Prepared, Equipped, Blameless

1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37

Yochtangee Park in Chillicothe is a delightful place to watch waterfowl. There are some swans, several varieties of wild and domestic ducks, and farm and Canadian geese. You do have to be careful where you walk. Wherever the geese go, the geese go. But Canadian geese do have other, more admirable qualities. They are devoted parents and they mate for life. Their faithfulness is astonishing.

Consider this true story: a pair of geese chose a rather unfortunate nesting spot located close to a road. A few days after laying her eggs, the female wandered into the path of a car. Luckily for her, all she suffered was a broken leg. But while she was whisked off to a veterinary clinic and admitted into the vet’s recovery ward, her faithful mate was left alone to tend their nest.

The male not only continued to do all the nest-sitting; he also established a unique “coffee break” ritual for himself. When he periodically left the nest to eat and drink, he returned by way of the road where his mate was injured. There he settled down and patiently waited for his wounded mate to reappear. When the call of the nest finally overwhelmed him, the male reluctantly made his way back to his solitary incubation duties.

Happily, the female mended nicely and the vet released her back to her family by the road a week later. This is a poignant example of true faithfulness and devotion. In a world of fads that quickly come and go, of technology that is swiftly outdated and replaced, of relationships that seem superficial, self-serving, and disposable, what does it mean to be faithful?

On this first Sunday in Advent, Paul’s opening words to the Christ community in Corinth reminds us that the ultimate example of faithfulness is demonstrated to human beings by God’s gift to us of the incarnate Word, the Word whose coming in the midst of humanity we are about to celebrate. In the coming of Christ, God is faithful. Faithfulness is one of the defining attributes of the Divine. God sit’s by the side of the road and waits for humanity.

For Paul, the faithfulness of God was undeniably part and parcel of the righteousness of God. If God was truly righteous, then God must be unquestionably faithful. The righteousness of God is the expression of God’s faithfulness to God’s own self, for without faithfulness, God’s redemptive activity in Christ would be empty and meaningless.

God’s providence is also bound up in God’s faithfulness—for a providential God to work out the divine plans according to the divine will requires unswerving faithfulness. The classic understanding of divine providence developed by John Calvin insists that God’s constant, providential governance of all that occurs directs creation toward a preordained and saving outcome. God created the world as “good,” and come the end of the age that “goodness” will be restored to the perfection God intended from before Creation’s Day One. Unless God is faithful to this providential trajectory, Calvin insisted, all creation will move along on its own accord in an aimless, unguided meandering.

Albert Einstein put Calvin’s position in a memorable aphorism: “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.”

When we stop and think about our lives, each of us can come up with events in them that may only be explained by God’s faithfulness. We don’t often see it before it happens, but only as we look in our life’s rearview mirror. Sometimes it is hard to see single events, but when you string a series of things together, the flow of God’s faithful love is revealed.

God’s steadfast faithfulness is something other than a theological mandate or a biblical doctrine. It is a loving, saving power working in our lives every day.

Here’s an example of how one person keeps God’s faithfulness present. Pastor Ronald Patterson, of Dayton, tells of visiting a parishioner’s home one early March day:

“We were talking, and suddenly I looked up on a corner shelf and noticed a Christmas ornament hanging—almost as though it had been forgotten in the mad rush to put away the holiday season. I quickly looked away, hoping that my glance had not been noticed. But the woman caught me. Before I could say a thing, she smiled and said: ‘No, I didn’t forget. Every year when I clean up the mess, I choose one ornament to leave up to remind me that Christmas is not just one day or one season—but a lifetime. That little bulb is my reminder that Jesus walks with me every day.’” (“Cleaning Up the Mess,” Shiloh Springs Church, 24 December 1994.)

Could there be a better lesson in faithfulness to learn?

This is why Paul says that we were made rich through Christ in everything. God’s faithfulness was fully experienced in Jesus Christ. God’s eternal plan and providential care is the basis for our preparation for all the good things that God has in store for believers in this age and the final age. Just as Jesus’ hearers were familiar with the seasons of a fig tree, so our ongoing experience of God’s presence and activity in our lives – even if we view it only by looking backwards – guides us into the knowledge that God’s care does not diminish but increases throughout our sojourn of earthly life.

Paul reminds the Corinthian faithful that it is God and not just the gifts of God’s spirit which made them rich. God’s grace had increased their ability to speak about their faith, as well as their spiritual knowledge and understanding. The changed lives of the Corinthian believers validated the truth of the gospel message that had been preached to them.

The Corinthian church members had all the spiritual gifts they needed to live the Christian life, to witness for Christ, and to stand against the paganism and immorality of Corinth. These gifts would help the church battle sin both inside the congregation and outside in the world. These believers in Corinth lacked nothing—they had every spiritual gift—and because of this they more eagerly looked forward in faith and hope while they waited for the Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. As part of the gospel message, the promise of Christ’s ultimate return in triumph motivates all believers to live for him and eagerly await the time when they will live with him in his kingdom.

Because Christ has died for believers, given them spiritual gifts, and promised to return for them, Paul guaranteed the Corinthian believers – and us – that God will also consider them blameless. This guarantee was not because of their great gifts or their shining performance, but because of what Jesus Christ accomplished for them through his death and resurrection.

Which brings us to this table, Christ’s table, where all who believe in him can welcome his ministry in their lives and affirm their trust in the glory which he has prepared.

