5-5-19 From Fishing to Shepherding

Thomas J Parlette

“From Fishing to Shepherding”

John 21: 1-19

5/5/19

          James Rebanks is a shepherd in the Lake District of England, working the land where his father and grandfather tended sheep and where many others have done so for thousands of years.

          His book, The Shepherds Life: A Tale of the Lake District, takes those of us who are uninitiated into the rhythms of life on those green hills – rhythms that haven’t changed much for shepherds over the course of hundreds of generations. Despite all the advances in technology and progress that characterize the 21st century world, shepherding is still an  ancient and unchanging way of life that is always about the sheep and the land.

          Most of us think of shepherding as an idyllic profession from a bygone age. We picture the green pastures and still waters of Psalm 23. We miss the fact that shepherding is also muddy, bloody, smelly and difficult work. It takes a practiced hand and an eye for detail that is honed over time. It’s not for the faint of heart or for those who just want to dabble in it as a hobby. Nevertheless, for those who can stick with it, the shepherds life can be rewarding and satisfying.

          Rebanks describes some would-be shepherds who rent a farm to try their hand. “The get-up and get-out voice in their heads isn’t strong enough and they just don’t care enough about the sheep and the land to sustain their initial enthusiasm once the going gets tough. Things fall apart, and they soon leave. The voice in our heads is what holds the Lake District together, puts the walls back up, drains the fields and keeps the sheep well-tended and bred… Get-up and Get-out. It is done because it should be done.”(1)

          In this mornings story from John, Jesus calls on Peter, indeed on all his followers, to think of themselves as shepherds, with that Get-up and Get-out mentality.

          This passage is often referred to as a sort of Epilogue to John’s Gospel. It seems like the book should end at the close of Chapter 20, which reads – “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

          The end. The curtain closes. Thank you for coming.

          But before the houselights go up and everyone exits the theater, John (or someone writing sometime after John) steps out in front of the curtain and says, “Wait, before you go, you should know that after these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberius… and it went a little something like this…”

          This post-resurrection story is very similar to one that Luke tells at the beginning of his Gospel, when Jesus is calling the disciples. Many of the same elements are there.

          Jesus stands on the shore.

          The fishermen haven’t caught anything.

          Jesus tells them to try again.

          And sure enough, the pull out a huge catch of fish.

          In Luke’s version, Jesus then then tells Peter, “Don’t be afraid, from now on, you will be catching people.”

          But in this story from John, Jesus tells Peter what to do with people once he’s caught them. Jesus shifts the call of all his disciples from fishing to shepherding.

          Despite Peter’s enthusiastic response to seeing Jesus again – jumping into the water and wading ashore – there is an awkwardness in this scene. As they sit around the charcoal fire, the same kind of fire that Peter warmed himself by in the courtyard outside the Palace where Jesus had his trial, Peter and the rest of the disciples couldn’t help but think of Peter’s boast – “I will never deny you, I will die with you”, and then his three-fold denial.

          So there on the beach, over bread and fish, Jesus gives Peter the chance to redeem himself. Jesus asks him “Do you love me” three times. Each time Peter says “Yes”. And Jesus’ responses move his disciples role from fishers of people to shepherds of the flock. After this lakeside cookout, Peter is forgiven and reinstated back into Jesus’ good graces.

          Normally, we hear this story applying to ministers, since the word “pastor” implies that ministers are like a shepherd, and that is true. But the shepherding task is really for all who follow Jesus. For we all have a particular flock that we tend. Your flock could be your family, or a group of co-workers, or a circle of friends. I bet you can think of a time you have tended to your flock in one way or another.

          In his classic book A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, Phillip Keller describes how a shepherd’s staff becomes a symbol of the man’s very being. An experienced shepherd has carried a staff for so long, it seems a part of his body. The staff is his very identity – a badge of office. On one occasion, Keller saw a shepherd use his staff to gently guide his sheep. Unlike the rod, which is an instrument of stern discipline, the staff is a gentle reminder of the shepherd’s presence. Sometimes the shepherd reaches out his staff to touch one of his animals on the flank, to gently indicate that a change of direction is in order. Sometimes, it’s even more intimate than that.

          “Sometimes,” writes Keller, “I have been fascinated to see how a shepherd will actually hold his staff against the side of some sheep that is a special pet or favorite, simply so that they are “in touch.” They will walk along in this way almost as though it were “hand-in-hand.” The sheep obviously enjoys this special attention from the shepherd, and revels in the close, personal contact between them. To be treated in this special way by the shepherd is to know comfort in a deep dimension. It’s a delightful and moving picture.” (2)

          You can see how this kind of shepherding applies to Jesus. But I also hope that you can see this applying to you and your own flock, whoever that may be. I’m sure you can think of times when you have walked alongside someone, just to stay in touch, like a shepherd with a staff. That’s what it means to tend Jesus’ sheep.

          Eugene Peterson once wrote, “Pastor, as a vocation, for me seems like a being put in charge of one of those old-fashioned elevators, spending all day with people in their ups and downs, but with no view.”(3)

          That’s what tending a flock is like – spending all day with people in their ups and downs.

          Psalm 23 speaks of the Lord who is our shepherd preparing a table for us in the presence of our enemies. This line about the table doesn’t mean God promises to protect us in this life. What God does is promise to do is to provide.

          Not protection, but providence. There’s a difference.

          Protection would be if the hurricane never makes landfall. Providence means a volunteer from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance shows up after it does with hot food and directions to a shelter.

          Protection means our partner never cheats on us. Providence means that, should that happen, together we work hard to find a way to reconciliation or resolution.

          Protection means the blood clot never travels to the brain, causing a stroke. Providence means there’s still much joy to be found in life, even if some things don’t work as well as they once did.

          That is what Jesus’ shepherdly command to “feed my sheep” truly means. It means that when the world around us seems to be falling apart, we gather together around a table in the presence of the Lord, and find there such food as feeds the soul.

          More than that, around such a table, we enjoy a life-changing fellowship with one another. Somehow, the howling wind outside doesn’t seem so formidable when there is food to share and company to remind us we are not alone.

          Through it all, God does provide.(4)

          So let us be led by the Good Shepherd to the table this morning that we may be nourished for our role as shepherds of the flock.

          May God be praised. Amen.

          (Responsive Benediction in the bulletin)

1.    HomileticsOnline, retrieved 4/23/19

2.    Ibid.

3.    Ibid.

4.    Ibid.

4-28-19 Blessed Are the Believers

Thomas J Parlette

“Blessed Are the Believers”

John 20: 19-31

4/28/19

          Harold F. Bermel tells of driving through Pennsylvania Dutch Country with his daughter and seven year old grandson. They passed an Amish horse and buggy, and the grandson asked, “Why do they use horses instead of automobiles?” Bermel’s daughter explained that the Amish didn’t believe in automobiles. After a few moments, the grandson asked, “But can’t they see them?”(1)

          Good question. Once you’ve seen something with your own eyes, it’s pretty hard not to believe in it. That’s why the followers of Jesus are so often considered fools. We believe in a God we cannot see, in a Savior who performed miracles and came back from the dead, and a Holy Spirit who lives in us and guides us in the way of truth and love. No wonder so many people reject our faith.

          Our passage today is based on a man who has been nicknamed “Doubting Thomas.” In all honesty, Thomas gets kind of a bad rap. He doesn’t deny the resurrection. He has proven that he’s a loyal disciple by staying with Jesus while he was alive. It’s just that he is also a rational man, he is a realist. He’s not going to let himself get too excited until he sees Jesus with his own eyes. “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

          That of course happened on the following Sunday evening. The Gospel of John tells us, “A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

          And Thomas responds, “My Lord and my God!”

          Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

          Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Blessed are the people who have come to grips with their doubts in an honest and forthright way and have made a commitment of their will to trust in the care and providence of God.

          They are indeed the blessed of this earth. They are healthier, happier, and generally more effective I relating to others than are the doubters, the critics and the cynics. It is they who move the world forward, for there is power in believing – more power than the unbeliever can ever know. Part of that power is the power of vision. If seeing is believing, then the converse is also true. Believing is seeing – seeing possibilities and promises that bode good fortune for all who perceive their presence. Blessed are the believers.

          Of course we all have our doubts. All thoughtful people do at times. Woody Allen had a point when he said “Faith would be easier if God would show himself by depositing a million dollars in a swiss bank account in our name” – but God doesn’t work like that.

          I once read a true story about a young man named Charlie who was in love with a charming young lady named Ava. She was in love with Charlie, but so far he had been unable to persuade her to marry him. Then one day he invited her to lunch. They drove to the Los Angeles Coliseum, the largest sports arena on the West Coast.

          In the center of the vast field were placed a small table and two chairs. A maître d’ showed them to the table, a captain seated them, and a waiter waited behind each chair. Except for them, the whole Coliseum was empty. 100,000 empty seats stared down at Charlie and Ava.

          The table was elegantly set. Caviar and champagne was served. Then a soufflé and salad and more champagne. And as they were waiting for dessert, Charlie directed Ava’s attention to the huge electronic scoreboard at the far end of the field.

          In a prearranged signal he raised his glass, and on the board flashed the words, “Darling Ava, will you marry me?” She of course, said yes.(2)

          Sometimes we wonder, why can’t God do something like that for us? It would be easy. A grand gesture of some sort. A giant comet streaking through a dark winter night with it’s tail sky-writing a message, “I love you, God.” Why doesn’t God do something spectacular to let us know he’s there. We can sympathize with British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell who was once asked what he would say to God if he had the chance. And Russell said, “I would ask God, ‘Why did you make the evidence of your existence so insufficient’”(3)

          There is a part of us that says with Thomas, “I need to see some evidence before I believe.” We all long for certainty. But that is one gift that God has not granted us.

          I’m sure God has reasons for this. If God’s aim was to produce mature spirits fit to spend eternity in the Divine Presence, it makes sense that God would not reveal Himself fully to us. Such certainty would keep us perpetually immature. If a child knows that his parents with always take care of every problem, resolve every crisis and comfort every sorrow, the child will never develop self-reliance. It may be that our insecurity and doubt is essential to spiritual growth.

          Brennan Manning, in his book Ruthless Trust, tells the story of John Kavanaugh, a man who went to work with Mother Teresa for three months at the “House of the Dying” in Calcutta. He went not only to be of help to others, but he was also seeking a clear answer as how best to spend the rest of his life.

          His first morning there, he asked Mother Teresa to pray for him. She asked what he needed prayer for. He replied, “Pray that I have clarity.”

          And Mother Teresa said “No.” Then she went on to say, “Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of.”

          When Kavanaugh commented that she always seemed to have the clarity he longed for, she laughed. “I have never had clarity, what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you will trust God.” (4)

          God has reasons for not revealing the Divine Presence more clearly to us. Perhaps because it is essential to our spiritual growth to question and to ponder and to seek God as a thirsty person seeks water.

          Besides, most of us have enough certainty. Jesus said that all we need is faith the size of a mustard seed and we will be able to move mountains. It’s not how much faith we have that makes the crucial difference in life. It is how much we love and trust God.

          The poet Robert Frost once spoke of the founders of this country and how they journeyed forth without a map saying: “They did not believe in the future, they believed the future in. You are always believing ahead. Where is the evidence that I can write a poem? I just believe a poem in. The most creative thing in us is to believe a thing in.”

Then Frost says, “The ultimate example is the belief in the future of the world. We believe the future in. It’s coming because we believe it in.”(5)

          The most creative thing in us is to believe a thing in. We believe in God’s kingdom. But the real meaning of our lives as Christians is to believe God’s kingdom into being. Blessed are the believers who believe the Kingdom into being. They are a blessing to this world.

          Believers are those who know that the world can yet be a better place. Consider our own society. Who have been the builders? Who have constructed hospitals, great universities, the social service agencies? Behind every one you will find people who hold in their hearts not cynicism but hope, not hostility but love, not doubt but faith. As someone once said “Where has there ever been a monument erected to the cynic, the doubters or the critics?”(6)

          In 2007, Disney released a wonderful film called Ratatouille. It tells the story of a rat named Remy who has a talent for cooking. He winds up in Paris at the once famous restaurant, Gusteau’s. There he helps a bumbling kitchen worker named Linguine bring Gusteau’s back to prominence on the French culinary scene.

          Towards the end of the movie, the feared food critic Anton Ego visits Gusteau’s to sample a dish prepared by the new chef, who turns out to be Remy. The cynical critic is deeply impressed with the dish and writes a reflective review in the next day’s paper. He has this to say about his role as a critic:

          “In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read.”

          “But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.”

          “But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new.”

          The believers among us, the ones who have believed without seeing, are the ones who risk something in the discovery and defense of the new. In this case, the new life brought about by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Blessed are the believers.

          So the question for today is – Where are you this morning? Are you on the side of the doubters and the critics?  Or are you on the side of the believers? Anybody can be a doubting Thomas. It takes no particular strength of character to say, “Unless I see some proof, I will not believe.”

          But it does take strength of character to say, “I don’t have all the answers. But I know who is making this world a better place. It’s those who follow the man from Galilee, and I want to stand with them. I don’t have all the answers, but unless someone proves otherwise, I will stand with those who believe that this world was the creation of a good and loving God. I don’t have all the answers, but I believe the death and resurrection of Jesus has somehow changed this world forever. I don’t have ALL the answers, but I have what I need. Put me down as a believer.

          For as Jesus said to Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

          Blessed are the believers! May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXV, No. 2, p27.

2.    Ibid… p28.

3.    Ibid… p28.

4.    Ibid… p28-29.

5.    Ibid… p29.

6.    Ibid… p30.

4-21-19 Marking the Moment

Thomas J Parlette

“Marking the Moment”

Luke 24: 1-12

4/21/19, Easter

          There once was a Baptist church in Bangladesh that was showing a film about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus to an audience filled with people who had never heard the Gospel before. Little children sat in front and in the aisles. The adults stood in the back. As the story of Jesus’ crucifixion unfolded and Jesus’ broken body was laid in the tomb, there were tears and audible gasps. As the affected audience watched, one young boy suddenly spoke up. “Don’t be afraid, I’ve seen this before. He gets up again!(1)

          Surprise! He’s not dead – not anymore. That’s the story of Easter.

          Or, consider a story told by a pastor named Phil Callaway. He tells of driving with his 5 year -old son past a local cemetery. Of course, 5 year-olds sometimes have an interesting perspective on things. Noticing a large pile of dirt beside a newly excavated grave, the boy pointed and said: “Look Dad, one got out!”(2)

          Surprise! One got out! That’s the story of the Resurrection.

          Many emotions swirl around this story from Luke. We start with grief, as the women make their way to Jesus’ tomb in the early hours of the morning. Then terror, as the men in dazzling clothes stand before them. Then excitement, as they hurried off to tell the disciples about what has happened. Then disbelief, as the disciples dismiss the women’s story as an idle tale. And we end with a sense of amazement, as Peter sees the grave clothes, but no body. He leaves surprised. Not yet full of faith, just wonder and amazement.

          This is the start of a whole new world.

          The resurrection marks the moment when life overcame death. That’s the primary reason most of us are here today. Death has been conquered.

          Professional golfer Paul Azinger was diagnosed with cancer at age 33. He wrote about that experience: “A genuine feeling of fear came over me – I could die from cancer. But then another reality hit me even harder: I am going to die eventually anyway, whether from cancer or something else. I am definitely going to die. It’s just a question of when. Suddenly everything I had accomplished in golf became meaningless to me. All I wanted to do was live.”

          And that’s when he remembered something that his friend Larry Moody had once told him: “Zinger, we are not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying. We are in the land of the dying trying to get to the land of the living.” That’s what Easter is all about.

          Paul Azinger wrote about how his perspective on life changed as he underwent his cancer treatments and then returned to the PGA tour. He wrote, “The only way you will ever have true contentment is in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I’m not saying that nothing ever bothers me and I don’t have problems, but I feel like I’ve found the answer to the six- foot hole. I know I’ll spend eternity with God and I have a promise that as a child of God, he’ll help me deal with anything. God promises to offer me contentment regardless of what life brings, even cancer.”(3) The resurrection marks the moment when life triumphed over death.

          The resurrection also marks the moment when hope overcame grief. The power of death and loss and grief can destroy a person. It can make us lose hope.

          Pastor Stephen Brown says he was devastated after his younger brother, Ron, died suddenly of a heart attack. Ron was only in his forties, a popular district attorney, a terrific father. Stephen never even got the chance to say goodbye.

          Several weeks after Ron’s death, Stephen decided to visit his brother’s grave. It was a cold, rainy afternoon in late winter. Ron’s grave was not yet marked, and Stephen couldn’t find it. As he trekked through the mud, his grief overwhelmed him. Standing in the rain, Stephen began sobbing. “God, this has been the worst month of my life, and now I can’t even find my brother’s grave.”

          Suddenly Stephen sensed a presence near him, as though Christ had drawn alongside to help. The words that the angel spoke came to his mind like a burst of light – “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

          “Those words comforted me,” Stephen later wrote, “and I haven’t been back to the cemetery since. I don’t need to go back. The One who knew and loved Ron came to me in my grief. He promised never to leave, and that has made all the difference in the world.”(4)

          Even death cannot destroy the hope of those who believe in Jesus Christ. The resurrection marks the moment when hope overcame grief.

          And finally, the resurrection marks a moment when we have to make a decision. Not whether the resurrection is true or not – but whether we will live like the resurrection happened in the PAST or whether we will live like the resurrection is happening NOW.

          At the entrance to Jerusalem’s Church of All Nations, next to the Garden of Gethsemane, there is a sign warning every visitor: No Explanations inside the Church (5)

          The warning was meant to discourage tour guides from disturbing the church’s prayerful ambiance with loud lectures and explanations inside the church. But that’s actually some pretty good advice about how to approach Easter Sunday.

          Easter Sunday is a time for proclamation, not explanation. This is not a day to lay out the evidence that once upon a time Jesus walked out of the tomb, alive and well. This is not a day to argue those who have doubts into belief. No – explanations in the church are not allowed, especially on Easter.

