Luke 13:31-35; Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Philippians 3:17-4:1
A year ago NASA released an image of the Andromeda galaxy, which is the closest galaxy to us. They captured the image using the Hubble Telescope, but they outdid themselves. They took 411 images and put them together to create the largest image ever taken. It’s a whopping 1.5 billion pixels and requires about 4.3 GB of disk space! [See the video.]
The image takes you through over 100 million stars and travels more than 40,000 light years. It’s likely to make you feel like you are a very, very, very small part of a universe which we are only beginning to understand the true size of. It is truly mind-blowing.
“The Lord . . . brought Abram outside and said, ‘Look up at the sky and count the stars if you think you can count them. This is how many children you will have.’ Abram trusted the Lord” (Genesis 15:4-6).
Abram didn’t have the light pollution that we have. On a clear night he could see thousands of stars. But he couldn’t see the millions of stars that Hubble can see. And Hubble keeps seeing more. Our vision of the universe keeps expanding.
The African slaves in the 18th and first half of the 19th century southern states had to think beyond their present circumstances. They put their hope in the promised kingdom, a kingdom not born or controlled by the powers of this world. One of their spirituals describes the kingdom of God this way: “There’s plenty good room, plenty good room, plenty good room in my Father’s kingdom.”(1)
We could say that this thought is a central theme in Luke’s Gospel. In story after story and encounter after encounter with the leaders of the religious institution of his time, Jesus was building a bigger kingdom. He kept tearing down walls, opening doors, and building bridges to get people into God’s kingdom.
God’s passionate desire from before the time of Abram, through the nation building with Moses, the judges, and the kings, through the trials, tribulations, and chastising of the prophets, and finally through the Word become flesh – Jesus Christ – is to gather God’s human children closer and closer in God’s embracing love and grace. “How often I have wanted to gather your people just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings” (Luke 13:34).
God is building the kingdom one person at a time, just at the universe is built one star, one solar system, one galaxy at a time.
I understand building. It has been part of me since childhood. Before I was born my father built on a sunroom on the family house. When I was six or seven, he redid the kitchen. Several years later they built on a major addition to make a first floor garage and second floor master suite. I used scrap lumber to build a small log-style cabin.
In high school I took an interest in the Connecticut Western Reserve of Ohio (land set aside in northeast Ohio by the early federal government as a way of paying the Connecticut citizens who served in the Revolutionary War. I became very interested in the old homes that dotted the area. I dreamed of restoring one someday.
Over the years, I have avidly watched “This Old House” and a number of shows on HGTV. Living in the manse, which is now a nearly 120 year old house, has filled my desire to work on an old house. We have done a lot to preserve and enhance its style. It has been fun.
It was a thrill to be involved in the design and building of this facility. Set against the wooded backdrop, it was designed to be open, welcoming, flexible, inviting, useful. The hope was that it would be a community gathering place. We are still working on that aspect.
How do we enlarge our part of the God’s kingdom? How do we tear down the walls that separate people? How do we create open, inviting and safe space for people from many backgrounds – ethnic, economic, educated, racial, gender – to be in the presence of God and each other so that everyone may grow and benefit from the vastness of experience, knowledge, and faith? How do we dissolve the sameness which acts like a force field repelling the very diversity which nurtures fuller life in the majesty of God’s love?
It seems that we live in a world where everyone has a different notion of God’s kingdom, as well as how to enlarge it, how to live out the ministry of welcome. In Luke’s gospel, the first people to see Jesus after his birth are a bunch of shepherds. They represent a necessary but highly undesirable class of people within the society. As Jesus goes about his ministry, he associates with all sorts of people who are at the margins of society, the people who are not deemed respectable enough be at the center of things.
A peasant girl is chosen to be Jesus’ mother. A wayward son is welcomed by an extravagant father whose love seems reckless. An outcast Samaritan willingly exercises compassion toward a robbed and beaten traveler. The penitent thief is remembered and welcomed into paradise.
We have heard the thoughts of Judas, who argued for and ultimately acted on a very different idea about kingdom building. The insurrectionists could not abide Jesus’ otherworldly kingdom talk, his lack of direct and decisive action. The people wanted action, not the preaching of God’s grace and gentleness of soul.
There’s a Peanuts cartoon which speaks to this reading from Luke’s gospel.
In the first frame, Lucy is standing next to a tree. Looking up, she shouts to Linus, “What are doing in that tree?”
Linus answers from the branches of the tree, “Looking for something.” Then he adds, “Can you see Snoopy? We climbed up here together, but now I don’t see him.”
Lucy unsympathetically shouts back up the tree, “Beagles can’t climb trees.”
The next frame shows Snoopy falling out of the tree right on his head with a loud “KLUNK.” “You’re right!” Snoopy concludes.
Then Lucy lets Snoopy have it, “You stupid Beagle, what are you doing climbing around in a tree?” Snoopy’s sore head is still spinning.
Linus interrupts from the tree, “Don’t yell at him…. We’re trying to find a strange creature in a nest….”
Lucy walks off saying, “You’re both crazy! Go ahead and knock yourselves out! I couldn’t care less!!”
Then Snoopy with his head still sore and spinning thinks, “Rats…I was hoping for a hug!” (2)
Don’t similar scenes happen to us? We hurt ourselves – perhaps physically or emotionally or spiritually. A parent, friend, pastor, parishioner gives us a lecture about how stupid we were. “Rats,” we may say to ourselves, “I was hoping for a hug!” There are those times when what we need most is to know that somebody still cares and loves us, because we already know we have acted like jerks.
One of the most dreadful Christian sins is that we too often act like Lucy. We are too quick to open our mouths and give lectures to others. It is so easy for us good and righteous believers to judge and condemn others for their stupid mistakes. What compounds our sin is that we think that we are doing the proper and right thing by giving them all our good advice. “You shouldn’t have done that. You should have known better. You’re getting what you deserve.” And so on.
Sometimes people need good teaching. Jesus is often teaching the people, but many times, especially after making a stupid mistake, people feel more like Snoopy: “Rats…I was hoping for a hug!” The image of a hen wrapping her wings around her chicks seems a lot like a hug to me – and that’s what Jesus wishes he could do.
The mission of the church of Jesus is to give hugs, to embrace, not to push away. On the way to the cross, Jesus attempts to embrace, to gather under his hen-like wings the entire world. The gospel writer John put it in different words: “God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17).
How big is God’s world? How are you making it larger?
(1) Cited by Michael B. Curry, “Luke 13:31-5 – Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word; Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009) Year C, Volume 2, 69.
(2) Cited by Brian Stoffregen, “Gospel Notes for Next Sunday,” 2 Lent C Exegetical Notes on Luke 13:31-35 (http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=51bd49db6caae596e13e44534&id=c726dc3928&e=e9babc8d38)
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Sunday, February 14, 2016
The Journey
Luke 4:1-15; Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Romans 10:8b-13
There are still a few people in Pike County who have never journeyed out of the county, some who have never been to the big city of Chillicothe, or to the even bigger metropolis of Columbus. Those numbers are decreasing rapidly, because of the ubiquitous automobile, and the places people have to go to get health and social services. With the advances of the internet, a person could leave the county a lot less, but that would be a whole different generation.
We travel. Just over fifty years ago I traveled thirty miles to attend a boarding school. It was an hour’s drive, but it was a lifetime away from all that I had ever known. And I know that I am largely who I am because I said yes to making that journey.
I remember my first airplane flight. It was from Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Denver, Colorado. I know that we had to change planes somewhere, but I don’t remember where. One year later I was flying from Cleveland to New York JFK on to Edinburgh, Scotland, to begin my seminary education.
Many of us have made similar journeys for social, educational, or career reasons. For some, it was because Uncle Sam pointed his finger at you and you didn’t have a choice. For others, it was all choice – I want to do this and go there. Some of us have sailed the seven seas, plied the European rails, trekked up mountains. I have a friend through the Presbytery who is on a three month journey which includes South Seas islands, the coast of Chile, and Antarctica.
The journeys of life change us. The destination is less significant than the actual journey.
The Book of Deuteronomy comes across as Moses’ memoir of the forty-year journey he took as God’s appointed leader of the Israelite people. We know that Moses lost his cool on several occasions. The incessant cries of the Israelites, “Are we there yet?” would have been enough to wear down the most seasoned tour guide. But this wasn’t a busload of weary travelers, it was thousands upon thousands according to the records. Think of the million-person march on Washington DC without the assistance of law enforcement personnel.
The journey from slavery in Egypt to nationhood in Canaan was a journey through a sci-fi time warp. It took all of the forty years to begin to shake the traditions and “we used to”s out of the people, and then as the biblical record after Deuteronomy reports, the attitude adjustment and reprogramming for a new life hadn’t completely taken, even after a whole generation died on the journey and a new generation was born.
The premise of the promised land was that it flowed with milk and honey, that is, everything would be all right if the people would buckle down and follow the commandments and keep the Lord God first and foremost in their thinking. For that honor and privilege God expected gratitude, first-fruits, early harvest thanksgiving.
Was that too much to ask? Apparently so. As the later history depicted it, people were busy counting seeds, lest they give God too much and not keep enough for themselves. All that manna – just enough for both those who collected a lot and for those who couldn’t collect much – hadn’t made an impression on them. Even in the midst of plenty the Israelites were in a wilderness of disobedience, greed, disbelief. Their journey was not over. Not for a long time.
Jesus was a traveler. In utero he traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem. As an infant he traveled from Bethlehem to Egypt. As a child he traveled from Egypt to Nazareth. As a 12-year old he traveled to Jerusalem for Passover, possibly after his bar mitzvah, and stayed behind, learning from and questioning the teachers of the law. Then about age thirty, he joined the caravans of people who were traveling to the place in the Jordan River where his cousin John was baptizing people for the forgiveness of sins. The Spirit descended and announced him “Beloved.” The water’s edge wasn’t the end of his journey, it was the embarkation point.
Jesus entered the wilderness for forty days. He gave up more than chocolate or the internet or red meat. In a sense, he gave up his soul. That is, he didn’t protect it. He didn’t shield it from whatever he would encounter. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He had questions. He wondered what the time in front of him was going to hold for him. Stripped of every defense, every comfort, every connection with those who would have tried to dissuade him and pull him back from the brink of the ministry to which he had been called, Jesus could experience every temptation in its full intensity. This was tightrope walking without a safety net.
Our Lenten Calendar asks “What does it mean to “fast”? Fasting is more than food. Fasting is not only giving up something. To remove something from our lives creates a vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum. Vacuums fill up quickly and easily. The vacuum created by fasting needs to be intentionally filled by giving something more of ourselves as an expression of faithfulness. By giving up things that fill our lives for ourselves, we release time and energy to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with our God, to use the words of the prophet Micah (6:8).
