is our faith showing? Or have we so buried it in the surrounding culture that there is no apparent difference between the way of the world and the way of Christ.
When Jesus said that he came not to bring peace but to bring a sword, what he was saying was that he was presenting an alternative vision of what life was to be about. He asserted that the kingdom of God – the realm of God’s rule – has come near. It is breaking into the world through the presence and ministry of Christ who was the Word become flesh and blood. Jesus wasn’t a specter of some other reality. He wasn’t an alien. He was one of us in the fullest and most complete sense. But he was counter-cultural because he didn’t blend in. He presented a living vision of what God was intending humanity to be.
Many of his parables express the tension of the now and the not yet. The world lives for the moment and doesn’t think ahead, so some of the wedding attendants run out of oil. The world thinks only the strong should survive, so a father welcomes a lost son while the unimaginative, unresourceful stay-at-home son can’t make head nor tail of it all. A one percenter dines sumptuously, ignores one of the 99% at his gate and learns too late what he and those of his family should have known all along, but didn’t pay attention to.
Christ has called us to join him in living the tension between what is now and what is not yet. That is our hope, our knowledge that God is in charge, even when that leadership is hard to see. Our hope is like what Paul stated to the Romans, that absolutely nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God. That means that the love of God will prevail. That is our hope, however skewed life may be. Our calling is to live towards that reality, to embody the Christ-life which is where everything is ultimately headed according to God’s plan.
Together, you and I – we the church – are to be a preview of the age to come, the age of God’s ultimate glory. Our lives are to be prophetic, that is they are to provide an alternative imagination for the world. Things don’t have to be the way they are. God’s way will upset, unravel, disturb, reinvent life. Our hope, the hope which we present the world, the hope which we are to offer explanation for when asked, is that we are privileged to be part of God’s ongoing redemption of creation.
Peter finishes this section of his reflection and encouragement by reminding his readers that we have been enlisted in this God-work through our baptisms. We have been rescued through the water. Baptism saves us now – not because it removes dirt from our bodies but because it is the mark of a good conscience toward God. It is our celebration of the salvation which Christ’s resurrection has made possible. So every time we pour the water into the font we remind ourselves that God in Christ has claimed us for kingdom work which always grates on a world bent on its own ways.
And every time we gather around this table to break bread and share the cup we the Spirit inspires us with the power of Christ who offered his own body and blood for each and every one of us. Our hope is very real, very personal, very true. Speak that hope with every breath you take, every activity you do, every hand you touch, every wrong you right. God’s hope in you will change the world.
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.
1 Peter 3:13-22; Acts 17:22-31; John 14:15-22
“Whenever anyone asks you to speak of your hope, be ready to defend it” (1 Peter 3:15 CEB). Eugene Peterson reads Peter’s words this way: “Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy.” Can you do that? Can you explain the hope you have in Jesus Christ?
Here’s an old joke. What do you get when you cross a Presbyterian with a Jehovah’s Witness? Someone who knocks on doors but doesn’t have anything to say. In fairness to Presbyterians, the joke works with almost any old line Protestant denomination (Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians). Can you explain your hope in Jesus Christ?
Karen and Bruce Henderson have been telling us about Meriam Yehye Ibrahim, the Sudanese woman who has been sentenced to a 100 lashes for adultery because she married a Christian and to be hung because she refused to recant her declaration that she is a Christian. She is the kind of believer to whom Peter was writing. When Peter’s letter was circulating, Christians were being persecuted by Roman imperial edict. He was addressing real suffering for the faith.
Thankfully, and regretfully, we don’t have to face that oppression. But our lives aren’t completely devoid of persecution. It isn’t physical, but it is verbal. “What do you mean you can’t come on Sunday morning?” “You would rather go to a meeting at church than have me drop by for a visit?” “Why don’t you shop on Sunday? Everyone does.” Speak your hope. Don’t mumble apologies.
Back to our speechless door-knocker joke. What is your hope? You don’t need a dissertation. Fifty or a hundred words ought to do it. Is your hope located in the future? Is it pearly gates, golden streets, multi-roomed mansions the opposite of unmitigated heat and flames and eternal agony? Or is your hope an on-going reality of a right relationship with God and with neighbors made possible through the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ?
Our hope starts out very simply. We probably learned the core of it as a child: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” As we grow and mature, we wrestle with that simple statement. What does it really mean? What does it mean to me? We wander around in our thinking. The statement is too simplistic. We don’t understand the Bible. Only parts of It make sense. We latch on to a few verses and try to hang our whole faith on it. That works for a while until something upsets the equilibrium. Perhaps we reach the point where we realize that our hope is not something static or unchanging. God does something that knocks down the security of a narrow or rigid understanding we had grown comfortable with. And we need to re-examine what it is that we believe.
I saw a post on Facebook this past week which said: “Your life is your message to the world. Make sure it is inspiring.” That’s the kind of situation that Peter envisions. The believers he was writing to and for would be persecuted for their faith alone because unbelievers would have no charges to bring against them except to question them on their “hope.”
Unbelievers can see that Christians have something different; only “hope” gives us strength and joy in hardships and persecutions. Unbelievers will ask about it; believers must be ready to tell them. Christians need not worry about what they should say if accused, for they could prepare their defense ahead of time! Even in a hostile situation, believers can witness for Christ; their words might cause an accuser to come to faith. Paul certainly took advantage of every situation, no matter how hostile. Peter says that all Christians can and should be ready and able to give a reasonable defense of their faith. No one expects us to be a theologian like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Julian of Norwich, Theresa of Avila, Karl Barth, Rosemary Radford Reuther, or Martin Luther King, Jr.
But every Christian ought to be able to clearly explain his or her own reasons for being a Christian. Some Christians believe that faith is a personal matter that should be kept to oneself. It is true that we shouldn’t be boisterous or obnoxious in sharing our faith, but we should always be prepared to give an answer, gently and respectfully, when asked about our belief, our lifestyle, or our Christian perspective.