          This is a day not to convince, but to invite – to invite the mixed crowd of believers, seekers, hopers and even the doubters, to embrace the Easter experience and appreciate it’s transformative effects. (6)

          Easter isn’t something we remember once a year in the springtime and then get on with life. Easter is something we live and breathe all year long. Resurrection is about the healing and restoration of wounded and severed relationships – between God and humanity, between human persons and, ultimately, among all the elements of creation. The resurrection is more than a proposition we believe. It’s something we prove by the way we live it out.

          The best evidence of the reality of resurrection is a community that lives with the steadfast hope that God will conquer all the powers of sin and death – God has done it before and God will do it again.

          As the Orthodox theologian Patriarch Athenagoras has said, “The Resurrection is not the resuscitation of a body; it is the beginning of the transfiguration of the world.”(7)

          Will you join me in marking this Resurrection Moment by joining together in the Festival of Resurrection litany printed in your bulletin…

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXV, No. 2, p22.

2.    Ibid…p22.

3.    Ibid…p23.

4.    Ibid…p24.

5.    Jim Friedrich, Christian Century, April 10th, 2019, p10.

6.    Ibid…p10.

7.    Ibid…p11.

4-7-19 Prelude to the Passion

Thomas J Parlette

“Prelude to the Passion”

John 12: 1-8

4/7/19

          If you were to do a Google search on the word “prelude”, you would find a definition such as “an action or event serving as an introduction to something more important.” Usually we think of a prelude as a piece of music, such as we hear every week here in worship. The prelude gathers us together as God’s people and prepares us for the more important experience of worship and offering our praise and thanksgiving to God.

          In like manner, this passage today about Mary anointing Jesus with some expensive oil, serves as a prelude to the more important event coming up in the Gospel of John.

          Leading up to this story, Jesus has been healing people and doing miracles in the surrounding areas. Just a short while before this Jesus healed the man who had been born blind. Then he brought his friend Lazarus back to life. All of these miraculous “God-signs”, as Eugene Peterson calls them, has created quite a buzz about Jesus. The priests and the Pharisees were getting increasingly concerned. So they called a meeting of the Jewish ruling body and wondered aloud, “What are we going to do about this? This man Jesus keeps doing things, creating God-signs. If we let him keep doing this, pretty soon, everyone is going to believe in him and the Romans will step in and take away what little power and privilege we still have.”

          It was Caiaphas, the designated High Priest for that year, that spoke up and said, “It would be better if one man died for the people rather than our whole nation be destroyed.” There was general agreement on that point, and from that time on they plotted to kill Jesus.

          So Jesus no longer went out in public among the Jews, and in fact withdrew to a little town called Ephraim, about 10 miles north of Bethany and Jerusalem, and secluded himself there with the disciples.

          The Jewish Passover feast was coming up and lots of people were showing up in Jerusalem and everyone was curious about this man Jesus. They were all wondering – “Do you think he’ll show up at the Feast or not?” Meanwhile, the High Priest and the Pharisees put out the word that anyone getting wind of Jesus should tell them. They were all set to arrest him.

          That brings us to our story for today. It is six days before Passover, and once again, Jesus is in Bethany with Lazarus, Mary and Martha. They are enjoying dinner together after a long trip from Ephrain where they’ve been hiding out. Martha, as usual, is busy serving the meal, while Lazarus sat with Jesus and the disciples. Mary comes into the room with a jar of very expensive oil. She anoints Jesus, something usually reserved for a King or as preparation for burial. She then massaged his feet and wiped them with her hair,

          What we see here is a prelude to the Passion. In this anointing we get a prelude to Jesus as The King of Creation. But this is a new kind of King. Jesus is a King who will suffer and die for the people. So we also see this as a prelude to the Passion and resurrection.

          But it’s the reactions to Mary’s anointing that are most interesting.

          First, there’s Judas Iscariot, the one getting ready to betray Jesus. He seems to try to turn Jesus’ preaching back on him when he says, perhaps a little sarcastically – “Why wasn’t this perfume sold for 300 denarii’s and the money given to the poor.” John quickly tells us why Judas says this – he isn’t really concerned about the poor, he just wants the money put into the common purse so he can steal it later. But Judas raises a good point. Isn’t this wasteful? We often experience this tension when, as a faith community, we go through our budgeting process and balance our financial resources between things that seem extravagant and programs to help people in need. We strive to be good stewards and do as much good as we can in our community and in the world. We try to avoid waste – and yet, here is an act of extravagance that seems wasteful. But is it? Or does it show us something about God’s love and grace?

          About 10 years ago, Holy Name Cathedral, a Catholic church in Chicago, had a fire that damaged its roof. Two days later, Neil Steinberg, a Chicago Sun-Times columnist with a famously hard-boiled reputation, walked into the church to see the damage for himself. He saw it, but he also saw the greater part of the church that wasn’t damaged. He went back to his office and wrote a  column about his visit, which he headlined, “Cathedral Can Inspire Cynic.” In it, he said, “Repair of Holy Name is a cause worth supporting. I’m a hardened, godless cynic, but to walk into Holy Name and see that ceiling soar toward heaven, well, I hate to imagine a person so emotionally numb as not to be affected. God may not move you, but God moved the people who built this, and this moves you.”

          Steinberg went on to invite readers to donate to the Holy Name Cathedral repair fund. Then he concluded by saying that he had given $50 himself, which, he said, “seemed a painless, minimal sum for a Jewish agnostic wishing to speed the repairs along.”(1)

          This seemingly wasteful act shows us that God is just as extravagant in pouring out Divine love on us in Jesus’ life, death and coming resurrection, a gift that moves us to build cathedrals in praise of God. It is not a waste, but an act of love and gratitude while Jesus is still with them.

          The other response here is Jesus’ when he reprimands Judas and says “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

          It’s easy to misunderstand Jesus here. It’s easy to come away wondering – “is Jesus saying the poor aren’t important, that they are not a priority?”

          But that is not what Jesus means here. His words do not mean that the poor are not important. Jesus is pointing out that it will always be possible to serve the poor, there will always be those in need. On the contrary, Jesus establishes a parallel between himself and the poor. Now- he is present, and Mary rightly feels the need to be extravagant. When he is no longer around, at least not in the flesh – well, the poor will still be there, to be served with the same extravagance.(2)

          Dorothy Day has been called an American saint. She took her Christian faith right into the most dreadful slums of New York City. There she established the first Catholic Worker House, a place of radical Christian discipleship.

          That house became a place of hospitality for the down and out – for men Day later described as “grey men, the color of lifeless trees and bushes and winter soil, who had in them as yet none of the green of hope, the rising sap of faith.” Not long after, the Catholic Worker House began welcoming women and children as well.

          One day, a wealthy socialite pulled up to the house, in a big car. She received the obligatory tour of the mission from Day herself. When she was about to leave, the woman impulsively pulled a diamond ring off her finger and handed it to Day.

          The staff was ecstatic when they heard about this act of generosity. They ring, they realized, could be sold for a huge sum – enough money to take some pressure off the budget, at least for a little while.

          A day or two later, though, one of them noticed the diamond ring on the finger of a homeless woman who was leaving the mission. Immediately, the staff members confronted Day. Why, in heaven’s name, would she just give away a valuable piece of jewelry like that?

          Day responded: “That woman was admiring the ring. She thought it was so beautiful. So I gave it to her. Do you think God made diamonds just for the rich?”(3)

          An extravagant gift, that on the surface seems wasteful. But looking deeper, such a gift was a reminder of extravagant love for us poured out in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.

          In this prelude to the passion, we see the grace of God poured out, we see Jesus extravagant sacrifice for us. And we see our proper response to such a gift – an extravagant sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for the love of God poured out upon us in Jesus Christ.

          May God be praised. Amen.

1.    HomeliticsOnline, retrieved March 20th, 2019.

2.    Justo Gonzalez, Christian Century, March 13th, 2019, p19.

3.    HomeliticsOnline, retrieved March 20th, 2019.

3-31-19 A Father had Two Sons

Thomas J Parlette

“A Father had Two Sons”

Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32

3/31/19

          Once upon a time, there was a man who went to the movies one cold and rainy Saturday afternoon. He hadn’t been to a movie in quite a while, so he thought it would be a nice change of pace. He made himself comfortable, enjoyed the pre-movie trivia and the coming attractions, and settled in for the main feature.

          On the screen there appeared the MGM roaring lion, and the man thought to himself, this is the same way the last movie I saw started, with that same roaring lion – and he decided, I’ve seen this movie before – and he got up and walked out of the theater.(1)

          As silly as that story might be, it holds a nugget of truth. There is a word of warning there.

          When we hear that opening phrase in our passage for today – “There was a man who had two sons…”, we might be tempting to check out mentally. We know this story well – it’s the parable of the prodigal son. We might decide that we don’t need to pay too much attention – we already know the story, we already get the point. Time to leave the theater.

          But when we really listen to it, scripture can surprise us. This is part of what makes it the word of God: no matter the situation in which we find ourselves, when we read it afresh God speaks to us and our circumstances. Today, as we read this passage we know oh so well within the context of Lent, that context may help us hear a new word from an old story.

          The passage for today begins with the first three verses of Luke 15, and then skips ahead for 11 and half verses to get the story of the prodigal son. I’m always interested is what the lectionary leaves out, so it’s interesting to note that the stories being skipped or two very short parables – the lost sheep and the lost coin. Obviously the whole chapter is held together by the theme of being lost. The shepherd loses a sheep, leaves the 99 and goes in search of the one that is lost. The woman loses a coin, and then turns her house upside down looking for it. When she finds it, she calls all her friends and neighbors and asks them to rejoice with her. Such is God’s joy when even one sinner repents. So it’s not surprising that we look at these parables as words of hope and invitation for the lost, for that is certainly one of their meanings.

          However, when we look at these three parables in the context of Lent, a time when we are called to self- reflection and repentance, another dimension comes forth. The introduction provides a different setting than we usually imagine. The Pharisees and scribes are disgruntled because Jesus is receiving tax collectors and sinners. These parables about being lost are addressed to them, the religious leaders of the time – not primarily to those they consider sinners.

          Despite all the bad press that Christians have given them over the years, the Pharisees and scribes were deeply religious people. In fact, for those Christians who regularly attend worship and seek to practice their faith, we are most like the Pharisees and scribes. Whenever they are mentioned in Jesus’ story, that’s where we are most likely to stand. They were very concerned with obeying God and all the religious laws of Israel. From their perspective it was others – the tax collectors and the sinners – who were lost. So the Pharisees and tax collectors would have been unlikely to identify themselves with the lost sheep that the shepherd rescues or the lost son whose father awaits. They would see themselves as the 99 sheep, the faithful who stayed with the shepherd, and as the older son, obedient to his father. It would seem shocking to them to see a shepherd abandon 99 in the wilderness to go looking for just one sheep, or to see the older son missing the banquet thrown for his brother. These parables speak of the error of considering ourselves faithful and obedient. Ken Bailey, in his book The Cross and The Prodigal, points out that “a parable is like a house in which the reader or listener is invited to take up residence. The reader is encouraged to look out on the world from the point of view of the story. A house has a variety of windows of rooms, with a different view from each.”(2) A parable works the same way. The view changes depending on where you stand in this story, which character you identify yourself with. The season of Lent invites us to see ourselves through more than one prism- to see ourselves as both the lost and not lost.

          For in reality, both sons in this story are lost. They both have broken relationships with their father. The younger son broke his relationship in the audacious move of asking for his share of the inheritance now. This was basically wishing that your father would die so you could have control of your assets right now – and telling him so to his face. People would have gasped at the gall of the younger son.

          And to top it off, the story tells us that a few days after this shocking request, the younger son gathered all he had and left. Which means he sold everything, took the money and ran. He basically had a going out of business sale, getting rid of his father’s assets for much less than they were worth. And then he skips town – turning his back on his responsibilities both to his family and to his village and community. This is not a case of a young man striking out on his own to make his own way in the world – no this younger son is thumbing his nose at everyone as he slams the door behind him. His relationship with his father – and with his community is broken.

          And then there’s the older son. He is lost in his own way as well. Yes, on the surface he seems to be obedient, staying on the farm, faithfully doing what is expected of him. But does he really?

          In Middle Eastern society at that time – and still true today – the oldest son inherited the larger share of the property. The older son was expected to have a special position, second to his father. So when his younger brother makes this extreme request, it would have been expected that the older brother would intervene and act as mediator between his father and brother. But he does not – he is silent. When his brother has their possessions spread out on the front yard to sell off as quickly as possible, the brother should have intervened and tried to reason with him – but he did not, we hear nothing from him. When his younger brother is leaving town, possibly for good, the older brother should have been there to at least say “Farewell” - but he is nowhere to be seen. The older brother has a broken relationship with the father as well, for he didn’t live up to any of his responsibilities as the older son.

          Throughout the whole story, the younger son’s departure and humbling return and the older son’s refusal to welcome his brother home, the father remains the father. Even though both of his sons have broken off their relationship with him – one by running away and one by following the rules, but failing to love his brother or father in his heart – the father never cuts his sons off. He welcomes one home with a feast, and lets the other know he is always welcome and the door is always open. In the end, we don’t know exactly how it turned out for these two sons, but we know where the father stands -  in the doorway with arms wide open, welcoming them back into relationship.

          In Lent, it is good for us to listen to the parable of the two sons while moving back and forth between seeing ourselves as the lost son who is received with open arms and the obedient one who apparently thinks he is more deserving. Lent is a time to consider both the grace of God that has sought and welcomed us and the constant danger that religious people face – thinking that we are better than we are.

          Jesus is addressing the best and most religious people in Israel. And yet, while Jesus addresses those who consider themselves “not lost”, the lost are overhearing what Jesus says. In a way, we are the lost overhearing what Jesus says to those who believe that they are not lost. From this perspective, this parable – and the other two that were left out – is a parable of joy and promise. No matter how far we have strayed, God awaits us with open arms and a feast of welcome. We have experienced the joy of God welcoming us when we least deserved it, and for that we must rejoice.

          But once we have experienced such welcome and rejoiced in it, we have to watch out for our tendency to stand with the ones who consider them not lost. During Lent, it’s easy to adopt that attitude as we move through the Holy Season with our ashes and fasting and prayer and study. When we lose sight of our “lostness”, we must realize that the parable speaks to us not as the sinners who overhear, but rather as the Pharisees and scribes who resent Jesus’ welcoming attitude toward those who are not as good, or faithful or religious as they are.

          Lent invites us to count ourselves continually among both groups, as we seek to obey God in all things while also grounding our joy in the experience of being found.

          So when you hear that “a father had two sons”, I hope you don’t walk out believing you’ve seen this movie before. Stick around, view this story from another angle, and see what else God wants to show you.

          May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Justo Gonzalez, The Christian Century, March 13th, 2019, p. 18.

2.    Kenneth Bailey, The Cross and the Prodigal, Intervarsity Press, 2005, p. 87.

3-24-19 Church for the Thirsty

Church for the Thirsty

Jay P. Rowland

Psalm 63:1-8   &   Isaiah 55:1-9 (selected verses)

March 24, 2019

Every once in a while, I’ll happen to visit someone in the hospital at a time when they are not allowed any liquids, not even a sip.   

There’s always a medical reason for this of course—pre-op, post-op, upcoming scan, etc.  Sometimes ice chips are okay; sometimes ice chips are NOT OKAY—and so only a swab of some mysterious liquid is permitted to keep mouth and lips moist for comfort. Those who’ve experienced this hospital protocol know what we can all assume, which is how utterly unsatisfying a little swab or a small ice chip is compared to the MONSTER THIRST PARCHING away. 

Thirst gets our attention and demands immediate action in a way that few other things can. When we were parched or caught with a dry throat or mouth, our attention to anything else is partial at best until that gets remedied. And then there’s also the feeling that comes when we’re not allowed water so it becomes almost torturous and desperately obsessed over because we cannot have it (whether it be due to hospital protocol or some other situation).  

The same dynamic applies to our spiritual thirst.  The Psalmist expresses this today with lyrical power:

my soul thirsts for you O God;

my flesh faints for you,

as in a dry and weary land

   where there is no water. 

The ancients figured out fairly early on that human nature has an awful tendency to look to almost anything and everything other than God to satisfy our innate thirst for God.  Which, they also attest, creates all kinds of problems for us because nothing beside God can assuage our thirst for God (which is an excellent rationale for the First Commandment).   

From the psalmists, to Augustine, to C. S. Lewis, all spiritual wisdom agrees that what we do with our thirst for God, how we seek to satisfy that thirst, shapes our lives for the better or for the worse. (see Rev. Dr. Tim Smith’s www.waterfromrock.org, and the blog post “Thirsty” published 3/4/19)  

Church is a gathering place of the spiritually thirsty.  And that’s good. That’s how it’s supposed to be. But this means church is a gathering of broken, flawed, mistake-prone people.  Jesus describes this community as being for those who are sick rather than those who are well (Mark 2:17).  But we don’t seem willing to accept this.  We hide our authentic selves (our authentic thirst for God), behind a façade of “everything’s fine” which defeats the whole purpose of a faith community.  

I’m not saying this is bad or “wrong” … it’s just an observation. I contribute to it also.  But deep down I see church as a microcosm of the story of creation in Genesis:  In the beginning, all was chaos, a formless void. Then God said, “let there be light” and “let there be (water and life and plants and animals and humanity)”.  God creates out of nothing. God brings light out of darkness, order out of chaos, life out of death.  And that’s how I see the church—the one hidden behind our facades. In the real world, church is subject to chaos, it’s messy, unmanageable, broken—utterly dependent upon God for life and sustenance. 

Church and worship function best in tandem with other resources and other aspects of church, as well as with resources outside of church, “out there” where God is on the move, always up to something, always offering the sacred and the holy through unlikely people, places and ways.  

We all come away from church acutely aware of how well or how poorly we feel it connects with whatever we’re struggling with.  On any given Sunday in any church, it’s a hit or miss proposition.  On any given Sunday, some leave church feeling like they just drank deeply from a deep well of fresh cool spiritual water, while others leave that exact same experience just as thirsty as they arrived (or perhaps only a mere ice chip or moist swab’s worth).   