Jesus’ wilderness experience sounds alien to us. We find it difficult to understand this story because we think of Jesus being perfect and sinless. But when we think that we forget that he was fully human as well as fully divine. We wonder how temptation was a question for him? Especially since we are tempted by so many ordinary and unnecessary things. He had nothing and no one to hide behind. But he also had no distractions.
The temptation in the wilderness was not an easy forty days for our Lord. Jesus doesn’t need to be standing in a bakery to be tempted by bread. He is able to turn stones to bread, but it was important for Jesus to journey in the wilderness so that his focus would be where it had to be: on God and God’s word. The devil forced Jesus to confront more than flesh, power and faith; Jesus had to think about the ministry he was about to begin. Jesus faced human and divine temptations.
Jesus did not prove himself to be the Son of God by turning stones into bread or by testing God’s faithfulness with foolish actions like jumping off the roof of the Temple. Jesus proved he was the Son of God by dwelling in the presence of God and relying on God’s faithfulness. Jesus did not come to feed the hungry, to rule over the nations or to be a famous preacher. Jesus proved himself to be the Son of God because he turned to God’s Word and God’s promises as the foundation for everything the did. He came to die, to bring forgiveness and healing to a world that was sick and dying from sin. The journey through the wilderness led to a cross, to an empty tomb, and to eternal life for all who believe, who call on Jesus’ name.
That’s the message that Paul sent the believers in Rome:
During this Lenten season, as we stand with Mary and so many others at the cross, let us remember that we do not choose to go into this wilderness. We are led there by the Holy Spirit. Though it is a place of temptation, we do not need to fear, for we, like Jesus filled with the Spirit, are not alone.
Let us approach this time with God’s Word in our mouth and in our heart so that we can overcome all the temptations that assail us. We have nothing to fear, for God has already heard our cry and saved us. We live in the Most High’s shelter, we camp in the Almighty’s shade. We have the words to remember our past as we thank God for the present and move into the future, so that God’s story will be written on our hearts and in our minds forever. We have the words by which we have life and by which we live: “All who call on the Lord’s name will be saved.”
That is our Lenten journey.
Thanks be to God.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
There are still a few people in Pike County who have never journeyed out of the county, some who have never been to the big city of Chillicothe, or to the even bigger metropolis of Columbus. Those numbers are decreasing rapidly, because of the ubiquitous automobile, and the places people have to go to get health and social services. With the advances of the internet, a person could leave the county a lot less, but that would be a whole different generation.
We travel. Just over fifty years ago I traveled thirty miles to attend a boarding school. It was an hour’s drive, but it was a lifetime away from all that I had ever known. And I know that I am largely who I am because I said yes to making that journey.
I remember my first airplane flight. It was from Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Denver, Colorado. I know that we had to change planes somewhere, but I don’t remember where. One year later I was flying from Cleveland to New York JFK on to Edinburgh, Scotland, to begin my seminary education.
Many of us have made similar journeys for social, educational, or career reasons. For some, it was because Uncle Sam pointed his finger at you and you didn’t have a choice. For others, it was all choice – I want to do this and go there. Some of us have sailed the seven seas, plied the European rails, trekked up mountains. I have a friend through the Presbytery who is on a three month journey which includes South Seas islands, the coast of Chile, and Antarctica.
The journeys of life change us. The destination is less significant than the actual journey.
The Book of Deuteronomy comes across as Moses’ memoir of the forty-year journey he took as God’s appointed leader of the Israelite people. We know that Moses lost his cool on several occasions. The incessant cries of the Israelites, “Are we there yet?” would have been enough to wear down the most seasoned tour guide. But this wasn’t a busload of weary travelers, it was thousands upon thousands according to the records. Think of the million-person march on Washington DC without the assistance of law enforcement personnel.
The journey from slavery in Egypt to nationhood in Canaan was a journey through a sci-fi time warp. It took all of the forty years to begin to shake the traditions and “we used to”s out of the people, and then as the biblical record after Deuteronomy reports, the attitude adjustment and reprogramming for a new life hadn’t completely taken, even after a whole generation died on the journey and a new generation was born.
The premise of the promised land was that it flowed with milk and honey, that is, everything would be all right if the people would buckle down and follow the commandments and keep the Lord God first and foremost in their thinking. For that honor and privilege God expected gratitude, first-fruits, early harvest thanksgiving.
Was that too much to ask? Apparently so. As the later history depicted it, people were busy counting seeds, lest they give God too much and not keep enough for themselves. All that manna – just enough for both those who collected a lot and for those who couldn’t collect much – hadn’t made an impression on them. Even in the midst of plenty the Israelites were in a wilderness of disobedience, greed, disbelief. Their journey was not over. Not for a long time.
Jesus was a traveler. In utero he traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem. As an infant he traveled from Bethlehem to Egypt. As a child he traveled from Egypt to Nazareth. As a 12-year old he traveled to Jerusalem for Passover, possibly after his bar mitzvah, and stayed behind, learning from and questioning the teachers of the law. Then about age thirty, he joined the caravans of people who were traveling to the place in the Jordan River where his cousin John was baptizing people for the forgiveness of sins. The Spirit descended and announced him “Beloved.” The water’s edge wasn’t the end of his journey, it was the embarkation point.
Jesus entered the wilderness for forty days. He gave up more than chocolate or the internet or red meat. In a sense, he gave up his soul. That is, he didn’t protect it. He didn’t shield it from whatever he would encounter. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He had questions. He wondered what the time in front of him was going to hold for him. Stripped of every defense, every comfort, every connection with those who would have tried to dissuade him and pull him back from the brink of the ministry to which he had been called, Jesus could experience every temptation in its full intensity. This was tightrope walking without a safety net.
Our Lenten Calendar asks “What does it mean to “fast”? Fasting is more than food. Fasting is not only giving up something. To remove something from our lives creates a vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum. Vacuums fill up quickly and easily. The vacuum created by fasting needs to be intentionally filled by giving something more of ourselves as an expression of faithfulness. By giving up things that fill our lives for ourselves, we release time and energy to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with our God, to use the words of the prophet Micah (6:8).
Jesus’ wilderness experience sounds alien to us. We find it difficult to understand this story because we think of Jesus being perfect and sinless. But when we think that we forget that he was fully human as well as fully divine. We wonder how temptation was a question for him? Especially since we are tempted by so many ordinary and unnecessary things. He had nothing and no one to hide behind. But he also had no distractions.
The temptation in the wilderness was not an easy forty days for our Lord. Jesus doesn’t need to be standing in a bakery to be tempted by bread. He is able to turn stones to bread, but it was important for Jesus to journey in the wilderness so that his focus would be where it had to be: on God and God’s word. The devil forced Jesus to confront more than flesh, power and faith; Jesus had to think about the ministry he was about to begin. Jesus faced human and divine temptations.
Jesus did not prove himself to be the Son of God by turning stones into bread or by testing God’s faithfulness with foolish actions like jumping off the roof of the Temple. Jesus proved he was the Son of God by dwelling in the presence of God and relying on God’s faithfulness. Jesus did not come to feed the hungry, to rule over the nations or to be a famous preacher. Jesus proved himself to be the Son of God because he turned to God’s Word and God’s promises as the foundation for everything the did. He came to die, to bring forgiveness and healing to a world that was sick and dying from sin. The journey through the wilderness led to a cross, to an empty tomb, and to eternal life for all who believe, who call on Jesus’ name.
That’s the message that Paul sent the believers in Rome:
[I]f you confess with your mouth “Jesus is Lord” and in your heart you have faith that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Trusting with the heart leads to righteousness, and confessing with the mouth leads to salvation. (Romans 10:9-10)Whatever we choose to do as we go on this Lenten journey, let’s remember that we aren’t trying to prove ourselves. Lent teaches us how to abide in God as we face the difficulties and temptations of this world. The end of our Lenten journey is not pleasant. We have to face the cross with Jesus, deal with his death and the end of our assumptions about what He really came to do. He didn’t come to feed us, to be our king, or be a adoration generating spectacle. As Jesus hangs on the cross our wilderness shock is that this is not how it is meant to be. Our troubles are far more complex, our pain far deeper than we can imagine. Our sin is beyond our ability to overcome. There was no easy way to fix what was wrong with the world. We have to face that reality on Good Friday when even Jesus cried out to God in his suffering and pain.
During this Lenten season, as we stand with Mary and so many others at the cross, let us remember that we do not choose to go into this wilderness. We are led there by the Holy Spirit. Though it is a place of temptation, we do not need to fear, for we, like Jesus filled with the Spirit, are not alone.
Let us approach this time with God’s Word in our mouth and in our heart so that we can overcome all the temptations that assail us. We have nothing to fear, for God has already heard our cry and saved us. We live in the Most High’s shelter, we camp in the Almighty’s shade. We have the words to remember our past as we thank God for the present and move into the future, so that God’s story will be written on our hearts and in our minds forever. We have the words by which we have life and by which we live: “All who call on the Lord’s name will be saved.”
That is our Lenten journey.
Thanks be to God.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, February 7, 2016
Some People Change
2 Corinthians 3:12-18; Exodus 34:29-35; Luke 9:28-36
It’s been a short Epiphany season this year. Only five weeks long. That’s not a lot of time for the light of the Savior of the world to penetrate the darkness of our world, not a lot of time for us to get up to speed with understanding that Jesus offers God’s grace to those on the inside of life as well as those on the outside, regardless of who defines inside and outside. For all our intelligence, we are sometimes slow to realize that our definitions carry no weight with God.
Paul tries to get that point across to the Corinthian believers. They are a contentious bunch, even fighting with Paul about the very truths of the gospel which he had presented them. There are times when we can sense that Paul is close to losing his temper with them. Fortunately his theological and rhetorical training constrains him.
We find that his statements to the Corinthians in today’s brief passage represent the core of his understanding of Jesus’ relationship with believers. Paul tells the Corinthian faithful that in Christ they are called out of lives of spiritual bondage and intellectual blindness into new lives which are filled with freedom, hope, and boldness. This is on account of the transfiguring encounter with the Spirit who is the Lord. It is only through Christ that the veil of ignorance and bondage is removed and that true sight comes to their eyes and hence to their spiritual being. Hardened hearts are softened and blind spiritual eyes become sighted as the glory of God is revealed and lives are transformed into God’s image.
There is a lot of not seeing and not believing in the pages of scripture. There are very few instances of seeing and believing. Two of the key instances are presented by the presence of Moses and Elijah in the account of the transfiguration of Jesus. Moses represents the covenant that created a people and Elijah represents the epitome of the prophetic tradition. Each of them saw God in a special way.
