Today's Sermon - Caring - 2/24/19

Caring

(based on Luke 6:27-38)

After teaching the disciples and the crowd about who is blessed and who will receive woes, Jesus continues his teaching about what the people of God do and how the people of God act.  What Jesus is telling us to do in this sermon is called the hardest commandment.

It is a command that sometimes seems beyond our ability to attain.  Jesus calls us to love and care for our enemies.  After selecting his these twelve disciples, Jesus teaches them what it means to follow him.  Jesus pronounces four blessings.  His disciples would endure poverty, hunger, sorrow, and persecution, but in their suffering they would know his blessing.  Jesus also pronounced four woes against self-satisfied people who were living for the pleasures of the moment and thought they could do without God.  

A natural response against the latter group of people would be for us to hate them and hurt them.  Afterall, this was the philosophy of the world at the time.  Lysias, a Greek speech writer for the courts of law in 400 BC wrote, “I consider it established that one should do harm to one’s enemies and be of service to one’s friends.”  I don’t think we’ve changed much in 2,500 years.  The world has pretty much the same philosophy today.  Unfortunately, Christians have adopted that attitude, as well.  But God has clearly condemned this attitude in the scriptures.  As far back as the establishment of the Law of Moses, it is written in Leviticus 19:18;

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

Many rabbis, however, taught that this verse only applied to relationships within Israel.  They taught that there were limits to brotherly love.  This is the thinking that Jesus is teaching against when he gives these instructions.  Jesus commands us to love our enemies, not just our family and friends.  Thankfully, Jesus does not leave the command there, but goes on to help explain what loving our enemies looks like.

First, do good to those who hate you.  Loving our enemies is not just simply a lack of retaliation.  Loving our enemies does not mean that I do not punch them in the face.  Loving our enemies does not mean that we do not treat them how they treat us.  Jesus is, instead, calling for a positive action toward our enemies.  Do good to those who hate you.  There is no excuse for not treating a person well.  We might want to justify our harmful response against those we see and view as enemies, but we are never excused from this command.  There is no, “Yeah, but he did such and such to me.”  In God’s eyes are never justified in not treating people well.

You see why this is the hardest commandment!

Oh, but it gets better. 

Second, bless those who curse you.  Not only are our actions to be positive toward our enemies, but our words are also to be positive.  The idea of blessing is to invoke God’s favor on another’s behalf or at least appeal to God for that person.  We talked about being a blessing to someone last week.  Now, image being a blessing to an enemy, not just a friend or family member.  It’s difficult to respond with words of grace and kindness when someone is cursing us.  We usually respond with the same fury and intensity that we are encountering at that moment.  But, Jesus is calling for us to have an unnatural response.

Third, pray for those who mistreat you.  Do not mistreat those who mistreat you.  Do good for them, speak graciously of them, and pray to God for them.  Our initial response might be to pray to God for them to have a horrible day or for them to catch a case of Montezuma’s Revenge or some other terrible illness.  But no.  Pray to God for the opposite things.  Pray that they be blessed by God.  Pray that they have a wonderful day and find the joy in living.  Pray that they have a change of heart or that their lives become one that is God filled and spirit led.  Pray for God to enter into their lives and touch their hearts.  Pray on the behalf of those that mistreat us.  

Jesus then lists some examples of actions.  If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other also.  This illustration has unfortunately been used to teach that a person needs to get the tar beat out of them if someone comes up to them in a physical altercation.  It is always important that we do not miss the cultural and religious context of the teachings that we read in the scriptures.  The slap in the face is idiomatic for an insult.  That idiom continued until not that long ago, where we have pictures of a prim and proper person slapping another in the cheek with a white glove.  This is not a fist fight, but an insult.  This explanation also fits Luke 6:22 where Jesus warned that we would be insulted for the sake of the Son of Man.  When insulted, do not retaliate.  Do not respond in kind.

If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt.  Jesus illustrates that we give, even to those who mistreat us.  We are to have concern for the other person.  We are to be more concerned for the person than for the protection of our property.  Even if people mistreat us, we must give them above and beyond what they need, to the point of making a real sacrifice.  We have a hard enough time giving above and beyond to people that we like.  

Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.  Not only should we give above and beyond, but we should give without demanding anything in return.  Our concern for possessions should be so minimal that we will not care that other people use our possessions and do not return them.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.  Finally, the overarching principle to guide how we are to love our enemies is to do to others as we want them to do to us.  However, when we think about this principle, we typically think of this in the negative.  We think in terms of NOT doing something to others that we would NOT want done to us.  I don’t want people to be mean, so I will not be mean.   But Jesus is teaching us to be positive and proactive.  DO to others what you would want them to do to you.  If everyone only did to others what they would have done to themselves, it would change the world.  Loving our enemies is at the very heart of being a disciple of Jesus.

