12-20-2009 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THE PARADOX OF BLESSEDNESS

     Last Tuesday afternoon, our Lunch at First group was privileged to hear our own Kevin Dill perform a Christmas concert on the organ.  He played moving and complicated pieces from Samuel Wesley and Nicolas-Joseph Wackenthaler and Johann Sebastian Bach.  Now let me add that Kevin’s wife, Sonya, was there with their eleven-month-old daughter, Clare.  After Kevin had performed a particularly moving piece and a majestic silence filled the air, little Clare stood up in the back of the sanctuary and cried, “Da Da!”  It was the perfect ending to a Christmas concert.

     Children are such a blessing.  Kevin and I got to talking about what happened at the concert the next morning.  It reminded me of when my own kids were little.  I told him of a time when my wife and I were in a Wendy’s restaurant with our children in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.   I’m going to say Rob was seven, Mariah was four, and Travis was probably two.  We told the kids to clear the table before we left.  So Rob grabbed one napkin, ran over to the trash can, and put it in.  Then Mariah grabbed one hamburger wrapper, ran over to the trash can, and put it in.  Then Travis grabbed one French fry sack, ran over to the trash can, and put it in.  They were laughing with glee as they discarded one item at a time.  To my wife and me, they seemed to be making quite a scene, so we discreetly tried to hush them up.

     About that time, a very elderly man ambled over to our table.  I think he sensed our consternation.  He looked at us and said, “These are the best days of your lives.”  Then he turned and walked away.  We had no idea who he was, and we never saw him again.

     He was right, you know.  Those probably were the best days of our lives.  If I could go back to the days when our children were young, I’d do it in a heartbeat.  Like I said a moment ago, children are indeed a blessing from God.  But is there more to a blessing from God than meets the naked eye?  Could it be that there’s a purpose behind our blessings from God?  Could it also be said that there’s a paradox of blessedness?               

    Listen to this.  Ten or fifteen years ago, I was involved in a conversation with three other guys.  Brock was the young man who was about to marry my wife’s niece, Kim.  Jeremy was a nephew who had recently gone through a very bitter divorce.  And Ron was friend of the family who’d been married for twenty or twenty five years.

    Brock, the young man who was about to be married, was experiencing what we in the business call “cold feet.”  It happens a lot to young men and young women about to be married.  They start to wonder if they’re doing the right thing.  Jeremy, the young man who’d recently gone through the bitter divorce, talked about how awful marriage can be.  His wife had cheated on him and he told us his sad tale of woe.  Ron, the man who’d been married for twenty or twenty five years, also talked about how awful marriage can be.  He felt his marriage had grown a bit stale, and he told us his sad tale of woe.

     I felt I needed to stand up for the institution of marriage – not just because I was going to perform Brock and Kim’s wedding – but also because I really believe it.  I told them that I wouldn’t trade my marriage for anything in the world.  It’s a partnership – ideally, it’s a loving partnership – and I can’t imagine going through life any other way. 

     Of course, they all made fun of me and told me what I was full of, but I can’t repeat that here.  Then I talked about the kids.  If it weren’t for our marriages, we wouldn’t have those kids.  Even Jeremy, the one who’d gone through that bitter divorce, but who had a daughter whom he loved very deeply, had to agree.  But Ron looked at me and said, “Those kids will disappoint you one day.” 

     “Those kids will disappoint you one day,” he said.  I knew there was something behind what Ron was saying, but he didn’t go into it there.  I later discovered that his oldest son had a drinking problem.  Then one night, two of his boys were out on the town.  They’d gone home, but the oldest one wanted to go out again.  His brother went with him because he was in no condition to drive.  As they barreled down the road to their next destination, the older brother missed a turn in the road.  As the pickup truck they were driving careened off the pavement, he was thrown from the vehicle and died instantly.  His younger brother was badly injured, but he managed to survive.

     “Children are a blessing,” I had said to Ron, and he said to me, “Those kids will disappoint you one day.”  Perhaps there is more to a blessing than meets the eye.  It brings to mind a phrase from a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson that dates from 1850.  He once wrote:

            I hold it true, whate’er befall;

            I feel it, when I sorrow most;

            ‘Tis better to have loved and lost

            Than never to have loved at all.

     Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?  I can’t answer that question because – thank God – I have not loved and lost.  Some of you do know the answer to that question, and I’m sure it’s a painful thing to even think about.  It brings to mind the paradox of blessedness.  Children, for example, are a tremendous blessing.  But isn’t it a paradox when things don’t turn out the way you planned?  How difficult it is when the source of our greatest joy turns out to be the cause of our greatest pain.

     In the passage we read from the gospel according to Luke, we get to see the paradox of blessedness first hand.  Mary has been visited by the angel Gabriel – the angel who told her that she had been chosen to bear the very Son of God.  Then, shortly after that event transpired, she took a trip to visit an older kinswoman named Elizabeth.  Who was Elizabeth?  She was the wife of a priest named Zechariah and she, too, was carrying a child.  The child whom Elizabeth would bear was none other than John the Baptist. 

      When Mary came to visit Elizabeth, the child leaped in her womb.  Then Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb…And blessed is she who believed there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to   her by the Lord.”

     Children are a blessing, are they not?  Elizabeth proclaims to Mary how blessed she really    is.  The New Testament Greek actually uses two different words to describe Mary’s blessedness, although they mean similar things.  The first word is, heulogaymenay, which means, “provided with benefits from God.”  The second word is, makaria, - not macarena, makaria – which means, “blessed, fortunate, or happy…as in the privileged recipient of divine favor.”

     Mary was blessed.  She was the privileged recipient of divine favor.  Yet consider how William Barclay describes her blessedness in his commentary on the gospel according to      Luke.  Speaking of this very encounter with Elizabeth, he writes:

This is a kind of lyrical song on the blessedness of Mary.  Nowhere can we better see 

the paradox of blessedness than in her life.  To Mary was granted the blessedness of being the mother of the Son of God.  Well might her heart be filled with a wondering, tremulous joy at so great a privilege.  Yet that very blessedness was to be a sword to pierce her heart.  It meant that one day she would see her son hanging on a cross.       

     That, my friends, is what we call the paradox of blessedness.  Mary was blessed with the honor of carrying and raising the very Son of God.  Yet she was also – dare we say “cursed” – with the agony of seeing that same Son die a bitter, brutal death.  What a paradox her state of blessedness turned out to be.  The source of her greatest joy would ultimately become the cause of her greatest pain.

     Biblical commentator William Barclay notes that to be chosen by God so often means at one and the same time a crown of joy and a cross of sorrow.  That’s what the paradox of blessedness is.  The piercing truth is that God does not choose a person for a life of ease and comfort and relaxation.  God chooses a person for a task that will take everything they’ve got within them    in order to bring it to bear.  In other words, God chooses a person in order to utilize him or her for a greater cause.  Again, God chooses a person in order to utilize him or her for a greater cause.    

     I think of the parable of the talents Jesus once told.  You know the story.  A man went on a journey and to each of his servants he entrusted a measure of his property.  To one man he gave five talents, to one man he gave two talents, and to one man he gave but one.  The man who received the five talents went out and made five talents more.  The man who received the two talents went out and made two talents more.  But the man who received the one talent buried his talent in the ground. 

   As you recall, the man who made five talents was rewarded by his master.  The man who made two talents was rewarded by his master as well.  But the man who buried his talent in the ground – the man who gave the master no return on his investment – was chastised and cast from the land in which they dwelled.  God represents the master in the story, and God expects a return on his investment.  God expects us to use our God-given talents as well.  And from those who are entrusted much, even more is expected.

     I recently came across a story called The True Spirit of Christmas.  I don’t know who the author is.  Listen closely just the same.

While shopping for a present for my niece, I spied a little girl poring over Barbie dolls with her father, a roll of money clutched in her hand.  Each time she saw a doll she liked, she turned to her father and asked if she had enough to buy the doll.  Of course, each time her father said, “Yes.” 

 

Then I noticed a little boy wandering nearby with his father.  The two were looking at Pokemon toys.  The boy also had money in his hand, but it looked to be five dollars or less.  In contrast to the little girl, he was told, “No,” nearly every time he showed a toy to his father.