This first Sunday of Advent proclaims God’s faithfulness to the human race. Regardless of our disabilities, our failures, our weirdness, our belligerence, our seeming indifference, a faithful God works in our faithfulness. Receive the spiritual gifts which God has allocated to you at this point in your lives. Recognize the great care and blessing of God bestowed on us in Christ Jesus. And then be prepared, equipped and blameless as we remember the coming of the Lord.

General resource: “God is Faithful” (1 Corinthians 1:3-9), December 1, 1996, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=2498; accessed November 28, 2014.

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.

Reigning Thanks

Psalm 100; Ezekiel 34 11-16, 20-24; Matthew 25:31-46

If I were simply to speak the title of today’s sermon, “Reigning Thanks,” your ears would probably tell your brain that it is “raining thanks,” as in “raining cats and dogs.” That is certainly an impression that the listener might get from listening to the images the psalmist uses in Psalm 100. Thanks are raining down in torrents.
• Shout triumphantly
• Come with shouts of joy
• Enter God’s gates with thanks
• Enter his courtyards with praise
• Thank him [exclamation point]
• Bless God’s name
Thanks are all over the place. Thanks are teeming everywhere.

The homophone for “raining” is “reigning” – r-e-i-g-n-i-n-g – as in a monarch reigning. That is also an appropriate hearing of the word for today, which is the last Sunday in the yearly cycle of remembrance of God’s activity in and for the world, all for God’s glory. This is “Reign of Christ” Sunday, when we reflect on the promised eternal reign of Christ at the right hand of God, “when everyone in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11).

We are on the bridge between the yet and the not yet. Jesus told his listeners at the beginning of his ministry, “Here comes God’s kingdom!” (Mark 1:15). In other words, it is here, right now. We only see hints of it. But God’s eternity is breaking into the chaos of our lives just as God’s eternal creating breath broke into the chaos of the nothingness at the beginning of what we call creation, poetically described in the opening verses of the book of Genesis.

Psalm 100 is an introductory psalm. On one level it introduces the ones reciting it into the presence of God, as when physically entering the Temple worship space. But the psalm also introduces the worshiper into the very nature of worship. There is physical as well as spiritual movement. Offering the psalm is an act of praise and thanksgiving. The psalm is both the thanksgiving and the act of praising thanks.

The psalm describes the character of praise. The initial actions are those that belong to the approach to a king. Subjects greeted the king with a shout of acclamation. To serve the king is to have him as sovereign. To call oneself a servant of the king is to acknowledge dependence upon and subjection to the king. Serving the king or “Lord” is the alternative to serving other lords or kings. Joshua had challenged the people to choose whom they would serve, the gods of the land beyond the Euphrates, the gods of Egypt, the gods of the Canaanites, or the Lord.

On the mount of Jerusalem, two major buildings existed side by side. One was the palace or house of the king and other was the palace or house that represented the divine king, the Temple of God. The prophets sought to represent the heavenly ruler to the kings in the line descending from David. And they were often resisted, even severely. The early church sought to proclaim “Jesus is Lord” in their worship in an empire which required people to say “Caesar is lord.” Politics and theology have been on opposite sides much of the history of God’s involvement with humanity.

The worship which Psalm 100 inaugurates is “confessional in purpose”(1). The people of God assemble in public worship to declare that the one whose name is the Lord is indeed god, the only god, the one to whom the name “God” [capital G] belongs exclusively. Think of it as early trademark protection. No one else can use that name. “He made us; we belong to him” is shorthand for the salvation history of election, deliverance, and covenant by which Israel was brought into existence as the people of God – God’s flock, God’s pastured sheep. But it is more than just the people uniquely called of God. Without the slightest embarrassment the psalmist calls the whole of the earth to recognize as king and God the Lord, the One who creates and cares for his people.

It is that emphasis of God’s call to the whole world that sets the context for the parable that Jesus told of the final days, of the judging of the nations. The call of the psalmist has been to the inexpressible joy of being in relationship with God, The very presence of God is joy. With God in the midst of the people, there is enthusiastic and authentic worship. God is seen as Savior, God is for the people. God is a loving, empowering, ennobling power for good, not a stern taskmaster bent on abasing people. Worship is good, worship is joy because as far as time runs, from forever ago to forever from now, time – past, present, and future – is ruled by the loyal love and faithfulness of the Lord.

The problem highlighted in Jesus’ parable is that some people refuse the call to praise and thanksgiving. They refuse to acknowledge that the Lord is God, the eternal ruler, the king beyond all kings, the divine king. Like treacherous and disloyal fiefs, they ignore and snub the Lord. When the path of life divides for the palace of the world or the house of the Lord, they head for the palace of the world. They think only of themselves, they forget the rule of creation that all people were, are, and will be created in the image of God, thereby making no one being better or worse than another.

These people are aghast when they find out that they didn’t recognize Christ in neighbor or immigrant, as if Christ was supposed to wear a special uniform or have a tattoo recognizable by anyone in the know. They fail to understand the power and authority of Christ who gladly and willingly set aside the perks of divinity to become totally human, to fully experience human life as human beings experience it, and to completely save humanity in the face of all that charms, entraps, and lures us away from God.

The others who did recognize Jesus in neighbors and immigrants were those who understood that integrity is doing what is right when no one is looking.