Jesus goes on in his teaching.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners love those who love them.  And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners do that.  And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. If you only love people who love you, you have done nothing.  Everyone loves those who love them.  If you only do good to those who do good things for you, you have done nothing because everyone in the world does that.  If you lend expecting to be repaid, you have done nothing because even banks expect to be repaid.  I hope we see the point.  We think we are doing something great when we love those who love us, do good to those who do good to us, and lend to those who we think can repay!  Jesus says that we have done nothing because everyone does that.  We are not acting like Christ. We are acting like natural humans.  We are acting like sinners, not like the holy people of God.  We are not being godly.  We are being worldly.  Stop thinking that you are doing anything special when you love those that love you and do good for those that do good for you.  What becomes special and unique and Christian is when we love our enemies.  If we do not love our enemies, then we are acting just like the rest of the world.  

Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.  Why should we do this?

Jesus tells us that our reward will be great, and we will be called children of God.  Jesus reminds us to be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.  Our Old Testament story of Joseph stands as a stark reminder of how to do it.  Joseph’s own brothers hated him.  They were jealous of him.  So much so that they sold him into slavery in Egypt.  Joseph endured years of hardship in prison, but realized that even in that, there was divine intervention, there was a divine purpose.  He gave up his retaliatory hatred and loved his brothers regardless of what they had done to him.  He was merciful to them.  They begged for food and he gave them riches.

What he received in return wasn’t some reward waiting for him in the afterlife, in heaven, but a reward right now.  He received their admiration, redemption, and love.  This is what being a real Christian is all about.  

Yes, it is difficult to do good to our enemies, to care for them and not to retaliate.   Afterall, this is the hardest commandment, but a commandment towards a reward, nonetheless.

Today's Sermon - Curing - 2/17/19

Curing

(based on Luke 6:17-26)

This passage from Luke is known as "The Sermon on the Plain"

and is parallel to Matthew’s "The Sermon on the Mount" from chapters 5-7, which is probably the teaching sermon with which we are more familiar.  This sermon in Luke is known as the Sermon on the Plain because Luke writes in 6:17 "Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place".  Matthew’s gospel in 5:1 says that Jesus “went up the mountain, and after he sat down…he began to speak.”

Rev. Sarah Shelton writes that, “the night that followed my mother's funeral, I was seated with my siblings and their families in our parents' den. Our conversation was a little bit unusual in that we found that each of us, even the in-laws and the grandchildren, began to say, "I know that I was her favorite because."

My brother was the first to remember how she would look at his art work and declare, "The world is just waiting for you, Jim."  I remembered how no matter what I had done, she would remark, "Sarah, you are as good as gold!"  On and on we went until we had each shared how we were treasured in her sight.  It was a wonderful celebration of my mother's ability to take each of us, our frailties and our strengths, and to find ways to interact with us so that we felt her unconditional acceptance.  And it was true, not a one of us was her favorite, for we were all her favorite.  Or another way to say it: Individually and collectively, we felt her personal blessing.”

Having also grown up with this sense of being blessed by my own family, I am particularly sensitive to the many who have never received a vote of confidence or heard an encouraging word or have ever experienced an overriding sense of well-being from their families.  I am heart-broken when I hear of parents who have said to their own children that they were "abominations to the Lord," or where total neglect or physical abuse occurred.

This is one of the reasons why I have loved the church and being part of the church for so many years; for the church, at least to me, is the one place that was set apart to be redemptive – to be a place where all are welcomed, accepted and loved, especially to any of us who were wounded in some way.  Now admittedly, some congregations do better with this than others, but the church's original challenge and charter was to be the place where we would not just acknowledge God's working in our lives and God’s imprint on our souls but where we could also celebrate God’s divine image within us.  The church should be the place where spiritual parents could step in when earthly parents had failed and therefore bridge the gap for healing and restoration of wholeness.

The Old Testament is full of stories where the search for blessing is the focus of an epic tale.  There is the story of Jacob stealing his birthright blessing from his brother Esau.  There is the continued story of Jacob when he refused to stop wrestling with an angel until he could receive a blessing. There is the story of Joseph and his brothers' jealousy that Joseph was given their father's blessing.  These stories, and others like them, continue on until we reach the time of the New Testament in which we meet Jesus and he imparts blessing not just to one random character here and there, but rather to everyone.