Worship at its best can provide draughts of living water through scripture, prayer, liturgy, ritual, music, singing, hymns, preaching, sacrament, fellowship, etc.  At its best church can be a deep well of living water for the parched in spirit.  

At the same time, it also seems as if we have yet to figure out a structure or forum which appropriately allows us to share or channel our struggles and sufferings into the light of church and worship.  We have become adept at engaging worship/church in a way that allows us to anonymously and privately receive comfort in our spiritual anguish, while also keeping it safely hidden.    

The good news is that God is generous by nature, and the Holy Spirit is ever-ready to intercede. I have witnessed sacred moments and connections in worship and church by which living water is abundantly shared and received, and which even allow us to be open and authentic about our depleted spirit.   

And yet. 

And yet I fear that too many of us come to church hoping for or looking for or ready for … something … anything comparable to a deep-well of living water where we might let our thirst be met.  I fear that too many of us sitting here today are struggling with something that has stolen life and joy, and living water. Statistics provide a compelling snapshot of what people are struggling to survive:

• rape (1 in 6 women);

• domestic violence (1 in 3 to 1 in 5 women; Men 1 in 4 to 1 in 7);

• sexual harassment (80% of women have been harassed verbally; 50% through inappropriate touching);

• prescription drug addiction (1 in 10); 

• alcoholism (1 out of 16);

• divorce (1 our of 2 or 3 / 40-50%);

• pornography addiction (1 out of 3 men);

• devastating rates of cancer, dementia/Alzheimer’s, mental illness, suicide, etc. 

When I read or hear these statistics, it’s like a prophet’s voice crying out in the wilderness, crying out for anyone and everyone here today and in every church who are suffering terribly--all too many in secret, isolated, alone.   

I’m here to say to anyone and everyone here who is suffering today:  

It doesn’t have to be that way.  

You don’t have to suffer in secret or in silence or in isolation anymore!   

It seems to me that Jesus created the church to be the place where we can be real about our lives, a place where community displaces isolation, where support is available to all who seek it. We are here because of Jesus who “never saw disease without seeking to heal it or any kind of human need without turning aside to help”.  I see Jesus here among us right now, seeing each one of us, especially anyone here who’s suffering today.  I hear Jesus say to anyone suffering here today,  

“come, follow me …”     

“ … come away from your suffering, come with me to healing and transformation …”  

It’s amazing to me that I can count on one hand the number of times any person from any congregation I have served has shared about their alcoholism, or their troubled marriage, or their struggles with pornography or with prescription drugs or with any of those issues that are, at least statistically, happening to so many of us.  Perhaps there’s good reasons for this. I hope so. Because I don’t want any of you to try to get through this by yourself. Hopefully you are finding your way to professionals and other resources, experiencing gradual but real relief, growth, transformation and healing and wholeness. 

But I fear this is not the case. I fear that too many are putting up with the depletion of their spirit and their life.  I wonder how many sitting here today, perhaps in front of or behind or beside you today are struggling terribly. Maybe even struggling with something you yourself have struggled with.  

It grieves me know that we have the resources and the people and the Savior who can lead us out of isolation, help us break our silence or anonymity, help meet our thirst.  

“You who are thirsty, come to the waters,” the poet-prophet Isaiah cries out to the church! He cries out to all who are depleted to all who thirst for God,

“why do you labor for that which does not satisfy;

Incline your ear and come to me, says the Lord;

listen so that you may live.” 

In April 2018, we hosted workshop on suicide prevention and awareness for faith communities.  It was open to the wider community and was well attended. A good many of the participants were FPC members.  One of the many gifts that came from that gathering, beyond the immediate blessing of creating space here at church for people to gather and connect around the reality of suicide … was, for me, the gift of seeing people who have attended here for many years meet other members of this church whose name or face they maybe recognized or even knew (who have also attended here for years), discover that they had in common the experience of being personally impacted—devastated—by suicide.  

It’s an example of the deep well of living water that’s already here.  Gatherings like this addressing suicide prevention and community support and other critical issues and problems help create a deeper community well. So will gatherings around enjoyable or educational interests such as auto repair or music or book groups or poetry or cooking or gardening, or parenting, etc. There are so many ways we can share this living water with each other, here in this community. So many opportunites also to open our doors to the people who live in the neighborhood.  

This church is a vast reservoir of living water: your knowledge, your experience, your skills, your interests, your passions; your struggles, your victories and even your defeats qualify you to be the valued member of this community that you already are. Every single person here today regardless of age or circumstance is a drop of living water in the vast reservoir that is First Presbyterian Church.   

Meanwhile, statistics declare that the mainline church is dying.  But that isn’t the full story. What’s happening “out there” is that the culture has changed dramatically. Newer generations do not interact with church the same way previous generations once did.  But people are just as thirsty and hungry spiritually as they’ve ever been—if not more so.  People continue to thirst for connection and belonging, people continue to thirst for God maybe in all the wrong places.  Meanwhile, here we are, followers of Jesus Christ, thirsting for and seeking connection with God, seeking to assuage our common thirst, together and with our neighbor.  

This church is already a deep well of living water.  Whether or not this living water is getting to those who need it most is our work in progress, God’s work in progress among us.  The church is not the only place where God offers living water, but I can tell you that God loves to show up here, God loves to reveal God’s self to us for such a time as this; God is ever ready, willing and able to lead you and me through whatever we struggle to bear.  This church may or may not yet provide the living water you seek, but I believe that God can and will help us improve and grow and discover and stretch toward our potential  

Surely we can, and surely we must.   Because First Presbyterian Church of Rochester MN has not yet peaked in our mission to reflect God’s love in Jesus Christ.  As we follow Jesus Christ together, He shall help us reach our potential to bring comfort, resolution, growth; to lead people out of isolation and into community, out of anonymity and into identity, a cup of living water to those who thirst for God.  Because, O God, you are our God, we seek you, our soul thirsts for you; our flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Come Lord Jesus.

Come Lord Jesus.

Speak Lord Jesus.

We your servants are listening … 

3-10-19 It's Tempting, But...

Thomas J Parlette

“It’s Tempting, But…”

Luke 4: 1-13

3/10/19

          Once upon a time, there was father who told his son NOT to go swimming. But it was a hot day, and the thought of a cool refreshing dip in the lake was too much for the boy to resist – so he went in anyway. And the father caught his son swimming.

          “What do you think you’re doing!? I specifically said NOT to go swimming today.”

          “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go swimming, it just sort of…. Happened.”

          “It just happened? Then why are you wearing your swimsuit, your mask and your flippers – and you brought a towel?”

          “I brought them along just in case I was tempted. Mom would kill me if I got my good clothes wet and tracked water into the house.”(1)

          Temptation. That’s where we begin this morning. Jesus has been baptized, he has been filled with the Holy Spirit. He has heard that voice from the clouds, “You are my son, with you I am well pleased.” And now, Jesus is off to the wilderness.

          Before he goes back to his hometown synagogue to announce his mission, he’s got to figure out a few things. Jesus is in the process of figuring out what it means to be God’s Son. What does it mean to be the One who is pleasing to God? What is he going to do now? Jesus needs to figure out who he really is. And so, he goes to the wilderness, that place of spiritual discovery.

          Now we’ve been to the wilderness before. When you read the story of Jesus’ temptation, you can’t help but think of that other wilderness story, the one about Israel wandering around in the desert for forty years following a guy named Moses.

          You remember that the Hebrews faced many challenges and many temptations out there in the wilderness. There was no obvious source of food or water. It was hot, it was uncomfortable and they weren’t too sure where they were going exactly. And they didn’t have much confidence in the leader, Moses. They often wondered out aloud, “Maybe we would’ve been better off in Egypt – we were slaves, but at least we had food.” And of course, we all remember what happened when Moses went up the mountain and left them on their own for awhile. When faced with their own time of trial and testing and temptation – the Hebrews failed miserably.

          But, as we heard in our passage from Deuteronomy, God did not give up on them. God formed them into a community by giving them a future to hope for in their dreams and a story to tell to their children – “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor…”

          We’ve been to the wilderness before, and it didn’t go well. Maybe it will be different this time.

          While in his own wilderness, Jesus meets the Devil. And the Devil says, “Since you are the Son of God, command this stone to turn into a loaf of bread. Go ahead, feed yourself. Use your power to feed others. Wouldn’t God want that? Isn’t that what God did in the desert during Israel’s Exodus? Come, let’s see some of that divine glory.”

          And Jesus answers, “It’s tempting, but… it is written, “One does not live by bread alone.”

          It must have been tempting to whip up something to eat after fasting for 40 days. It was probably pretty tempting to consider the possibility of feeding all the hungry people in the land too – nothing gets you followers like free food. But even though Jesus will be called to feed the hungry, there is a bigger issue at stake.

          Then the Devil showed him all the Kingdoms of the earth, he offered Jesus all the political power he could dream of. Just think of all the good that could be done if you had that kind of power, Jesus The spirit will be upon you to bring justice and release to the captives. Just think how easy that could be if you had all the political power the world had to offer.

          But again, Jesus answers, “It is tempting, but… it is written, “Worship the Lord your God and serve only Him.”

          “Okay,” says the Devil, “let’s try something else. Let’s go to the top of the Temple and I’ll show you I know my scripture too.” For as a guy named William Shakespeare would one day write, “the devil quotes scripture for his own purposes.”

          And the Devil proves that true here. “You know it is written, He will command his angels to protect you, on their hands they will bear you up.”

          So let’s have a little fun. Since you are the Son of God – throw yourself off the Temple and let’s see if the angels catch you.

          “Ah,” says Jesus, “yes, I know that verse. It’s tempting, but scripture also says, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

          And that’s the end of the scene. The Devil leaves, deciding to bide his time and wait until a more opportune time.

          On our first trip to the wilderness, Israel, God’s chosen people, were tempted and failed. They failed to put their trust in the Lord their God. But on this second trip to the wilderness, Jesus, God’s chosen and beloved Son, faces temptation and he triumphs. He faces perhaps the greatest temptation, the original temptation, and he overcomes it. The temptation here is not just about fresh bread, or political power, or having your own personal security force of angels watching over your every move. The real temptation here is the same one presented to Adam and Eve in the Garden at Creation. The temptation to be like God.

          You remember the story. God created the world and everything in it and called it good. God created man and woman and made the Garden of Eden for them to live in. The only condition? Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

          But then the snake, the symbol of the Devil himself, convinces the woman that it will be okay to eat the fruit, because then you will be like God. And both the man and the woman give in to this temptation – to be like God.

          The original sin, the original temptation?- is to be like God, possessing all the wisdom and knowledge that God has. That is the greatest temptation that we face.

          Early on in Christian theology, a name was given to this temptation. Gnosticism. According to Harold Bloom the author of a book called The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation, Gnostics hold two absolute convictions:

1.    Human beings have a spark, a breath of God within them.

2.    That spark can find its way back into a fallen world through Knowledge – or “gnosis.”

In other words, Gnosticism is the belief that we can save ourselves. Through knowledge, we can bring about our own redemption. We need only to look within ourselves. We can be like God. Equality with God is attainable. Through some secret, higher knowledge, we can be like God.

That’s the real temptation for us, and for Jesus – to be like God. But here, Jesus overcomes that ultimate temptation. As Paul so eloquently put it in Philippians: “Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant…”

Yes, it’s tempting to try and be like God, especially for Jesus – God’s Son, the chosen one, the beloved. But Jesus answers this temptation by emptying himself and choosing instead the path of self-sacrifice and service. A choice that would ultimately lead him to the cross.

But as Paul explained, “Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped…”, at least, not yet. He will get there, but not now… not yet. There is work to do first. That is the work we relive in the season of Lent.

It is tempting to be like God, to act like we are in control of life. But Jesus shows us the way to deal with this ultimate temptation. Empty yourself, live by the word of God, and serve only the Lord.

It’s tempting to live otherwise, but… let God be God.

Amen.

1.    Source Unknown.

3-3-19 Resurrection Rhythm

Resurrection Rhythm

Rev. Jay Rowland

1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

Sunday March 3, 2019, First Presbyterian Church, Rochester MN

This sermon utilizes material published by Richard B. Hays in First Corinthians Interpretation Commentary (John Knox Press). 

“Someone will ask, How are the dead raised? 

With what kind of body do they come?” 

That's rhetorical.  Word has already reached Paul that these questions are being asked (and answered) in Corinth.   

What about you?  Perhaps you may be asking, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body? …”  It seems to me we don’t talk enough about resurrection. Something that is so central to our faith, should provoke lots of questions and conversations.  We all have questions, thoughts, maybe even doubts about the resurrection.  The gospels proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead—hallelujah—praise God!

 But sometimes, explanation is preferred to proclamation. 

Paul’s effort in the fifteen chapter of First Corinthians begins (v.3-5) with his recitation of the oldest known creedal statement on the resurrection (traceable to within three years of Jesus’ crucifixion).[1] He does this to divert their focus from their immediate surroundings, and maybe even from Paul himself, to the wider Christian community.  Paul then circles back to Corinth, to the misinformation about resurrection rampant among the congregation he planted there. Many are openly declaring that Jesus’ resurrection is merely a metaphor. Paul is convinced this will destroy the church in Corinth. Multiple other controversies are already wreaking havoc there.  Paul devotes the prior fourteen chapters to addressing each one, as requested by church members through letters they sent to Paul asking him to do so. 

The resurrection was not something Paul was asked to address.  But when word of mouth reaches Paul about resurrection bashing he determines to put a stop to it.  These are people who were converted by Paul and his preaching on the-crucified-and-risen-Lord.  What happened?  Why are they now suddenly denying the resurrection? 

It seems they started to take themselves a bit too seriously. Richard Hays reports in his excellent commentary that the faction in Corinth denying resurrection consider themselves “hyperspiritual Christians (pneumatikoi)”.  Some even claim special, divine wisdom and knowledge (gnosis - gnosticism).  They had become so spiritual, they elevated the soul far above the body.  Their idea of salvation was escape from the limitations imposed upon the soul by the body and the distractions of the flesh. Paul’s declaration about the “resurrection of the dead” literally the “rising of corpses” struck them as crass and horrifying, unsophisticated superstitious nonsense. (Hays, p.253)  

The notion of our human soul being at odds with our body is a product of ancient Greek philosophy which was embedded in the dominant Hellenistic culture throughout the Roman Empire. It’s one of those accidents of history that as Christianity spreads throughout these regions, Greek philosophy bleeds into Christian faith formation.   

Two thousand years later Greek philosophy continues to infect Christian faith formation. I could walk into any church on any given Sunday and ask, what do you think happens after we die? Many devout Christians would speak in terms of our soul being released from our body, transformed into a spirit-being, ascending to heaven from where we can observe our loved ones still alive on earth.   

Sounds wonderful. And it is. But it’s essentially ancient Greek philosophy, not Christian faith.   

The New Testament attests to something distinctively different. Jesus was dead and buried. God raised Jesus from death in his body. When the risen Jesus appears to his disciples they see and can touch his bodily wounds. Jesus asks them for something to eat.  Thus the risen Jesus is not a spirit-being. He is embodied. And yet his body is also different, a new creation ... able to pass through locked doors.  Some do not recognize him.  The risen Jesus is not a philosophical abstraction. What he is has never been seen before.  Perhaps that’s harder for people to understand and therefore accept.  Paul’s answer to the question he posed in verse 35 relies upon theology more than philosophy:

It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. …  The first man (Adam) was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man (Jesus) is from heaven. … Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.     

But so what, right?  What if we don’t go for the resurrection?  Is it that big of a deal?  What’s the harm if we mix in a little philosophy.  No harm no foul right? Closer examination may prove otherwise.   

In his commentary, Richard Hays shares an experience of a young woman from his church whose 18-year-old sister was killed in a car accident. Her relatives and friends were saying things to her like, “your sister is in a better place …” and “… she’s happy now, and telling us not to be sad” And “God must have needed your sister up in heaven”  

These pithy declarations denied the painful reality and the bitter tragedy of her sister’s death and left her confused and angry, which in turn produced guilt because she thought she was supposed to agree with what her well-meaning Christian friends and family were saying, and doubting her own Christian faith.   

Hays reports that this young woman felt liberated by Paul’s words which treated death as a destructive enemy that will be conquered only at the end of this age. She was previously unaware of Paul’s explanation or simply had not paid attention until now. 1 Corinthians 15 “enabled her to struggle with the reality that her sister was truly dead and buried in the ground, while at the same time, affirm the Christian hope that she will hold her sister in her arms again one day …” (p.279)   

Paul insists that all Christian proclamation is grounded in the resurrection. Our faith stands or falls to the extent that this is true. “The resurrection of the dead” Hays writes, “forces us to take seriously that God is committed to the creation and that God has acted and will act in ways beyond our experience and external to our subjectivity.” Resurrection does not circumvent the pain of death nor relieve God of any responsibility or accountability.  “The resurrection is not simply a symbol for flowers coming up every spring,” Hays concludes “or for the generic hope that ‘springs eternal’ in the human heart.  Our Christian faith is grounded in the rising from the grave of Jesus Christ who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried” (p.281).[2]  

Our daily life and movement is infused with the sacred rhythms of God’s movement in us, with us and among us. The very pinnacle of the sacred rhythm and movement of Jesus Christ among us here on the other side of the Transfiguration is and ever shall be resurrection.  Jesus’ resurrection, yours and mine too, declares something deeper happening all around us and with us, something we seem reluctant to accept, and yet, something God-filled and God-blessed.   

In a few days, we will enter again into the season and pilgrimage that is Lent. It begins with a solemn declaration that without God’s breath in us, we are dust. From that moment we begin a long, slow, meandering pilgrimage winding, twisting and turning eventually to Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Crucifixion Friday. The pilgrimage of Lent reminds us that resurrection is something that we cannot produce or reproduce, we cannot control nor manipulate. Resurrection places our hope exclusively in God’s hands where it belongs (Hays, p.280).   

As we come to the Table Jesus has prepared for us, a reservation kept in heaven, come and receive sustenance for the pilgrimage, and be reminded that we live and move and have our being in the Resurrection Rhythm of Jesus Christ … who lived, died, and rose again, yet who lives and reigns, here with us, now and forever.