You and I can witness our hope without becoming theological scholars. In preparation we can pray, read the Bible, and review God’s promises every day. We can make praising Christ our daily practice. A focus on his power and glory will fortify us. We are to be ourselves in our witnessing, not imitating anyone else. Find the clues in your life that help explain God’s Good News to others. Plumbers can talk about God’s love like running water. Doctors can portray God’s love as a healing force. Respond with care. Leave melting stony hearts to God. Always listen to your audience. Where are their heads and hearts? What burdens them? Listen long and hard. Frame your witness in the words and at the level your audience will understand. If we aren’t questioned about our faith, is our faith showing? Or have we so buried it in the surrounding culture that there is no apparent difference between the way of the world and the way of Christ.
When Jesus said that he came not to bring peace but to bring a sword, what he was saying was that he was presenting an alternative vision of what life was to be about. He asserted that the kingdom of God – the realm of God’s rule – has come near. It is breaking into the world through the presence and ministry of Christ who was the Word become flesh and blood. Jesus wasn’t a specter of some other reality. He wasn’t an alien. He was one of us in the fullest and most complete sense. But he was counter-cultural because he didn’t blend in. He presented a living vision of what God was intending humanity to be.
Many of his parables express the tension of the now and the not yet. The world lives for the moment and doesn’t think ahead, so some of the wedding attendants run out of oil. The world thinks only the strong should survive, so a father welcomes a lost son while the unimaginative, unresourceful stay-at-home son can’t make head nor tail of it all. A one percenter dines sumptuously, ignores one of the 99% at his gate and learns too late what he and those of his family should have known all along, but didn’t pay attention to.
Christ has called us to join him in living the tension between what is now and what is not yet. That is our hope, our knowledge that God is in charge, even when that leadership is hard to see. Our hope is like what Paul stated to the Romans, that absolutely nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God. That means that the love of God will prevail. That is our hope, however skewed life may be. Our calling is to live towards that reality, to embody the Christ-life which is where everything is ultimately headed according to God’s plan.
Together, you and I – we the church – are to be a preview of the age to come, the age of God’s ultimate glory. Our lives are to be prophetic, that is they are to provide an alternative imagination for the world. Things don’t have to be the way they are. God’s way will upset, unravel, disturb, reinvent life. Our hope, the hope which we present the world, the hope which we are to offer explanation for when asked, is that we are privileged to be part of God’s ongoing redemption of creation.
Peter finishes this section of his reflection and encouragement by reminding his readers that we have been enlisted in this God-work through our baptisms. We have been rescued through the water. Baptism saves us now – not because it removes dirt from our bodies but because it is the mark of a good conscience toward God. It is our celebration of the salvation which Christ’s resurrection has made possible. So every time we pour the water into the font we remind ourselves that God in Christ has claimed us for kingdom work which always grates on a world bent on its own ways.
And every time we gather around this table to break bread and share the cup we the Spirit inspires us with the power of Christ who offered his own body and blood for each and every one of us. Our hope is very real, very personal, very true. Speak that hope with every breath you take, every activity you do, every hand you touch, every wrong you right. God’s hope in you will change the world.
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.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
A Spiritual Temple
A Spiritual Temple
1 Peter 2:2-10; Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31; John 14:1-14
Do you ever look at decorating magazines like Better Homes and Gardens, House and Garden, or House Beautiful? It is always delightful to see the different colors and kinds of furniture that are used as well as the creative use of space. When you look at those picture spreads do you notice anything? There is never any clutter. There are very few knickknacks. The counters are nearly bare. There is always a lot a open space. You can walk through the rooms and not trip over any thing.
I always wonder who lives in places like that. Does anything ever happen in those homes? They don’t look lived in. They look like museums. “Don’t touch anything, don’t do anything.” I don’t know about you, but I could never live in a place that like. If I did, I would have to have someone following me around picking up things and putting them in their hidden storage places. You hardly ever see a wastebasket. Who of us doesn’t make trash?
Those of you who know me well, know that I am not a neat freak. If there is a flat surface, there is going to be something on it. When the building team was working on this building I dreamed of having a two-room office suite: one room for public use and a private room to live in. Well, that didn’t happen. My piles, my clutter overflow. And I have to work hard to keep it from spreading elsewhere. Anyone can look at my office and wonder if anything happens there. Most of the time I know where I have put things. But if I do too many archaeological digs in the piles, things will get really messed up and I lose track of things. Then I have to start on the bottoms of piles and sort what needs to be thrown out and what needs to be kept.
As messy as I am, I am better off than a hoarder. Have you seen that show on television? People actually have to do interventions to rescue these people from their addictive behavior of keeping everything. These are people whose homes can’t be walked through except at the danger of having piles of things fall on you. A person can be just about certain that nothing can happen in that kind of setting, except for an avalanche..
We build our lives in a variety of ways, including what we keep and what we throw away. Not just physically but also intellectually and spiritually. Here’s an exercise to try some time. If you were a house, what kind would you be? A colonial, a ranch, a split-level, a bungalow, a Cape Cod, a southern plantation, or something out of Frank Lloyd Wright, just to name a few styles.
Some of our lives are like those showplace homes, with nothing out of place and every thing in its place. Does anything really happen in those lives? Other lives are full and modestly cluttered. Some are artsy-crafty, others very refined. Some lives are folksy or homey, and others prim and proper. Some of our lives are so full that they spill over wherever we are, and some of our lives are very Spartan and austere. Some of us rush out and get the latest gadgets. Others of us keep the old ones, repairing them as needed until they can no longer be repaired. It is a cultural divide with each of those folks thinking the other is foolish and ridiculous. People have always been that way.
We build our spiritual lives in much the same way we build our physical lives. They are bare or cluttered, simple or complex, austere or overflowing. However they are built, they have to have a firm foundation. That foundation is Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life.