In our text for today, we find that Jesus has been up on the mountain to pray.  It was a time of discernment for him.  For on the mountain, at prayer with God his Father, he selects his twelve named disciples and then comes down to be with the multitudes that have gathered.  Luke clearly states specific geographic regions that are represented in this gathering of people in the crowd.  They are from Judea, Jerusalem, Tyre and Sidon.  It is a clear message to us that whatever Jesus is prepared to teach is for all people, the Jews – those from Judea and Jerusalem as well as for all the Gentiles for they came from the Tyre and Sidon.

The audience includes the sick, the troubled and other persons of special concerns.  As is usual in Luke's Gospel, Jesus' healing actions and his words are closely interrelated.  It is a reminder to us that the good news, the gospel message, Jesus’s teachings wraps words and actions together.  One cannot just speak truth and live differently.  And we cannot simply act, but must say what we believe, as well.  Doing only one of them is not sufficient.  While Jesus does not know these people intimately, he does recognize their personal condition in life and the deep expectations that they bring with them.  Luke also tells us that they come hoping to be touched by Jesus - to receive just a little bit of his power so that they might be healed.  They come, it seems to me, looking for a blessing.  The crowd waits for Jesus to speak.  They wait in anticipation of being told good news for themselves.

So, Jesus begins with a short list of ways the people in the crowds are already blessed.  He does not, however, include anything within the list that we would normally think of that would bring joy or happiness. In fact, he completely contradicts the ideas and values of a materialistic, sensual society which equates happiness with house, car, and bank account.  It is our introduction to the upside-down, topsy-turvy world that Christ presents as an alternative to the status quo.

He carefully constructs four symmetrical comparisons of blessings and woes in his Sermon on the Plain, and they are the opposite of what we would anticipate. For he says:

Blessed are the poor...but woe to the rich.

Blessed are the hungry...but woe to those who are full.

Blessed are the weeping...but woe to those that are laughing.

Blessed are the rejected...but woe to those who are accepted.

As Jesus presents these blessings to those that are gathered, it becomes apparent that he is not interested in keeping things the same.  The people in the crowd were used to the money-hungry rich taking all for themselves and leaving nothing for the poor.  The people in the crowd were used to those who had the means to be healed by the best physicians, their hunger for whatever they wanted assuaged, their sorrows placated with more baubles and beads, and their infractions against the law thrown out.

But Christ’s purpose was to usher in a world that would literally be reversed.  Theologians, Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon wrote about this Sermon on the Plain and have said this:

“Christians begin our ethics not with anxious, self-serving questions about what we ought to do as individuals to make history come out right, because in Christ, God has already made history come out right. The "sermon on the plain" is the inauguration manifesto of how the world looks now that God in Christ has taken matters in hand.”

In other words, these blessings and woes announce that God, in Jesus Christ, already sees the world in a strikingly different way than we do.  The "real world," for all those who are in Christ, is one in which most of the major status roles in life are utterly reversed.

Christ makes no urging or exhortation to those in the crows to behave in certain ways so they could earn these blessings and avoid the curses.  In fact, there is no call to action at all.  Rather, Jesus is just pronouncing the facts.  He is painting for us a picture of what the Kingdom of God is.  He is not making suggestions about how to be happy or giving warnings on how to keep from being miserable.  Jesus is making defining statements of the way life is inside and outside the reign of God.  It is a reversal of fortunes for the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, the full and the empty.

Jesus showers blessings upon those in attendance that day.  For they are the poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the rejected.  They have come in need of healing.  The cure for them was for Christ to simply give them a blessing; just like Rev. Sharon said of her family, being blessed by her mother.  Each of them knew that they were special and a favorite because her mother both showed them and told them how wonderful they were.  Knowing that you are special, unique, and wonderful in the eyes of those you love is sometimes cure enough for all the evils in this world.

Go and be someone’s blessing today.

Today's Sermon - Calling - 2/10/19

Calling

(based on Isaiah 6:1-13, Luke 5:1-11)

Luke tells us that Jesus was being pressed by yet another crowd of people.  Although, unlike the crowds in last week's Gospel, these folks weren't trying to throw Jesus off a cliff.  They didn't yet know exactly who he was but they had heard of his miracles and teaching and they were crowding around him to hear the word of God.

Up to this point, the story of Jesus' ministry has him preaching and teaching in the synagogues.  This is the first account of Jesus going out among the people, into the streets, meeting them where they were and entering into their everyday lives.  And so today’s reading tells us that Jesus got into Peter's boat, summons him and asks him to put out a ways from shore so the people could gather on the shore and listen to him.

After speaking to the crowd, he told Peter to go out to the deep water and let down his nets for a catch.  Now, Peter and his partners in their fishing business had already finished a hard day's work and they had come up empty.  They had already washed their nets, while they listen to Jesus preach, all in preparation for the next day’s work and quite frankly they were probably exhausted, disappointed and ready to be done for the day. But Peter, in an act of early obedience to his new teacher says, OK, if you want me to, I'll do it.