We heard about Moses having talked with God when God gave Moses the second set of the tables of the Law. Just before that Moses had begged God to show him God’s glorious presence. God told Moses to stand behind a rock and God would pass by so that Moses could see all of God’s goodness. “But,” God says, “you can’t see my face because no one can see me and live” (Exodus 33:20).
You will remember that when Elijah defeated the 400 prophets of Baal in the whole burnt offering contest on Mount Carmel and then had them slaughtered, Queen Jezebel threatened Elijah’s life. He fled ultimately to Mount Horeb where he sought God unsuccessfully in the wind, earthquake, and fire. Then he met God in the thin, quiet, nearly inaudible sound of near silence (1 Kings 19:12).
Paul earnestly desired that the Corinthians see Jesus in the words of the Gospel and the way the gospel was lived by those who had seen Jesus and by those who had not seen the physical Jesus but had believed in him where sight had not taken them.
It is easy to dismiss the fractured believing and disbelieving of the Corinthians as something that was only effected them. Mis-believing is not something that happened long ago. It happens everyday in the best of congregations. Like the Jews who could not or would not see Jesus as the Christ (3:14-15), we also may be victims to our own bondage and darkness.
Week after week I stand at this pulpit, graciously accorded a measure of authority by you for this responsibility. Yet as a flawed human being who like everyone else needs to repent and seek God’s forgiving grace, I have to ask, am I at times masking God’s word of truth rather than unveiling it? Are some of you here because you don’t know what else to do with a Sunday morning? Or does anything spiritual that happens here roll off you like water off a duck’s back? We all have our veils, our masks, our blinders. Sometimes our faith is like that smudged window that just never seems to be streak-free, no matter how hard we try to clean it.
We are blinded by so many different kinds of things. We are blinded by fear: fear of failure; fear of loss; fear of success; fear of not being able to measure up to our ideal standards or those of someone else.
We are blinded by envy: envy of a lifestyle, be it jet-setting or simple; envy of prestige, renown, recognition; envy of people who have made it and seem to have everything going their way.
We are blinded by tradition: the traditions handed down by our forebears; the tradition of not rocking the boat; the tradition of being second-rate or sidelined so we have to pull our lives around us like a protective blanket.
We are blinded by ambition: the need to get ahead; the need to have everything imaginable; the necessity of always being right; the drive not to get left behind.
All these kinds of blindness separate us from God and from the joy in the Lord which the Spirit desires to lavish on us.
Paul Tillich, one of the leading theologians of the mid-20th century, in a sermon on Romans 5:20 titled “You Are Accepted,”(1) suggests that our personal and societal idolatries often manifest themselves in a kind of “moral reversal.” Rather than seeing the state of our own sin (addictions), we project blame onto the external objects of our addiction. We cast blame on alcohol, drugs, temptresses or tempters, “the system,” the cops, religion, government, the President, immigrants, liberals, conservatives, ivory tower pedants. Other people—parents, spouses, children, friends, or strangers, congregation members—receive our venom.
Paul claims that even today, in spite of everything (3:14), the blind do not see, and even though they “know,” they cannot fathom they are the problem.(2)
In human development and educational circles the ongoing discussion is whether we are who we are because of nature or because of nurture. If we throw the discussion into the theological arena, we are who we are because of nature – we are children of Adam and Eve, we carry the gene of sin and disobedience. But, thanks be to God in Christ Jesus, we are also the product of nurture. We are who we are because of the grace which Jesus brought us through his life, death, and resurrection which transforms us who through the working of the Spirit in us and in those around us. We can be changed. We can have the scales removed from the eyes of our faith.
Paul admonishes the church at Corinth to take a look at their own lives in Christ and to see in their own unveiled faces how they are being “transformed … from one degree of glory to the next.” Paul had enough experience in ministry with the Corinthian congregation and with others to know that no one falls head first into the pool of God’s transforming love and emerges fully formed as a perfect reflection of Christ. The work of God’s justifying and redemptive Spirit moves in human lives from one degree of glory to another, often taking a lifetime to achieve the full reflection of Christ in our shining, unveiled faces.
This is wonderfully good news! No one sails through life without setbacks, without rough seas, without hardships and doubts. Paul is a prime example of this obvious truth. Yet for the follower of Christ, the setbacks or hardships are not the defining events of life. For the beloved sisters and brothers of Christ, the defining event is the gift of freedom offered through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The true identity of the Christian is found in the love of God that has been written upon hearts. No outward circumstances or worldly appearances can change the inward and spiritual reality of God’s justifying and redemptive grace.
The work of the Christian believer – our work – then, is to allow the love of Christ and the freedom of the Spirit to be manifest in daily living. The work of the Christian believer, with Paul, is not to lose heart but to continue — no matter what the circumstances of life — to act with boldness in the direction of God’s redeeming work of love and mercy.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
(1) Paul Tillich, “You Are Accepted,” in The Shaking of the Foundations (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948), 153-63. Available online at www.religion-online.org.
(2) Donald W. Musser, “2 Corinthians 3:12-18 – Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), Year C, Volume 1, 450.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
It’s been a short Epiphany season this year. Only five weeks long. That’s not a lot of time for the light of the Savior of the world to penetrate the darkness of our world, not a lot of time for us to get up to speed with understanding that Jesus offers God’s grace to those on the inside of life as well as those on the outside, regardless of who defines inside and outside. For all our intelligence, we are sometimes slow to realize that our definitions carry no weight with God.
Paul tries to get that point across to the Corinthian believers. They are a contentious bunch, even fighting with Paul about the very truths of the gospel which he had presented them. There are times when we can sense that Paul is close to losing his temper with them. Fortunately his theological and rhetorical training constrains him.
We find that his statements to the Corinthians in today’s brief passage represent the core of his understanding of Jesus’ relationship with believers. Paul tells the Corinthian faithful that in Christ they are called out of lives of spiritual bondage and intellectual blindness into new lives which are filled with freedom, hope, and boldness. This is on account of the transfiguring encounter with the Spirit who is the Lord. It is only through Christ that the veil of ignorance and bondage is removed and that true sight comes to their eyes and hence to their spiritual being. Hardened hearts are softened and blind spiritual eyes become sighted as the glory of God is revealed and lives are transformed into God’s image.
There is a lot of not seeing and not believing in the pages of scripture. There are very few instances of seeing and believing. Two of the key instances are presented by the presence of Moses and Elijah in the account of the transfiguration of Jesus. Moses represents the covenant that created a people and Elijah represents the epitome of the prophetic tradition. Each of them saw God in a special way.
We heard about Moses having talked with God when God gave Moses the second set of the tables of the Law. Just before that Moses had begged God to show him God’s glorious presence. God told Moses to stand behind a rock and God would pass by so that Moses could see all of God’s goodness. “But,” God says, “you can’t see my face because no one can see me and live” (Exodus 33:20).
You will remember that when Elijah defeated the 400 prophets of Baal in the whole burnt offering contest on Mount Carmel and then had them slaughtered, Queen Jezebel threatened Elijah’s life. He fled ultimately to Mount Horeb where he sought God unsuccessfully in the wind, earthquake, and fire. Then he met God in the thin, quiet, nearly inaudible sound of near silence (1 Kings 19:12).
Paul earnestly desired that the Corinthians see Jesus in the words of the Gospel and the way the gospel was lived by those who had seen Jesus and by those who had not seen the physical Jesus but had believed in him where sight had not taken them.
It is easy to dismiss the fractured believing and disbelieving of the Corinthians as something that was only effected them. Mis-believing is not something that happened long ago. It happens everyday in the best of congregations. Like the Jews who could not or would not see Jesus as the Christ (3:14-15), we also may be victims to our own bondage and darkness.
Week after week I stand at this pulpit, graciously accorded a measure of authority by you for this responsibility. Yet as a flawed human being who like everyone else needs to repent and seek God’s forgiving grace, I have to ask, am I at times masking God’s word of truth rather than unveiling it? Are some of you here because you don’t know what else to do with a Sunday morning? Or does anything spiritual that happens here roll off you like water off a duck’s back? We all have our veils, our masks, our blinders. Sometimes our faith is like that smudged window that just never seems to be streak-free, no matter how hard we try to clean it.
We are blinded by so many different kinds of things. We are blinded by fear: fear of failure; fear of loss; fear of success; fear of not being able to measure up to our ideal standards or those of someone else.
We are blinded by envy: envy of a lifestyle, be it jet-setting or simple; envy of prestige, renown, recognition; envy of people who have made it and seem to have everything going their way.
We are blinded by tradition: the traditions handed down by our forebears; the tradition of not rocking the boat; the tradition of being second-rate or sidelined so we have to pull our lives around us like a protective blanket.
We are blinded by ambition: the need to get ahead; the need to have everything imaginable; the necessity of always being right; the drive not to get left behind.
All these kinds of blindness separate us from God and from the joy in the Lord which the Spirit desires to lavish on us.
Paul Tillich, one of the leading theologians of the mid-20th century, in a sermon on Romans 5:20 titled “You Are Accepted,”(1) suggests that our personal and societal idolatries often manifest themselves in a kind of “moral reversal.” Rather than seeing the state of our own sin (addictions), we project blame onto the external objects of our addiction. We cast blame on alcohol, drugs, temptresses or tempters, “the system,” the cops, religion, government, the President, immigrants, liberals, conservatives, ivory tower pedants. Other people—parents, spouses, children, friends, or strangers, congregation members—receive our venom.
Paul claims that even today, in spite of everything (3:14), the blind do not see, and even though they “know,” they cannot fathom they are the problem.(2)
In human development and educational circles the ongoing discussion is whether we are who we are because of nature or because of nurture. If we throw the discussion into the theological arena, we are who we are because of nature – we are children of Adam and Eve, we carry the gene of sin and disobedience. But, thanks be to God in Christ Jesus, we are also the product of nurture. We are who we are because of the grace which Jesus brought us through his life, death, and resurrection which transforms us who through the working of the Spirit in us and in those around us. We can be changed. We can have the scales removed from the eyes of our faith.
Paul admonishes the church at Corinth to take a look at their own lives in Christ and to see in their own unveiled faces how they are being “transformed … from one degree of glory to the next.” Paul had enough experience in ministry with the Corinthian congregation and with others to know that no one falls head first into the pool of God’s transforming love and emerges fully formed as a perfect reflection of Christ. The work of God’s justifying and redemptive Spirit moves in human lives from one degree of glory to another, often taking a lifetime to achieve the full reflection of Christ in our shining, unveiled faces.