 

Meanwhile, the little girl had chosen the Barbie doll she wanted.  But before she went to the register to buy it, she noticed the little boy and his father as well.  By this time the little boy had a book of stickers in his hands and was looking sorely disappointed.

 

The little girl thought for a moment, then returned her Barbie to the shelf.  She chose a Pokemon game instead, and raced to the checkout counter.  After she paid for it, she whispered something to the cashier, who took the toy and put it in a bag under the counter.  When the boy got to the cashier, the cashier congratulated him on being the store’s 1000^th customer, and presented him with the game from under the counter.  The little boy’s face lit up as he exclaimed, “This is exactly what I wanted for Christmas!”

 

As they left the store, the little girl’s father asked, “Why did you do that?”  The little girl said, “Didn’t grandma and grandpa want me to buy something that would make me happy?”  Her father said, “Yes.”  To which the little girl replied, “Well, I just did.”

 

     “Out of the mouths of babes,” the old adage goes.  The author concludes, “As I watched her skip out of the store, I felt privileged to have witnessed the true spirit of Christmas.”  I’d say there’s one who used her God-given talents very, very well. 

     In this, the Christmas season, we anticipate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  God has given us the best he had to give.  Because of Jesus Christ, we are the blessed recipients of the forgiveness of sin and life everlasting.  Can you even begin to imagine what life would be like without them?  For without the forgiveness of sin and life everlasting, there is no ultimate hope.  Through Jesus Christ, we are the blessed recipients of the forgiveness of sin and everlasting life. 

     Yet as did Mary, we too experience the paradox of blessedness.  The gift of the Christ Child and the benefits of the Christian life are not things that are meant to be hoarded unto ourselves.  The gift of the Christ Child and the benefits of the Christian life are things that God intends to be shared with the world…especially in this season of Advent.  So I ask you now: “With whom will you share your bounty?  With whom will you share Jesus Christ?”  Amen. 

 

      

 

12-13-2009 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

ZEPHANIAH’S SONG

 

     A number of years ago, I was at an event in Washington, D.C. called “The Festival of Homiletics.”  Those of us gathered there got to hear sermons from some of the finest preachers in the land.  There was also a very talented musician there who provided musical interludes between many of the sermons.  I was so impressed with his abilities that I actually tried to invite him to Meadville for one of our renewal weekends.  Unfortunately, he turned out to be a bit expensive for our humble tastes.  He wanted more than $4000.00 for a single weekend.

     Prior to one of the songs that he wrote himself, he talked about how frustrated ministers can become – so frustrated that they consider leaving the ministry altogether.  Then he sang his song about one such minister who contemplated leaving the ministry.  I don’t remember the song in its entirety, but I do remember one particular line.  The minister who considered leaving the ministry thought to himself, “I’d wind up flipping burgers…‘cause it’s the only thing I’m qualified to do!”  We minister-types roared when we heard that song because deep, deep down, we knew he was right.  A Master of Divinity degree – even a Doctor of Ministry degree – don’t qualify one to do much, other than serve a church or flip some burgers.

     I came to that stark realization here about six years ago.  The Presbyterian Women were holding an auction as a fund-raiser for one of their mission projects.  I was asked to make a contribution of some kind that could be auctioned off as well.  I couldn’t think of anything, so I offered to do a wedding.  When auctioneer Paul Huber came to my offer, I said, trying to make it seem to be of some intrinsic value, “You know, I often get anywhere between 250 and 500 dollars to do a wedding.”  Then Frank Smith asked, “How much does it cost to get married in the Methodist Church?”  Very funny.

     Now sitting in the audience that night were Marty Malone and his at-that-time unmarried daughter, Julie.  I don’t remember where Paul started the bidding, but there were no takers at $100.00.  There were no takers at 75 or 50 dollars either.  When the number dropped to $25.00, Marty Malone raised his hand and bought the wedding.  Yet as he did so, his single daughter, Julie, slunk in her chair and cried out, “Dad!”  But hey, a few years later we did that wedding, and I was honored to do so…for free!