I’m sure there have times when you are totally worn out, you’ve worked or have been busy all day, and at the end of those days there is always something like a plumbing emergency or a heating issue awaiting for you at home.  It is specifically in those times that you probably hope God doesn't call and ask you to do even more before you rest!  When you hope that the ringing phone isn't another emergency that you need to handle right away.  But this time it’s a God-need.  Someone’s in trouble.  They need you to visit or to just spend a few moments just talking to them.  This emergency are so very different from the leaking pipe or the broken down dishwasher or the office call.  When these calls come, and you are required to stretch just a bit more before the end of the day, God always seems to bless those efforts.

Sometimes it’s the blessing of holding the hand of a very sick person.  Sometimes it’s the blessing of entering into another's sadness and grief.  Sometimes it’s the blessing of finding some emergency food for those who need it desperately.  I believe the blessings that come from those acts of obedience to God’s calling are as great as a fisherman's boat overflowing with fish.

I must admit however, that personally, I only recognize some of those blessings in hindsight and not in the middle of my exhaustion.  But, I have also found that in the times when I have given myself over too much for dealing with worldly problems and done everything I can to control the order of my life, that’s when God steps in to press me even more into the work of living out the Gospel message. 

Back to the story!  Acting on Jesus' command, Peter raised the nets he had just cast out and low and behold, they were filled with fish.  So many that another boat had to be summoned to help them.  Peter's response to the miracle of abundance was to proclaim that he is unworthy of such a blessing because he is a sinful man.  Much like today's Old Testament reading, Isaiah is in the presence of God and is also being called by God to take a message to God's people.  Isaiah protests and says "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!".  Both Isaiah and Peter feel the magnitude of their unworthiness.  A seraph cleanses Isaiah lips with a burning coal and Jesus has a cleansing word for Peter.  Whatever troubled their hearts about who they were, was let go as God set them on a new course and empowered them for new work in the kingdom of God.

Peter, James, and John dropped everything they were doing and everything they had and followed Jesus.  Just like Luke’s gospel, Matthew and Mark also recall the event of them following Christ, but they leave out the miracle of the fish catch.  The disciple's response of following Christ is probably easier for us to accept if we include the miracle of the great fish catch, because it makes more sense.  They witness a miracle from their teacher and wanted to see more, experience more with him, but their action is nonetheless an act made in faith and obedience to Jesus.

Agnes Bojaxhiu was born in Macedonia in 1910. At the tender age of 12 she strongly felt the call of God and knew she was called to spread the love of Jesus Christ. At age 18 she entered a convent and joined the sisters of Loreto. While teaching at a high school in Calcutta she was so moved by the extreme poverty she saw from her window that she sought and received permission to work among the poorest of poor in the slums. The story of her work became well known to all because this woman we know as Mother Theresa continued to obediently answer God's call to serve God's people until her death.

I know there are thousands of stories about people who have received calls to radical Christian vocation.  But the fact is, God calls each of us to follow him today just as certainly as Jesus called Peter, James and John.  I am not suggesting you drop everything and run away to a join a monastery or to enroll in seminary or immediately fly down to Honduras and work among the poor there.

The important thing to recognize is that God's work of calling did not stop with the Gospel stories and that God's calling to us continues to this day and requires us to answer that call right here.  God's call to us is not an invitation!  It is not "hey, if you have nothing better to do today, do you want to come over here and do this with me."  God's call has always been one of command; sometimes subtle and gentle and sometimes not-so-gentle.  God has already "ordered" things so the "call" is just one more piece in God's puzzle.  When Jesus commanded people to follow him, the events surrounding their lives had already been perfectly ordered to support their obedient response, they just needed to recognize it and to follow.

Just as Jesus involved himself in Peter's everyday concerns about fishing, God calls to each of us in our ordinary everyday lives and asks that we follow Him.  Sometimes that call is to radically change our lives and go places that we never thought of going, but more often it is a call to look after and care for God's people right where we are, in our families, at our work, in our church and in our communities.

Jesus' behavior and actions provide the perfect model for us.  He went out among the people, into the street, where they lived, worked, experienced joy and sorrow --- all of the messiness of their lives.

As for us, how do we respond to that command?  Did a person in need appear before you this week as a reminder?  Following God's call is not a single event, it is a life-long process filled with a lot of falling short of what we think God expects of us, but punctuated with occasional bright points of feeling like we’re doing exactly what God has called us to do.