This is wonderfully good news! No one sails through life without setbacks, without rough seas, without hardships and doubts. Paul is a prime example of this obvious truth. Yet for the follower of Christ, the setbacks or hardships are not the defining events of life. For the beloved sisters and brothers of Christ, the defining event is the gift of freedom offered through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The true identity of the Christian is found in the love of God that has been written upon hearts. No outward circumstances or worldly appearances can change the inward and spiritual reality of God’s justifying and redemptive grace.
The work of the Christian believer – our work – then, is to allow the love of Christ and the freedom of the Spirit to be manifest in daily living. The work of the Christian believer, with Paul, is not to lose heart but to continue — no matter what the circumstances of life — to act with boldness in the direction of God’s redeeming work of love and mercy.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
(1) Paul Tillich, “You Are Accepted,” in The Shaking of the Foundations (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948), 153-63. Available online at www.religion-online.org.
(2) Donald W. Musser, “2 Corinthians 3:12-18 – Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), Year C, Volume 1, 450.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Agape Update
1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Jeremiah 1:4-10; Luke 4:21-30
In Saturday’s Beatle Bailey comic strip, Sgt. Snorkle tells Private Zero to get his cell phone since the hike was going to be a long out of the way one. Zero says that he has lost his phone and asks why someone does invent a phone that is wired to the wall so it doesn’t get lost.
With every upgrade in technology we gain something and we lose something. People post pictures on Facebook of items no longer in use and ask if people remember them. At my age I do know more than ninety percent of them, and have used many of them.
More of us have computers today than we did ten or fifteen years ago. Thirty years ago I bought my first desktop unit which had minimal memory. I replaced it seven years later with one that had a small hard drive. Nine years later I got a laptop which was replaced in six years by the one which I replaced last autumn. I am on my third smart phone in the last decade. The one I have now has more computing capability than the college main frame computer of 50 years ago. It fits into my pocket rather than an outsized living room and is exceedingly more reliable.
Every time I turn my computer on it looks for updates. Then I get a little pop-up window that tells me that I need to install them. Sometimes I feel as though I spend more time keeping programs up to date than I do using them.
A meme is an idea or image that goes viral on social media. One recent meme has a child asking the parent what a book is. The parent answers that books were software updates for the mind.
For computers, tablets, and smart phones there are thousands of apps – software programs – that will connect you to certain stores, keep track of your heart rate, tell you your bank balance, track your calories, tell you when to send a birthday card or buy more ink for your printer. That’s not all that different from a library with hundreds of thousands of books to update our minds in every imaginable subject area.
The computer apps are written to work on an handful of operating systems: PC, Mac, Unix, and a few very specialized ones. Books also are based on certain operating systems which are language based or genre based. You can’t use a Dickens novel to build a bridge and a textbook on quantum mechanics won’t be much use in telling you how to change the pads on your car’s brakes.
Each upgrade in the operating system brings a certain measure of expectation and anxiety. I have spent a lot of time this past week upgrading a nearly new computer in the church office to Windows 10. We bought the computer to replace a perfectly good one which ran on Windows XP, which Microsoft no longer supports, and for which software programs are no longer being back-engineered. Without the upgrade we could not produce necessary reports.
If Paul were literate in our computing technology, he would say that the belief or faith operating system of the Corinthian church desperately needed the agape update that he describes in chapter 13. Agape love is the update we need, and, if we don't get it, have it, or use it, nothing else matters. Nothing else works.
While apps have made us better connected electronically, we aren’t necessarily better and more compassionate people. While we are posting a comment to a distant friend’s Facebook page offering sympathy for their illness, we may be ignoring the distressed person sitting at the next table in the coffee shop. We can Instagram a picture of our delicious vegetable lasagna dinner while walking past a hungry homeless person on the street. While making a smart remark in response to a friend’s post on the current political scene, we forget about the hard times our immigrant grandparents or parents experienced. Are we nothing more than clanging gongs? Don’t we need the update?
Paul was dealing with an app problem in Corinth (“app” as in the “application of the Gospel”). Even though they were first century Greco-Roman people eking out their living without cell phones, the Corinthians were acting like a bunch of selfie-taking narcissists instead of the church of Jesus Christ.
The list of problems in Corinth sounds a lot like the ones we face in the 21st-century WiFi connected world.
The Corinthians tweeted and posted, pinned and chatted, all the while missing out on the richness of real Christian community.
So, Paul texts them that they need an update — one that will not only make their community run more smoothly and in a more Christlike manner, but will also beef up their spiritual security and make the church more user-friendly to outsiders.
It’s “the love update.” Or, better: “The agape update.”
We love to use the word “love.” Unfortunately our use of it covers a multitude of meanings all the way from loving an app, a dress, guacamole, and so forth, to loving a child, parent, or spouse.
The “love” word Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 13 is agape, which is the kind of love that is less about typing your feelings in cute emojis (those little smiley faces) than it is about upgrading to real, willful, sacrificial, unconditional, self-giving love.
Paul lays out the details of that particular update, and how it turns the attention from taking selfies to taking action on behalf of others.
In a community that embraces agape, the agape update changes everything. Instead of being at each other's throats, love makes them patient with one another and takes away the specter of jealousy (v. 4). Love raises peoples’ heads up from the minutiae of their own lives and gives way to the needs of others (v. 5-6). The agape update turns us away from the evil influences that can creep into our lives. It turns us toward the truth of the gospel (v. 6).
This update enables the community of faith to bear, hope and endure all things for each other and for Christ (v. 7). Once this update is installed, it will never fail (v. 8).
Even faith and hope pale in comparison to the power of the agape app. Those apps will always be incomplete without the full update of love (vv. 8-10). The self-obsessed way of the world makes people act like a bunch of spoiled kids. The presence of agape leads the community to maturity, clarity and fulfillment for all (vv. 11-12). Faith and hope are great apps to have on hand at all times, but neither of them is as vital to the entire church operating system as love (v. 13).
How do we get this app? “Use your ambition to get the greater gifts,” is what Paul says just prior to the agape update. After it he urges the Corinthians to “pursue love.” The reality of agape is that it is really more an act of the will than a feeling. Agape love has to be chosen daily, prayed over, studied, practiced and constantly used in order to be effective. It’s a community app that makes the whole community better reflect the presence of Christ.
George Plasterer, pastor of Cross-Wind United Methodist Church in Logansport, Indiana, makes this point: “Most of the apps update automatically. Obviously, such is not the case with love. We have to be quite intentional about it.” The agape app is made available to us by the Holy Spirit. But it’s totally on us to activate it and use it. And, it takes some practice, however, and a clear sense that we have the ability to share this love because Christ has shared it with us first through his sacrificial death on our behalf. As another love app designer named John put it, “We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19). When we recognize how much we have been loved, it can increase our bandwidth for loving others in the model of Christ.
The Corinthians desperately needed the agape update, given their history of wrangling with one another. Paul’s plea to download the agape app is no less important for us today when individuals, communities, cultures, economies, churches and denominations are in conflict with one another. In a world where many apps are places for trolls to gather, the church needs to be a people whose primary pursuit is love.
Get the agape update. Like it. Share it. Live it. It’s the best app ever!
General Resource: “The Agape Update,” Homiletics, January 31, 2016. Pp. 40-42.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
In Saturday’s Beatle Bailey comic strip, Sgt. Snorkle tells Private Zero to get his cell phone since the hike was going to be a long out of the way one. Zero says that he has lost his phone and asks why someone does invent a phone that is wired to the wall so it doesn’t get lost.
With every upgrade in technology we gain something and we lose something. People post pictures on Facebook of items no longer in use and ask if people remember them. At my age I do know more than ninety percent of them, and have used many of them.
More of us have computers today than we did ten or fifteen years ago. Thirty years ago I bought my first desktop unit which had minimal memory. I replaced it seven years later with one that had a small hard drive. Nine years later I got a laptop which was replaced in six years by the one which I replaced last autumn. I am on my third smart phone in the last decade. The one I have now has more computing capability than the college main frame computer of 50 years ago. It fits into my pocket rather than an outsized living room and is exceedingly more reliable.
Every time I turn my computer on it looks for updates. Then I get a little pop-up window that tells me that I need to install them. Sometimes I feel as though I spend more time keeping programs up to date than I do using them.
A meme is an idea or image that goes viral on social media. One recent meme has a child asking the parent what a book is. The parent answers that books were software updates for the mind.
For computers, tablets, and smart phones there are thousands of apps – software programs – that will connect you to certain stores, keep track of your heart rate, tell you your bank balance, track your calories, tell you when to send a birthday card or buy more ink for your printer. That’s not all that different from a library with hundreds of thousands of books to update our minds in every imaginable subject area.
The computer apps are written to work on an handful of operating systems: PC, Mac, Unix, and a few very specialized ones. Books also are based on certain operating systems which are language based or genre based. You can’t use a Dickens novel to build a bridge and a textbook on quantum mechanics won’t be much use in telling you how to change the pads on your car’s brakes.
Each upgrade in the operating system brings a certain measure of expectation and anxiety. I have spent a lot of time this past week upgrading a nearly new computer in the church office to Windows 10. We bought the computer to replace a perfectly good one which ran on Windows XP, which Microsoft no longer supports, and for which software programs are no longer being back-engineered. Without the upgrade we could not produce necessary reports.
If Paul were literate in our computing technology, he would say that the belief or faith operating system of the Corinthian church desperately needed the agape update that he describes in chapter 13. Agape love is the update we need, and, if we don't get it, have it, or use it, nothing else matters. Nothing else works.
While apps have made us better connected electronically, we aren’t necessarily better and more compassionate people. While we are posting a comment to a distant friend’s Facebook page offering sympathy for their illness, we may be ignoring the distressed person sitting at the next table in the coffee shop. We can Instagram a picture of our delicious vegetable lasagna dinner while walking past a hungry homeless person on the street. While making a smart remark in response to a friend’s post on the current political scene, we forget about the hard times our immigrant grandparents or parents experienced. Are we nothing more than clanging gongs? Don’t we need the update?
Paul was dealing with an app problem in Corinth (“app” as in the “application of the Gospel”). Even though they were first century Greco-Roman people eking out their living without cell phones, the Corinthians were acting like a bunch of selfie-taking narcissists instead of the church of Jesus Christ.
The list of problems in Corinth sounds a lot like the ones we face in the 21st-century WiFi connected world.
- They were as divided as two sets of social media trolls lobbing insults back and forth at one another (1:10-17).
- They were obsessed with celebrity teachers, always posting sound bites from their favorites (3:1-9).
- They seemed to have a relaxed view of sexual ethics, rather than clearing sordid affairs from their history (5:1-2).