Elaine Pagels(2) calls Jesus words the foundation for a radical new approach to society based on God-given dignity and the value of every human being. Human beings are not to be abused, tortured, humiliated for a very simple reason. “Whatever you do to someone else, you do to me.” So whether we are talking about Ferguson, Missouri, or Homs, Syria, Pyongyang, North Korea, or Monrovia, Liberia, how people are treated by other people is how Jesus is treated by those same people. “Because they do it to us” is an excuse that doesn’t carry weight with Jesus.

Jesus’ words are a statement about God. Jesus’ God, the psalmist’s God, our God is not a remote supreme being on a throne high above the clouds or in a galaxy far, far away. Jesus said, “God is here,” in the messiness and ambiguity of human life. And just because people shout, “God is great,” while they commit horrible atrocities, it does not mean they do God’s work which Jesus never did or speak God’s word about things that Jesus never said anything about. Whatever is done is done to Jesus. Whatever is said is said to Jesus.

Most importantly, God is interested in us. Not a nameless, faceless us, but you and me, each one of us, personally, eyeball to eyeball, on a first name basis. God wants to save our souls. God wants a reign of thanks to so fill our lives that we enter the house of the divine with every thing we do, with every word we speak, with every breath we take. We breathe in, “Thank you,” and we exhale, “Lord.” “Thank you, Lord”; “Thank you, Lord”; however many times a minute, an hour, a day, a lifetime.

Hymn 647 in Glory to God is written by Henry Smith. Its words are simple:
“Give thanks with a grateful heart;
give thanks to the Holy One;
give thanks because we’re given Jesus Christ, the Son.
And now let the weak say, “We are strong”;
let the poor say, “We are rich
because of what the Lord has done for us!”
Give thanks. Give thanks.”(3)

May Thanks reign now and forever from now. Amen.

(1) James L. Mays, Psalms (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1994), p. 318.
(2) Cited by John M. Buchanan, “Matthew 25:31-46 – Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), Year A, vol. 4, p. 334.
(3) Henry Smith, 1978.© 1978 Integrity’s Hosanna Music (admin, EMICMGPublishing.com) CCLI #1869873.

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.

The Triple-Dog-Dare

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13

Any parent will tell you that a sure fire invitation for a child to do something you don’t want them to do, is to tell them not to do it. It is a dare. “I can’t do something? Just watch me.” They don’t trust you that you are right. Unfortunately, if you were to try to get around that by telling them to do something you don’t want them to do, they’ll have the uncanny sense that you are trying to pull a fast one on them, so they’ll do whatever it is anyway.

Daring is something that is part of growing up. Since the perimeter guard of Halloween jack-o-lanterns has been overrun, sending the Thanksgiving turkey into full retreat because of the full-scale attack of Christmas on the calendar, I will not apologize for starting this sermon with some dialogue from “A Christmas Story.” It is the story of Ralphie growing up in Cleveland in the 1940s who has to convince his parents, his teacher, and Santa that the perfect Christmas gift for him is an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle. Here’s the scene: He and his classmates Flick and Schwartz are outside the school on a cold day.

Flick: Are you kidding? Stick my tongue to that stupid pole? That’s dumb!
Schwartz:         That’s ’cause you know it’ll stick!
Flick: You’re full of it!
Schwartz:         Oh yeah?
Flick: Yeah!
Schwartz:         Well I double-DOG-dare ya!
Ralphie as Adult: [narrating]

NOW it was serious. A double-dog-dare. What else was there but a “triple dare you”? And then, the coup de grace of all dares, the sinister triple-dog-dare.

Schwartz:          I TRIPLE-dog-dare ya!
Ralphie as Adult: [narrating]

Schwartz created a slight breach of etiquette by skipping the triple dare and going right for the throat!

The triple-dog-dare is infamous for the sole reason that you cannot back down from it—without exception! An issued triple-dog-dare has no counteraction and must be carried out.

While the scene from the end of the Joshua narrative is not couched in pre-adolescent playground language, I would suggest to you that the tenor of the conversation between Joshua and Israelites rises to the triple-dog-dare level.

The Israelites are at a new juncture in their communal life. For forty years Moses had led, guided, prodded them through the wilderness until they were ready to enter the promised land. Then Moses anointed Joshua as his successor to take the people into Canaan. The bulk of the Book of Joshua is not for the faint-hearted. It is the record of bloody invasion and expropriation of the land. That apparently lasts about twenty-five years, the best we can figure. Most of the hard work is done, although the next books in the history of God’s activity with the people show how tenuous the taking of Canaan was. Now it is time for Joshua to cede his authority. For the next period of time, there is no single compelling charismatic leader for the people. As need arises to make some decision or to quell some uprising with the neighboring people, leaders – judges – appear and disappear. They, along with the priests,  are supposed to be the representatives of God in and for the people.

So at the seam of this change in leadership style, Joshua sets the people down, reminds them of their history, and sets the stage for the future. The people have to make a decision. Will they serve God? Or the gods of beyond the Euphrates or of Egypt? Or the gods of the Canaanite peoples left in their midst?  At the dare level, Joshua says that he and his extended family will serve God.

And all the people say, “Me too.” There is a lot of pressure here. The spiritual/political leader who is stepping down has declared which option he and his family will take. What can the people say, except “me too”? We all have been in decision-point situations when it seemed best to say what the speaker wanted to hear. The head of the company makes a statement about where she is going to lead the company and asks who is with her. All the people around her become “yes-people” even though they have questions or grave doubts about the decision. The easy course of action is simply to say “yes.”