I am convinced that we are called to continue Jesus' ministry to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and to let the oppressed go free.  The message in Luke's Gospel is not so much one of acceptance of, or recognition of a professional call to ministry or missionary work, it is rather one of obedience.  It’s a call to discipleship and is something that God has both commanded and enabled.

As the story of Jesus' ministry unfolds we see that his work and ministry have grown to require the recruitment of disciples.  After his death, the growth of his church required many workers in the vineyards, some far away, but many close to home, as well.  And the fishing for people continues in order to further the Kingdom of God which has not yet come, but is now, and is being built every day. 

Will you be obedient to the call?

Today's Sermon - Confronting - Feb. 3, 2019

Confronting

(based on Luke 4:22-30)

One Sabbath day Jesus returned to his home town of Nazareth and preached in their synagogue.  Who were the people sitting in the pews that morning when Jesus preached?  First, it’s important to note that they were all men.  Women weren’t allowed to sit in the sanctuary proper, at that time.  They and the children were relegated to sit or stand behind a banister or partition, off to the side or in the back of the sanctuary.  And for the past 100 years, the Jews were obligated to pay taxes to Caesar, the Roman ruler who instructed their daily living.  Up till now, Rome had allowed them to continue to worship and pray in their synagogues as they wished.  But, one never knew if this would continue.  Nazareth, itself, was a small town with all the prejudices of a tight inward-looking community. Life would have revolved around the well, the elders sitting at the town’s gates, the annual cycle of sowing seed, working the land, the yearly harvest and the weekly Sabbath.

This audience thought they knew everything there was to know about Jesus.  They knew Mary’s family and Joseph’s family, and the self-appointed historians in their midst could trace the ancestries and relationships of their family trees back for many generations.  In this gathering of people, many were related to one another, first, second and even third cousins.

When Jesus stood up to read from the scriptures and preach to the people, we are told that they were initially impressed with the graciousness of Jesus as he spoke to them.  When he finished, they turned to one another and talked about the message that he gave.  There was, at first, a voice of great approval in the synagogue.  Then the initial appreciation was quickly followed by questions to one another. “This is the carpenter’s son isn’t it, Joseph’s boy Jesus?  Mary’s oldest boy, with those brothers and sisters of his.”  

Word had spread that Jesus had gotten baptized by his crazy cousin John down in the Jordan and had started going around to the other villages preaching, healing, and getting a name for himself. 

“But to us,” they said, “he’ll always be our own Jesus, Joseph the carpenter’s son.”  And yet, there was a side of them that wanted Jesus to do all those same things he did in the other villages.  They wanted Jesus to perform for them, too.  They liked the thought of having their own Houdini-type magician in their midst.  So here were a people chafing at being part of the Gentile Roman empire, gripped by a small-town mentality, reluctant to be over-enthusiastic about a local boy’s preaching and yet wanting him perform some miracles for them in the synagogue of Nazareth. That’s the situation in which Jesus preaches to them.  

In the second part of his sermon, Jesus talks about Elijah, the greatest prophet of Israel.  They all knew of the mighty events in his life, of his courage in resisting the prophets of Baal and King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.  The whole nation had turned to worshiping Baal and there were many widows in the land, hungry, struggling to survive in days of a famine that had lasted three and a half years. There are all kinds of instructions in the Old Testament to take care of widows. God has a special heart for widows.  Even in the New Testament Christians are required to take care of widows because they have a special place in the heart of God.

And Jesus continues in his sermon, “Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them”.  Immediately his audience’s hackles began to rise.  They didn’t like this story, it was as if Jesus was trying to tell them something.  Perhaps he was saying that they were like the people of Elijah’s day.  “Could that be it?” they wondered.  And as Jesus started to tell it, they got angrier.  Elijah was sent to none of the Jewish widows.  Elijah was sent instead to Zarephath in the land of Sidon to a woman who was a widow there.

How could God ignore the Jews of Israel?  They were starving.  How could he possibly have sent his prophet to minister to a widow in Sidon? Sidon was Gentile territory on the north coast of Israel, Tyre and Sidon, Phoenician cities with Zarephath in between them.  Jesus reminded them that God sent his greatest prophet to one of them!

Even though the Jews were God’s chosen people, it doesn’t necessarily translate that the Jews during this time period had chosen God.  Instead, Elijah came to a gentile widow.  He tells her that her “jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry” (I Kings 17:14) no matter how often she emptied them.  She believed him and the God that he believed in.  She didn’t ask, “How do I know that I can trust you?”  She did not ask for a sign to be done before she believed.  She thought, “All I’ve got is one meal left.  I’m destitute.  I’m desperate and I don’t know where to turn.  If I don’t trust the God of Israel, if I don’t trust this man sent by of God, I’m dead anyway, but if he is the man of God, and if God did send him, then I live.”  She believed Elijah’s word to her from God and the flour did not give out nor did the oil.  Every day, more was there to make another cake.  But, on top of her desperation and sorrow of poverty, her son got sick and died.  God was not done showing her what faith in Him could do however, and Elijah raised her son from the dead.