- They might have used a legal app to draft lawsuits against one another (6:1-11).
- They may have Snapchatted pictures of food sacrificed to idols to those who were trying to eat kosher (8:1-13).
- The wealthier members of the community might have Instagrammed pictures of the Lord’s Supper feast before their poorer neighbors got there and missed out on all the food (11:17-34).
The Corinthians tweeted and posted, pinned and chatted, all the while missing out on the richness of real Christian community.
So, Paul texts them that they need an update — one that will not only make their community run more smoothly and in a more Christlike manner, but will also beef up their spiritual security and make the church more user-friendly to outsiders.
It’s “the love update.” Or, better: “The agape update.”
We love to use the word “love.” Unfortunately our use of it covers a multitude of meanings all the way from loving an app, a dress, guacamole, and so forth, to loving a child, parent, or spouse.
The “love” word Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 13 is agape, which is the kind of love that is less about typing your feelings in cute emojis (those little smiley faces) than it is about upgrading to real, willful, sacrificial, unconditional, self-giving love.
Paul lays out the details of that particular update, and how it turns the attention from taking selfies to taking action on behalf of others.
In a community that embraces agape, the agape update changes everything. Instead of being at each other's throats, love makes them patient with one another and takes away the specter of jealousy (v. 4). Love raises peoples’ heads up from the minutiae of their own lives and gives way to the needs of others (v. 5-6). The agape update turns us away from the evil influences that can creep into our lives. It turns us toward the truth of the gospel (v. 6).
This update enables the community of faith to bear, hope and endure all things for each other and for Christ (v. 7). Once this update is installed, it will never fail (v. 8).
Even faith and hope pale in comparison to the power of the agape app. Those apps will always be incomplete without the full update of love (vv. 8-10). The self-obsessed way of the world makes people act like a bunch of spoiled kids. The presence of agape leads the community to maturity, clarity and fulfillment for all (vv. 11-12). Faith and hope are great apps to have on hand at all times, but neither of them is as vital to the entire church operating system as love (v. 13).
How do we get this app? “Use your ambition to get the greater gifts,” is what Paul says just prior to the agape update. After it he urges the Corinthians to “pursue love.” The reality of agape is that it is really more an act of the will than a feeling. Agape love has to be chosen daily, prayed over, studied, practiced and constantly used in order to be effective. It’s a community app that makes the whole community better reflect the presence of Christ.
George Plasterer, pastor of Cross-Wind United Methodist Church in Logansport, Indiana, makes this point: “Most of the apps update automatically. Obviously, such is not the case with love. We have to be quite intentional about it.” The agape app is made available to us by the Holy Spirit. But it’s totally on us to activate it and use it. And, it takes some practice, however, and a clear sense that we have the ability to share this love because Christ has shared it with us first through his sacrificial death on our behalf. As another love app designer named John put it, “We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19). When we recognize how much we have been loved, it can increase our bandwidth for loving others in the model of Christ.
The Corinthians desperately needed the agape update, given their history of wrangling with one another. Paul’s plea to download the agape app is no less important for us today when individuals, communities, cultures, economies, churches and denominations are in conflict with one another. In a world where many apps are places for trolls to gather, the church needs to be a people whose primary pursuit is love.
Get the agape update. Like it. Share it. Live it. It’s the best app ever!
General Resource: “The Agape Update,” Homiletics, January 31, 2016. Pp. 40-42.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Now Concerning Spiritual Gifts
1 Corinthians 12:1-11; Isaiah 62:1-5; John 2:1-11
The Spirit is part of the life of every person who confesses Jesus is Lord. For the apostle Paul it did not matter what a person’s background was, Jew or Gentile. In today’s church world, it doesn’t matter whether you are Presbyterian, Baptist, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, Wesleyan, Orthodox, or non-denominational. It does not matter whether you have or don’t have a gift that some perceive as being fancier. What matters is your response to Jesus. The earliest and most basic Christian confession is “Jesus is Lord,” and to confess it is evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in your life.
This working of the Spirit in a person suggests an intimacy that we may not always associate with the church. We tend to be private individuals and to hold our spiritual matters as close to our being as we do our sexuality. None of us in full mental capacity would think about parading around in our Adam and Eve suits. And very few of us would think about overtly displaying our spiritual natures. “That’s between me and God,” we would say.
Yet that intimacy is there. Isaiah says that God flaunts it:
God does not wish to be aloof from us. God wishes to be in an intimate relationship with each of us. How we respond to God’s suit for us? Do we swoon in God’s arms, so to speak? Or do we play the coquette, teasing God with playful glances but backing off every so often? Are we hard to get, icily rebuffing God at every turn? Or are we totally oblivious to the love that God offers us? Each of us is a beloved child of God. We can’t change that. And it is hard to ignore it, although some people do.
Intimacy with God is an underlying premise in John’s gospel. It cannot be ignored. “The Word became flesh and made his home among us” (John 1:14). John laid out his good news about Jesus in such a way as to say that God’s desire for intimacy with humanity was fulfilled in Jesus and that this new divine-human relation was going to redirect and reinterpret the tradition. Jeremiah had said as much:
The early church understood this new closeness between divinity and humanity. But Paul found it necessary to counsel the Corinthian believers about how they were responding to God’s love. Paul observed that not everyone was loving God in appropriate ways. As in some human relationships, there were givers and there were takers. Some of the Corinthian believers were taking from God. They were claiming a kind of elitism, a spiritual privilege that was not part of the love that God was giving.
These believers claimed a special relationship with God through the Spirit. They had spiritual gifts which they claimed were better than other spiritual gifts. They were spiritually lording it over sisters and brothers whom they treated as inferior, less privileged, second class.
Paul weighed in strongly on this. This spiritual inequality was another symptom of the nagging dysfunction of the Corinthian church. Yet in his love for them, he didn’t discredit the authenticity of the gifts claimed by the ones demonstrating the spiritual elitism. Rather he responded to the disruption which the self-promotion was causing in the community.
First of all, said Paul, the source of spiritual gifts is the Holy Spirit. Spirituality is not a latent gift in a person which needs to have the on switch pressed. Our piety is not a natural endowment. John Calvin cited this passage in his polemic against all efforts to regard self-cultivated human capacities as the ground of growth in the Christian life. We can take no credit for our spiritual gifts. They cannot be used as rationale for high status in the church.
All Christians receive gifts, not just an elite few. The Christian life is not the personal property of an exclusive class of spiritual super-heroes. Paul’s extensive list of gifts – here and elsewhere – implies that all of them, not just the sensational ones that attract the most notoriety, are valuable. The specific nature of a gift has no grounds for a claim to superiority. Because all such gifts are rooted in the same Spirit and serve a common purpose, attempts to calculate the relative value of gifts goes against the will of God.
Another significant aspect of spiritual gifts is that they are intended to build up community rather than individuals. Genuine spirituality is not the cultivation of private emotional highs, mystical thrills, or an exclusively individual inner peace. Christianity is not a religion of spiritual loners. The spiritual gifts are bestowed in order to build up the church. They are intended to be publicly shared and publicly enjoyed.
Paul also suggests that the plural nature of these gifts is no coincidence. The church can never be monolithic or homogenous. The diversity of talents and experiences in the Christian community is absolutely necessary. The sanctifying work of God is so rich, so multidimensional, that it requires a variety of expressions.
And above all, the Spirit is not disconnected from the person of Christ. It is the Spirit who enables the confession that “Jesus is Lord.” Our Presbyterian theological tradition emphasizes the close connection between Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. We maintain that the Holy Spirit works to illumine the Word and to promote the union – intimate relationship – with Christ that results in faith and growth in the Lord. Because the work of Christ and the work of the Spirit cannot be separated, a christological confession such as “Jesus is Lord” serves as a criterion for authentic Christian spirituality.
So, each of you is beloved by God. Each of you is blessed with a spiritual gift. For some it is teaching; for others, hospitality; for others, care-giving; for others, one-on-one conversation; for others, praying; for others, writing notes of encouragement; for others, graphic design; for others, music. Each and every gift is important to this community of Christ. Without any one of these gifts our collective witness to Christ in the world is deficient.
When Christ urged his mountaintop listeners to put their light on a lamp stand rather than under a basket, but to put it on a lamp stand, he inferred that the spiritual gift that each of us possesses is to be used and shared, not held back or hidden.
During the coming week, I urge you to celebrate your loved child of God status by using your spiritual gift every day in some way. And if you aren’t sure about what your gift is, take some time to pray about it and some time to talk with others who know you and your faith. They can help you understand the gift that they see in you.
We cannot ask for gifts in order to feel more powerful, important, or significant. When we make it our goal to be available to God and to seek to serve others for Christ’s sake, our spiritual gifts will come to the surface. As you explore your spiritual gifts, consider these steps:
And remember, as we grow and mature in our intimate relationship with Christ, our gifts will grow, expand, and change as the Spirit draws us toward the realm of God’s eternal rule.
May every one of your spiritual gifts bless this community of Christ, the universal church, and the world.
Amen.
General resource: Lee C. Barrett, “Second Sunday After Epiphany: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 – Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville; Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), Year C, Volume 1, 254-258.
(1) Life Application Bible Commentary – 1 and 2 Corinthians (Carol Stream IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001) 12:8.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
The Spirit is part of the life of every person who confesses Jesus is Lord. For the apostle Paul it did not matter what a person’s background was, Jew or Gentile. In today’s church world, it doesn’t matter whether you are Presbyterian, Baptist, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, Wesleyan, Orthodox, or non-denominational. It does not matter whether you have or don’t have a gift that some perceive as being fancier. What matters is your response to Jesus. The earliest and most basic Christian confession is “Jesus is Lord,” and to confess it is evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in your life.
This working of the Spirit in a person suggests an intimacy that we may not always associate with the church. We tend to be private individuals and to hold our spiritual matters as close to our being as we do our sexuality. None of us in full mental capacity would think about parading around in our Adam and Eve suits. And very few of us would think about overtly displaying our spiritual natures. “That’s between me and God,” we would say.
Yet that intimacy is there. Isaiah says that God flaunts it:
You will be a splendid garland in the Lord’s hand, a royal turban in the palm of God’s hand. You will no longer be called Abandoned, and your land will no longer be called Deserted. Instead, you will be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land, Married. Because the Lord delights in you, your land will be cared for once again. (Isaiah 62:3-4)Isaiah uses the image of marriage:
With the joy of a bridegroom because of his bride, so your God will rejoice because of you. (Isaiah 62:5)
God does not wish to be aloof from us. God wishes to be in an intimate relationship with each of us. How we respond to God’s suit for us? Do we swoon in God’s arms, so to speak? Or do we play the coquette, teasing God with playful glances but backing off every so often? Are we hard to get, icily rebuffing God at every turn? Or are we totally oblivious to the love that God offers us? Each of us is a beloved child of God. We can’t change that. And it is hard to ignore it, although some people do.