If you have been downtown recently, you will have noticed that the mechanical shovel has been cleaning up the remains of what used to be the Emmitt House. There was basement under some of the building into which the debris fell as the building burned and later was demolished. The contractor has been busy removing all the soft debris – mostly wood from the cavities. Yesterday I noticed that the space had been filled in with the brick debris and dirt and tamped down by a sheep foot roller to compact the soil in order to provide a solid basis on which to put a new foundation and slab. This is necessary for any potential building that might be put on the space. The ability to support a structure must be uniform throughout. Remember Jesus’s parable of the buildings erected on sand and on rock?
We tend to think in terms of a very personal relationship with Jesus. Much of Jesus’ ministry was one on one: the woman with the ongoing hemorrhage, the invalid at the pool, the military officer who asked Jesus to just say the healing word, the woman at the well, the spiritually poor rich man, to name just a few. Jesus sent out followers in pairs to announce the coming of the good news. He dined with self-proclaimed saints and excluded sinners. He comforted a dying sinner on the cross next to his own. Jesus’ life and ministry directly effected many people beyond the twelve whom he called to travel with him. One by one and two by two Jesus built a kingdom community. The personal relationship is foundational to the spiritual temple which is to be the church.
As Peter matured in his understanding of Christ, particularly through Jesus’ resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit, he came to see that the realm of God’s rule was something more than the individual relationship that any one believer has with Jesus. Each believer, unique as each one is, becomes a living stone in the spiritual temple called the church. Peter chooses to use an architectural image, yet he doesn’t talk about building a building. We see that because while he uses the term “spiritual temple,” he counterbalances that with the terms “royal priesthood,” “chosen race,” “holy nation,” “a people.” “You have become this people so that you may speak of the wonderful acts of the one called you out of darkness into his amazing light.”
What Peter is saying to us, is that there is no “I” in church. Church is about being the people of God speaking God’s wonderful acts in Jesus Christ. That you which Peter talks about is not a singular you. It is the plural which is best spoken in the southern dialect, “y’all.” It is we together who make up the church.
Paul catches the same thought when he uses the image of the body of Christ. Not everyone is an ear or a mouth or a foot or hand. We are all cells in the body of Christ. All our cells have the same DNA, but the genes in the DNA call each cell to do special work so that some are hair, some are blood, some are skin, some are muscle, some are bone, etc. We share the same DNA, that saving grace of Christ. The Holy Spirit applies that DNA to us so that we are called to do different things as part of the body of Christ.
If we go back to the architectural image, as the living temple, some of us are load bearing beams, some are windows, some are wiring, some are drywall, etc. To continue with images related to building, a structure needs all the internal parts, often unseen, because they work together to hold the structure as one entire whole. Think of the trusses over your heads right now. It is not just a clever design. Each piece carries a portion of the load to the next piece in such a way that the total weight is distributed eventually to the tops of the columns and then to the foundation.
In our lives as part of the spiritual temple called the church, we are called to work together in such a way so that the weight of the work of being faithful is stressed and carried until it reaches Christ who is the foundation, the cornerstone, the key stone. What that means is that we are responsible for each other. Together we are the joists and studs, the beams and the cladding that make up the spiritual temple of the church. If one of us is not properly installed, if one of us is inferior, if one of us is rotting away, eventually the whole structure will suffer. If the one next to us is weak, we are called to strengthen them. If the one next to us is becoming unattached, we are called to help refasten them. We are responsible to see that each one of us the best living stone, board, nail, sheet rock possible so that together we may fully be God’s people in and for the world.
We are a spiritual temple. And every one of us is absolutely essential. None of us can be done without. “Once you hadn’t received mercy, but ow you have received mercy.”
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.
1 Peter 2:2-10; Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31; John 14:1-14
Do you ever look at decorating magazines like Better Homes and Gardens, House and Garden, or House Beautiful? It is always delightful to see the different colors and kinds of furniture that are used as well as the creative use of space. When you look at those picture spreads do you notice anything? There is never any clutter. There are very few knickknacks. The counters are nearly bare. There is always a lot a open space. You can walk through the rooms and not trip over any thing.
I always wonder who lives in places like that. Does anything ever happen in those homes? They don’t look lived in. They look like museums. “Don’t touch anything, don’t do anything.” I don’t know about you, but I could never live in a place that like. If I did, I would have to have someone following me around picking up things and putting them in their hidden storage places. You hardly ever see a wastebasket. Who of us doesn’t make trash?
Those of you who know me well, know that I am not a neat freak. If there is a flat surface, there is going to be something on it. When the building team was working on this building I dreamed of having a two-room office suite: one room for public use and a private room to live in. Well, that didn’t happen. My piles, my clutter overflow. And I have to work hard to keep it from spreading elsewhere. Anyone can look at my office and wonder if anything happens there. Most of the time I know where I have put things. But if I do too many archaeological digs in the piles, things will get really messed up and I lose track of things. Then I have to start on the bottoms of piles and sort what needs to be thrown out and what needs to be kept.
As messy as I am, I am better off than a hoarder. Have you seen that show on television? People actually have to do interventions to rescue these people from their addictive behavior of keeping everything. These are people whose homes can’t be walked through except at the danger of having piles of things fall on you. A person can be just about certain that nothing can happen in that kind of setting, except for an avalanche..
We build our lives in a variety of ways, including what we keep and what we throw away. Not just physically but also intellectually and spiritually. Here’s an exercise to try some time. If you were a house, what kind would you be? A colonial, a ranch, a split-level, a bungalow, a Cape Cod, a southern plantation, or something out of Frank Lloyd Wright, just to name a few styles.
Some of our lives are like those showplace homes, with nothing out of place and every thing in its place. Does anything really happen in those lives? Other lives are full and modestly cluttered. Some are artsy-crafty, others very refined. Some lives are folksy or homey, and others prim and proper. Some of our lives are so full that they spill over wherever we are, and some of our lives are very Spartan and austere. Some of us rush out and get the latest gadgets. Others of us keep the old ones, repairing them as needed until they can no longer be repaired. It is a cultural divide with each of those folks thinking the other is foolish and ridiculous. People have always been that way.