So, Jesus is seemingly making the statement to his audience that the God who sent Elijah to her has sent him to them.  Will they accept him or not?  Because if they won’t accept him, Jesus knows some people who will. 

If that story wasn’t harsh enough, Jesus is not finished.

He continues to tell about people dying of leprosy in the days of Elisha and only one of them was cleansed of it – and it wasn’t any of his chosen people.  It was Naaman, the Aramean.  Gasp!

Now Jesus is really pressing the matter.  Those at the synagogue had gone there that day thinking they might hear Jesus and pass some judgment on him, patting him on the back for giving them a great sermon.  They were hoping that they might see a miracle.  Jesus turned the tables on them.  Instead, they found themselves being judged by Jesus through his storytelling.  And they didn’t like it and got angrier.

Christ pressed home his words.  God tells his servant Elisha to heal the leper Naaman.  Naaman the commander-in-chief of the army, a full-time famous and victorious military man.  In fact, he was the one ultimately in charge of those Syrian raiding parties who came across Israel’s border, terrorizing Israel’s farms, taking teenage girls prisoners, hauling them back to Syria and selling them.  To the Jews, Naaman was scum of the earth.  The ultimate enemy.

Naaman was the man the Jews loved to hate, the one who made their lives so miserable.  Worse than that, he was a leper; he was unclean, and he was also an idolater who went to the pagan temple with his master the king to worship, to ask for success in their battles.  A Jewish girl, one who had been abducted, became a servant in his house to help his wife. She had an extraordinary gracious attitude.  She knew about Naaman’s leprosy and she said to her mistress, “Your husband needs to go to the man of God, Elisha, because God can heal him through his prophet.” The words of this little Jewish girl stuck in Naaman’s mind and he began to believe in the power of the God of Israel. He eventually wound up meeting Elisha. Here is an enemy, a Gentile, somebody who has sacked and pillaged their homes and taken captive their friends and family members, and now he’s a leper. “Serves him right!” all Israel says. Yet . . . this is the man Elisha is authorized by God to heal.  

Naaman realizes his desperation and there’s no other relief and asks himself a series of questions.  Is Jehovah really and truly God?  Is Elisha really his prophet?  How am I going to know that that’s true unless I do what Elisha requests of me?  So Naaman got down from his horse, and went down into the Jordan river seven times and when he emerged the seventh time this pagan, unbelieving general, who did what the man of God said, was clean.

By now, Jesus’ audience is really angry.  This service has not gone the way they expected it to go, AT ALL!  Instead of a nice sermon, they got “preached to” and worse, they were admonished for their sins and unbelief by none other than Jesus, who is just the carpenter’s son.

What a difference from the beginning of the service.  In verse twenty-two they were all speaking well of Jesus, and then as he really lay the word of God on them in their pride and refusal to listen to him, we are told in verse twenty-eight and twenty-nine, “All the people in the synagogue were filled with rage.  They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.”

After all, who does he think he is?

Today's Sermon - Spreading - January 27, 2019

Spreading

(based on Luke 4:14-21)

          It is from Sherman Hesselgrave, pastor at Holy Trinity Church in Toronto, that I read about this passage from Luke as a song.  It’s a song similar to the one Mary sang in the beginning of Luke, often called the Magnificat.  And ultimately, together, they make up the key to understanding all of the gospel according to Luke as a song of empire breaking.  If you want to put it into a musical definition, these passages are the “key” in which we should sing the rest of Luke’s gospel.

          The text that Jesus reads from in the synagogue on this day, occur over and over in the ancient manuscripts retelling Israel’s history.  You can hear passages from Isaiah, from Jeremiah, from Nehemiah.  All the exile prophets, quoting God’s words to the Israelites, say that a new day has dawned and a change is required.  It is the song of freedom after struggle; a song of triumph and release after deep suffering and sorrow.

          Hesselgrave says that in this passage Jesus is like a Jazz singer, who singing along in an ancient anti-empire ballad, throws in a few notes from another anti-empire tune, this one about religious imperialism.  And he does so right in the heart of the synagogue.  Did they even recognize what Jesus was singing?  Because his words were very clear, “I am here to disrupt empire – social, political, and religious – are you with me?”  It is a song of great social change, directed not just at political empire but religious authority, as well.  And all of Luke follows suit.  Everything that Luke tells us is about Jesus breaking free from social, political, and religious piety.