Intimacy with God is an underlying premise in John’s gospel. It cannot be ignored. “The Word became flesh and made his home among us” (John 1:14). John laid out his good news about Jesus in such a way as to say that God’s desire for intimacy with humanity was fulfilled in Jesus and that this new divine-human relation was going to redirect and reinterpret the tradition. Jeremiah had said as much:
“I will put my Instructions within them and engrave them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33)The new intimate relationship with God will no longer require jars of water for purification. People will be purified once for all, and rather than standing aloof from God people will rejoice and share the wine of gladness of God’s love.
The early church understood this new closeness between divinity and humanity. But Paul found it necessary to counsel the Corinthian believers about how they were responding to God’s love. Paul observed that not everyone was loving God in appropriate ways. As in some human relationships, there were givers and there were takers. Some of the Corinthian believers were taking from God. They were claiming a kind of elitism, a spiritual privilege that was not part of the love that God was giving.
These believers claimed a special relationship with God through the Spirit. They had spiritual gifts which they claimed were better than other spiritual gifts. They were spiritually lording it over sisters and brothers whom they treated as inferior, less privileged, second class.
Paul weighed in strongly on this. This spiritual inequality was another symptom of the nagging dysfunction of the Corinthian church. Yet in his love for them, he didn’t discredit the authenticity of the gifts claimed by the ones demonstrating the spiritual elitism. Rather he responded to the disruption which the self-promotion was causing in the community.
First of all, said Paul, the source of spiritual gifts is the Holy Spirit. Spirituality is not a latent gift in a person which needs to have the on switch pressed. Our piety is not a natural endowment. John Calvin cited this passage in his polemic against all efforts to regard self-cultivated human capacities as the ground of growth in the Christian life. We can take no credit for our spiritual gifts. They cannot be used as rationale for high status in the church.
All Christians receive gifts, not just an elite few. The Christian life is not the personal property of an exclusive class of spiritual super-heroes. Paul’s extensive list of gifts – here and elsewhere – implies that all of them, not just the sensational ones that attract the most notoriety, are valuable. The specific nature of a gift has no grounds for a claim to superiority. Because all such gifts are rooted in the same Spirit and serve a common purpose, attempts to calculate the relative value of gifts goes against the will of God.
Another significant aspect of spiritual gifts is that they are intended to build up community rather than individuals. Genuine spirituality is not the cultivation of private emotional highs, mystical thrills, or an exclusively individual inner peace. Christianity is not a religion of spiritual loners. The spiritual gifts are bestowed in order to build up the church. They are intended to be publicly shared and publicly enjoyed.
Paul also suggests that the plural nature of these gifts is no coincidence. The church can never be monolithic or homogenous. The diversity of talents and experiences in the Christian community is absolutely necessary. The sanctifying work of God is so rich, so multidimensional, that it requires a variety of expressions.
And above all, the Spirit is not disconnected from the person of Christ. It is the Spirit who enables the confession that “Jesus is Lord.” Our Presbyterian theological tradition emphasizes the close connection between Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. We maintain that the Holy Spirit works to illumine the Word and to promote the union – intimate relationship – with Christ that results in faith and growth in the Lord. Because the work of Christ and the work of the Spirit cannot be separated, a christological confession such as “Jesus is Lord” serves as a criterion for authentic Christian spirituality.
So, each of you is beloved by God. Each of you is blessed with a spiritual gift. For some it is teaching; for others, hospitality; for others, care-giving; for others, one-on-one conversation; for others, praying; for others, writing notes of encouragement; for others, graphic design; for others, music. Each and every gift is important to this community of Christ. Without any one of these gifts our collective witness to Christ in the world is deficient.
When Christ urged his mountaintop listeners to put their light on a lamp stand rather than under a basket, but to put it on a lamp stand, he inferred that the spiritual gift that each of us possesses is to be used and shared, not held back or hidden.
During the coming week, I urge you to celebrate your loved child of God status by using your spiritual gift every day in some way. And if you aren’t sure about what your gift is, take some time to pray about it and some time to talk with others who know you and your faith. They can help you understand the gift that they see in you.
We cannot ask for gifts in order to feel more powerful, important, or significant. When we make it our goal to be available to God and to seek to serve others for Christ’s sake, our spiritual gifts will come to the surface. As you explore your spiritual gifts, consider these steps:
- Ask God to increase your usefulness.
- Seek opportunities of service.
- Observe how other believers serve.
- Ask those you've served and those who serve with you to help you discern your spiritual strengths.
- Practice your gift even more. (1)
And remember, as we grow and mature in our intimate relationship with Christ, our gifts will grow, expand, and change as the Spirit draws us toward the realm of God’s eternal rule.
May every one of your spiritual gifts bless this community of Christ, the universal church, and the world.
Amen.
General resource: Lee C. Barrett, “Second Sunday After Epiphany: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 – Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville; Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), Year C, Volume 1, 254-258.
(1) Life Application Bible Commentary – 1 and 2 Corinthians (Carol Stream IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001) 12:8.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Good News for All
Acts 8:14-17; Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
The story is told of a place which experienced a great drought. Water was so scarce that the Baptist was pouring baptismal water instead of dunking converts, the Roman Catholic priest was sprinkling infants at the baptismal font, and the Presbyterian pastor had resorted to dry cleaning.
The practice of baptism has had an interesting life over the church’s two millennia. And it all started in the Book of Acts. Two baptisms are often referred to, water baptism and Spirit baptism.
Our reading today occurs after some mighty work by Philip in Samaritan territory. His evangelical outreach resulted in quite a number of water baptisms. Peter and John hear about Philip’s good work and decide to go check it out. They discovered that the people had been baptized in the name of Jesus but had not experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit. So they laid hands on the new Samaritan believers who then experienced the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
The church’s problem is that these two baptisms, if indeed they be two, occur in a variety of ways in the accounts of the Book of Acts. In Peter’s Pentecost sermon he tells the crowd that “each of you must be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
Yet today’s reading implies that water baptism can exist without the follow-up gift of the Holy Spirit. But on the other side, when Peter is preaching to the household of Cornelius, in Acts 10, “the Holy Spirit fell on everyone who heard the word,” causing Peter to say, “Surely no one can stop them from being baptized with water,” and they were (Acts 10:44-48).
However, when Paul arrived in Ephesus, Acts 19, and asked if the believers had received the Holy Spirit, they claimed ignorance of the Spirit and said that they had received John the Baptist’s baptism. Paul’s preaching and actions strongly suggests that water baptism, the laying on of hands, and the giving of the Holy Spirit, are one cohesive activity.
Across the centuries different understandings of baptism have developed as the Christian faith tradition grew, developed, and went in differing directions of theology and practice. Some, including many believers who call themselves evangelicals, have held that baptism by the Holy Spirit occurs for all believers at conversion, subsequently witnessed to by water baptism.
The Pentecostal traditions have insisted that there are indeed two different baptisms, a baptism by water and a later baptism by the Spirit. Wesleyan holiness movements tend to think of Spirit baptism as the “second blessing,” associating it with assurance of salvation and complete sanctification.
Roman Catholics believe that the Spirit is initially given at baptism but only is completed by a second gift of the Spirit at confirmation, which fosters Christian maturation, and is considered a sacrament equal to baptism.
Other traditions mix these two aspects together saying that baptism for forgiveness and the conferring of the Spirit are aspects of a single phenomenon. Reformed theology, where Presbyterians hang out, has generally resisted the separation of baptism by water and baptism by the Spirit, regarding the water baptism as an outward sign, not only of the washing away of sins, but also of the inward giving of the Spirit.
When we think about the evidence that the Acts accounts give us, it shouldn’t surprise us that the church has developed multiple understandings of water and Spirit baptism. While the ideal seems to be the combination water and bestowal of the Spirit, what seems to be clearest about it all is that the working of the Spirit cannot be neatly understood or controlled. We cannot make the Spirit of God obey human rules. To attempt to do is to engage in a Sisyphean task of pushing rope or herding cats.
Presbyterian theology has described both ordinary” and “extraordinary” means of grace. God has covenanted with humanity to make God’s grace available through certain practices. Ordinary means of grace include prayer, preaching, fasting, Bible reading and study, and the sacraments of the table and the font. However, God isn’t locked into those means of only. God is sovereign and may go about dispensing grace beyond the ordinary ways as God sees fit. Huldrych Zwingli, another 16th century Swiss Reformer, said that although the grace of regeneration through the Spirit is promised at baptism, the Spirit’s operation is not confined only to baptism. We can boldly trust that spiritual regeneration is promised with our baptism, but we need not despair should God's Spirit choose to work in another way.
A second important thought arises from today’s reading: the reception of the Spirit is not a bonus supplement to the Christian life but is absolutely essential to it. For the Samaritans, John and Peter must complete the baptismal act initiated by Philip. The Christian life would be fatally deficient and deformed without renewal by the Spirit. The bestowal of the Spirit is not an extra measure of grace intended for a group of the spiritually elite but is a blessing granted to the whole church. Without the enlivening power of the Spirit, the church would not exist.
What is even more crucial about the events of today’s reading is its setting. The Samaritans shared cultural roots with the Jews, but were despised by them as having abandoned some key aspects of Jewish religious tradition. Philip crossed a religious, cultural and social boundary in his efforts to evangelize people who were outside the Jerusalem tradition.
The laying on of hands and pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Samaritans is another building block in the Acts-attested foundation that the grace of God in Christ was meant for non-Jews and Jews alike. The people of God cannot be defined by racial, cultural, language or geographical divides. The Holy Spirit is inclusive. The good news of Christ’s saving activity is confirmed by the extravagant and uncontrolled gift of the Spirit to any and all whom God calls to faith. As Jesus told Nicodemus, “God’s Spirit blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. It’s the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).
Through baptism we are physically and spiritually made one with God’s people in every time and place. Many of us don’t remember our baptisms because our parents took the responsibility to have us baptized and raised in the faith. Perhaps we do remember it because we have been told the story so often that we have incorporated all the details into our own self-disclosing story. Some of us were baptized at a time when we made our decision to accept Christ as our Lord and Savior. Whether we remember our baptism or not, the important thing to remember is that we are baptized, we are incorporated into the body of Christ.
And if we have not yet been baptized, if we have not yet declared the work of the Spirit in our lives which brings us to Christ, perhaps now is the time to think of baptism in the present and future tense rather than an event in the past. If the Spirit has convicted you, who can stop you from being baptized with water?