We build our spiritual lives in much the same way we build our physical lives. They are bare or cluttered, simple or complex, austere or overflowing. However they are built, they have to have a firm foundation. That foundation is Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life.
If you have been downtown recently, you will have noticed that the mechanical shovel has been cleaning up the remains of what used to be the Emmitt House. There was basement under some of the building into which the debris fell as the building burned and later was demolished. The contractor has been busy removing all the soft debris – mostly wood from the cavities. Yesterday I noticed that the space had been filled in with the brick debris and dirt and tamped down by a sheep foot roller to compact the soil in order to provide a solid basis on which to put a new foundation and slab. This is necessary for any potential building that might be put on the space. The ability to support a structure must be uniform throughout. Remember Jesus’s parable of the buildings erected on sand and on rock?
We tend to think in terms of a very personal relationship with Jesus. Much of Jesus’ ministry was one on one: the woman with the ongoing hemorrhage, the invalid at the pool, the military officer who asked Jesus to just say the healing word, the woman at the well, the spiritually poor rich man, to name just a few. Jesus sent out followers in pairs to announce the coming of the good news. He dined with self-proclaimed saints and excluded sinners. He comforted a dying sinner on the cross next to his own. Jesus’ life and ministry directly effected many people beyond the twelve whom he called to travel with him. One by one and two by two Jesus built a kingdom community. The personal relationship is foundational to the spiritual temple which is to be the church.
As Peter matured in his understanding of Christ, particularly through Jesus’ resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit, he came to see that the realm of God’s rule was something more than the individual relationship that any one believer has with Jesus. Each believer, unique as each one is, becomes a living stone in the spiritual temple called the church. Peter chooses to use an architectural image, yet he doesn’t talk about building a building. We see that because while he uses the term “spiritual temple,” he counterbalances that with the terms “royal priesthood,” “chosen race,” “holy nation,” “a people.” “You have become this people so that you may speak of the wonderful acts of the one called you out of darkness into his amazing light.”
What Peter is saying to us, is that there is no “I” in church. Church is about being the people of God speaking God’s wonderful acts in Jesus Christ. That you which Peter talks about is not a singular you. It is the plural which is best spoken in the southern dialect, “y’all.” It is we together who make up the church.
Paul catches the same thought when he uses the image of the body of Christ. Not everyone is an ear or a mouth or a foot or hand. We are all cells in the body of Christ. All our cells have the same DNA, but the genes in the DNA call each cell to do special work so that some are hair, some are blood, some are skin, some are muscle, some are bone, etc. We share the same DNA, that saving grace of Christ. The Holy Spirit applies that DNA to us so that we are called to do different things as part of the body of Christ.
If we go back to the architectural image, as the living temple, some of us are load bearing beams, some are windows, some are wiring, some are drywall, etc. To continue with images related to building, a structure needs all the internal parts, often unseen, because they work together to hold the structure as one entire whole. Think of the trusses over your heads right now. It is not just a clever design. Each piece carries a portion of the load to the next piece in such a way that the total weight is distributed eventually to the tops of the columns and then to the foundation.
In our lives as part of the spiritual temple called the church, we are called to work together in such a way so that the weight of the work of being faithful is stressed and carried until it reaches Christ who is the foundation, the cornerstone, the key stone. What that means is that we are responsible for each other. Together we are the joists and studs, the beams and the cladding that make up the spiritual temple of the church. If one of us is not properly installed, if one of us is inferior, if one of us is rotting away, eventually the whole structure will suffer. If the one next to us is weak, we are called to strengthen them. If the one next to us is becoming unattached, we are called to help refasten them. We are responsible to see that each one of us the best living stone, board, nail, sheet rock possible so that together we may fully be God’s people in and for the world.
We are a spiritual temple. And every one of us is absolutely essential. None of us can be done without. “Once you hadn’t received mercy, but ow you have received mercy.”
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.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Is Jesus a Stranger?
Is Jesus a Stranger?
John 10:1-10; Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25
This is “Good Shepherd” Sunday. Each year on the 4th Sunday of Easter, we celebrate Christ as the Good Shepherd. The gospel reading for each of the three years comes from John 10. The other readings coordinate with it and always include Psalm 23, which we will use for our “Sending Out to Witness” at the close of worship.
The shepherd image for Jesus is one of the best loved images for Jesus. It has been the subject of church art glass, frescoes, sculpture, paintings, iconography, and with Psalm 23, church music.
The shepherd image has two sides. Everyone in Jesus’ time knew something about sheep, shepherds, and shepherding, but what that they knew was not always good or appreciated. Shepherds weren’t on people’s lists of BFFs (best Facebook friends). Shepherds were a necessary appendage to society. A ready supply of sheep were needed for religious sacrifices and for festival food. A lot of cloth came from wool. Shepherds were tolerated. Like wet sheep, they were filthy, stinky, matted, weather-worn.
Yet the divine sense of humor kept using the shepherd image. Shepherds got “This just in from Bethlehem” angel-sung bulletin when Jesus was born. The feast-giving householder who got a mess of last minute excuses and “no-shows” sent the houseman out to find people to fill the empty seats. Combing of the back alleys and by-ways probably resulted in soiled shepherds sitting at supper. Jesus was linked with David whose early career training was as a shepherd. The prophets of the exilic times likened the nation’s leaders to shepherds. The references weren’t complimentary.
So for Jesus to take up the shepherd imagery for himself was another parry in the escalating theological feud with the institutional religious leaders, especially the Pharisees.
Jesus’ discourse about shepherding God’s people comes immediately on the end of the story of the man whom Jesus healed of his life-long blindness. The Pharisees protest, “Surely we aren’t blind, are we?” Jesus responds, “If you were blind, you wouldn’t have any sin, but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains”(John 9:41). From there Jesus goes into getting into the sheep pen. Is this the seam of two conversations skillfully put together? Or is this all one piece of theological cloth? Either way, the implication is that the religious leaders are poor shepherds who can’t guard the sheep properly or that they are thieves and outlaws raiding the dignity and sanctity of God’s people.