[1] Hays: “It is highly significant that this early creed specifies the story of Jesus’ passion and resurrection must be interpreted in light of the Scripture: the earliest church understood the gospel as the continuation and fulfillment of God’s dealings with Israel” p.255

[2] “Christianity in which Jesus is seen not as the crucified and risen one but only as a great moral teacher (and) … the resurrection, if it is preached at all, is understood only as a symbol for human potential or enlightened self-understanding … (or) a dream(s) warmly of ‘going to heaven’ but ignore(s) the resurrection of the body (effectively) ignore(s) the challenge of the gospel to the world we inhabit” (p.278)

2-17-19 Happy and Blessed

Thomas J Parlette

“Happy and Blessed”

Luke 6: 17-26

2/17/19

          Every year about this time, Jay and I both receive a package with a free sample of a pen in it. It’s from one of those companies that want to get you to buy a thousand pens with your church name printed on it. According to the sales letter, this is guaranteed to make your church membership swell. Well, the pen this year was gray, and writes very nicely – if I were in the market for 1,000 pens, this would certainly be on my list. With one small exception. The name of our church – First Presbyterian Church, Rochester – was misspelled. Apparently, they didn’t have enough space on the side of the pen, so they dropped out some letters – mostly vowels, so you could still read what it said. But the problem was, we just didn’t fit.

          This passage for today is scriptural proof that as Christians, we just don’t fit too well in this world. These verses are from Luke’s version of The Sermon on the Mount, nicknamed by scholars as The Sermon on the Plain.

          That’s an important note to consider. Matthew puts Jesus above the people, teaching from the top of a hill. Matthew also takes the sting out of the blessings and woes by spiritualizing them – “… blessed are the poor, in spirit…”, etc…

          But Luke has Jesus teaching from the plain – on level ground with the people, right in their midst. And he leaves the edge in Jesus’ teaching - …”woe to the rich, the full and the laughing…”

          This is a much tougher version of what we know as the Beatitudes. According to Reader’s Digest, in September 1998, Ted Turner called Christianity a “religion for losers…” His reasoning was based in part on these Beatitudes. His thinking was that any religion which asks its followers to be meek and merciful even in the face of oppression can only be a religion for losers. Sure, Jesus said, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven,” but this reward in heaven business is what Karl Marx called “the opiate of the masses.” No clear thinking, 21st century realist would buy these concepts, would they? No, not really – it just doesn’t fit.

          And to be honest, no self-respecting First Century realist would embrace the lifestyle suggested by the Beatitudes either. The Emperor Julian is reported to have said that he wanted to confiscate Christians property so that they might all become poor and the enter the kingdom of heaven.(1) If that would make them happy – then so be it. Just trying to help. No wonder he was known as Julian the Apostate.

          The Greek word used here, “makarios” which most translators render as “blessed”, can also be translated as “happy”. Happy are the poor. Happy are the hungry. Happy are those who weep. I don’t know about you, but blessed is a little easier to swallow than happy, in those situations.

          But then again, consider Mother Teresa, who worked with dying people in the slums of Calcutta – we can accept that she was blessed in her life of service – but happy really? Seems like that would be very depressing work. And yet people who knew her best said that she indeed radiated happiness. In fact, many authors who have studied the pursuit of happiness have observed that the happiest people on earth are not those who pursue happiness, but those who seek God and serve others.

          Many of you remember Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and his Power of Positive Thinking. Late in his life, Dr. Peale wrote something else. He wrote, “I have discovered that the most optimistic people are the most Christian people in their attitudes. Now, I’ve got to qualify that a little bit. I have seen lay people, preachers, bishops, and so on, up and down the hierarchy who weren’t optimistic, who thought everything was going bad. You see, there are different ways of being a Christian.”

          “A minister in London once told me about a man who would never go inside a church. He would hang around in the vestibule, and when the ushers went away, he would open the door just a crack so he could listen. But he never went any further than the vestibule. Well,” said Dr. Peale, “there are many who have physically got past the vestibule, but mentally, they’re still listening through a crack. They’re only getting a tiny bit, a faint suggestion of the Gospel.”

          “If you take the whole of Christianity, and really give yourself to it and really accept it,” he said,” you are going to become so happy, so enthusiastic, so optimistic, that life will be altogether different for you. Then you will walk in the newness of life – when you have absorbed the quality, the essence, the depth and the height, the glory and the power of Christianity.”

          “So let go of that gloom, let go of that depression, let go of that discouragement, let go of that weakness, let go of that sense of failure. Get with Jesus. Go to him, pray to him, tell him you want to live with him, tell him you want to be guided in your life by him. And I will guarantee, and the basis of everything I have seen in my ministry, that you will become optimistic; you will become victorious; you will have peace in your heart; you will love people; you will feel good physically and emotionally. You will have a wonderful life.”(2)

          Dr. Peale was on to something – something that the world just doesn’t get. Happiness isn’t something that happens to you on the outside, it’s something that happens on the inside. Happiness or blessedness is not found in wealth or power or pleasure or a full belly. Some of the happiest people on earth are some of the poorest people on earth. And some of the richest people on earth in terms of material wealth, are some of the most miserable people in the world.

          We can have the most desperate circumstances and still be happy, according to Jesus. Happiness comes from another source.

          It is a curious spiritual principle that the more we have, the more we demand out of life. So often it is the person who appears to be blessed, with all the external trappings of the good life, who is so easily miffed at God, while the person who has very little feels a much greater sense of gratitude for life’s little joys and pleasures.

          There are only two sources of happiness in this world. One is a right relationship with God. The other is a right relationship with our fellow human beings. Everything else is extraneous. Poverty or wealth, handicap or health, surrounded by loved ones or weeping beside a lonely grave – we can still have a well-spring of joy within, if we understand the source of happiness.

          Happiness is not dependent upon circumstances but on an inner certainty – that we are loved and accepted – that we belong to God, then we are able to want the best for others, our friends and our enemies.

          J.T. Fisher states: “If you were to take the sum total of all authoritative articles ever written by the most qualified psychologists and psychiatrists on the subject of mental health, you would have an awkward and incomplete summation of the Sermon on the Mount. For nearly two thousand years the Christian world has been holding the complete answer to its restless and fruitless yearnings. Here rests the blueprint for successful human life with optimism, mental health and contentment. (3)

          The adage that money cannot buy happiness has been affirmed time after time. According to scientific studies, once our basic needs are met – shelter, food, basic education- income makes little difference in our levels of happiness, except in extreme situations.

          Even celebrities are beginning to recognize that. Late-night talk show host, David Letterman, was quoted recently in the New York Times when he said, “I’m a person who spends a great deal of time wondering why he is not happier. I have found that the only thing that does bring you happiness is doing something good for somebody who is incapable of doing it for themselves.” That’s David Letterman, but it sounds a lot like Jesus.

          To be happy and blessed, we must live with the inner certainty that we belong to God, that we are loved and accepted, and then we are able to want the best for others. That is the road to happiness.

          Author James Moore says that a friend of his once shared with him an experience that she had in an art museum in New York. She went into one special exhibit room where all the paintings were paintings of roads. There paintings of busy modern interstate highways, big city crowded thoroughfares, attractive landscaped parkways, happy neighborhood streets, remote mountain trails, and quiet country roads.

          At one end of the big room was a very large painting of a road. It had an ethereal, spiritual look, with soft pastel colors, and the caption beneath it read: “The Road to Happiness.” As his friend stood there looking at this magnificent painting “Road to Happiness”, two fashionably dressed, middle aged women walked up beside her. One of them was visibly moved by the painting.

          “Isn’t that beautiful?”, she said.

          And the other responded sadly, “Of course it’s beautiful, but there is no such road.”(5)

          But there is such a road, a road to happiness. And it’s found in these teachings of Jesus.

          In 1989, columnist Nick Clooney decided that he wanted someone else to do his work for a little while. So he invited a variety of local celebrities from the Kentucky-Ohio area to send in their ideas for a column about epitaphs. The question was posed: “What would you want written on your tombstones?” He was surprised by the wit and sincerity of the responses.

          For instance, Ira Joe Fisher, a local weatherman, wrote a humorous couple of lines that went like this:

          “He wanted the mind of Plato,

          The heart and soul of Socrates.

          But his life was more of a tribute to Ol’ Mediocrites.”

Paul Knue, the editor of the Cincinnati Post, couldn’t make up his mind about what to write, until after he went on a weekend trip with his family. When he got back, he wanted something that would reflect the importance of family life. So he went with just two words: “He cared.”

But the most sweetly whimsical message was from Charlie Mecham, former head of Taft Broadcasting. His epitaph was:

          “Dear God, Thanks for letting me visit. I had a wonderful time.”(6)

          The secret to having a wonderful time in this life is to know you are loved by God, and then you can live your life desiring the best for those around you. Then you too, will be happy and blessed.

          May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Homeliticsonline, retrieved 2/7/19.

2.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXV, No. 1, p36.

3.    Ibid… p37.

4.    Ibid… p38.

5.    Ibid… p38.

6.    Ibid… p39.

2-10-19 Stepping into the Scene

Thomas J Parlette

“Stepping into the Scene”

Luke 5: 1-11

2/10/19

          One spring afternoon, not long after she and her new husband John moved into the community, Marianne Siebert of Florence, Kansas, decided to visit their elderly neighbors, the Mc Linden’s, who lived about a mile and half up the road.

          The weather was perfect, so Marianne decided to saddle up her 12- year- old Arabian stallion, Phar, and ride him over to the neighbors. When she got there, she dismounted and, reins in hand, approached the back door.

          Apparently, the neighbor had just polished the glass in the storm door, because it shone like a mirror. Marianne knocked twice and waited with her horse peering over her shoulder. After a minute a two, she decided her neighbors weren’t home and she turned to leave when she noticed that Phar was staring at the gray stallion in the glass with fascination. He squealed and pawed the ground – and so did the stallion in the window, because it was, of course, his own reflection.

          Marianne tugged on the reins, but old Phar refused to move. Marianne was starting to get a bad feeling, and she became more forceful, tugging hard and slapping Phar with the reins. Finally, the big horse moved. He swung around, and with both hind legs, bashed in the door!

          Glass flew everywhere and the metal grill work caved in. Marianne was sweating bullets and was just about to jump on Phar and make a quick getaway when she heard Mrs. McLinden call to her husband, who was a bit hard of hearing, “Honey, I think there’s someone at the door.”

          “I could have strangled that horse,” said Marianne afterwards. “But instead, I helped the McLinden’s clean up the glass, promised to pay for the door and I got out of there. My reputation, however soon spread throughout the county – “If Marianne Siebert comes to visit, be sure to get there after the first knock, or she’ll kick in your door.”(1)

          We often talk about opportunity knocking – it rarely bashes in the door, but it does come knocking on occasion. Someone once said that if opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough. That may be true. We also think about Jesus standing at the door and knocking. You probably all remember that classic painting that depicts  a saintly looking Jesus with long flowing hair and glowing white robes just about to knock on a little cabin door. I wonder how many have noticed that there is no door handle visible in that painting. The only way to open the door is from the inside. Jesus isn’t going to break down your door – you have to open it on your own.

          These two images – opportunity knocking and Jesus knocking – converge in our Gospel lesson for today. Two fishing boats stand empty by the side of a lake. The fishermen have given up for the day. They are standing near the boats, cleaning up their nets. Their faces are weary with discouragement. They aren’t fishing for sport or amusement or relaxation – this is their livelihood, this is their profession – and things are not going well.

          We know how they feel. We’ve all been there. If you’re in sales, you know what it feels like to have prospect after prospect say, “No thanks, not interested.” Someone once said that’s why they have afternoon matinees at the movies – for people who can’t hear
“No” one more time.

                    If you’ve ever started a business, you know the feeling. There are a lot of rewards running your own business, but there are also a lot of times when it feels like the wolves are right outside your door, too.

          Farmers know the feeling. You realize with a sinking feeling that this year’s crop is not measuring up. It’s not because you didn’t work hard – that’s the frustrating part. You worked harder than ever. But the rain came at the wrong time, there was too much, or there wasn’t enough – it’s just not going well.

          Even young people know about times of discouragement. You work hard studying for a test, but when you look at the questions, it seems like you studied all the wrong things. You had hoped for an “A”, and now you just want to pass.

          We’ve all felt the same sense of discouragement these fishermen were living with, haven’t we?

          There was once a troubled man who paid a visit to his Rabbi. “Rabbi,” he said, wringing his hands, “I am a failure. More than half the time, I do not succeed in the things I have to do. I am a failure. Please, tell me what to do.”

          The Rabbi thought for a moment. “Here’s what I want you to do, my friend, go look on page 930 of the New York Times Almanac for the year 1970, and you will find peace of mind.”

          The troubled man went away and did what the Rabbi said, and here is what he found – the listing of the lifetime batting averages of all the greatest players in baseball. Ty Cobb, the greatest slugger of them all, had a lifetime batting average of only .367. Not even Babe Ruth could match that.

          So the man went back to the Rabi. “Ty Cobb - .367 – that’s it. That’s supposed to give me peace?”

          “Yes,” said the Rabbi. “Ty Cobb, .367. The greatest hitter in baseball only got a hit once out of every three times at bat. He didn’t even hit .500 – so what why do you expect to do better?”(2)

          All of us get discouraged at times. We can sympathize with those fishermen standing by their boats with empty nets, nothing to show for the work, batting a whole lot less than .367. All they can do now is clean out their nets, wash down the boats and hope for a better day tomorrow.

          But then, into the scene steps Jesus. The great actor Charlie Chaplin was once directing a play and he was sitting out in the audience, trying to tell his lead actor what he wanted him to do. But the actor just didn’t understand what Chaplin wanted, so Chaplin walked down the center aisle, jumped up on the stage and showed the actor exactly what he wanted him to do.(3)

          Whenever Jesus jumps onto the stage – whenever Jesus steps into the scene, he does just that. He shows us struggling children of God what to do.

          There was once an old lady in a land hostile to the Christian faith who was thrown into prison because of her religion. She was frightened and alone – but into the scene stepped Jesus. Instead of being bitter or scared, she learned to thank God for confinement, as Jesus had thanked God for his trials. “Now I can be alone with my Lord,” she said.(4) Jesus had shown her what to do – be thankful to God in all things.

          According to legend, some neighborhood boys were visiting the famous artist, Leonardo DaVinci. One of them knocked over a stack of canvases. This upset the artist because he was right in the middle of some sensitive work, trying to paint the face of Jesus. He got angry, threw his brushes and hurled some insults at the boy, who ran crying from the studio. DaVinci tried to go back to work, but found he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t paint the face of Jesus and hold onto his anger at the same time.(5)

          Wouldn’t it be great if every time violence and anger, hate and frustration tried to sneak onto the stage of our lives, we could say – “But into the scene steps Jesus, and I can let go of my anger and hate.”

          Evangelist John Wesley was once robbed by a man as he was travelling on the highway. Wesley said to him, “If the day should come that you desire to leave this evil way and live for God, remember that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses all from sin.”

          Years later, Wesley was stopped by a man after church, who asked him “Do you remember me? I robbed you one night, and you told me that the blood of Christ cleanses all from sin. I have trusted Christ ever since, and he has changed my life.”(6) That reformed criminal was just one of many through the centuries who were headed down the wrong road until Jesus stepped into the scene.

          Here we have the answer to all our feelings of discouragement, disillusionment, and emptiness. Let Jesus step in to the scene. Let him jump onto the stage of your life and show you exactly what to do.

          These fishermen in our story from Luke had worked all night and had caught mothing. They were tired. They were discouraged. They were frustrated. Then Jesus stepped into the scene. Notice what Jesus told them to do. He told them to push out into the deep. He told them to throw their nets on the other side of the boat. What he was really telling them to do was exercise their faith. Faith in him, faith in their own abilities as fishermen, and faith in the abundance of the sea. It was Peter who spoke up- “Lord we’ve been at this all night and we’ve caught nothing.” But Jesus’s gaze never wavers, there is a long pause, a deep sigh from Peter… “But if you say so, we’ll do it.” Jesus restored their faith, and that was precisely what they needed at that particular moment.

          I wonder how many of us need that same word. Do you know what the biggest barrier to success is for most people? It is the fear of getting started. It is the fear of pushing out into the deep unknown. It is the fear of change. Our biggest barrier to success is our reluctance to take action, because we are afraid.

          But then Christ steps into our lives and says, “Don’t be afraid. What are you worried about? I am with you. Go ahead, push out into the deep, venture into the unknown. Put down your nets just one more time. Trust me.”

          That’s what the disciples did and you know what happened? They caught so many fish that they nearly sank their boats. It would not have happened if they had not exercised their faith. But they pushed out and took a chance and what a catch they had. But they had to get out there and put down their nets first.

          There’s a story from the sailing ship days about a vessel stranded off the coast of South America – unable to move because there was no wind. Week after week went by. The sailors were dying of thirst, but it was just too far to swim ashore. Finally another ship came close enough to hear their cries for help. And they shouted back – “Put down you buckets.” When the stranded sailors did that, they found water fit to drink right beneath their keel. Turns out that even though they were far off shore in the ocean, the fresh water current from the mighty Amazon river surrounded them. All they had to do was reach for it.(7)

          Our lesson for today says the same thing – let down your buckets, cast out your nets. Don’t be afraid to exercise your faith. This is still a wonderful, abundant world that God has created for us. Trust what Jesus says and push out into the deep waters of your life. You are not alone. For Jesus is ready to step into the scene, onto the stage of your life. Answer the door when you hear the knock of opportunity. Jesus isn’t going to break down the door, but if you trust him, he will give you new life.

          And for that, may God be praised. Amen.

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXVI, No. 1.

2.    Ibid…

3.    Ibid…

4.    Ibid…

5.    Ibid…

6.    Ibid…

7.    Ibid…

2-3-19 Rejected

Thomas J Parlette

“Rejected”

Luke 4: 14-30

2/3/19

          Perhaps you noticed that something sounded vaguely familiar about our Gospel reading for this morning. You may remember that we heard part of this passage from Luke just last week.