Shortly we will prayerfully remember our baptism in water and seek to continue to be blessed by the Holy Spirit working in you. As you reflect on baptism today and this week, think of people whom you don’t know, people who cross your path in a store aisle, a doctor’s waiting room, or in a car at an intersection. Think about the possibility that although they may be very different from you, they are a child of God and could share with you the “beloved” name bestowed through water and Spirit. Water and Spirit. Spirit and water. However it all works, it is good news for all.
Thanks be to God.
General resource: Lee C. Barrett, “Acts 8:14-17 – Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville; Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), Year C, Volume 1, 230-234.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
The story is told of a place which experienced a great drought. Water was so scarce that the Baptist was pouring baptismal water instead of dunking converts, the Roman Catholic priest was sprinkling infants at the baptismal font, and the Presbyterian pastor had resorted to dry cleaning.
The practice of baptism has had an interesting life over the church’s two millennia. And it all started in the Book of Acts. Two baptisms are often referred to, water baptism and Spirit baptism.
Our reading today occurs after some mighty work by Philip in Samaritan territory. His evangelical outreach resulted in quite a number of water baptisms. Peter and John hear about Philip’s good work and decide to go check it out. They discovered that the people had been baptized in the name of Jesus but had not experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit. So they laid hands on the new Samaritan believers who then experienced the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
The church’s problem is that these two baptisms, if indeed they be two, occur in a variety of ways in the accounts of the Book of Acts. In Peter’s Pentecost sermon he tells the crowd that “each of you must be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
Yet today’s reading implies that water baptism can exist without the follow-up gift of the Holy Spirit. But on the other side, when Peter is preaching to the household of Cornelius, in Acts 10, “the Holy Spirit fell on everyone who heard the word,” causing Peter to say, “Surely no one can stop them from being baptized with water,” and they were (Acts 10:44-48).
However, when Paul arrived in Ephesus, Acts 19, and asked if the believers had received the Holy Spirit, they claimed ignorance of the Spirit and said that they had received John the Baptist’s baptism. Paul’s preaching and actions strongly suggests that water baptism, the laying on of hands, and the giving of the Holy Spirit, are one cohesive activity.
Across the centuries different understandings of baptism have developed as the Christian faith tradition grew, developed, and went in differing directions of theology and practice. Some, including many believers who call themselves evangelicals, have held that baptism by the Holy Spirit occurs for all believers at conversion, subsequently witnessed to by water baptism.
The Pentecostal traditions have insisted that there are indeed two different baptisms, a baptism by water and a later baptism by the Spirit. Wesleyan holiness movements tend to think of Spirit baptism as the “second blessing,” associating it with assurance of salvation and complete sanctification.
Roman Catholics believe that the Spirit is initially given at baptism but only is completed by a second gift of the Spirit at confirmation, which fosters Christian maturation, and is considered a sacrament equal to baptism.
Other traditions mix these two aspects together saying that baptism for forgiveness and the conferring of the Spirit are aspects of a single phenomenon. Reformed theology, where Presbyterians hang out, has generally resisted the separation of baptism by water and baptism by the Spirit, regarding the water baptism as an outward sign, not only of the washing away of sins, but also of the inward giving of the Spirit.
When we think about the evidence that the Acts accounts give us, it shouldn’t surprise us that the church has developed multiple understandings of water and Spirit baptism. While the ideal seems to be the combination water and bestowal of the Spirit, what seems to be clearest about it all is that the working of the Spirit cannot be neatly understood or controlled. We cannot make the Spirit of God obey human rules. To attempt to do is to engage in a Sisyphean task of pushing rope or herding cats.
Presbyterian theology has described both ordinary” and “extraordinary” means of grace. God has covenanted with humanity to make God’s grace available through certain practices. Ordinary means of grace include prayer, preaching, fasting, Bible reading and study, and the sacraments of the table and the font. However, God isn’t locked into those means of only. God is sovereign and may go about dispensing grace beyond the ordinary ways as God sees fit. Huldrych Zwingli, another 16th century Swiss Reformer, said that although the grace of regeneration through the Spirit is promised at baptism, the Spirit’s operation is not confined only to baptism. We can boldly trust that spiritual regeneration is promised with our baptism, but we need not despair should God's Spirit choose to work in another way.
A second important thought arises from today’s reading: the reception of the Spirit is not a bonus supplement to the Christian life but is absolutely essential to it. For the Samaritans, John and Peter must complete the baptismal act initiated by Philip. The Christian life would be fatally deficient and deformed without renewal by the Spirit. The bestowal of the Spirit is not an extra measure of grace intended for a group of the spiritually elite but is a blessing granted to the whole church. Without the enlivening power of the Spirit, the church would not exist.
What is even more crucial about the events of today’s reading is its setting. The Samaritans shared cultural roots with the Jews, but were despised by them as having abandoned some key aspects of Jewish religious tradition. Philip crossed a religious, cultural and social boundary in his efforts to evangelize people who were outside the Jerusalem tradition.
The laying on of hands and pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Samaritans is another building block in the Acts-attested foundation that the grace of God in Christ was meant for non-Jews and Jews alike. The people of God cannot be defined by racial, cultural, language or geographical divides. The Holy Spirit is inclusive. The good news of Christ’s saving activity is confirmed by the extravagant and uncontrolled gift of the Spirit to any and all whom God calls to faith. As Jesus told Nicodemus, “God’s Spirit blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. It’s the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).
Through baptism we are physically and spiritually made one with God’s people in every time and place. Many of us don’t remember our baptisms because our parents took the responsibility to have us baptized and raised in the faith. Perhaps we do remember it because we have been told the story so often that we have incorporated all the details into our own self-disclosing story. Some of us were baptized at a time when we made our decision to accept Christ as our Lord and Savior. Whether we remember our baptism or not, the important thing to remember is that we are baptized, we are incorporated into the body of Christ.
And if we have not yet been baptized, if we have not yet declared the work of the Spirit in our lives which brings us to Christ, perhaps now is the time to think of baptism in the present and future tense rather than an event in the past. If the Spirit has convicted you, who can stop you from being baptized with water?
Shortly we will prayerfully remember our baptism in water and seek to continue to be blessed by the Holy Spirit working in you. As you reflect on baptism today and this week, think of people whom you don’t know, people who cross your path in a store aisle, a doctor’s waiting room, or in a car at an intersection. Think about the possibility that although they may be very different from you, they are a child of God and could share with you the “beloved” name bestowed through water and Spirit. Water and Spirit. Spirit and water. However it all works, it is good news for all.
Thanks be to God.
General resource: Lee C. Barrett, “Acts 8:14-17 – Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville; Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), Year C, Volume 1, 230-234.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Three Noes Equal One Yes
Matthew 2:1-12; Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:1-12
There is story about a king of Balkh (now northern Afghanistan) named Ebrahim ibn Adam. Ebrahim was wealthy according to every earthly measure. At the same time, however, he sincerely and restlessly strove to be wealthy spiritually as well.
“One night the king was roused from sleep by a fearful stomping on the roof above his bed. Alarmed, he shouted: ‘Who’s there?’ ‘A friend,’ came the reply from the roof. ‘I’ve lost my camel.’ Perturbed by such stupidity, Ebrahim screamed: ‘You fool! Are you looking for a camel on the roof?’ ‘You fool!’ the voice from the roof answered. ‘Are you looking for God in silk clothing, and lying on a golden bed?’ ” The king was changed by this event, refocused his spiritual search, and became a most remarkable saint.(1)
The camel on the roof raises the Epiphany question, Where are you looking for God? This is an appropriate life question of life as we start a new year, just as its companion question, Where have you found God? Is a good way to review a passing year. Our readings today raise the camel-on-the-roof question in one form or another. Each one is a camel-on-the-roof reminder that God is not to be found where the world’s princes and powers reside. God will more likely be found in humble kitchens than in royal parlors. Each text calls us to be like the king's friend, willing to make a fool of ourselves asking the camel-on-the-roof question to a world busy seeking God in all the wrong places, willing to rouse the world with the message of “Arise! Shine! Your light has come.”
There is another Arabic story, “Seventeen Camels,” that tells of a man who died and left his seventeen camels to be divided among his three sons. One was to receive one ninth; another one half; and the third son one third of the camels. Seventeen camels, however, aren't evenly divisible by three. The three sons argued long and loud about what to do. In desperation they agreed to let a certain wise man decide for them. He was seated in front of his tent with his own camel staked out back.
After hearing the case, the wise man took his own camel and added it to the other seventeen camels. He then gave th first son one-ninth of the eighteen, or two camels. To the second son he gave one half, or nine camels. To the third son he gave one third, or six camels. On top of it all, he still had his own camel left. (2)
Many of us try to find God and solve the problems of life by logical, calculating schemes that insure we receive our share. But God is to be found in receiving, not grasping; in giving, not claiming our rights; in the simple, not the ponderous; in the everyday, not the once in a lifetime.
If we are looking for God in the midst of getting or in the midst of thinking about ourselves first, we won’t find God. That’s a problem if we claim to be believers. If believers can’t find God, there has to be something wrong.
Epiphany is about God becoming visible in the world. If we look at the series of gospel readings for the next six weeks, they are all about the world realizing who Jesus is.
Let’s work backwards to today. The reading for the last Sunday after Epiphany is the account of Jesus and three disciples on the mountain when Jesus is transformed before their eyes. The vision is sealed with God’s words, “This is my Son, my chosen one. Listen to him!” (Luke 9:35). These are an echo of the words we will hear next week in the reading about Jesus’ baptism when a voice from heaven declares, “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness” (Luke 3:22).
In between those readings, Jesus attends a wedding where witnessed by the servants he turns water into wine. Then Jesus attended his home synagogue in Nazareth where he reads a passage from Isaiah about being anointed by the Spirit and announces that the prophet’s words are fulfilled in the congregants’ hearing. The people, many of whom have known him since he was a lad, reject his revelatory message, and call on him to remember who they know him to be. Rebuffed by his reminder that Elijah preached and healed among non-believers, they run Jesus out of town.
The people most equipped to recognize Jesus failed to see him. And those least qualified to identify Jesus had an innate sense that he was the Lord.
The magi are part of this upended procession of those unlikely to recognize Jesus. They readily recognize him as more than another child. They know that he is beloved and special, even if they don’t have the theological framework on which to hang their belief. They have three reasons for not being expected to know Jesus.