I regret to say that sheep have earned their bad rap for being sheep. They have their own form of “Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.” They are early addicts of the “if it feels good, let’s do it” philosophy. It doesn’t take much to distract a sheep. Sheep are not physically swift, so they are easy prey.
So who is a thief and outlaw? Jesus often speaks on multiple levels. He may be thinking of a sheep rustler. He may also be thinking of disruptive, sneaky people within the community. If we take the imagery as parable, these are people who have entered the flock—but not through the proper entrance—not through Jesus, who is later pictured as the gate. Judas Iscariot, who was one of the “insiders” – the Twelve – will be called a “thief” in a couple of chapters. Paul advised the Ephesian elders:
The phrase may also refer to people who “pretend” to be part of the flock, but who haven’t entered through the proper “door.” You may remember that in the 1990s federal agents in Arizona and New Mexico “joined” churches and Bible study groups which were supporting sanctuary for Central American refugees. Did John’s church face a similar problem? Were anti-Christian people sneaking into Christian communities? Christianity was an illegal religion in the Roman Empire. Christians were considered “atheists” because they didn’t worship the Roman gods.
Every congregation has had members who join because of the social status it gives them or because of family pressure. Church sociologist Bill Easum thinks that church membership should bring with it obligations rather than privileges. The example he used was parochial schools. Why do churches give members a discount? Why don’t they charge them more, so that children who are unchurched and poor might be able to attend for free or at a reduced rate? (1)
Who are the “thieves and bandits” who sneak into the flock today? If we listen to them, is Jesus a stranger?
Jesus uses a second image in these ten verses. He has been talking about himself as the shepherd or the gatekeeper. Now he shifts to the image of “gate.” Who are thieves and bandits who came before Jesus? Surely they aren’t all the people who came before him. That would include John the Baptist, the prophets, Moses, and Abraham—people who were servants of God and who pointed to Jesus.
The Greek word we translate as “before” doesn’t have to mean “precede.” It can also mean “in front of.” With that sense it could refer to those who opposed Jesus to his face. The thieves and bandits could be contemporaries with Jesus. They are the ones who refuse to come to Jesus so they can have life (John 5:40). They are the ones who are blind to see where Jesus has come from (John 9:29, 41). By refusing to see Jesus as the revelation from God, they are trying to enter the sheepfold by some other means.
These thieves and bandits are contemporaries of Jesus because he tells us, “The sheep didn’t listen to them.” If “sheep” refers to the believers in Christ, they would have had to “not listen to” the thieves and bandits during the ministry of Jesus. The people they did not listen to were those who denied Jesus as the revelation of God. The “sheep” believed that he was. They entered the sheepfold through Jesus. The promise was given to them: They will be saved. They will come in. They will go out. They will find pasture.
When does this happen? Is it our heavenly existence or is it part of our living the abundant life now? Whenever it happens, Jesus is both the way in and the way out. Finding pasture in Psalm 23 happens after going out. Could this imply that coming in and being huddled together in church is not finding pasture? There is safety in coming into the sheepfold, yet we are also promised safety in our going out. Even though the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, Jesus promises to keep us safe.
In the Greek grammar, the thieves and outlaws will keep on coming in the present tense. Jesus has come once for all time. His abundant life is Spirit driven in us forever. Yet the thieves and outlaws of the world are constantly trying to break in and steal it away. Is Jesus a stranger to us when we fail to listen to him and are conned by religious sounding bafflegab that pilfers his precious gift of grace from us?
Pastor Rich Mayfield thinks that “Jesus was a teller of stories rather than an issuer of edicts. Jesus invited us to use our imagination as we ventured forth on our spiritual journey”(2) He makes a contrast between the factual accuracy of fundamentalism and “hyperbole of the heart,” which he finds in scriptures. An example:
Is Jesus a stranger? Or are you hearing his word?
(1) Cited by Brian Stoffregen, Gospel Notes for Next Week, “John 10:1-10,” Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 11:30 AM.
(2) Ibid.
(3) Ibid.
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.
John 10:1-10; Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25
This is “Good Shepherd” Sunday. Each year on the 4th Sunday of Easter, we celebrate Christ as the Good Shepherd. The gospel reading for each of the three years comes from John 10. The other readings coordinate with it and always include Psalm 23, which we will use for our “Sending Out to Witness” at the close of worship.
The shepherd image for Jesus is one of the best loved images for Jesus. It has been the subject of church art glass, frescoes, sculpture, paintings, iconography, and with Psalm 23, church music.
The shepherd image has two sides. Everyone in Jesus’ time knew something about sheep, shepherds, and shepherding, but what that they knew was not always good or appreciated. Shepherds weren’t on people’s lists of BFFs (best Facebook friends). Shepherds were a necessary appendage to society. A ready supply of sheep were needed for religious sacrifices and for festival food. A lot of cloth came from wool. Shepherds were tolerated. Like wet sheep, they were filthy, stinky, matted, weather-worn.
Yet the divine sense of humor kept using the shepherd image. Shepherds got “This just in from Bethlehem” angel-sung bulletin when Jesus was born. The feast-giving householder who got a mess of last minute excuses and “no-shows” sent the houseman out to find people to fill the empty seats. Combing of the back alleys and by-ways probably resulted in soiled shepherds sitting at supper. Jesus was linked with David whose early career training was as a shepherd. The prophets of the exilic times likened the nation’s leaders to shepherds. The references weren’t complimentary.
So for Jesus to take up the shepherd imagery for himself was another parry in the escalating theological feud with the institutional religious leaders, especially the Pharisees.
Jesus’ discourse about shepherding God’s people comes immediately on the end of the story of the man whom Jesus healed of his life-long blindness. The Pharisees protest, “Surely we aren’t blind, are we?” Jesus responds, “If you were blind, you wouldn’t have any sin, but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains”(John 9:41). From there Jesus goes into getting into the sheep pen. Is this the seam of two conversations skillfully put together? Or is this all one piece of theological cloth? Either way, the implication is that the religious leaders are poor shepherds who can’t guard the sheep properly or that they are thieves and outlaws raiding the dignity and sanctity of God’s people.