Joshua is not a dumb leader. He knew what was happening. So he cranks the covenant process up a notch. He double dares them: “You can’t serve the Lord, because he is a holy God, a jealous God. He won’t forgive your rebellion and your sins.” And the people accept the dare, “No! The Lord is the one we will serve.”

Joshua doesn’t want a bunch of “yes-Israelites” claiming they will serve God but quickly leaving God behind. “You are witnesses,” he said. That’s the triple-dog-dare the people can’t back down from. “Yes, we are witnesses.”

And they are witnesses—witnesses to their quick failure to do the very thing that they promised.

In spite of the triple-dog-dare, they fail. They are no wiser than the foolish bridesmaids who were delighted to be part of the wedding celebration but failed to think far enough ahead to bring oil to keep their lamps burning.

Joshua would have been disappointed but would probably nonetheless have been happier if the people had said “no.” At least there would have been a sincere realization that they couldn’t do what was expected them if they said “yes.”

For all practical purposes, Jesus triple-dog-dares us to be his followers, to do the ministry he did and which he entrusted to those who would come after him. We are quick to say “yes,” not fully thinking about what that means. We want in on the party, the celebration, the kingdom. But like the some of the bridesmaids we are ill-prepared for the task. We don’t have the resources. We can’t do it on our own. Just as Flick (and how many other rash kids) couldn’t get his tongue unstuck from the cold flagpole, we can’t get unstuck from the lack of follow-through needed to fully accomplish what Jesus has called us to do.

What the Israelites failed to understand is that they couldn’t do it by themselves, even though they tried time and again. And we have had our moments – perhaps more then we are willing to publicly admit – when we failed to fully understand what was required of us as the body of Christ for the world today.

Jesus’ triple-dog-dare to us isn’t about doing his work – and failing. It is about daring to put ourselves into Jesus’ hands so that it is not our imperfect efforts bringing misadventure, but his Spirit working in us moving us towards the full completion of the work he has given us. Jesus’ triple-dog-dare is to give up the pretense that we are powerful and invincible. He triple-dog-dares us to rely on him. That’s not a dare you can back down from. Is it a dare you can take up? Don’t say “yes” unless you accept all the conditions. It will change your life.

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.

Fearless Giving

1 Thessalonians 2:9-13; Joshua 3:1-7; Matthew 23:1-12

All of you who have been here any or all of the last three weeks know that we are in the midst of the congregation’s stewardship season. We will be dedicating our commitments for 2015 later in the worship liturgy. The theme for this year has been “Fearless Generosity.” It is as much about God’s generous grace to us as it is about you and me penciling in time for God-work in our busy calendar boxes; or about recognizing God as the creator and giver of the special talents that help define who we are; or about putting our hands in our pocketbooks and returning to God a portion of the bounty God has enabled us to gather and be blessed us by.

Stewardship season is not a barbarian’s cudgel swung at us to separate us from our wherewithal. Rather these weeks of reflection remind us how blessed we truly are, not just in terms of bank balances, as important as they are, but more importantly in the blessing of a gracious and loving God who desires to bring us to our full adoption into the realm of God’s rule.

When we look at this week’s sub-theme, “Fearless Giving,” we are quick to hear it as an encouragement, an urging, even a plea to give to the church. But if we step back, we see that aspect as the veneer on the surface of our faith. The apostle John wrote, “We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19). It could similarly be said, “We give because God first gave to us.” The foundation for the veneer of our giving is that God gave to us first.

Paul already had told the believers in Thessalonica, and here he reminded them, that God alone calls them into God’s kingdom and glory. God’s kingdom began when God himself entered human history as a man. “The word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood,” as Eugene Peterson so wonderfully expresses a key verse from the opening chapter of John’s gospel (John 1:14). Today that neighborhood is the hearts of believers. That’s where Jesus Christ reigns, but the kingdom will not be fully realized until all evil in the world is judged and removed. Then God will reveal both his kingdom and his glory to those who have been called to join it. All who have accepted Christ as Savior have been called by God to be part of his family.

We give because God has fearlessly given Jesus Christ to us. Jesus said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Christ interprets creation to us in ways that the Law and Prophets could only point at. Christ is the one teacher. God is the one Father by whom we are all brothers and sisters in a way that no biology or no genealogy can explain. We are servants because Christ was a servant, “not considering being equal with God something to exploit ... emptied himself by taking the form of a slave” (Philippians 2:6).

When we think of slave, we quickly access the image of someone, if not in physical chains, then certainly in psychological and economic chains, the property of someone else, under the governance of someone else, beholden to someone else for the necessities in life.

The image that Paul and Jesus construct is very different. The word that comes to my mind is “acolyte.” You are probably thinking of the youngster in the surplice who comes to light the candles in the front of the church. That is a very narrow usage of the word. Yes, an acolyte does assist priests and ministers. But there is a broader use of the word: an acolyte is a follower or a devotee. The image that Paul uses suggests that the individual seeks out the master and throws herself into the service of the person not because she has to or is forced to, not because she is owned by the master, but because she earnestly desires to offer her skills and talents to the master just so she can be in the master’s presence.

As Paul applies this to believers, they recognize the fearless gift – the Gospel – of God and desire earnestly to be associated with it so as to live their whole being in the light and warmth of the Good News. You will remember that the gospel writer John told the story of two of John the Baptizer’s disciples who followed Jesus and desired to be with him, “Where are you staying?” to which Jesus responded, “Come and see.” And they did.