          I chose to repeat the reading from Luke because this story of Jesus being rejected in his own hometown is really one story. But for some reason, our lectionary divides it into two separate readings. But they really do belong together.

          I would bet that all of us have experienced rejection of some sort in our life. We’ve all been turned down, told “no, thanks”, or had a door shut in our face. Parents spend years grooming their children for success. Perhaps it would be a better idea to train our children to handle rejection as well because it’s a fact of life. Everyone faces rejection at some point.

          Consider J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series of novels. She was rejected by 12 different publishers before her work was accepted. One of them even advised her to “not quit her day job.” Fortunately, she did not listen. To date, her writings have netted her more than 1 billion dollars.

          Or how about Elvis Presley. He was fired by Jimmy Denny, the manager of the Grand Ole Opry. He reportedly told Elvis, “You ain’t going nowhere, son. You ought to go back to driving a truck.” But as we all know, Elvis had quite a bit of success in the music world.

          Steve Jobs of Apple computing fame was at one time fired by the very company he created. Eventually he was hired back, of course, and Apple went on to become the most profitable company in the world, but even Steve Jobs knew what it was to be rejected.

          Stephen King’s first novel, Carrie, was rejected 30 times before it was published. Steven Spielberg was rejected 3 times for admission at USC’s School of Theater, Fil and Television. I guess they figured that the guy who would go on to direct Jaws, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark and Saving Private Ryan, just wouldn’t be able to cut it in the movie business.(1)

          Even faithful servants of God get rejected. John Wesley, co-founder of Methodism, preached his message encouraging people to live like Jesus every day in any Anglican Church that would let him in their pulpit. But time and time again, his journal entries say… “on such and such a date, I preached at such and such church, was thrown out and told never to come back.” John Wesley was kicked out of more churches than we can count. Once, he even had to stand on his own father’s grave in order to find a place to preach without the danger of being thrown out of town! (2)

          It even happened to Jesus. Jesus was just beginning his ministry. He was about 30 years old. He had been baptized by John the Baptist. You’ll remember that, at his baptism, the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

          Almost immediately he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. But Jesus rejects Satan’s arguments and interpretations of scripture. When today’s story takes place, Jesus has returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him has spread through the whole region. Teaching in their synagogues, he is met with praise everywhere he goes. Until… he returns home.

          Luke tells us Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath, and on the Sabbath day he went to the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

          “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

          After reading those words, Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him, waiting for what he would say next. And Jesus says simply, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

          Now, so far, people were impressed with Jesus. He had such presence and gravitas, he spoke with such authority. “All spoke well of him,” Luke says, and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips.” There was even some hometown pride showing through. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son – what a fine young man he has turned into.” If only Jesus had stopped there.

          But Jesus kept talking, and the more he talked, the more displeased his hometown congregation became. “Surely, you will quote me the proverb, ‘Physician heal yourself.’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them – but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.”

          “And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed – only Naaman, the Syrian.”

          Jesus sermon there in Nazareth was met with stunned silence. Then the anger started to build. What is he saying? He is not going to perform any miracles like he did in Capernaum? Why not? This is his hometown – surely we deserve a little special treatment. Is he saying that his theological views have taken him far beyond the small town attitudes that he was brought up with? What, Joseph’s son is too good for us now?

          The people in Jesus hometown didn’t understand him at all. Whatever he was saying, it was not what those folks wanted to hear. Luke tells us they were furious. They were so angry that they chased Jesus out of town. In fact, they were so enraged that they took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. “But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.”

          I’ve always liked that phrase “passed through the midst of them.” Jesus didn’t run away from rejection, he didn’t hide from it, he didn’t fight back. Jesus simply passed through the rejection and anger he was facing for speaking for God’s word – and continued on his way, following God’s way.

          When faced with rejection, Jesus passed through it.

          Two important words of assurance spring from this story.

          First – time heals all wounds. We know that Jesus faced a lot more rejection in his life – even the ultimate rejection, death. But in time, Jesus proved victorious over sin and death. Time heals all wounds. And as some wise philosopher later added – “time wounds all heels.”(3)

          Given enough time, God will bring about justice. Persistent hope, persistent faith in the goodness of God will conquer all rejection and resistance. Ask anyone who has made it through a heartbreaking experience, and they will tell you that, if you hang in there long enough, the sun will shine again. Things do get better.

          Time is a great remedy for rejection. But an even greater ally is God. The second word of assurance here is that when we walk in the ways of God, we can deal with whatever rejection we face.

          In our Old Testament lesson for today, we hear about the young prophet Jeremiah and how he was called to bring the word of God to nation of Judah.

          Jeremiah is one of the premier prophets of the Old Testament, and yet he was rejected in the same way as Christ was rejected, and it broke his heart. In fact, he was known as the “Weeping prophet.” Jeremiah had a good reason for weeping.

          Jeremiah was called by God to prophesy Jerusalem’s destruction. This destruction, he said would occur by way of invaders from the north. This was because Israel had been unfaithful to the laws of the covenant and had forsaken God by worshiping Baal. The people of Israel had even gone so far as building high altars to Baal in order to sacrifice their children. The nation had strayed so far from God that, in God’s eyes, they had broken the covenant, causing God to withdraw his blessings from them. Jeremiah was guided by God to proclaim that the nation of Judah would be faced with famine. Furthermore, they would be plundered and taken captive by foreigners who would exile them to a foreign land.

          So how do you think such a prophecy was received. Not well, not well at all, would be the short answer. The people turned against Jeremiah. They hated him. They banished him. They didn’t want to hear another word from Jeremiah.

          Jeremiah could not have endured the isolation and the scorn that was his lot without a deep and abiding faith in God. When he was a young man, the word of the Lord had come to him saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you. I have put my words in your mouth.”

          Jeremiah knew that because he was speaking for God, time would prove his assertions true. He had the greatest ally that anyone could have. He was on the side of God. So, in his own way, Jeremiah was able to pass through the midst of the rejection he faced and go on his way – the way of God.

          When we face those times when we meet rejection – on a personal level, on a professional level or even when we feel that the values and social norms we hold dear are being rejected, remember this story of Jesus’ rejection. He was able to pass through the midst of them and go on his way because time will heal all wounds and he knew he was following in the path of God.

          So may we all.

          Come to the table today my friends, and be nourished for the journey. May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXV, No. 1, p25.

2.    Homeliticsonline, retrieved 1/24/19.

3.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXV, No. 1, p27.

1-27-19 All of the People Gathered Together

Thomas J Parlette

“All of the People Gathered Together…”

Nehemiah 8: 1-3, 5-6, 8-10

1/27/19 

          Like most preachers, I tend to focus on the New Testament texts, choosing to preach on the Gospel stories or letters of Paul. But every so often, I like to take on the Old Testament lesson. Just for fun, I looked back over my sermon catalogue and found that over the course of 24 years of regularly preaching on Sunday morning, I have only preached on this text from Nehemiah once – and that was back in the late 90’s. So it’s about time I returned to this little known prophet.

          The book of Nehemiah tells the story of Nehemiah’s return to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and its wall. When he was serving as the cupbearer to the King in Persia, Nehemiah receives news that Jerusalem is in ruins – and Nehemiah is devastated. So much so that the King of Persia, Artaxerxes, releases him to go back home and restore his homeland. Our passage picks up when the city has been restored, at least partially, and now it is time for the people to experience the word of God read and explained.(1) So Nehemiah gathered all the people together… to do a few things.

          First, all the people gathered to hear God’s word. I know this sounds like no big deal, but it’s really very important. Keep in mind that there was no internet, there was no printing press, books were hard to come by. And not everyone could read. So the public reading of documents and scrolls was a big deal. Also remember that the Hebrews had been in exile for decades, hauled off to Babylon, and only recently set free to return to Jerusalem. They hadn’t heard the word of God in years. For some of the younger generation, they had never heard the word, they had never heard of God’s history with the Hebrews and the promises made in scripture.

          Secondly, Nehemiah gathered all the people in order to reclaim the God’s promises as a community. In this public reading, the people would be reminded of God’s special relationship to them as a covenant people.

          And lastly, Nehemiah gathered the people to remind them that their strength was the joy of the Lord. No more weeping, no more mourning, no more “woe is me,” let us celebrate, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

          Nehemiah, and Ezra the priest, preside over a community in severe conflict, dispute and fragmentation. The effort to rebuild Jerusalem and restore Judah as worshipping community has not been easy. The future of the people is in serious doubt. Enemies attack from outside, but even more disrupting are the internal disagreements that threaten to undermine the community’s future. The people form factions arguing about who is in and who is out, who should govern and who shouldn’t, how the Temple should be rebuilt, and how Jerusalem can be reestablished in safety and peace. In many ways, it sounds a lot like our own day.

          But in these words of Nehemiah we have some good news of deep joy in a shallow world. The people are gathered to remember that no matter how many fears and failures we may have, no matter how many times we have to pick ourselves up, no matter how difficult it has been to get through an average day, let alone life itself, no matter what – God is leading us to a deep joy that is eternal in a world that is often focused only on the here and now.

          Deep, lasting joy is not to be found in what happens to us, but in seeing through what happens to us toward an ultimate victory in the midst of temporary defeats. Gratitude is not for what happens to us but in spite of what happens to us.

          There is a story told about a boy at his Bar Mitzvah, many years after Ezra and Nehemiah’s time. The boy watches the Hasidic masters come forward as he reads and watches them place a drop of honey on each page of the Torah. The boy asks what that means, and the master replies, “It stands for the sweetness of knowing God’s word and the joy God intends for us in the midst of the struggles and pain of life.”(2)

          This deep joy, sweet as honey, comes to the world in several ways.

          First, joy comes on the other side of our demand for justice. Psalm 30 says, “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” The long night for many people comes when they are too adamant in demanding justice that makes sense in this world, when all along what we really need, and what God gives, is mercy.

          There was once a woman who hired an expensive artist to paint her portrait. The artist had her sit several times for him and then he went off to finish his work. A few weeks later, he came back with the portrait and presented it to his customer. The woman looked at it, frowned and said, “This portrait doesn’t do my face justice.” And the artist replied, “Ma’am, your face doesn’t need justice, it needs mercy.”(3)

          Don’t we all. Justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is getting what you need, even though you don’t know you need anything.

          We go through so much of our lives wanting justice. But joy comes when we grant the same mercy to others that we insist on having for ourselves. Most often we are not merciful because we have not allowed God’s mercy to touch us. And you can’t give what you do not have. Jesus’ directive to “love your neighbor as you love yourself” implies that we need to experience God’s love and mercy first hand in order to be loving and merciful to others. Too often we don’t hear or heed that advice. When we look beyond our demand for justice and concentrate on receiving and giving away God’s mercy, then we can also receive deep abiding joy.

          Second, joy also comes on the other side of the walls we build, or sometimes when we move the walls we’ve inherited. During World War 1, there were some American soldiers passing through an area in France. One of their friends had been killed, and they wanted a place to bury him. They found a local church with a cemetery next door and asked if their friend could be buried there. The priest asked if he was Catholic. They said he was not. The priest apologized for the fact that it was a Catholic cemetery, and only Catholics could be buried there, but he also had compassion. “Why don’t you bury your friend just outside the cemetery wall.” The soldiers agreed and went ahead with a simple funeral.

          Several weeks later the soldiers were travelling through the area again and wanted to visit the grave. They came to the cemetery but for some reason could not find the spot where they buried their friend. They went to the Rectory and asked the priest, “We can’t find the grave, what happened?” The priest looked rather embarrassed when he said. “After you left that day, I hated the idea that you had to bury your friend outside the cemetery, so I gathered some men from the church and we tore the old wall down and built a new section to include your friends grave.”(4)

          The joy of God comes when, after reading all the earthly rules, we revise them in light of God’s law to be merciful to all. We spend too much time worrying about who belongs and who doesn’t. We should be thinking about inclusion rather than exclusion.

          Third, joy comes on the other side of seeking treasure. There is an old Hasidic tale about Isak of Krakow. Isak, a young Jewish man, wanted to build a temple to God. But he was poor, he had no money. One night he had a dream in which he was instructed to go to Prague, the great capital city, and dig under the bridge that went into the King’s house and there he would find gold.

          So, Isak went to Prague and started digging under the bridge when he was discovered by a guard. He decided in a split second that he should tell the truth. He told the guard that he had had a dream about the gold and come to dig it up. The guard began to laugh, “Oh yeah!? Well I had a dream last night too. I dreamt that in Krakow there was a man named Isak, and if I were to go to his home and move his stove and dig under his floor, I would find gold. But I’m not dumb enough to go all the way to Krakow and dig up your floor.”

          After a hearty laugh, the guard saw that Isak was harmless and sent him back to Krakow. But on his long journey home, Isak couldn’t forget that dream the guard had joked about. When he finally got home, he moved his stove and dug up his floor, and sure enough, he discovered gold – and he was able to build his temple to God. Isak learned that what we seek is usually right under our nose, but most often we have to go on a long journey to find it.(5)

          Joy comes when we stop seeking treasure, and see the treasure all around us, the treasure of everyday life. Joy comes when we live with the knowledge that in the sight of God, we are the treasure.

          There was a woman who once wrote about a precious vase that her mother had owned. It was a family heirloom, a real treasure. One day, when she was just a child, she accidently bumped it and knocked it to the floor. The vase shattered into a million pieces. The little girl screamed in terror of being punished. Her mother ran into the room and said, “What’s wrong, why are you crying?”

          “I’m sorry, I broke the family treasure! I didn’t mean to, it was an accident.”

          Her mother was immediately relieved, and sweeping up the broken pieces, said, “It’s Ok, I don’t really care about the vase. I was scared because I thought you were hurt.”

          The woman closed her story by saying, “It was at that moment that I realized I was the family treasure – and it has made all the difference in my life.”(6)

          Joy comes on the other side of seeking riches and treasure and in realizing that the one who made us delights in us forever. That knowledge doesn’t lessen what happens to us in life – but it does lift us with the knowledge that “weeping may linger for the night, but joy will come in the morning.”

          You know, most of life is built backwards. We think that we must seek joy rather than let joy find us. We think we need and must have more of what we have enough of. In fact, the greatest joy is to be found in the everyday moments when we allow God to find us. It is a great spiritual arrogance to believe that we can find God. We can’t. God finds us. When we are willing to go to places of service and caring, God finds us there with deep and indescribable joy.

          The good news is that it is not up to us to find God. Instead, God is in search of us, and God will always find us. I’m sure some of you remember the days when missing children had their pictures on milk cartons. Well, one day a child was in the grocery store with his mother, and he saw one of those milk cartons, and a look of horror came over his face as he thought of a question. He asked his mother, “What would you do if I was missing?”

          His mother leaned over, looked him in the eye and said, “If you were ever missing, don’t forget that we would never, ever stop looking for you.”(7)

          Never ever stop looking for you.

          Those are also the words of our God. God sees us when we are lost and will stoop as low as we are in order to lift us up. That’s where joy comes from. From the knowledge that God will never stop searching until we are found.

          When Nehemiah gathered all the people together, that was what we wanted them to remember. It had been too long since they had heard and understood the word of God. They needed to hear once more the holy message that God will never stop searching until we are found.

          And for that, may God be praised. Amen.

1.    Kathleen M. O’Connor, Feasting on the Word, Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, p. 267.

2.    Source Unknown.

3.    Ibid…

4.    Ibid…

5.    Ibid…

6.    Ibid…

7.    Ibid…

1-20-19 On the Holy Spirit and the Potluck

On the Holy Spirit and the Potluck

Rev. Jay Rowland

1 Corinthians 12:1-11 (and Psalm 36:5-10)

Sunday January 20, 2019

This past Tuesday evening a few of us gathered here for supper. The incoming class of elders and deacons along with the current elders and deacons, and some whose term ended with 2018, all gathered here for what has become a wonderful annual event every January. This is a warm gathering in the bleak midwinter, fellowship and bonding among our elders and deacons before the first regular meeting of the new year. After supper, TJ hands out blank pieces of paper and instructs everyone to write down their name and “two truths and a lie” about themselves. Then TJ reads each one and we all try to guess each person’s truths and lie. It’s a fun way to get to know one another. In my own case, it can also be counter-informative—when I remember the lie more than the two truths; and that’s part of the fun. 

Perhaps the best part about this gathering, at least for me, is that the menu for supper is soup. It’s a soup potluck (breads and desserts too). In case you didn’t know, I love potlucks.  But I’m guessing many of you probably do too.  Here’s what I love about potlucks:

I love the variety of food.

I love the quantity of food.

I love it when there’s something I’ve never had before. 

I love it when there’s something I have had before, maybe even many times before, but never as good as the way someone here from church made it!

Above all, I love potlucks because I’ve never left a potluck disappointed or hungry. 

That’s a beautiful thing!

I don’t know if the church invented the potluck, but I do know it’s one of my favorite church gatherings. Pondering the 1 Corinthians 12 passage in preparation for today, it suddenly dawns on me: what a cool metaphor for the church!  I believe that God has a habit of showing up in the common, so-called ordinary elements (and events) of life.  And so, as I considered the abundance of food, flavors, recipes, and the personal touch of each one; when I consider the warmth, fellowship and joy that accompanies any church potluck, I see God’s fingerprints all over it.  How did I not see this until now? That this unpretentious, ordinary gathering is an invisibly powerful experience of the Body of Christ, the in-breaking Kingdom of God … what that looks like, smells like, tastes like and … feels like. As I thought about what makes any potluck enjoyable, I realized this is also what makes every faith community the blessing that it is.

I read somewhere that the Holy Spirit doesn’t create Christians for isolation, “there are no ‘only children’ in God’s family” or something like that. The Holy Spirit is the relational energy of our fascinating Triune God.  The Holy Spirit created the Church at Pentecost, and every local church thereafter.  The Lord promises that wherever two or more gather in the Lord’s name, He is there. And wherever the Lord is present, so too is the Holy Spirit.  And the natural consequence of the Presence is to inspire, to guide, to teach, to bless and to multiply. God never tires of showing us that together we can do so much more than we can by ourselves.  Think about it, how many potlucks for one have you been to? 