I regret to say that sheep have earned their bad rap for being sheep. They have their own form of “Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.” They are early addicts of the “if it feels good, let’s do it” philosophy. It doesn’t take much to distract a sheep. Sheep are not physically swift, so they are easy prey.
So who is a thief and outlaw? Jesus often speaks on multiple levels. He may be thinking of a sheep rustler. He may also be thinking of disruptive, sneaky people within the community. If we take the imagery as parable, these are people who have entered the flock—but not through the proper entrance—not through Jesus, who is later pictured as the gate. Judas Iscariot, who was one of the “insiders” – the Twelve – will be called a “thief” in a couple of chapters. Paul advised the Ephesian elders:
“Watch yourselves and the whole flock, in which the Holy Spirit has placed you as supervisors, to shepherd God’s church, which he obtained with the death of his own Son. I know that, after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you and won't spare the flock” (In Acts 20:28-29).In a general sense the phrase “thief and outlaw’ may refer to any deceptive leader or people—people with hidden agendas. Sometimes church leaders, ruling elders as well as teaching elders, may not always be up-front, open and transparent about their plans or problems. They may be more concerned for themselves than for the group. Thieves and bandits are people who take for themselves without much thought about what others are losing.
The phrase may also refer to people who “pretend” to be part of the flock, but who haven’t entered through the proper “door.” You may remember that in the 1990s federal agents in Arizona and New Mexico “joined” churches and Bible study groups which were supporting sanctuary for Central American refugees. Did John’s church face a similar problem? Were anti-Christian people sneaking into Christian communities? Christianity was an illegal religion in the Roman Empire. Christians were considered “atheists” because they didn’t worship the Roman gods.
Every congregation has had members who join because of the social status it gives them or because of family pressure. Church sociologist Bill Easum thinks that church membership should bring with it obligations rather than privileges. The example he used was parochial schools. Why do churches give members a discount? Why don’t they charge them more, so that children who are unchurched and poor might be able to attend for free or at a reduced rate? (1)
Who are the “thieves and bandits” who sneak into the flock today? If we listen to them, is Jesus a stranger?
Jesus uses a second image in these ten verses. He has been talking about himself as the shepherd or the gatekeeper. Now he shifts to the image of “gate.” Who are thieves and bandits who came before Jesus? Surely they aren’t all the people who came before him. That would include John the Baptist, the prophets, Moses, and Abraham—people who were servants of God and who pointed to Jesus.
The Greek word we translate as “before” doesn’t have to mean “precede.” It can also mean “in front of.” With that sense it could refer to those who opposed Jesus to his face. The thieves and bandits could be contemporaries with Jesus. They are the ones who refuse to come to Jesus so they can have life (John 5:40). They are the ones who are blind to see where Jesus has come from (John 9:29, 41). By refusing to see Jesus as the revelation from God, they are trying to enter the sheepfold by some other means.
These thieves and bandits are contemporaries of Jesus because he tells us, “The sheep didn’t listen to them.” If “sheep” refers to the believers in Christ, they would have had to “not listen to” the thieves and bandits during the ministry of Jesus. The people they did not listen to were those who denied Jesus as the revelation of God. The “sheep” believed that he was. They entered the sheepfold through Jesus. The promise was given to them: They will be saved. They will come in. They will go out. They will find pasture.
When does this happen? Is it our heavenly existence or is it part of our living the abundant life now? Whenever it happens, Jesus is both the way in and the way out. Finding pasture in Psalm 23 happens after going out. Could this imply that coming in and being huddled together in church is not finding pasture? There is safety in coming into the sheepfold, yet we are also promised safety in our going out. Even though the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, Jesus promises to keep us safe.
In the Greek grammar, the thieves and outlaws will keep on coming in the present tense. Jesus has come once for all time. His abundant life is Spirit driven in us forever. Yet the thieves and outlaws of the world are constantly trying to break in and steal it away. Is Jesus a stranger to us when we fail to listen to him and are conned by religious sounding bafflegab that pilfers his precious gift of grace from us?
Pastor Rich Mayfield thinks that “Jesus was a teller of stories rather than an issuer of edicts. Jesus invited us to use our imagination as we ventured forth on our spiritual journey”(2) He makes a contrast between the factual accuracy of fundamentalism and “hyperbole of the heart,” which he finds in scriptures. An example:
“A husband looks deeply into the big blue eyes of his wife of many years. He sees the accumulating wrinkles, the sprinkling of gray, the passage of time. And yet still he boldly and truthfully proclaims, ‘You are the most beautiful woman in the world.’ It is the truth. Now, it may not be factually verifiable. She might not actually win the Miss America contest that year. But there is no question in his mind that what he is saying is the truth. What he is doing is offering up a ‘hyperbole of the heart.’ He is sharing what really matters to him. He is confessing his love.”(3)A hyperbole is a figure a speech. It is an exaggeration, but even more so, it is something that is not meant to be taken literally. That is true of our text. Jesus is not a literal shepherd. In today’s world hi might have used the image of a webmaster or an activities director. We are not literal sheep. He isn’t talking about literal thieves and bandits. At the same time, Jesus is speaking the truth. His truth is so big that it can only be communicated figuratively. Some who hear it will be captured by and share in the truth of the figurative speech. Others who hear it will be lost—blind and deaf to his truths.
Is Jesus a stranger? Or are you hearing his word?
(1) Cited by Brian Stoffregen, Gospel Notes for Next Week, “John 10:1-10,” Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 11:30 AM.
(2) Ibid.
(3) Ibid.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Burning Hearts or Burned Out?
Burning Hearts or Burned Out?
Luke 24:13-35; Acts 2:14a, 36-41; 1 Peter 1:17-23
Saddleback Church in California is famous for its hospitality; the church welcomes strangers as guests instead of as visitors. “The term ‘visitor’ implies that they’re not here to stay,” writes pastor Rick Warren in his book The Purpose-Driven Church. “The term ‘guest’ implies that this is someone for whom you do everything you can to make them feel comfortable.” For a guest, we do everything. For a visitor, not so much.