Paul wrote that he and Silas had “preached God’s good news” to the Thessalonians and appealed, encouraged, and pleaded with them “to live lives worthy of the God who is calling you into his own kingdom and glory.” Paul and Silas were not idle in their proclamation of God’s gospel. Those three verbs – appealed, encouraged, and pleaded – all support the same idea that Paul and Silas were deeply involved in the lives of the Thessalonians, not as outsiders, but as partners, not as spectators but as coaches, not as overseers but as fellow laborers in God’s work set in motion by Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.

This was particularly important as the believers who converted to the gospel of God in Christ – either from Judaism or from the worship of the Greek deities – faced terrible difficulties and needed extra support. Paul did not water down the Gospel to make it easy for them to blend back into their context. All believers are urged to live lives worthy of God. Paul had reminded the Thessalonian disciples that he and Silas had led “holy, just, and blameless” lives. They set that example as a guide for how the Thessalonians were to live out their acceptance of the Gospel of God. Paul used those words to describe conduct that was above reproach.

The word “holy” refers to being set apart by God, devoted to his service, and acting responsibly before God. “Just” (or righteous) focuses on obedience to God’s law, coming up to God’s standard, being upright in dealings with people. “Blameless” points to their conduct toward the people, being without reproach.

This consistent example of right living surely affected the Thessalonians. If Paul and Silas had shared the gospel message but had lived carelessly, their message would have had little impact. But they preached through both their words and their lives. And then they urged the Thessalonians to live in the same way, above reproach, holy, just, blameless.

None of us ever achieves the full measure of holiness, justness, or blamelessness as we live out the servanthood which the Gospel of God calls us to. The generosity of God is that we aren’t swept away, aren’t written off, aren’t sacked as disciples. The ever-forgiving grace of God creates in us a resilience that allows us to pick ourselves up every time we fall, and renew our service. As the liturgy says every week, “In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven.”

God knows that we can’t follow Christ all on our own. God knows that we time and again short circuit our attempts to be obedient. Yet God never takes back the gift of the Gospel, never pulls the plug on the grace which gives us life. We may fearlessly give back to God because even when we think God has ceased giving to us, God continues to lavish us with life now and life in the kingdom.

Shortly we will remember our brother and sister believers – God’s children – who died in the last twelve months and who now are fully present in the kingdom. Our remembrance is not just a reminder about them. It is also a reminder about the joy to which we have been called, the joy God waits to hand out. The saints join Paul in urging us to live lives worthy of God.

Paul’s last word in this section is one of thanksgiving that his readers had accepted God’s word and welcomed it, not as a human message but as God’s message. And he is further thankful that God’s message continued to work in them.

God’s message is at work in us, as we think about ways to extend God’s message to our neighbors in Waverly, as we consider how to make our worship more meaningful to God as well as to ourselves; as we strengthen the core of our faith through study and prayer; as we engage in fearless giving in the year ahead.

We give to God because God has first given to us. Thanks be to God.

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

Fearless Sowing

Matthew 22:34-46; Deuteronomy 34:1-12; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

You heard Jesus’ parable of the soils as part of the Prayer for Learning offered before the scripture readings. One interpretation of the seed is that it is the word of scripture. In the end only the good soil produced a harvest. The seed that fell on the hard, shallow, rocky, weedy areas was wasted, producing nothing, but the seed that fell on the good soil produced abundantly. This abundance more than made up for the seed that failed.

The farmer had to be fearless in sowing the seed, not only for the differences in the land—he didn’t deliberately waste seed on non-productive soils, but it was hard to avoid them. And beside the soil issue, the farmer had to contend with the weather. Because seed normally produced many seeds for every seed that grew, farmers were able to save back a portion of a crop to be planted the next season. In lean years, the amount of grain available for home usage might be reduced, and in very lean years, even some of the grain reserved for the next year’s planting might have to be eaten.

Farming has been a game of chance from the very beginning. Farmers’ attitudes range from the very negative (“The crop won’t amount to anything”) to the very positive (“We’re going to have the best crop ever”). The degree of optimism is based it on experience. They remember the great harvests and believe the next one will be like that last great one. They are willing to let go of the reserved seed in the storehouse (which they could be eating right now) believing that if planted it will bring in the great harvest. Farmers fearlessly sowed, even following terrible years. So the psalmist can say in Psalm 126:
Let those who plant with tears 
reap the harvest with joyful shouts. 
Let those who go out, crying and carrying their seed, 
come home with joyful shouts, carrying bales of grain! (Psalm 126:5-6)

Our scripture readings today don’t mention farming or sowing, but they all speak of the same fearless quality that farmers have.

The time is the day after the triumphant palm-strewn, raucous “Hosanna” parade down Mount of Olives Avenue into Jerusalem. Jesus silenced a Sadducee who had raised a theological question. The Sadducees and the Pharisees were rival sects within the Jewish faith community. The Sadducees usually interpreted religious laws narrowly and the Pharisees were generally the progressive group. I can envision them telling jokes at each other’s expense, much in the way Baptists and Presbyterians like to tell jokes about each other’s religious idiosyncracies.

The ego balloon of the Sadducee’s question had been quickly popped by Jesus. A Pharisee picked up the task. “Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the Law?” This wasn’t a new question. Rabbis had debates about the Law. There were several views: the issue of making portions of the Law into a super canon, or distilling the Law to a handful of precepts, or maintaining that each of the over six hundred pieces of the ceremonial Law had equal value.