          Jesus announces his ministry with this inauguration song and it defines his ministry here among us.  It is this song that highlights who he chooses to have as his disciples.  It is this song that highlights the lessons he teaches from this point onward.  It is this song that highlights the struggles he will encounter with the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Scribes.  And it is this song, that ultimately gets him in trouble with King Herod, Pilate, and eventually with all of the people that turn against him.

          But in Jesus’s beginning ministry, it is this song that defines him.  And he sings this song in the synagogue for all of them to hear.  Jesus wants to make clear that it will be this message that should be spread about why he came, why he is here, and why he will do everything that follows.

          Sticking with the song theme, there is a current song sung by Taylor Swift called Fight Song,

“Like a small boat

On the ocean

Sending big waves

Into motion

Like how a single word

Can make a heart open

I might only have one match

But I can make an explosion.”

Jesus made a tsunami wave occur when he entered the scene, stood up, opened the scriptures and read in the synagogue that day.  He made a public stand upon which his entire ministry would be founded.  And that drop in the bucket, sent ripples that have spread throughout the world over the last 2000 years.

But today, we have a problem.  Just like the drop of water that causes ripples upon the water to spread out, the rings and the area that it encompasses growing larger and larger, the central drop that started it all eventually fades away until you can’t see it anymore.  That central ring eventually returns to the status quo of calm water.  That’s the problem we face today.

The revolutionary theme song against empire and piety of the righteous that Jesus was so against, has quieted to an acceptance of it again.  We’ve gone back to the status quo, we’ve gotten complacent, we’ve justified our empire building, even within the church.

Jesus began his ministry quoting the prophets that good news should be brought to the poor, to proclaim release to the captive, the recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free.   And at the very end of his ministry, right before he ascended into heaven, he said nearly the same thing.  He told his disciples to go and make disciples, teaching them everything that they had been taught, and that repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed to all nations.

My purpose this morning is to remind you what we are here for.  My purpose this morning is for you to recognize that we’ve allowed the drop of water in the ocean that Jesus started has been allowed to return to status quo of calm water.  So calm, in fact, that we don’t recognize any ripple at all.  It’s time to change that.

God has placed YOU and ME – this congregation – on this plot of land, in this building, at this address, in this very time in history, for a very specific reason.

We are here to be Christ to our community.

We are to make disciples.  We are to teach repentance and forgiveness.  We are to sing our own song of triumph and victory over oppression and hatred.  We are to break the bonds of empiricism, to share good news to the poor, release to the captive, recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free.

We are to reflect God’s light and love to those around us.

So, who wants to sing a new song and start a new ripple with me?

Today's Sermon - Sorting - Jan. 13, 2018

Sorting

(based on Luke 3:15-17,21-22)

        How do you handle mail that comes each day?  Some people stand directly over the trash can and sweep all of their fourth-class junk mail into it, leaving only the first-class mail and bills to sort through.  But, perhaps you are bit more like me; I prefer to carefully sort through each piece, making sure that I haven’t won the Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes or that I haven’t been especially selected for a five-star resort lodging for 4 nights in the Cayman Islands, all expenses paid until I turn over the flashy invitation and notice that it was simply address to Dear Occupant.

          Or what about the latest algorithm quizzes used on Facebook.  What does your name say about you?  What have you inherited from your mother?  What special message is just for you this new year?  Or what color are you and what does that color say about your personality?  Click here. 

I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubble, but just like the Star Words we hand out each year; they haven’t been especially chosen just for you – they are random and completely arbitrary.  They are simply a tool for you to make something out of, to do something with, to make meaning out of it, if you choose.

          But how do we sort through the wheat from the chaff and know when we have truly received something special and just for us when it comes to spiritual messages?  In our gospel reading this morning, we learn just a little bit about John, but we’ve read more about him in other years.  We know that John and Jesus were at least, 2^nd cousins – (There might have been some once removed or something in there, as well.)  But, we know that Jesus’s mother, Mary, was cousins with John’s mother, Elizabeth.  Whether the two of them were first cousins or not, we don’t know.  But that family relationship would make Jesus and John second cousins.  And we know from other passages and gospel accounts that John was a rather odd character.  He wore camel skins, ate locusts and honey, and was a rather wild man, proclaiming repentance and coercing people to ritually wash themselves of their sins by getting Baptized down at the river Jordan.  

          He didn’t sound unlike a man that I observed many years ago who used to stand in Market Square in downtown Pittsburgh during the summer and shout to all who would listen that Jesus was coming and that we needed to turn from our sins and “get right with God.”  He wore the most outrageous clothing – checkered pants rolled up to the knee with plaid socks, a striped shirt under a hound’s tooth coat.  He definitely got people’s attention.