Saddleback staffer Erik Rees leads a “guest services team” that’s in charge of first impressions — they’re determined to be good hosts to the strangers who come to them. Traffic attendants are trained to welcome people and point them toward the worship venues, greeters are positioned along walkways to welcome people and answer questions, and ushers are in place in the worship venues so they can respond to people and seat them. The goal is that each guest will receive at least three greetings before sitting down in worship.
These first impressions are critical. Warren believes that guests “are deciding whether or not to come back long before the pastor speaks.”(1)
“Hospitality.” Those of you who were here in the fall of 2001, might remember that the word “hospitality” was used frequently. That was the first key word about our new building. It was what people first sensed from the facility itself. And it was what people needed to sense from those of us who were already here.
As Warren says, we will do anything necessary to make a guest comfortable and at home. Visitors, on the other hand, are often little more than tourists. No slight is intended. And we mean to treat visitors as hospitably as guests. But we know, and you know, that your family members visiting from out of town are happy to join you in worship, but they are here just a few days and will return to their own locations and schedules. Guests may stay around.
The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews admonished his readers, “Don’t neglect to open up your homes to guests, because by doing this some have been hosts to angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2 ceb). That would certainly describe the situation with the two travelers on the road to Emmaus that first evening of Easter. Jesus plays multiple roles. He is the unrecognized stranger. He becomes the welcomed guest. And then, offered the honor of starting the meal, he becomes the host, at which point he was recognized. That’s when everything changed.
You will remember that the two people walking to Emmaus placed great hope in the Nazarene whom the religious leaders had handed over to be sentenced to death. And they didn’t know what to make of the story the women told about Jesus being alive or the report that friends had brought that the tomb was empty.
Like the tomb, their lives were now empty. Their hopes, once lifted very high, had been smashed with the hammer blows nailing Jesus to the cross. There was nothing more to do than go and reclaim some pieces of their former lives, endure the ‘I told you so’ taunts of their family and neighbors. Some were headed back to fishing boats, to a tax office, to missed appointments, to abandoned families, and to mercifully deadening routines. That will teach us to dream, they thought to themselves.
The question which had not yet occurred to them is this: For all we have been through, how are we different and what does that mean for the future? It was too early for that. They were spent physically, emotionally, spiritually, and probably financially as well. They were in a stupor when the stranger traveling at a reasonable gait made to pass them, but noticing their blank stares, inquired about what they pondering in such a doleful manner.
The two travelers could have told the stranger to mind his own business. Grief and confusion often erupt that way. We don’t want to admit that we are flummoxed, so we shut others out. Instead the two invite the stranger into their misery, thinking that he hasn’t a clue to what has been going on. The stranger, it turns out, knows more than they do, at least with respect to the background. “You mean that you didn’t believe all that the prophets said about the Christ – Messiah – anointed one – having to suffer before entering glory.”
Because the two were hospitable to the stranger, they got a step-by-step Bible study about Jesus. Today we would have to buy those lessons on compact discs to play through the car audio system on long trips. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the speed of the walkers didn’t pick up a bit as the salvation story was unfolded for them. Anyway, soon the two were at their destination.
They insisted that the stranger stop for a meal with them before continuing. As good hosts they offered the food to the guest first. And as was surely the custom, the guest took the loaf of bread and prayed the grace, “Blessed be the Lord our God who gives grain for bread.” Then he broke it. At that point, the stranger-become-guest became host because the two immediately knew who it was who had traveled with them, illumined their faith, and gave himself for them.
“Weren’t our hearts on fire when he spoke to us along the road and when he explained the scriptures for us?”
For Cleopas and friend, everything had changed. Just as the risen Christ was no longer in the tomb but abroad in the world, so Christ was no longer confined in the tomb of their despair and disappointment. He was abroad in their lives. He disappeared from their sight when he took, blessed, and broke the bread. He had taken up residence in their hearts. His absence is now explained by his presence in them.
Every teacher has had students about whom he or she have wished that they had a USB port that the teacher could plug into and download the information into the student’s brain. In a sense, that is what Jesus did with Cleopas and friend. He gave them a concise history of God’s activity that led up to Christ’s incarnation into the world, his ministry with the world, his crucifixion by the world, and his resurrection for the world.
If you attend a Good Friday worship here, you always get a list of readings for what is called the Great Vigil of Easter. The readings begin with creation. The next ones are Noah’s deliverance by the ark from the flood, Isaac’s near sacrifice and the substitutionary ram, and Israel’s deliverance from Egypt at the Red Sea. Moving on to the prophets, Isaiah offers words of salvation for all, Proverbs personifies wisdom, and Ezekiel promises a new heart, a new spirit, and indeed new life to the valley of dry bones, Zephaniah closes out with the promise that God’s people will be gathered. It is after those nine readings that the liturgy shifts to a gospel announcement of Christ’s resurrection. Every Holy Saturday we have the opportunity relive God’s plan of salvation for humanity and experience it fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ. That salvation story is what Jesus recounted to the Emmaus walkers. And it burned within them until the fuse was ignited with Jesus’ self-disclosure through breaking the bread.
We have been through the events of holy week and Easter morning. Are our hearts burning within us like Cleopas and friend, or did we miss ignition and our hearts, our faith have, gone cold, burned out?
God’s love for us through creation, promise, fulfillment, ministry, crucifixion and resurrection is an unquenchable fire burning within us if properly fanned into flame through the working of the Holy Spirit. Does Easter only visit us and pass on it’s way until another year passes? Or is Easter a guest that we have welcomed, invited in, hosted, and become changed by?
(1) Warren, Rick. The Purpose-Driven Church: Growth without Compromising Your Message & Mission. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995), 257, 260-61.
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.