We don’t know the Pharisee’s motive in asking. Perhaps he was showing that he too was opposed to Jesus. Perhaps he was showing the Sadducees that the Pharisees weren’t ignorant of the Law and that a Pharisee could succeed where a Sadducee had failed in outwitting Jesus. Maybe he just wanted to prove that Pharisees could ask better questions. Or, maybe, he was genuinely seeking to discern what the Law required of him, and, being impressed with Jesus’ knowledge and understanding, he believed that Jesus could give him a powerful insight into the faith.

The tension is mounting. The opposition of the religious leaders had increased throughout Jesus’ three-year ministry and was at a fevered pitch in the days leading to his execution. Jesus was no longer touring the countryside which was at arm’s length from or even outside the ceremonial reach of the Temple guardians. He was sparring with those very guardians on their own turf and besting them at their own game. Jesus was on a journey to the heart of a people’s faith.

While Jesus had deflected previous questions or avoided them with questions of his own, Jesus paused in the heat of the debate to give a concise and solid answer to a question that went to the very heart of what really matters in life.

I can’t speak for you, but I know that I have participated in discussions by asking flippant, throw-away, off-putting questions. Yet the conversation moved towards a deeper, more honest questioning which stopped abusing the issue and started getting at the real meat. Sometimes we have to wait out the superficial to get to the real. That’s when the deepest, sincerest, most meaningful revelations occur, when minds begin to articulate the yearnings of the Spirit.

Questions are strewn around like the farmer’s seed. The empty ones bounce off the hardened earth. The flippant ones land among the rocks and the weeds. The deepest questions land in the nourishing soil and yield illuminating answers, “aha!” moments, and life-changing revelations.

The question that the legal expert asked was one of the seed-in-the-good-soil questions. And Jesus honored it. He began with the holy words, the “Shema,” that began every synagogue worship service (Deuteronomy 6:5), added the Levitical expansion (Leviticus 19:18), and then capped it off with his own imprint: “All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

In this final sentence Jesus asserts his own authority as the one who is privileged to unite these two commandments together as the theme of the whole. It is his final sentence that makes his answer messianic and in its own way becomes a witness to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah now in their presence.(1)

The legal expert’s question bore a hundred-fold answer in the good soil of Jesus’ teaching.

Faith is an enquiring mind. Faith fearlessly sows the daily living questions in the good soil mixture of scripture and personal, prayerful interaction with the Savior. Faith sows the deep questions and knows that through the steady growth cycle of each seed there will come a meaningful harvest of awe and wonder at the breadth and depth of God’s generous grace. The farmer relinquishes the known seed in her hand in order to gain a harvest of seeds for herself and for the world.

Think of all the seeds that we plant as a congregation.

• We are planting the seed of the gospel in soil of the women in the Recovery Council addiction rehab program. Those seeds are growing and producing. One of the joys of some seeds that is they grow and produce seed that then seed themselves to grow more plants and produce more seeds. 
• We are planting the seed of gracious dignity as we give food and money to the Outreach Council through our budgeted giving as well as through our generous Deacons’ Fund gifts.
• We are planting the seeds of God’s love through the One Great Hour, Pentecost, Peacemaking, and Christmas Joy special offerings that we receive during each year.
• We are planting the seeds of a mission-focused community as we develop the possibilities generated by the New Beginnings assessment and cluster group discussions.
• We are planting the seeds of a welcoming, nurturing community as we continue to develop our internet and social media presence. 
• We are planting seeds of extended caring as we hear from, pray for, and support Mark and Jenny Hare’s ministry in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and Esther Wakeman and Rob Collins’ ministry at Payap University.
• We are planting seeds of caring as we pray for and work with our deacons and session members to care for and support in times of need our own neighbors and friends
• We are planting seeds of connection as we prayerfully remember sister congregations in Scioto Valley Presbytery and in presbyteries, synods and mission fields around the world.
• We are learning to plant our faith seeds more deeply as we study God’s word in women’s circles and Sunday morning classes and as we sing, listen, pray, and respond in worship.

We are fearlessly sowing the gospel in the way Paul described to the Thessalonian faithful:

We have been examined and approved by God to be trusted with the good news....We aren’t trying to please people, but we are trying to please God, who continues to examine our hearts....We were glad to share not only God’s good news with you but also our very lives because we cared....

All the persecutions and criticisms didn’t deter Paul. Nor should they deter us. Jesus invites us to the work of fearlessly sowing the Good News he brought to the world. As we prepare our time, talent, and financial commitments for next year, let us go and sow fearlessly. Amen.

(1) Earl Palmer, “Matthew 22:34-46 – Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), Year A, vol. 4, pp. 214, 216.
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.

Fearless Living

Matthew 22:1-14; Genesis 1:1-2:3; Philippians 4:1-9

At the midpoint of his correspondence with the Ephesian church, Paul breaks into a exclamation of praise to God:

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21, NRSV)

Paul’s positive affirmation stands in stark contrast to many viewpoints expressed in the current events and business pages of print and electronic media. Reporters, politicians, and business leaders seem to base everything on a foundation of scarcity and negativity and of looking out for self before community. And much of it is fueled by fear. The world around us tells us to live fearfully. Paul, across the generations, across the centuries, calls us to fearless living.

If we were to sit and listen to scripture straight through from Genesis’ “In the beginning” to Revelation’s final “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints” — about 90 hours later — the thing that would strike us about the full sweep of scripture is that God desires God’s people to give up living fearfully and to live fearlessly in the rich abundance generously provided by our God.