They are not wise men in the traditional sense. They are magi, stargazers, astrologers, astronomers, seers. They observe the heavens for portents and omens, for signs of impending blessing or misfortune. People who didn’t understand what the magi were talking about may have thought that they were magicians, something like the church’s ill-conceived responses to Copernicus in the 16th century and Galileo in the 17th century. The magi are learned in the prophetic literature of the surrounding cultures. They put it all together and tried to make sense of it. That is not a basis of wisdom, just thoughtful forecasting.
The magi are not kings. They may have access to costly gifts, but that doesn’t make them kings. They rule over nothing other than the predictions they derive from reading star charts. In today’s world they might be astronomers and physicists working for NASA. In fact, they were probably being overly forward in asking Herod about the king they were seeking, as they would have had no reason to have access to a king.
And the magi were not believers. All sorts of suggestions are made about what their foundational beliefs might have been. It doesn’t really matter. They were not followers of the Hebrew God. Any knowledge they had of Judaism was purely esoteric. They were not believers, but they recognized Jesus as a king without equal. And they knew that his presence was a threat to the existing order of things. They knew that Herod’s interest was not sincere and that Jesus would come to outshine Herod or his successors.
So because the magi were not wise in the usual way, because they were not kings, and because they were not believers in the God of the Jews, their witness has credibility. They believed when people did not and would not, people who would go to great lengths ultimately to disprove Jesus. So the three nots or noes of the magi equal a yes which has rung through heaven and earth ever since they followed the star. Their honoring of Jesus flies in the face of the subsequent stubborn ignorance of his neighbors and Herod’s fear and wanton hatred. Jesus is the light which has come into the world and the darkness of the world – hatred, fear, evil, greed, ignorance – has not extinguished it.
President David Esterline of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary wrote this week that a colleague reminded him of words a rabbi wrote to his congregation in New York just after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. In response to the question, what is the remedy to wanton hatred? The rabbi wrote,
We are agents of Epiphany. We are not wise (in fact, Paul described us as foolish). We are not kings. Even in our relative states of knowledge, wealth, and prosperity, we are simple people, trying to scratch out our lives in fear and trembling. We differ from the magi in that we are believers. Is that a disadvantage? Our belief can be lackadaisical because it is so easy to take everything for granted. Or is our belief an advantage, because we know so deeply what the magi came to realize when they met Jesus?
It’s a challenge for us to keep the faith as exciting and vital as it was experienced by shepherds and magi, and later on by sinners and foreigners. The challenge can be met as we live as reflectors of the Epiphany star-shine, as we reflect the light of Christ to the world around us and around those whom we send out to tell the good news as the magi undoubtedly did when they returned to their homes. No one is going to tell our news. We and others like us have to do it, even if we begin as unbelievers, like the magi.
Arise! shine! Your light has come; The Lord’s glory has shone upon you. (Isaiah 60:1).
(1) Walter G. Burghardt, Still Proclaiming Your Wonders: Homilies for the Eighties (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), 55.
(2) Homiletics, January 6, 1991, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=2600
(3) David Esterline, “Pittsburgh Theological Seminary President’s Communique," January 1, 2016, https://gem.godaddy.com/p/824e07?fe=1&pact=524-128931003-8492433225-3c747678d2024d940f0151aa4c536c91c216286d
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
There is story about a king of Balkh (now northern Afghanistan) named Ebrahim ibn Adam. Ebrahim was wealthy according to every earthly measure. At the same time, however, he sincerely and restlessly strove to be wealthy spiritually as well.
“One night the king was roused from sleep by a fearful stomping on the roof above his bed. Alarmed, he shouted: ‘Who’s there?’ ‘A friend,’ came the reply from the roof. ‘I’ve lost my camel.’ Perturbed by such stupidity, Ebrahim screamed: ‘You fool! Are you looking for a camel on the roof?’ ‘You fool!’ the voice from the roof answered. ‘Are you looking for God in silk clothing, and lying on a golden bed?’ ” The king was changed by this event, refocused his spiritual search, and became a most remarkable saint.(1)
The camel on the roof raises the Epiphany question, Where are you looking for God? This is an appropriate life question of life as we start a new year, just as its companion question, Where have you found God? Is a good way to review a passing year. Our readings today raise the camel-on-the-roof question in one form or another. Each one is a camel-on-the-roof reminder that God is not to be found where the world’s princes and powers reside. God will more likely be found in humble kitchens than in royal parlors. Each text calls us to be like the king's friend, willing to make a fool of ourselves asking the camel-on-the-roof question to a world busy seeking God in all the wrong places, willing to rouse the world with the message of “Arise! Shine! Your light has come.”
There is another Arabic story, “Seventeen Camels,” that tells of a man who died and left his seventeen camels to be divided among his three sons. One was to receive one ninth; another one half; and the third son one third of the camels. Seventeen camels, however, aren't evenly divisible by three. The three sons argued long and loud about what to do. In desperation they agreed to let a certain wise man decide for them. He was seated in front of his tent with his own camel staked out back.
After hearing the case, the wise man took his own camel and added it to the other seventeen camels. He then gave th first son one-ninth of the eighteen, or two camels. To the second son he gave one half, or nine camels. To the third son he gave one third, or six camels. On top of it all, he still had his own camel left. (2)
Many of us try to find God and solve the problems of life by logical, calculating schemes that insure we receive our share. But God is to be found in receiving, not grasping; in giving, not claiming our rights; in the simple, not the ponderous; in the everyday, not the once in a lifetime.
If we are looking for God in the midst of getting or in the midst of thinking about ourselves first, we won’t find God. That’s a problem if we claim to be believers. If believers can’t find God, there has to be something wrong.
Epiphany is about God becoming visible in the world. If we look at the series of gospel readings for the next six weeks, they are all about the world realizing who Jesus is.
Let’s work backwards to today. The reading for the last Sunday after Epiphany is the account of Jesus and three disciples on the mountain when Jesus is transformed before their eyes. The vision is sealed with God’s words, “This is my Son, my chosen one. Listen to him!” (Luke 9:35). These are an echo of the words we will hear next week in the reading about Jesus’ baptism when a voice from heaven declares, “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness” (Luke 3:22).
In between those readings, Jesus attends a wedding where witnessed by the servants he turns water into wine. Then Jesus attended his home synagogue in Nazareth where he reads a passage from Isaiah about being anointed by the Spirit and announces that the prophet’s words are fulfilled in the congregants’ hearing. The people, many of whom have known him since he was a lad, reject his revelatory message, and call on him to remember who they know him to be. Rebuffed by his reminder that Elijah preached and healed among non-believers, they run Jesus out of town.
The people most equipped to recognize Jesus failed to see him. And those least qualified to identify Jesus had an innate sense that he was the Lord.
The magi are part of this upended procession of those unlikely to recognize Jesus. They readily recognize him as more than another child. They know that he is beloved and special, even if they don’t have the theological framework on which to hang their belief. They have three reasons for not being expected to know Jesus.
They are not wise men in the traditional sense. They are magi, stargazers, astrologers, astronomers, seers. They observe the heavens for portents and omens, for signs of impending blessing or misfortune. People who didn’t understand what the magi were talking about may have thought that they were magicians, something like the church’s ill-conceived responses to Copernicus in the 16th century and Galileo in the 17th century. The magi are learned in the prophetic literature of the surrounding cultures. They put it all together and tried to make sense of it. That is not a basis of wisdom, just thoughtful forecasting.
The magi are not kings. They may have access to costly gifts, but that doesn’t make them kings. They rule over nothing other than the predictions they derive from reading star charts. In today’s world they might be astronomers and physicists working for NASA. In fact, they were probably being overly forward in asking Herod about the king they were seeking, as they would have had no reason to have access to a king.
And the magi were not believers. All sorts of suggestions are made about what their foundational beliefs might have been. It doesn’t really matter. They were not followers of the Hebrew God. Any knowledge they had of Judaism was purely esoteric. They were not believers, but they recognized Jesus as a king without equal. And they knew that his presence was a threat to the existing order of things. They knew that Herod’s interest was not sincere and that Jesus would come to outshine Herod or his successors.
So because the magi were not wise in the usual way, because they were not kings, and because they were not believers in the God of the Jews, their witness has credibility. They believed when people did not and would not, people who would go to great lengths ultimately to disprove Jesus. So the three nots or noes of the magi equal a yes which has rung through heaven and earth ever since they followed the star. Their honoring of Jesus flies in the face of the subsequent stubborn ignorance of his neighbors and Herod’s fear and wanton hatred. Jesus is the light which has come into the world and the darkness of the world – hatred, fear, evil, greed, ignorance – has not extinguished it.
President David Esterline of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary wrote this week that a colleague reminded him of words a rabbi wrote to his congregation in New York just after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. In response to the question, what is the remedy to wanton hatred? The rabbi wrote,
“Wanton love. Raw, cold-blooded, fanatical, baseless, relentless hatred can be matched and combated only with pure, undiscriminating, uninhibited, unyielding, baseless, unsolicited love and acts of kindness. But we need not just plain love. We need love that costs us. Love that we get nothing back for. . . And when we do our part God will surely do His part to protect us and transform our world to the one we all hope and yearn for, one that will be filled with His glory, like the waters fill the ocean” (Isaiah 11:9). (3)That is what Epiphany is about – declaring to the world that hatred will lose and love will win. That love is embodied in the child born in Bethlehem and is let loose in the world every time a person comes to belief in Jesus, son of Mary, son of God.
We are agents of Epiphany. We are not wise (in fact, Paul described us as foolish). We are not kings. Even in our relative states of knowledge, wealth, and prosperity, we are simple people, trying to scratch out our lives in fear and trembling. We differ from the magi in that we are believers. Is that a disadvantage? Our belief can be lackadaisical because it is so easy to take everything for granted. Or is our belief an advantage, because we know so deeply what the magi came to realize when they met Jesus?
It’s a challenge for us to keep the faith as exciting and vital as it was experienced by shepherds and magi, and later on by sinners and foreigners. The challenge can be met as we live as reflectors of the Epiphany star-shine, as we reflect the light of Christ to the world around us and around those whom we send out to tell the good news as the magi undoubtedly did when they returned to their homes. No one is going to tell our news. We and others like us have to do it, even if we begin as unbelievers, like the magi.
Arise! shine! Your light has come; The Lord’s glory has shone upon you. (Isaiah 60:1).
(1) Walter G. Burghardt, Still Proclaiming Your Wonders: Homilies for the Eighties (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), 55.
(2) Homiletics, January 6, 1991, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=2600
(3) David Esterline, “Pittsburgh Theological Seminary President’s Communique," January 1, 2016, https://gem.godaddy.com/p/824e07?fe=1&pact=524-128931003-8492433225-3c747678d2024d940f0151aa4c536c91c216286d
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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