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. (1 Corinthians 12:4-7)

Paul was writing to the church he helped plant in Corinth. He’s responding to reports, and requests for his insights, as they struggle to live together as the Body of Christ. In some places, like the chapter and verses immediately preceding this passage), Paul’s irritation and impatience is emphatic. At other places in his letter(s), he’s much more gentle.  In either case, Paul highlights the movement and presence of the Holy Spirit in community. This reflects the Creation story as well as the Pentecost story.

 The simple fact of the breath within each of us is a reminder that the Holy Spirit is what animates our bodies (life).  The ancient Hebrew (נשימה  “ruach”) and Greek (πνεῦμα – “pneuma”) word for “spirit” both have multiple meanings, breath and wind.  God spoke, God breathed into the primordial void bring creation out of nothing.  God spoke, God breathed into the clay/dirt/dust of the earth and created the humanoid. When our breath stops, we cease to be alive.

The same Holy Spirit that animates our bodies sustaining/creating life also animates our community of faith. This enables us to do great things together for God and neighbor, with God and neighbor. The Holy Spirit among us reveals and activates spiritual gifts in each one of us. So whenever we gather together, God is glorified because of the worship, mission and ministry that happens when we do, regardless of whatever problems or difficulties threaten our life together.

 Yes about that. Problems and difficulties abound.  I have mine, you have yours. Clearly we have problems as a nation, as a denomination, community and congregation. It’s easy to get discouraged, to lose sight of what’s possible, to lose sight of all we are capable of doing together, especially these days. And yet, here we are.  We keep coming together, to worship together, to learn together, to eat together, to meet together, and as a result, hope abounds. God has never before and never will abandon God’s people or leave us without hope. 

God creates community. That’s God’s nature. And God sustains community. One of my favorite ways God does this is by inviting each one of us to The Lord’s Table. Whenever we respond to that invitation and come to the Lord’s Table, we see again and again, just like at every potluck, that every person brings something essential to the table with them. Every man, every woman, every child. No exceptions. Each one of us brings gifts. Each one of us at times gives.  Each one of us at times can bring only our needs. It’s the great circle of faith and life together.  If it was any other way, we wouldn’t be here together right now; this building wouldn’t exist. We are here … all of this is here … because of the community God creates here which includes anyone and everyone who ever had anything to do with this place. 

Trusting that God is continually at work in us and among us, in turn, helps us lift our downcast eyes and drooping heads in prayers and songs of praise. Psalm 36 is a good example of what that looks like:  Praise for God’s character and God’s nature to bless and shelter us, sandwiched between observations about the wicked, and a plea for protection, is a fitting description of our walk in the world and the importance of keeping God at the center of everything–potlucks as well as problems.

I see here before me right now an abundance of spiritual gifts. We are a collective (a commonwealth I like to say) of giftedness which has enhanced and affirmed life in this community since the 1860’s, meeting challenges and problems head-on with creativity, determination and faith.  Whenever we come together, regardless of purpose or reason, regardless of how many of us are gathered, together we are the body of Christ, animated by a variety of spiritual gifts, regardless of age, ability, disability, etc.  

Together we are a veritable feast of varied abilities, experiences, gifts, skills, talents, etc., Someone here right now has a gift for organization; someone the gift vision; some of you are good at seeing the big picture; some of you are better with the small details.  It’s all needed. Paul proclaims to the bickering Christians in Corinth, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” For some it’s nurture … proclamation … prayer … music … cooking … writing … study … painting … poetry … drama … comedy … play … digital understanding.  God uses each one of us to inspire, equip, and, well, feed one another. And so we who are hungry for a good Word come together here and we are filled, and this carries us through the week, through whatever comes our way when we leave here.  

There is no reason at all that any one of us should leave worship hungry today. Just like any church potluck, there is right now so much good stuff here that we can and we shall take it right on out of the building with us, inviting others to the Lord’s Table and putting our gifts and our needs to good use.

AfterWord

Some of us are not sure what our spiritual gifts might be.  Others maybe even doubt whether or not they do.  Let me just say for the record, yes, you do have spiritual gifts. Here are some “Questions for Reflection” (below-from Feasting on the Word*)to help you reflect upon and/or identify your spiritual gifts:

Created in the image of God, each of us is uniquely gifted to reveal divine likeness. When our deep joy is united with meaning and purpose, vocation is birthed. The Holy Spirit enlivens each one of us with unique gifts that nurture faith and serve the common good. To identify those gifts we can ask ourselves such questions as,

o   When do I feel most alive?

o   What do I love to do?

o   What things, tasks, or actions fill me with a sense of purpose?

o   What am I doing when time seems to stand still?

 These questions help us discern the Spirit’s movement in our lives.

* Feasting on the Word-Worship Companion, Year C, Volume 1. Second Sunday after Epiphany (2012:Westminister John Knox) p.53.

1-13-19 Where the Dove Descends

Thomas J Parlette

“When the Dove Descends”

Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22

1/13/19

          Every once in awhile, friends send me things that are circulating on Facebook or other social media – usually jokes, sometimes the latest Harry Potter quiz and occasionally funny videos. They know I’m not on social media, so they don’t want me to miss anything.

          So awhile back I was forwarded a joke, maybe you got I too. It began: “We are all familiar with a herd of cows, a flock of chickens, a school of fish and a gaggle of geese. However less widely known is a pride of lions, a murder of crows, a bouquet of pheasants, an exaltation of doves, and presumably because they look so wise, a parliament of owls. Now consider a group of baboons. They are the loudest, most dangerous, most obnoxious, most viciously aggressive and least intelligent of all primates. And what is the proper collective noun for a group of baboons? Believe it or not… a Congress.”(1)

          The problem is Politifact, the Pulitzer Prize winning fact checking service, ran the post through its data base and found that there were some problems with the joke. A group of baboons is not called a Congress. The proper term for a group of baboons is a troop. The other problem is that a group of doves is not an exaltation – that applies to a group of larks. A group of doves is actually called a “bevy” or a “dole”, or even a “flight” of doves. So don’t trust everything you read on social media – sometimes it’s not quite accurate.

          In today’s Gospel, we don’t have a bevy of doves, we’ve just got the one, descending on Jesus at his baptism.

          All four of our Gospels refer to Jesus’ baptism and all four take note of a dove descending. Mark and Luke are almost identical in how they relate the story – the dove descends and a voice says, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” A very personal moment between God and Jesus.

          Matthew is very similar, but in his version the voice says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”. More of an introduction for the crowd to hear rather than a private exchange between Father and Son.

          John, of course, does his own thing, and never actually describes the moment of baptism itself, but does say he saw the Spirit of God, like a dove, descend upon Jesus and remain with him – that’s how he knew that Jesus was the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

          These baptism stories are very important because these are the rare passages that depict the three Persons of the Trinity together at the same time. The person of Jesus, the Holy Spirit as a dove and the voice of God all converging at Jesus’ baptism.

          This scene ought to remind us how important baptism is. United Methodist bishop Will Willimon tells a wonderful story about a baptism he once conducted. It was at a small, rural church. A twelve-year-old boy wanted to baptized by immersion. The boy’s pastor conveyed the request to Willimon. Methodists rarely baptize by immersion, but Willimon was willing to do if it that was what the boy wanted.

          The bishop arrived at the church early Sunday morning to find the pastor and the boy standing on the front steps. “Jeremy, this is the bishop. It’s quite an honor for you to be baptized by the bishop.”

         Jeremy looked Bishop Willimon over and said, “They tell me you don’t do many of these. I’d feel better if we did a run-through beforehand.”

          “Good idea,” said Willimon. “I was going to suggest the same thing.” They went into the church’s fellowship hall where the pastor showed them their newly purchased baptism font, which looked a lot like a small Jacuzzi.

          Young Jeremy took the lead. “After you say the words, then you take my hand and lead me up these steps, and do you want me to take off my socks?”

          “I don’t know, I guess you can leave them on if you want,” said Willimon. He obviously wasn’t an expert at these kinds of baptisms, and the young man had clearly thought this through pretty thoroughly. The service went well, the bishop preached a wonderful sermon, the choir sang a special baptism anthem and the whole congregation recessed into the fellowship hall and gathered around the baptismal font. Willimon went through the liturgy and then asked Jeremy if he had anything to say to the congregation before his baptism.

          “Yes, I do,” said Jeremy. Then, addressing the congregation of that little church, Jeremy said, “I just want to say to all of you that I’m here today because of you. When my parents split up, I thought my world was over. But you stood by me. You told me the stories about Jesus. And I just want to say thanks for what you did for me. I intend to make you proud as I’m going to try to live my life the way Jesus wants.”

          By this time Willimon had tears streaming down his face, and as he led Jeremy up the steps into the pool, Jeremy looked at him and said – “Are you going to be OK?”

          “I baptized Jeremy, concludes Willimon, “and the church sang a great Hallelujah!”(2)

          And so they should. They were acknowledging and accepting a fine young man into the family of God. It’s an important event, and Jeremy certainly understood that, more so than most. Baptism matters.

          It matters for several reasons. For one thing it says something about the person being baptized. The person being baptized now belongs to God. We sometime hear people say things like, “It’s my life, I can do what I want.” And I suppose that’s true to an extent. We Americans certainly value our independence and personal liberties. But for those who have been baptized, we must acknowledge that we now belong to God. You may not be everything that God wants you to be yet – but you still belong to God.

          Ben Helmer, an Episcopal priest in Arkansas, tells about a baptism of a 55-year-old man who had just started coming to his church. One day the man asked, “What do I need to do to be baptized?” As is the custom in the Episcopal church, a bishop was asked to be officiate the man’s baptism. On the day of his baptism, he stood at the small font, and bowed his head as the priest poured water on him. The bishop sealed his baptism by using consecrated oil to make the sign of the cross on his forehead – repeating the words “you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”

          Afterward, this man shared how moving the experience had been for him. He told how something had always been missing in his life. He had been a counselor until his retirement, and in that role he had often worked with people to help them find meaning and purpose in life. But in retirement, he had found that he now needed that sense of purpose. And in his baptism he had found it.

          This man is now a servant of Christ, volunteering at a food pantry, and on Christmas day, offering to help cook and serve Christmas dinner for others at a local health clinic. He spent Christmas weekend with his family, but Christmas day itself, he was at the clinic serving others. Did it matter to this 55-year-old man whether he had been baptized? Yes, it did! It marked a new chapter in his life. He now belonged to God. Baptism matters.

          Baptism also matters because of what it says about the church. Christian baptism is a rite of the church. When you are baptized, you are baptized into a family. That family is the Christian family. There are far too many people who are under the delusion that they can live a Christian life apart from the church. It’s true that you may live a moral life, you may live a constructive and happy life, but the Christian life can only be properly lived as part of the body of Christ.

          Now churches vary greatly. Not every church is a place where you can find God. But church is where you are most likely to find God. It may be our church or another one. It may be a large church or it might be a small one. But we were baptized into the body of Christ, and only within the body of Christ will our commitment to Christ be complete.

          Stephen Montgomery tells about a young woman he once knew who was looking for a church in which to get married. She nearly drove her fiancé and her mother crazy, scouting out just about every sanctuary in the city, looking for just the right one – the one with the prettiest stain glass windows, the one with just the right length of center aisle, the one with the best access to hotel accommodations and interstate highways.

          Finally, she made a decision. She ended up getting married in an old cinder block rectangular building with fluorescent lights and an old Wurlitzer electric organ. A few handmade felt banners that the youth group had made in the 60’s and 70’s were still up on the walls.

          Why the change of heart? She finally realized something important – this was the church where she had been baptized, where she had been confirmed and met her husband to be. This was the church where her grandparents’ memorial services had been held. This was where she had come to know something of the love and grace of God. She realized that this building was a sacred center, but its importance was in being a means to an end and not an end in itself.(4)

          We sometimes chuckle about people who simply use the church to be hatched, matched and dispatched. That is to say – to be baptized, married and then buried. The other side of that is that the church envelopes all the important events of our life. Baptism is an initiation into a special group, the church of Jesus Christ, of whatever denomination. We may baptize in different ways, but all churches are united in this one way – baptism is a requirement of acceptance into the body of Christ. Baptism is important because of what it says about the person being baptized and what it says about the church. Every baptized person is part of the church.

          Even more important is what baptism says about the grace of God. God’s grace is available to all. We are not baptized because we are perfect. None of us is perfect. The use of water symbolizes that our sins have been washed away.

          A lady tells about a baptism service that took place in her evangelical church. One hundred and two people were scheduled to be baptized during one special service. The men wore black robes and the women wore white.

          During the baptism, the dye from the black robes began to make the water look dark and dirty, and this lady overheard two young boys behind her discussing the matter.

          “How come the water is getting so dirty?”

          “That’s their sins getting all washed away”

          “Ohhhh…”(5)

          Maybe not really – but he certainly got the point.

          Sam Houston was the first president of the Republic of Texas. It’s said that he was a rather nasty fellow with a checkered past. Later in life he made a commitment to Christ and was baptized in a river. The preacher said, “Sam, your sins are washed away.”

          And Houston replied, “God help the fish.”(6)

          God accepts us as we are. God would prefer that we be like Jeremy, the 12-year-old boy who vowed his intent to make his church family proud by the life he would lead. God would prefer that we would be like the 55-year-old who found his purpose through his baptism and become a servant of Christ. But God accepts us as we are. Baptism is important because of what it says about the person being baptized and what it says about the church. But most important is what it says about the grace of God.

          When the dove descends and the Holy Spirit rests upon us in our baptism, God is pleased to welcome us into the fold.

          May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXV, No. 1, p9.

2.    Ibid… p10-11.

3.    Ibid… p11.

4.    Ibid… p12.

5.    Ibid… p13.

6.    Ibid… p13.

1-6-19 The Light Has Come

Thomas J Parlette

“The Light has Come”

Matthew 2: 1-12, Isaiah 60: 1-6

1/6/19

          Once upon a time, there was a man who found himself in a small southern town while passing through on his way to business meeting. It was the Christmas season and this little town had the charm of a Hallmark movie – decorations, lights, festive holiday displays all over town.

          One of the downtown churches had a lovely Nativity display out in front of the church. This business man was admiring it, when he noticed that the wise men in the display all had firemen helmets on. He thought that was rather odd – why firemen helmets? He thought maybe it was a special tribute to local firefighters, or maybe it was a theological statement of some kind. He puzzled about this as he stopped in to a local convenience store.

          As he paid for his bottle of water and a snickers bar, he asked the lady behind the counter, “Do you know why the wise men in the nativity display next door are wearing firemen’s helmets/”

          The lady behind the counters took a moment to size the man up, and with a look of mild annoyance and a roll of her eyes, she said, “Boy, you Yankees never read your Bibles do you?”

          The man was a little offended. “I read my Bible, in fact I’m a regular church goer, I think I know my Bible pretty well.”

          With that, the lady reached under the counter and pulled out her tattered copy of the Bible. She flipped open to Matthew, chapter 2 and jabbed her finger at a verse. “See, it says right here, “The three wise men came from afar.”(1)

          On this Sunday of Epiphany, we welcome the wise men – not from a fire, but from a far-away land, somewhere in the East. The Bible doesn’t actually say there were three of them, in fact, ancient sources outside the biblical texts set the number of visitors at 2, 4 or even 12. But ever since 1857, when the hymn “We Three Kings of Orient Are” was composed, that number 3 has been set in our minds. There were 3 gifts, so it made sense to have 3 separate gift givers.

          The wise men were actually “magi”, something akin to astronomers, fortune-tellers or a magician of sorts. They were probably from Persia and practiced the dualistic religion of Zoroastrianism and their specialty was interpreting dreams. In their studies of astrological events, they believed that God was up to something – they had seen evidence of new King being born, but they had no idea where to look for him. They are given a sign in the form of a new star in the sky. The magi follow the star and it brings them to Bethlehem.

          These wise men are outsiders to the promises and stories of Israel, but God found a way to include them as well. Without dropping his usual footnote, “this was to fulfill…”, Matthew is reminding us of a prophetic text from Isaiah, our Old Testament text for today: “Arise, shine, for your light has come… the young camels from Midian and Ephah, all those from Sheba will come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.”

          And here they are. As Isaiah announced, “The nations shall come to you light.” The glory of the Lord, depicted as a Light, attracts people of other races beyond Israel. This Light of God will shine for all the world, Jew and Gentile alike. This symbol of light is what we celebrate during the season of Epiphany. The light of Christ has dawned for the world. Christ is our guide, our strength, the One who fills our life with meaning.

          Professor Harold DeWolf, in his book The Religious Revolt Against Reason, tells of an experience he had as a young man. He went swimming at midnight one night with a friend in the Atlantic Ocean at Massachusetts Bay. He said the water was full of phosphorescent light. Every dip of his hand in the water produced something like a “circle of flashing gems and every breaker looked like a cascade of fireworks.” To ride the waves, they went out some distance from the shore. Then turning toward land DeWolf was gripped by a strange fear. The lights from the shore were no longer visible. So he looked up to the sky to get his bearings. But the sky was like the water – full of the spectacular confusion of the northern lights. “No star was visible. Then panic overtook me, for in all that glittering display there was no fixed reality. I could not tell the way to shore. I started back with a helpless terror engulfing me.” Professor DeWolf learned that, with no fixed star to guide him, it was almost impossible to chart out a course.(2)

          But thank God we have a star to follow. It is the same star that guided the magi long ago. It is the light of Christ. Christ, who is a dependable guide, whose love never fails.

          Scott Coltrain notes that “if you look in the dictionary, the first definition for “light” is something that makes vision possible.”(3) In other words, light makes it possible for us to see. Without light, we are hopelessly blind – blind to our surroundings, blind to our situations and circumstances, blind even to ourselves. Light makes it possible for us to see clearly – to see things as they really are. Before Christ, most of the world was blind. Christ, the Light of the world we celebrate during Epiphany, made it possible for us to have a glimpse of the Glory of God.