Paul wants us to know without any doubt whatsoever, that the sky’s the limit with God. Any dream that we can dream, God can dream it bigger, grander, and more abundant. The Westminster Catechism tells us that God is “infinite...in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.”(1) Infinity is always moving. Is there something bigger than infinity? Infinity plus one; ad infinitum. God is always bigger than we imagine. God is always bigger than the containers we try to put God in. God is always more generous than we are willing to imagine for ourselves, more generous than we or others think we deserve, and more generous to others than we think they deserve.

What is even more amazing is that God chooses to work through us to accomplish more than we can imagine. If that isn’t a living example of fearless living, I don’t know what is. God has taken a huge chance for God’s precious creation by deciding to work with us, through us, alongside us in the glorious work of tending all that God spoke into existence. God has entrusted us with it all—every last atom and subatomic particle. It’s like giving a 16 year old the keys to a new Corvette. It’s not going to survive unscathed. There are going to be dents and dings, crashes and mishaps. We human beings have taken the universe for quite a ride and it is battered and scraped up something fierce. But God hasn’t asked for the keys back yet.

Mark Kirchoff writes that

“God was fearless in giving charge of creation over to humanity. Humans could destroy creation outright. They could maintain creation differently from how God intended. Because of free will, humanity has spoiled creation through original sin. The good news is that we don’t have to continue to give in to the dark side.”(2)

But more than that, God has given us an innate desire to leave our mark on the world, to exert an influence on the communities we participate in.

We are in a constant struggle between thinking only of ourselves and of thinking generously towards other members of our community. In the midst of that struggle, we let fear rush in.

When I published the readings for this week several weeks ago, I had intended to use a reading from Exodus 34. In the reading, Moses was on Mt. Sinai getting a reprint of the first set of tablets of the Law. (He had thrown down the first set in a pique of anger at the behavior of the Israelites and the tablets had shattered.) Moses had been on the mountain for a long time and the people were afraid that he had died or left them. So they persuaded Aaron and the other leaders to create an image of their God. Some theological wit has noted that what they wanted was a massive bull, maybe something like the one in New York’s Wall Street financial district. Except that when they donated their gold, there only enough for a calf. Even in their disobedience they lived fearfully and couldn’t even fearlessly live following an idol made with their own hands.

While the people were cowering with their calf, Moses was fearlessly facing God and bargaining for the people and the future generations of God’s people which they represented. Moses, as human as he was, as fallible and moody and difficult as he was, nevertheless had a sense of the enormity of God’s generosity as well as a vision of what all God desired to accomplish through them. The goodness of creation was within them. It had to be brought out.

We see the same kind of struggle between scarcity and generosity, between living fearfully and living fearlessly in many of the events that the gospel writers recorded about Jesus and in the parables he told. The story of the wedding party is really a retelling of the truth expressed in the Genesis creation story we heard earlier and the subsequent story of the first beings choosing their own path of life different from what God had desired them to follow.

The king desired to give a party for the wedding of his son. This was not going to be a party where everyone got one tea sandwich, three mints, and half a cup of punch. The king put everything into the planning and execution of the party plans, just as God had put everything into creation resulting in an acclamation that it was “supremely good.” That’s how the wedding party details were carried out. It was very good. But all the invited guests weren’t interested in the generous party which the king had prepared. They had their own agendas, their own schedules, their own sense of fear that they had to live their way because the world revolved around them. They declined to participate in the king’s joyful generosity and generous joy.

Paul was telling the believers in Philippi something similar:

Be glad in the Lord always! Again I say, be glad!...Don’t be anxious about anything; rather, bring up all of your requests to God in your prayers and petitions, along with giving thanks. Then the peace of God that exceeds all understanding will keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:4, 6-8)

The peace of God that exceeds all understanding draws our imagination farther and farther toward that infinity of God’s generous love for us. That peace, that “all” that we can’t even imagine is freedom to try, freedom to learn from things that don’t work as expected, freedom to learn from serendipitous accomplishments, freedom to let God use us to do things far beyond our own abilities. In our results-oriented society, we avoid risk. We bury or otherwise abuse the talent, nest-egg, resource entrusted to us, when God invites us to invest ourselves as well as God’s resources for the sake of kingdom. That takes courage. That is fearless living.

The Ephesian letter describes the church as “God’s new humanity, a colony in which the Lord of history has established a foretaste of the renewed unity and dignity of the human race,”(3) that God-imprint from day six of creation.

Jesus concluded the wedding party parables with the note that “Many people are invited, but few people are chosen.” In God’s generous love for us in Christ, we have been chosen. We are the few who are called to live fearlessly.

In The Message Eugene Peterson paraphrased Paul’s Ephesian praise this way:

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!

Oh, yes, indeed!

(1) Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 4.
(2) Mark Kirchoff, “Fearless Generosity,” Giving, volume 16 (2014), p.4.
(3) Overview of the Book of Ephesians, Third Millennium Ministries, http://thirdmill.org/answers/answer.asp/file/41361. 

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.

All Our Hindering Will Be for Nought

Matthew 21:33-46; Philippians 3:4b-14

We cannot hinder the gospel. The word of God will not be locked within the confines of a context two millennia removed from our time. John Calvin understood this. In his commentary on this parable he identified two points that transcend time and place: (1) we should expect people, and especially religious leaders, to try to hinder the reign of Christ; and (2) whatever contrivances are mounted against the church, God will be victorious. All human hindering will be for nought.