Luke 24:13-35; Acts 2:14a, 36-41; 1 Peter 1:17-23
Saddleback Church in California is famous for its hospitality; the church welcomes strangers as guests instead of as visitors. “The term ‘visitor’ implies that they’re not here to stay,” writes pastor Rick Warren in his book The Purpose-Driven Church. “The term ‘guest’ implies that this is someone for whom you do everything you can to make them feel comfortable.” For a guest, we do everything. For a visitor, not so much.
Saddleback staffer Erik Rees leads a “guest services team” that’s in charge of first impressions — they’re determined to be good hosts to the strangers who come to them. Traffic attendants are trained to welcome people and point them toward the worship venues, greeters are positioned along walkways to welcome people and answer questions, and ushers are in place in the worship venues so they can respond to people and seat them. The goal is that each guest will receive at least three greetings before sitting down in worship.
These first impressions are critical. Warren believes that guests “are deciding whether or not to come back long before the pastor speaks.”(1)
“Hospitality.” Those of you who were here in the fall of 2001, might remember that the word “hospitality” was used frequently. That was the first key word about our new building. It was what people first sensed from the facility itself. And it was what people needed to sense from those of us who were already here.
As Warren says, we will do anything necessary to make a guest comfortable and at home. Visitors, on the other hand, are often little more than tourists. No slight is intended. And we mean to treat visitors as hospitably as guests. But we know, and you know, that your family members visiting from out of town are happy to join you in worship, but they are here just a few days and will return to their own locations and schedules. Guests may stay around.
The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews admonished his readers, “Don’t neglect to open up your homes to guests, because by doing this some have been hosts to angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2 ceb). That would certainly describe the situation with the two travelers on the road to Emmaus that first evening of Easter. Jesus plays multiple roles. He is the unrecognized stranger. He becomes the welcomed guest. And then, offered the honor of starting the meal, he becomes the host, at which point he was recognized. That’s when everything changed.
You will remember that the two people walking to Emmaus placed great hope in the Nazarene whom the religious leaders had handed over to be sentenced to death. And they didn’t know what to make of the story the women told about Jesus being alive or the report that friends had brought that the tomb was empty.
Like the tomb, their lives were now empty. Their hopes, once lifted very high, had been smashed with the hammer blows nailing Jesus to the cross. There was nothing more to do than go and reclaim some pieces of their former lives, endure the ‘I told you so’ taunts of their family and neighbors. Some were headed back to fishing boats, to a tax office, to missed appointments, to abandoned families, and to mercifully deadening routines. That will teach us to dream, they thought to themselves.
The question which had not yet occurred to them is this: For all we have been through, how are we different and what does that mean for the future? It was too early for that. They were spent physically, emotionally, spiritually, and probably financially as well. They were in a stupor when the stranger traveling at a reasonable gait made to pass them, but noticing their blank stares, inquired about what they pondering in such a doleful manner.
The two travelers could have told the stranger to mind his own business. Grief and confusion often erupt that way. We don’t want to admit that we are flummoxed, so we shut others out. Instead the two invite the stranger into their misery, thinking that he hasn’t a clue to what has been going on. The stranger, it turns out, knows more than they do, at least with respect to the background. “You mean that you didn’t believe all that the prophets said about the Christ – Messiah – anointed one – having to suffer before entering glory.”
Because the two were hospitable to the stranger, they got a step-by-step Bible study about Jesus. Today we would have to buy those lessons on compact discs to play through the car audio system on long trips. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the speed of the walkers didn’t pick up a bit as the salvation story was unfolded for them. Anyway, soon the two were at their destination.
They insisted that the stranger stop for a meal with them before continuing. As good hosts they offered the food to the guest first. And as was surely the custom, the guest took the loaf of bread and prayed the grace, “Blessed be the Lord our God who gives grain for bread.” Then he broke it. At that point, the stranger-become-guest became host because the two immediately knew who it was who had traveled with them, illumined their faith, and gave himself for them.
“Weren’t our hearts on fire when he spoke to us along the road and when he explained the scriptures for us?”
For Cleopas and friend, everything had changed. Just as the risen Christ was no longer in the tomb but abroad in the world, so Christ was no longer confined in the tomb of their despair and disappointment. He was abroad in their lives. He disappeared from their sight when he took, blessed, and broke the bread. He had taken up residence in their hearts. His absence is now explained by his presence in them.
Every teacher has had students about whom he or she have wished that they had a USB port that the teacher could plug into and download the information into the student’s brain. In a sense, that is what Jesus did with Cleopas and friend. He gave them a concise history of God’s activity that led up to Christ’s incarnation into the world, his ministry with the world, his crucifixion by the world, and his resurrection for the world.
If you attend a Good Friday worship here, you always get a list of readings for what is called the Great Vigil of Easter. The readings begin with creation. The next ones are Noah’s deliverance by the ark from the flood, Isaac’s near sacrifice and the substitutionary ram, and Israel’s deliverance from Egypt at the Red Sea. Moving on to the prophets, Isaiah offers words of salvation for all, Proverbs personifies wisdom, and Ezekiel promises a new heart, a new spirit, and indeed new life to the valley of dry bones, Zephaniah closes out with the promise that God’s people will be gathered. It is after those nine readings that the liturgy shifts to a gospel announcement of Christ’s resurrection. Every Holy Saturday we have the opportunity relive God’s plan of salvation for humanity and experience it fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ. That salvation story is what Jesus recounted to the Emmaus walkers. And it burned within them until the fuse was ignited with Jesus’ self-disclosure through breaking the bread.
We have been through the events of holy week and Easter morning. Are our hearts burning within us like Cleopas and friend, or did we miss ignition and our hearts, our faith have, gone cold, burned out?
God’s love for us through creation, promise, fulfillment, ministry, crucifixion and resurrection is an unquenchable fire burning within us if properly fanned into flame through the working of the Holy Spirit. Does Easter only visit us and pass on it’s way until another year passes? Or is Easter a guest that we have welcomed, invited in, hosted, and become changed by?
(1) Warren, Rick. The Purpose-Driven Church: Growth without Compromising Your Message & Mission. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995), 257, 260-61.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)