From our passage this morning, John must have been the kind of man that people were expecting the Messiah to be, because there was a great deal of debate concerning John with everyone wondering if he might be the Messiah.  God had been silent in the land of Israel for nearly 400 years.  No prophet had come forward speaking on behalf of God to the people in all that time.  It was believed that prophecy would rise again when the Messiah was about to come.  So, all Israel was waiting for one who might be that authentic prophet.  John was such a prophet, and throngs came out to hear him and wondered if he might be the messenger long awaited for.  But the people also wondered if they’d perhaps missed something and that this prophet might actually be the Messiah.

John had harsh words for his hearers.  He demanded something – repentance, change, belief, and works.  Such demands honor those who would follow because the demands assume that the person can accomplish them.  Peter Drucker, an expert on leadership says this, “Leadership is not magnetic personality.  That can just as well be a glib tongue.  It is not making friends and influencing people; that is flattery.  Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.”

I think Drucker was describing John the Baptist’s kind of leadership.  John’s essential message to the people that had been long silenced over those 400 years was simply this; that we be what we seem to be.  If we want to seem godly, then we are to be godly, with no sham or spin on it.  And he spelled out exactly what he meant.  He addressed the people gathered around, he told the soldiers, don’t intimidate and coerce; tax collectors, collect no more than what is due; to the general population, share with those in need.  And that these actions ought to be a way of life.  None of this was new.  The rabbis and chief priests had been telling the people this same message for centuries, but people had stopped listening.

It took an eccentric guy like John saying the message again to get people to listen.  He was telling the people, “God has already told you what to do and how to be.  So, go do it.  It’s time for you to be about that in your life.”  He minced no words.  In fact, if you were there to only listen and not actually put your faith into action, he called you out for it.  “You brood of vipers!” he would say.

And this raised another concern of the day, which was also raised during the time of the reformation, and I dare say is an issue once again.  And that is the idea of faith versus works.  Our faith is rooted in the mighty acts of God: the incarnation (how God became human), atonement (how God restores us to a relationship with Him), resurrection (that in Christ we will go to heaven after death) and finally the ongoing presence of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit here with us now.  Our faith is rooted in those essential beliefs.  But if those roots are genuine they will bear fruits of goodness, generosity, compassion, and justice. 

John was calling for a faith rooted in repentance and belief which would bear fruit in the conduct of everyday living.  He was asking his hearers to return to their lives, to where they had been planted, and to begin to bear fruit.

We have an ongoing gap between the roots and the fruits people.  It’s one of those push-me, pull-me issues that never seems to, for once, get solved.  The roots people emphasize the Bible, commitment, Jesus, prayer.  They often forget about the social concerns of the world, the pain of poverty and injustice.  The other camp of fruit people has little use of doctrine and piety when there is hunger and homelessness, racial and social injustice.  John’s message, and in my opinion – the eternal message, is that we should not have the luxury of choosing between them. 

What’s the sense of a plant that only has roots, what use is it?  There is nothing to show for all your underground work, spreading and strengthening.  The effort becomes pointless.  And likewise, what’s the sense of a plant that only has flowers or fruit?  When the heat is on and you get tested in your faith, you have no grounding.  There is nothing there to support you.  You will wilt and wither.

I’m not sure why we polarize over time and become one or the other types of people, but the strength of a plant is having strong, spreading roots and glorious, delicious fruits.  There may be seasons and times when we need to work on one or the other, but we are best when both our faith and doctrine and our commitments and works are working together.

The crux of John’s message comes in verse 17 however, when John says that it is time for God to take His winnowing fork and start removing the wheat from the chaff.  To understand this, we need to know the way in which wheat was separated from the shell.  After wheat was cut and gathered into bundles, the stalks were removed and thrown into a pile on a flat surface on the top or side of a hill.  This was necessary to make use of a breeze.  The stalks were cracked open and crushed by a sledge, a heavy wooden platform with wooden or metal teeth designed to do the job effectively.  The sledge was normally pulled by an animal.  After the hulls were broken, he would use a winnowing fork, a slender pitchfork with five or six wooden tines.  The grain was tossed into the air over and over again so that the heavier wheat kernels would fall to the ground and the useless chaff would blow off into a pile downwind.  After this, the kernels were placed onto a large round disk and tossed about so that the last of the unwanted sticks, leaves and dust could be removed.  After this sorting was done, the chaff was burned.  

What kind of sorting do you need to do in your life to get you back on track?  What useless things can you toss out and throw away?  What grounding in scripture, acts of compassion, or kernels of commitment do you need to work on, keep and save?