Andrew Purves writes that the parable teaches us to expect rejection, but not just of the gospel. It is more a system of ideas, more than an argument, more than a series of propositions inviting head nodding or verbal assent. The defining point, the focal point of the rejection which we are to expect is very precise: Jesus Christ. Personal rejection – described as the premeditated murder of the landowner’s son – is the heart of the parable.

Let’s step back for just a moment. Matthew describes Jesus standing in the temple, the place of God’s dwelling on earth (a house already destroyed and the Presence departed by the time that Matthew edited his gospel account). Only days before his crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus tells a story to the people who have been set apart to keep God’s house in order. We know two things about those within earshot of Jesus’ parable: (1) they do not believe that Jesus has divine authorization to speak to them; and (2) their minds have remained unchanged in response to another messenger, the Baptizer John.

The immediate theological debate between the temple leaders and Jesus moves into round two. Jesus had already bested them in their attempt to discredit his authority when they refused to acknowledge John’s authority. The parable to the two sons, one openly disobedient but later repentant and obedient, the other openly servile but disobedient in the end, had hit its mark. And still the temple leaders refused to give in to Jesus’ truth. So Jesus says, “Listen to another parable.”

The sophisticated temple leaders weren’t going to be swayed by folksy stories from the countryside. Jesus goes to the heart of their theological power base – the Law and the Prophets. Jesus bases his parable on a well-known passage from Isaiah (it’s from chapter 5.)

My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.
He dug it,
cleared away its stones,
planted it with excellent vines,
built a tower inside it,
and dug out a wine vat in it.
He expected it to grow good grapes—
but it grew rotten grapes.
So now, you who live in Jerusalem, you people of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard:
What more was there to do for my vineyard
that I haven’t done for it?
When I expected it to grow good grapes,
why did it grow rotten grapes? . . .
The vineyard of the Lord of heavenly forces is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah are the plantings in which God delighted.
God expected justice, but there was bloodshed;
righteousness, but there was a cry of distress!

Jesus compounded the force of this image with a quotation from the powerful Psalm 118:

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
The Lord has done this,
and it’s amazing in our eyes.

The issue, then, is the rejection of Jesus and the refusal to acknowledge him as Lord, God’s anointed, through whom God lavishly has given life.

In every fiber of this parable about the rejection of and deadly violence against the landowner’s son is the reminder that the heart of faith is relationship with Jesus. The tenant farmers did not seize and kill an idea, a principle, or a system of doctrine. They seized and killed the landowner’s son. The gospel comes to us as a person.

It is obvious in the Isaiah reference and in Jesus’ parable who was rejecting his authority then. If rejection is part of the continuing legacy of the parable, who is rejecting Jesus today? The vineyard of the early 21st century is vulnerable to destruction. It is being assailed from the outside by virulent new atheisms which are based on a strident and aggressive rationalism which routinely dismisses Christian faith. There is also a growing apathy and indifference that isn’t particularly anti-church but which is certainly not pro-church.

But Jesus wasn’t speaking about the philosophies and theologies of the occupying empire. Jesus was addressing the leaders of the temple, the inner circle of those supposedly closest to God. Jesus’ complaint against them was that they had so narrowly constricted the faith that it had become a strait-jacketed and sedated prisoner locked away from its very source.

Some of God’s people today strait-jacket the faith in ways which exclude the very people whom God seeks to welcome into the community of sinners being sanctified through relationship with Jesus. Another extreme includes people for whom there are no boundaries, no absolutes, no guiding reference points to distinguish holy and sacred from profane and irreverent.

It is this deeper, internal sense that Jesus’ parable strikes at. The parable is less concerned about Jesus being rejected by strangers than it is about his being rejected by members of his own household, especially those in leadership. Calvin refers to church people rising up against their head, tenant farmers against the landowner. Given the architectural image of the foundation stone being rejected, the parable is about Jesus being betrayed by some of those he has called into positions of leadership. So each of us is called to repentance and renewal, not once in a lifetime or yearly, but daily.

Even though the cornerstone may be rejected, it doesn’t cease being the cornerstone. Whoever falls on the stone – that is whoever seeks to break Christ – will be broken by it. Attack on Jesus is pointless and fruitless. Jesus is not diminished by rejection. And in spite of betrayal he keeps the place that God has given to him. As the psalmist said, “The Lord has done this.”

So we come to this table today. It is not my table or the Session’s table. None of you can claim it as solely yours. It is Christ’s table. He invites all who trust in him to come. On this World Communion Sunday, we remember that this table goes around the world uniting the faithful of every language and culture, every tribe and clan. We don’t come here to highlight what separates us from other believers. We don’t come to shut some out because they don’t believe or think in exactly the way we do. We come to celebrate what unites us – the person of Jesus Christ. We celebrate the Word made flesh, the relationship which God created especially to bring grace and salvation, peace and restoration to humanity.

This table goes to the east as far as we can see, It goes to the west far beyond the horizon. It goes so far north that it becomes the south to which it goes in the other direction. This table is the assurance that in spite of rejection and betrayal, in spite of watered down thinking or strait-jacketed narrow thinking, God’s relationship to humanity in Christ will never fail. It is the Lord’s doing. All human hindering will be for nought.

Welcome to the table of Christ. Come joyfully to meet your Savior.

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.