          In the early 1960’s, the Christian author and apologist C.S. Lewis was lecturing to the Oxford Socratic Club – more of a philosophy club than a religious club. Lewis defended Christianity by saying, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”(4)

          Christ helps us to see the world in a new light, one that reveals that the people around us are not enemies or opponents. They are human beings made in the image and likeness of God. The light of Christ gives us strategies for navigating challenges, such as forgiving instead of punishing, and working for the common good instead of our narrow self-interest. Jesus invites us to see ourselves not as members of a particular family or community or nation, but as citizens of the glorious kingdom of God.

          During Epiphany we celebrate the light that comes into the world to guide us and let us see the glory of God, just as it did for the magi from the East as Matthew tells us. We then turn to Isaiah, and in his words we get the “now what.” Now that the Light has come, what do we do – now what? As Isaiah put it, now is the time to rise, and shine, for your light has come, the glory of God has risen upon you.”

          Hope is restored – the Light has come.

          In 1998, Harvard’s senior class gathered in Memorial Church to hear the minister offer words of solace and encouragement as they left “Harvard Yard” to take their places in the world. The unvarnished truth that morning came from the late Rev Dr. Peter Gomes, longtime Professor of Christian Morals and minister of the Memorial Church and author of several popular book on the Bible.

          Gomes took no prisoners that day. He began: “You are going to be sent out of here for good, and most of you aren’t ready to go. The President is about to bid you into the fellowship of educated men and women and, (here he paused and spoke each word slowly for emphasis) you know just- how-dumb-you-really-are.” The senior class cheered in agreement.

          “And worse than that,” he continued, “the world – and your parents in particular – are going to expect that you will be among the brightest and best. But you know that you can no longer fool all the people even some of the time. By noontime today, you will be out of here. By tomorrow you will be history. By Saturday, you will be toast. That’s a fact – no exceptions, no extensions.”

          “Nevertheless, there is reason to hope,” Gomes promised. “The future is God’s gift to you. God will not let you stumble or fall. God has not brought you this far to this place to abandon you or leave you alone and afraid. The God of Israel never stumbles, never sleeps, never goes on sabbatical. Thus, my beloved and bewildered young friends, do not be afraid.”(5)

          I think we could add Isaiah words here… “Arise, Shine, for your light has come.”

          As we gather around the table at the start of a new calendar year, let us rejoice that the light has come. There is reason to hope. Let us arise and Shine.

          May God be praised. Amen.

1.    HomileticsOnline, retrieved 12/12/18.

2.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXV, No. 1, p7.

3.    Ibid… p7.

4.    HomileticsOnline, retrieved 12/12/18.

5.    Ibid…

12-30-18 Praise the Lord Anyway

Jay P Rowland

“Praise the Lord Anyway”

Psalm 148 & Luke 2:21-38

12/30/18

Though in some ways it feels like more than just a few days ago, it was only a few days ago now that Jesus was born.  

Thanks to the kindness of strangers, Joseph and Mary were at least off the street and out of the way when the baby arrived.  And so because of this, Jesus and his beleaguered parents could stretch out and sleep upon something other than the cold, hard ground, albeit scratchy, lumpy hay. Beggars can’t be choosers as the saying goes. 

It was just another day--or night perhaps--to the world at the time when God quietly slipped into this world of trees and sand and oceans and stars and weather and people. The world noticed or cared not at all.  Except for some shepherds, a few foreign star-gazers, and a bunch of animals, Joseph and Mary were the only earthly creatures to notice that something unprecedented happened. 

And that’s how that day and year ended and something new began for Mary, Joseph, God, Jesus … and the world. Fast forward a couple thousand years and here we are just a couple of days from ending another year and beginning another.  Here we are, assembled in God’s house, like Simeon and Anna, a good place from which to look back upon all that happened in 2018; a good place to anchor ourselves before the year 2019 begins.  

As happens every year, this past year we experienced moments of great joy and meaning. Moments of transcendence and beauty. Moments we might have, if only we could, somehow bottle and preserve.  To which I say, with Psalm 148, “Praise the Lord”. 

As happens every year, this past year we also witnessed and experienced moments of great difficulty, even anguish. Moments we wish hadn’t happened.  Moments for which we could not possibly have prepared. As I say that it occurs to me that Mary and Joseph certainly did. To which I say, slightly amending Psalm 138: “Praise the Lord, anyway.” 

I say “Praise the Lord anyway” not to ignore or dismiss or deny those moments, but only because I’ve come to believe it’s not merely important, it’s downright critical to persevere, to fight when necessary to hold onto hope and faith and trust in God.  In order to remind myself no matter what happens on any given day or year, that God who came into this world in the person Jesus in such a way that there could be no mistake about God’s intentions with us.   

Into this world of violence and corruption and trouble and abuse and power-over, God came. God came not declaring war … God came not as a warrior steeling for battle.  Rather God came into this world vulnerable to all of it, as vulnerable as any and all of us are.  And Jesus remained vulnerable to the evils of this world all the way to the end. And though he might have been tempted to do otherwise, in the end Jesus became another casualty of this world’s corruption, violence, abuse, trouble and power-plays just as all of us become one way or another.  

Jesus did so because he was determined to love his way through this world, so that we might be convinced that his love for us is indeed everlasting, unbreakable, unshakable.   

In the bleak midwinter of the world, Jesus was born; his birth and his love changing the world one person at a time. In the springtime of the world, Jesus was executed, crucified. Jesus’ death and Jesus’ love-stained resurrection continuing to change the world one person at a time.   

And so when we experience moments of joy and beauty in this life: Praise the Lord!  And when we too experience the depths of human agony in this life: Praise the Lord anyway! 

***

So much happens in the span of 365 days.   

So much happens in our world, nation, state, city, etc.  

The relentless pace of life and news cycles makes it inevitable that we’ll forget the details sometimes. Media outlets always roll out their year in review but it all eventually recedes into the background of our memory, abstract, detached.  And yet we manage to retain the fear, anxiety and alarm.  

Praise the Lord anyway.  

Soon, the year 2018 and everything it brought to us and everything it took from us will come to an end--whether we want it to or not, whether we’re “ready” for it or not.  Time marches forward. 

Soon, the year 2019 will begin and with it another run of 365 days in which much will happen in our world, our nation, our state, our city, our schools, our families.  Some of it will be wonderful and blessed. Some of it will not.  All of it will happen whether or not we’re “ready” and whether we want it to or not. 

Praise the Lord anyway. 

Because God is with us.  Emmanuel!   

If God were not with us, we would never have made it this far—well, I know I certainly would not have made it this far. 

And because God is with us, we’ll make it through whatever comes our way in the year ahead.  Whatever the coming year shall bring to us or take from us, we will make it through somehow. Because: Emmanuel!  God is with us!  

And so with Simeon, who after a lifetime of joy and pain was still moved to praise the Lord, let us also praise the Lord for our eyes too have “seen” salvation in the life of Jesus Christ (Luke 21:29ff).  

With Anna, who after a lifetime of joy and also pain chose to remain steadfast in her faith and trust in God’s promises, and who steadfastly planted herself in the Temple to worship and praise the living God, let us, as she did, come also to praise the Lord and to speak about the child to all who look for redemption … (Luke 21:38). 

Let us learn to say, come what may:

Praise the Lord.  

Praise the Lord. 

Praise the Lord.  

Praise the Lord anyway. 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow …

Praise God, all creatures here below …

Praise God above, ye Heavenly Host …

Praise God, Christ and Holy Ghost.   

Amen.

12-23-18 Twists and Turns

Thomas J Parlette

“Twists and Turns”

Luke 1: 39-55

12/23/18

          Pastor Melvin Newland tells about a man in Salt Lake City who decided to send out 600 Christmas cards to total strangers. He got telephone books from several cities, addressed 600 cards to people he had never met, put his return address on the envelopes and mailed them out.

          Amazingly, he received 117 responses from these total strangers. One lady wrote, “It was so good to hear from you. Your card arrived the day I got home from the hospital, and I can’t tell you what an encouragement it was to hear from an old friend.”

          Another person wrote, “I have to admit that when we received your card we couldn’t really picture you. We had to think hard for a long time before we remembered. By the way, please give our regards to your father. He is such a wonderful man!”

          But I think this response takes the cake. One guy wrote, “It was so good to hear from you after all these years. By the way, we’re going to be in Salt Lake City next summer. Would it be alright if we came and spent a few days with you?”(1)

          Maybe it’s not such a great idea to send Christmas cards to people you don’t know – they might stop by for a visit.

          I wonder how Mary, the mother of Jesus, notified her cousin Elizabeth that she was stopping by for a visit. After all, Mary lived in Nazareth, a town west of the Sea of Galilee. Elizabeth lived in the hill country of Judah, somewhere between 80-100 miles away. How did she send word that she was on her way?

          Luke doesn’t mention whether Mary made any preparations for the trip or how she traveled – she may have gone on foot or as part of a caravan. In Mary’s day, a person traveling by foot could cover about 20 miles a day. If Mary walked to Elizabeth’s house, it would have taken her four or five days. If she went with a caravan, she could have done it in about three days. Still, it was quite a journey. And the circumstances were quite unique.

          Listen closely as Luke begins his story: “At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth.”

          Those first three words are significant. We’re not certain what “at that time” refers to, but a casual reading of the chapter would suggest that she made this journey immediately after Gabriel’s announcement to her that the Holy Spirit would come upon her, and the power of the Most High would overshadow her and that the child whom she would bear would be called the Son of God. This would have been quite a revelation for a 13 or 14 year- old girl to receive. The fact that she hurried to make this journey indicates that she probably didn’t confide in her fiancé Joseph about the angels visit before she headed out to Elizabeth’s. Perhaps Mary wanted to consult with her older and wiser cousin about how to handle this delicate situation.

          Of course, Elizabeth had her own interesting situation, married to a priest named Zechariah, way past the normal child-bearing age, and yet, she too was carrying a very special child – a child who would also become known throughout the region. He would be named John, better known as John the Baptizer.

          It was quite a distance from Mary’s home to that of Elizabeth and Zechariah. There was a lot of time for Mary to ponder the wonder of what was happening to her. Surely she knew that angels don’t appear to every girl – particularly to tell them that they will become with child by the Holy Spirit. What was happening to her… and what did it all mean? Finally, she arrived at the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah. It was a wondrous and joyful scene as these two cousins, so different in age, greeted one another.

          When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, Luke tells us, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

          Mary answered with a song: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me – holy is his name…”

          What were some of the thoughts that went through Mary’s head as she made her way to Elizabeth and Zechariah’s home in the hill country? For that matter, what were her thoughts when the shepherds left to go back to their flocks after that holy night in Bethlehem? After all, we read in Luke that “Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Still later, what were thoughts as she watched her miracle boy grow? Luke tells us again in verse 51 of chapter 2, “She treasured these things in her heart.” Even more important, what were her thoughts when she saw her boy suffer and die for the sins of the world? What were the thoughts that ran through her head as the mother of the Christ child?

          Perhaps she thought, first of all, that life has some strange twists and turns. The announcement by the angel that she would bear God’s son was literally right out of the blue. It’s just as well. How could you ever prepare yourself for such an event? Never again would her life be the same. Of course, that’s true of all new parents. A child has a way of changing life forever.

          Mary’s life was certainly changed. Right from the very beginning of her life as a new mother, her life had twists and turns. The story of the pilgrimage to Bethlehem is an enchanting one. We pass over it so quickly as we tell the Christmas story.

          We read in Luke 2: “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone went to their own town to register.”

          “So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.”

          Mary should have known right then that her life would be no picnic. There would be many twists and turns along the way, for this would not be her last journey under adverse circumstances.

          In Matthew’s account of the first Christmas, Mary and Joseph and the new baby are forced to flee to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod. So once again, Mary and Joseph were on the move – fleeing to protect the life of their son.

          Martin Luther, in commenting on the flight to Egypt remarks, “The artists give her a donkey. The gospels do not.”(2) It is most likely that Mary trudged over the hills in winter on foot, nursing her child and leaning on Joseph for support. It was not until after Herod’s death that the young family was able to return to their home in Nazareth. In a world filled with refugees, it is important to remember that our Lord was once a refugee himself.

          The next dozen or so years in Mary’s life were probably good ones. We don’t know much about them, but we do know there were several other children after Jesus. She and Joseph were never wealthy, but he was an able provider and her oldest son, Jesus, was turning into a fine young man.

          But then something happened to Joseph. We don’t know what. In another twist to the story, Joseph disappears from Scripture. He is never mentioned again. In a harsh turn of events that happens to many people, Mary found herself a young widow. As the oldest son, Jesus would take Joseph’s place in the carpenter’s shop – a role he would fill until about his 30th birthday, when he was baptized by his cousin John and began his ministry.

          The loss of Joseph would not be the last one for Mary. She endured the harshest blow that can be dealt to a parent - she watched her oldest son die as a common criminal on a cross at Calvary.

          Life took some strange twists and turns for the mother of our Lord. Just like it does in many people’s lives. Many people have a difficult time coping with life because we often think that life ought to be smooth and predictable. When it’s not, sometimes we are unable to cope. Yet, in the providence of God, sometimes we discover that we have our most reliable times of growth when life is the most challenging. People who cope successfully with life are those who understand the importance of discipline and self-denial, who realize that life is a training school, that happiness is not a permanent state but an elusive quality best achieved in the search for something higher.

          Life has some strange twists and turns. But even in the harshest conditions, God will redeem pain and suffering and out of the struggles, God will bring something good. Mary may have wondered about her life’s twists and turns, but she was also confident about God’s faithfulness and how God always keeps promises. Note how Mary responds to her situation in this passage from Luke. First of all, she is overwhelmed that the God of Creation could have chosen her for the high honor of bearing his son. In her words, “He has been mindful of the humble state of his servant…” In Mary’s mind only a kind and gracious God would bypass the wealthy and powerful of this world to have a peasant girl bear his Messiah. Mary was confident that God was indeed good.

          God is good. Not only because God chose the lowly maiden of Nazareth, not only because God is aware of our needs, but because God keeps promises. That is a major part of this great miracle in Mary’s eyes. The coming of the Messiah was the fulfillment of a long awaited promise. Throughout all life’s twists and turns, God keeps promises.

          Bruce Larson tells a beautiful and true Christmas story that appeared years ago in the Denver Post. A week or so before Christmas, a pastor told his congregation about a needy family who was facing a very bleak Christmas. One young father decided to do something about that. He and his son set out in the family pick-up truck to cut down a fresh evergreen tree and deliver it to this needy family. On the way, they ran into a rock slide and a boulder hit their truck. It was totally destroyed. The windshield was smashed, and while the father was not hurt, his son was cut pretty badly was losing a lot of blood. They tried to wave down a passing motorist, but to no avail. Finally, after dozens of cars had zoomed past, a car stopped to help. The couple bandaged up the boy, gave them a ride to the hospital and went on their way. The father and son never even got their names.

          About a week later, the truck had been replaced and the boys injuries were healing nicely. On Christmas Eve, the pastor asked this same man if he would deliver a basket of food and toys to the needy family that they had intended to supply with a tree. The father said he would be glad to. They loaded up the truck and drove to the address they were given and rang the doorbell. And who should answer the door but the same couple who had stopped to help them on the highway just a week ago.(3) Life is full of strange twists and turns.

          It sure was that way for Mary. But from the beginning of her journey, she could sing God’s praises. For God is faithful. God keeps promises. God loves us. And God will never forget about us through all life’s twists and turns.

          And for that, May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol XXXIV, No. 4, p. 68.

2.    Ibid… p. 70.

3.    Ibid… p. 71-72.

12-9-18 Completion

Thomas J Parlette

“Completion”

Phil. 1: 3-11

12/9/18

          Although its official name is the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, some people refer to it as the “Cathedral of Saint John the Unfinished.”

          Even in its incomplete condition, at 601 feet long and 124 feet high, this Episcopal cathedral is one of the impressive landmarks in New York City, featuring at 230 feet the longest Gothic nave in the United States and the largest rose window in the country – constructed out of 10,000 pieces of glass. Besides the main sanctuary, there are seven chapels. The whole thing is an architectural beauty, with many more unique elements that we could cover in one worship service.

          Construction of this colossal building began in 1892, with worship and other ministries taking place there since 1899, when only a portion of the edifice was usable. The church wasn’t opened end-to-end until 1941, but even then, there was much work waiting to be completed.

          Over the years, the structure has been plagued by financial woes, changes in architectural plans, wartime delays, engineering problems and, in 2001, a destructive fire. Thus, today, 126 years later, this massive church is still sometimes dubbed “Saint John the Unfinished.”(1)

          That word “unfinished” can be hard to swallow – especially if it applies to those Do-it-Yourself projects around the house that seem like a good idea when you’re wandering around Home Depot on a Saturday morning – but turn into way more than you bargained for by Saturday afternoon. Many of us have unfinished DIY projects around the house.

          But there’s good news! If you’ve reached the point where something needs to be done, you can always call the DIY Network – they have a show called Disaster DIY that specializes in completing those unfinished projects around the house. On recent episodes the show has stepped in to fix a bathroom remodel run amuck; re-do a gutter replacement gone horribly wrong; and fix a deck that had become more of a death trap than a home improvement.

          We all have good intentions, lots of ideas and ambition, but sometimes we’re not so good with the follow-through.

          Of course, it’s one thing to have unfinished jobs around the house; it’s quite another thing to realize how unfinished we are as individuals – how far short we fall of the goal of being the people God calls us to be. We are in a very real sense “Christians under construction”, for the Christian life is not an arrival point, but a journey.

          When John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, commissioned preachers for the work of spreading the gospel, one of the questions he asked was “Are you going on to perfection.”

          It might be tempting to answer, “Well, no, nobody’s perfect” – but the candidates were expected to answer, “I am, by the grace of God.”

          Wesley’s next question was, “Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life?”

          The expected answer was “God willing, I do.”

          Even today, two centuries later, when Methodist preachers are standing for admission into the ministry of the church, they are still asked those two questions, along with several others first posed by John Wesley.(2)

          The phrase about going on to perfection wasn’t something that Wesley just invented, it comes right from Scripture. The preacher of Hebrews said “Therefore let us go on toward perfection, leaving behind the basic teaching about Christ, and not laying again the foundation: repentance from dead works and faith toward God…”

          The preacher of Hebrews wasn’t suggesting that we abandon the basic teachings about Christ in the sense of rejecting them for something different. Rather, he was saying that if we’re spending all our time talking about the basics of the faith – repentance and faith toward God – then we aren’t moving on toward perfection. And, of course, that connects to Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, where after commanding his followers to love their enemies, Jesus added, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

          Scott Hamley, who serves a United Methodist Church in Seward., Pennsylvania, explains going on to perfection this way: “When Wesley was talking about Christian perfection, he didn’t mean absolute perfection. He meant more of a practical perfection, being perfect in love. He meant people could come to the place where they were so in love with God that they would not sin knowingly. He didn’t mean that a person could ever be without sin in this life, but rather without intentional sin. Sins of ignorance are always going to happen. We’re always going to do the wrong thing from time to time because we don’t know what the right thing is. We don’t have perfect knowledge. But Wesley believed it was possible that by God’s grace, a believer could mature to the point where they would never sin on purpose.”

          Hamley also says, “By the way, Wesley was always suspicious of anyone who claimed to have reached Christian perfection. He denied that he himself had reached it. And perhaps that’s part of going on to perfection, to recognize that you aren’t there yet.”(3)

          He’s right; we’re not there yet. We are unfinished. With that in mind, hear Paul’s assertion in our reading from Philippians: “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.”

          “The day of Jesus Christ” in that verse refers to the time of Jesus’ second coming and is no doubt the reason the lectionary committee selected this passage as the epistle reading for the Second Sunday of Advent, a season of the church year that both celebrates Jesus’ first coming, in the Incarnation and anticipates his second coming at the close of this age.

          But Paul’s point is, the completion point of the spiritual life is not until the end, and even then, it only comes with God’s help, In other words, our spiritual lives are not a Do-it-Yourself project. It is rather a God project. God will bring our spiritual lives to completion. In the meantime, however, we should not let the spiritual shortcomings in our lives derail us from going on toward perfection in love, from growing in Christ, from gaining spiritual maturity.

          In this passage to the congregation that meant the most to Paul, Paul goes on to say that his prayer for the believers in Phillipi is that their “love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help them to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ they may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.” In other words, by the end of their journey, they will be completed in the full sense, with God’s help.

          C.S. Lewis once wrote about this matter of God bringing us to completion. He said that when we seek Christ’s help in being the person God wants us to be, Christ doesn’t settle for giving us just a little bit.

          As an illustration, Lewis explained that as a child, he often had toothaches and knew that if he told his mother, she would give him an aspirin to deaden the point. But he wouldn’t tell her until the pain got really bad because he also knew she would take him to the dentist the next day, and he didn’t want that.

          “I wanted immediate relief from pain,” wrote Lewis, “but I could not get it without having my teeth set permanently right. And I knew those dentists; I knew they would start fiddling about with all sorts of other teeth which had not yet begun to ache. They would not let sleeping dogs lie; if you gave them an inch they took it all.”

          Lewis went on to say that Christ is like the dentist. If we ask for help to deal with something about which we are ashamed or which is spoiling our life, he will give it, but he will not stop there, for he wants to make us perfect. Lewis pictures Jesus saying, “Make no mistake, if you let me, I will make you perfect… I will never rest, until you are literally perfect – until my Father can say without reservation that he is well pleased with you, as he is well pleased with me.” As Lewis says, “If you give Christ an inch, he’ll take it all.

          It is true that we are not perfect yet. Recognizing the unfinished nature of our practice of faith is a good thing. It should help us to live with humility, recognizing that we aren’t all that God intends for us to be.

          It should encourage us to beware of certainty. The unfinished nature of our knowledge means that our opinions aren’t the last word on the topics of life. God will have that last word.

          It should encourage us to work on being perfect in love, to do the work of God now. Remember that although the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine is far from finished, ministry has been taking place there and from there almost since it beginning. Something similar can be true in our lives. Even though we are unfinished, we can be God’s person in good works, in acts of generosity and in faithfulness to the will of God as we understand it at this point.

          And most importantly, remember that going on to perfection is not a DIY project. We don’t do it on our own. God helps us. For as Paul says:

          “The one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ…”

          May that be true for all of us gathered here in the name of Christ.

          May God be praised. Amen.

1.    HomileticsOnline, “The God Who Completes”, retrieved November 2018.

2.    Ibid…

3.    Ibid…

4.    Ibid…

12-2-19 As Long as it Takes

Thomas J Parlette

“As long as it takes”

1st Thessalonians 3: 9-13

12/2/18, First Advent

          Words come and go in our modern vocabulary. Certain words and phrases have their day in the sun for awhile and then they fall out of use and out of style. For instance, nobody says “groovy” anymore, unless they’re being ironic or maybe a little sarcastic. “Hey Man” and “Dude” have fallen by the wayside as well. And thankfully, nobody refers to pizza as “Za” anymore, something that always made me cringe. I’m not sorry to hear any of those words go out of style.

          But there are other words on the decline that I’m very concerned about. In the October 24th issue of The Christian Science Monitor, it was noted that words like “love” and “kindness” and “patience” are being used less and less in American life. That is very troubling situation – whether you are religious or not. The Executive Director of the American Humanist Association was quoted as saying, “Seeing the numbers go down for words live love, gentleness and kindness… is equally concerning to humanists as it is for religious folks.”(1)

          I thought about that this week as I sat with this passage from Thessalonians for today. Paul, and his ministry team of Silvanus and Timothy are very concerned about this little church in Thessalonica. Part of the fear was that some faithful words were in danger of falling out of the community’s vocabulary – words like “thanks”, and “love” and “holiness” – all words that feature prominently in this, the oldest piece of scripture in our New Testament.

          According to Abraham Malherde’s commentary on Thessalonians, in the year 49 – 16 years after the resurrection of Christ, Paul travelled to Thessalonica to proclaim the Gospel. A group of day laborers heard and received his message, and from those humble beginnings a church was formed.(2)

          Paul and his team were worried about this fledgling church – especially given that they were located in a very cosmopolitan city with many other options for worship and sacrifice, and they were under persecution from other groups in town. Paul wondered, was the leadership in Thessalonica strong enough? Were the practices of faith deeply embedded enough? Would the center hold? Finally, Timothy is sent to check on them, and Timothy returns with the good news that the faith community in Thessalonica is thriving. Hence Paul’s words of thanksgiving, “How can we thank God enough for you…”

          After offering a prayer that God would “direct our way back to you,” Paul offers a prayer that goes right to the heart of Christian identity and community, and right to the heart of Advent itself. “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all. May God so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before God at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”

          On this first Sunday of Advent, we light the candle of hope. Here, Paul expresses what we hope for – we hope to grow in love, for one another and for all, and we hope and long for the day when Christ will return.

          Advent is a time for re-focusing our priorities around this idea of increasing and abounding in love, thus reaffirming H. Richard Niebuhr’s assertion that “the purpose of the church is the increase of the love of God and neighbor.”(3) As we noted last week, Advent is the beginning of a new liturgical year, a new church year. IU was reading this week about how the Jewish community celebrates the beginning of a new religious year, usually in September, with Rosh Hashanah. The Rosh Hashanah greeting is translated as “May you be inscribed for a good year.” The emphasis is on having a good, rather than a happy year. Purposeful, sober reflection is required. Rosh Hashanah, like our season of Advent, is not about “don’t worry, be happy.” Advent is rather a recommitment, as a new year unfolds, to live toward the good, the just, and the true(4) – “to abound in love for one another and for all,” as Paul says.

          Advent is also a time for preparation – preparing ourselves for the coming of God’s Kingdom. This was a big concern for the Thessalonians because they thought that Jesus was coming back soon. And now, some of their community had died, and they were beginning to wonder – when is Jesus coming back? How long are we supposed to keep preparing?

          Many of us wonder about that still. That’s why it’s so tempting to skip all the waiting and preparing and go right to celebrating the birth of Jesus. But as Abraham Smith points out in The Interpreter’s Bible, “Paul preached with certainty about the second coming’s power to unite the people of God”.(5) Waiting and preparing for the coming of Christ, while challenging at times, has the power to unite the Church. It’s a spiritual discipline that strengthens our hearts in holiness, as Paul says. Paul urges us to consider who we are at our best – people who are forever turning the world upside down – and to attend to what is yet lacking in our faith. Churches at their best are joyful, faithful, generous, and profound announcements, even embodiments, of what the realm of God looks like up close. And yet, sometimes it’s difficult to live in a state of expectancy, always waiting, preparing and anticipating. With the Thessalonians, we ask “How long?” “How long are we supposed to wait?” Paul and his team answer – as long as it takes.

          A number of years ago, Marj Carpenter, a beloved moderator of the General Assembly of the PCUSA, went on a somewhat controversial visit to sister churches in eastern Europe. The Berlin Wall, the defining symbol of the cold war, had recently come down, and she and her entourage made plans to visit a particular parish in a remote mountainous area and worship with them.

          Weather conditions were icy and harsh. Diplomatic relations were just as icy and strained – there was not a great deal of enthusiasm for this visit.

          The Moderator’s plane arrived much later than scheduled, getting through customs took longer than expected, and then there was the weather. At best, her arrival in this mountain community would be delayed far later than envisioned. But Marj, with her strong missional heart, was not deterred. The group soldiered on, braving the treacherous drive up into the mountains, as the snow fell all around them.

          When the group arrived in the town, far later than scheduled, there was no certainty that anyone would still be at the church. Someone in town gave them directions to the church and they drove around in the dark and the snow. As they neared the area of the church, they noticed up ahead a long line of lights; and as they drew nearer, they beheld, one after another, the members of that church – each of them bundled up against the cold and holding a candle. One light pointed them to another – hundreds of lights – and they followed the light for the rest of the journey right to the front door of the church.

          When the moderator met the host pastor, she asked him through an interpreter: “How long were you planning to wait out here in the dark and the cold?”

          And he replied, “Until you came.”(6)

          They were prepared to wait as long as it takes.

          Paul’s prayers for the Thessalonians remind us that we live in the in-between time. Christ has indeed come and brought us the gift of transformed life – abundant life now and the promise of life eternal – yet the transformation is not complete. Both we and the whole creation long to see God’s promises fulfilled.

 We yearn for justice that rolls down like mighty waters.

 We hope that one day the wolf will lie down with the lamb and swords will become plowshares.

 We long for the day when mourning and crying and pain will be no more.

We already know what God’s future looks like, and in beloved community with one another, we experience the firstfruits.(7) Because all that will be is not quite yet, we need to be strengthened so that we may walk in the light of God’s hope, for as long as it takes.

          Come – let us nourish ourselves for the journey at the table this morning.

          May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Christian Century, November 21st, 2018, p.8.

2.    James H. Evans Jr., Feasting on the Word, Westminster John Knox Press, p.14.

3.    Philip E. Campbell, Ibid… p.16.

4.    Ibid… p.16.

5.    Ibid… p.16.

6.    Theodore J. Wardlaw, Connections, Westminster John Knox Press, 2018, p.11.

7.    Cynthia Campbell, Ibid… p. 9.

11-18-18 Once and for All

Thomas J Parlette

“Once and for All”

Hebrews 10: 11-25

11/18/18

          Maybe you remember a TV show from a couple years back called My Name is Earl. If you’ve never heard of it – you might want to look for it on Hulu or Netflix, it’s worth a look. The show followed the story of Earl J. Hickey, a scruffy, petty criminal with occasional run-ins with the law, whose newly won $100,000 lottery ticket gets lost when he is hit by a car. As he is laying in a hospital bed recuperating, Earl hears about a concept called “karma” on a late night talk show, and suddenly his life starts to make sense. All of his bad deeds have finally caught up with him, and now he needs to start putting some good karma in the bank.

          So Earl decides to turn his life around. After a few good deeds, his $100,000 ticket finds its way back to him, and with his new, lucky money, he proceeds to make a list of all the bad things he has done in the past, and with some help from his brother Randy, he begins atoning for all his sins, one by one – and when he does, he crosses them off his list.(1)

          “Karma is a funny thing,” says Earl, in almost every episode. I’ve always thought it was a worthwhile show because it deals with some very important theological concepts – like forgiveness, atonement and ultimately redemption. Earl believes that he can earn forgiveness and win his redemption by doing good deeds to make up for his past sins. Quite a weighty theological issue to tackle in a prime-time, network comedy.

          Keep in mind Earl Hickey’s approach to life as we consider this biblical passage from Hebrews, which begins: “And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins…” and goes on to compare Jesus to a  great, high priest.

As we’ve heard before, this image of a priest is perhaps the dominant image in the Book of Hebrews. Well, it’s actually not a book, like the Gospels, nor is it a letter as we are accustomed to seeing from Paul. No – Hebrews is actually more of a sermon than anything else. In fact, in his commentary on Hebrews, Tom Long refers to the author of Hebrews as “the preacher” instead of the writer. Hebrews is a sermon that presents Jesus as the Ultimate Priest, the perfect priest. The priest who is able to offer one sacrifice, once and for all, for the forgiveness of our sins, and now sits at the right hand of God.

That’s a very different idea from the normal image of a priest at the time. In those days, when you thought of a priest, you thought of someone who was allowed to enter the inner sanctum of the Tabernacle, the Holy of Holies, and would offer a sacrifice of animal blood for the forgiveness of the people’s sin. The priest was an intermediary, a go-between, between God and the people. As Hebrews points out – the priests performed this function on a regular basis, day after day, they took turns doing their duty. As more sins were committed, more sacrifices had to be made.

In a way, it is similar to the idea of karma in My Name is Earl – as Earl commits sin, he feels he has to make up for each bad deed, and when he has, he can cross it off his list – he is absolved.

Hebrews makes the radical point that Jesus is another kind of priest – the Ultimate, Perfect High Priest, in that he is able to offer one perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus offers his own blood, once and for all, to save us all.

In 1927, a West African man named Asibi was stricken with yellow fever. In that day, very few people survived yellow fever, there was no vaccine, there was no medicine that would help. You just had to get through it and hope for the best. Very few people survived – but miraculously, Asibi did. Somehow, his body conquered this deadly disease. Asibi’s blood contained what scientists needed to cure yellow fever – antibodies with the power to fight off the disease.

So they drew some of Asibi’s blood, and scientists were able to formulate a successful vaccine. Millions of people since have benefitted. When it came to yellow fever, one man’s blood saved the lives of countless others.(2) So too, on the cross, one man’s blood saved the lives of countless people. Jesus Christ, the great High Priest, offered his own blood to save us – once and for all.

In Jesus’ sacrifice, we now have an alternative to karma. In light of Jesus, we now live by grace. The sacrifice has been made. We don’t need to keep sacrificing at the altar day in and day out. Jesus has done the work, once and for all. We live by grace, and grace is a funny thing, a funny and most amazing thing.

When a person works an 8 hour day and receives a fair day’s pay for the time spent – that is a wage.

When a person competes with an opponent and receives a trophy for the performance – that is a prize.

When a person receives appropriate recognition for long service or high achievements – that is an award.

But when a person is not capable of earning a wage, can win no prize and deserves no reward – yet receives a gift anyway – that is a good picture of God’s unmerited favor. That is what a Christian means when we talk about the grace of God(3) – it’s funny thing sometimes, but always amazing.

In the recent book Bono: In Conversation…” the lead singer for the rock group U2 shares some thoughts on the difference between karma and grace: “It’s a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people. But the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between grace and karma.”

“Karma is that idea that what you put out comes back to you – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Or in physics- in physical laws- that every action is met by an equal and opposite reaction. That’s karma. It’s clear to me that karma is at the heart of the universe. I’m absolutely convinced of it,” says Bono.

And he goes on to say, “And yet, along comes this idea called grace to upend all that as you sow, so shall you reap” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of our actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of bad stuff… it doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.”(4)

The Good News is that we don’t have to depend on our own religiosity. We don’t have to depend on any sacrifices we make. We don’t have to depend on accruing good deeds in order to receive forgiveness and achieve redemption. We don’t have to win it or earn it or do anything to deserve it. It’s been done, once and for all, by the Great High Priest, Jesus Christ. We need only accept it as a gift, and be grateful. We live by grace my friends.

And in light of that grace, we are made perfect through Christ. That is, as a result of grace, we have the ability to be better people. By grace, we are given the ability to grow into Christ’s likeness, to change for the better, little by little, every day.

I like the way Max Lucado puts it in his book “In the Grip of Grace.” He writes that one time in his life he was a closet slob. He just couldn’t comprehend the logic of neatness. Why make a bed if you’re going to sleep in it again that night? Why put the lid on the toothpaste when you’re just going to brush your teeth again the next day? Max says that he was compulsive about being messy.

Then he got married. His wife was patient. She said she didn’t mind his habits… if he didn’t mind sleeping outside. Well, since he did mind sleeping outside, he began to change. He says he enrolled in a12 step program for slobs… “Hi, my name is Max and I am a slob…” A physical therapist helped him rediscover the muscles used for hanging up shirts and placing toilet paper on the holder. His nose was reintroduced to the smell of Pine-Sol. And by the time his in-laws arrived for a visit, he was a new man.

But then came the moment of truth. The big test. His wife went out of town for a week. At first, Max reverted to his old habits. He figured he could be a slob again for 6 days, and clean up on the 7th. But something strange happened, a curious sense of discomfort came over him. Max found that he couldn’t relax with dirty dishes in the sink. And he actually felt an uncontrollable urge to put his towel back on the rack. What happened? He had been exposed to a higher standard – his wife’s standard. And through the grace of God, he had been able to become better than he was. Little by little, habit by habit – Max changed.(5) Grace is a funny thing – a funny and amazing thing.

In the words of the Preacher of Hebrews: “Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus… and since we have a great high priest… let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.”

“And let us consider how to provoke one another with love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

May God be praised. Amen.

1.    Homiletics, Vol. 18, No. 6, p24.

2.    Emphasis, Vol. 36, No.4, p32.

3.    Homiletics, Vol. 18, No. 6, p25.

4.    Ibid…p24.

5.    Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXI, No. 4, p53.