     Apart from leading a church, what is a minister really qualified to do?  Diogenes Allen, a philosophy professor at the Princeton Theological Seminary, writes about a similar thing in his book, Spiritual Theology.  It seems his wife was a member of a silent auction committee for a school fair.  Various services were offered to the highest bidder, with the proceeds going to the school.  One person volunteered to examine investment portfolios.  One person donated an hour of legal advice, and one couple offered to act as waiter and waitress for a party. 

    The time came for Diogenes Allen’s wife to offer up something as well.  There was a noticeable pause, since everyone knew her husband was a clergyman.  Then, in a very matter-of-fact way, Mrs. Allen said, “My husband will give the highest bidder an assessment of his or her spiritual condition.”  Her well-meaning offer was greeted with an onslaught of laughter.  Diogenes Allen had this to say in the aftermath of what his wife endured.  He wrote:

Somehow it seems absurd to mention in a normal setting that people do have a spiritual

condition, let alone that it is possible to assess it as one would an investment.  Yet we    do care about how we are progressing in life, although we usually assess our progress    in terms of the ascent – or descent – of our careers.  We give far less attention to an assessment of the kind of person we are, the kind of person we can become, and the kind    of person we ought to be…according to God.

      Do we, in fact, have a spiritual “condition?”  And if we do, what is our spiritual condition?     I have a sneaking suspicion that all too often we’re inclined to tie our spiritual condition to the present state of our emotions.  In other words, if life is going well and we feel reasonably happy, then perhaps we feel our spiritual condition is good.  On the other hand, if life is not going well and we don’t feel the least bit happy, perhaps then we are likely to feel that our spiritual condition is bad.  Yet emotions are fickle.  Emotions come and go and rise and fall like the tide.  Perhaps our spiritual condition should move a bit beyond the state of our emotions.  Because the fact of the matter is, there is a monumental difference between happiness and joy.  Again, there is a monumental difference between happiness and joy.

     Yet before we get to dissecting that statement, let’s take a look at the passage we read from the book of Zephaniah.  Zephaniah was one of what we call the Minor Prophets in Old Testament times.  Note that the only difference between a Minor Prophet and a Major Prophet is the length of his book, not the substance of his prophecy.  The book of Zephaniah itself identifies the time of his prophecy as coming in the days of King Josiah, which would have been between the years 639 and 608 B.C.  It was a tenuous time to be a prophet, and it was a tenuous time to be a Hebrew.

     The nation of Israel and its capital city of Samaria had fallen to the Assyrians some one hundred years before.  Now the nation of Judah and its capital city of Jerusalem were under threat as well.  Assyrian power was waning, and Judah found itself a vassal state to Egypt.  Babylon was on the rise, however, and would soon drive the Egyptians back into Egypt and overthrow the nation of Judah entirely. 

     Can you even begin to imagine the overall sentiment of the Hebrew people in times such      as those?  Should a nation like Babylon invade Judah – which it later did, of course – people would lose their homes.  Children would be subject to slavery, women could be subject to something much, much worse, and men would likely be put to death.  Families would be separated, livelihoods would be lost, and assets would be scattered.  I’m not sure we can even begin to imagine what life might be like under those conditions.  It would have been a very difficult time in which to live, to say the least.            

     Zephaniah, however, was most concerned with the spiritual condition of the Hebrew people.  It was a time of idol worship, and many of their priests had become idolatrous as well.  The people had begun to practice temple prostitution and were sacrificing their children to the so-called gods of the land.  Economic and racial injustices were rampant.  People had lost their faith in God and were practicing what Professor A.B. Rhodes calls practical atheism. 

     Zephaniah chastises these practical atheists in verse 12 of chapter 1.  Speaking on behalf of God regarding the coming Day of the Lord, Zephaniah cries, “At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the people who rest complacently on their holdings, those who say in their hearts, ‘The Lord will not do good, nor will he do harm.’”

     To the chosen people of God, God had become innocuous.  They said in their hearts, “The Lord will not do good, nor will he do harm.”  So you see, to the practical atheist the question was not whether God, in fact, existed.  They believed that God was there, but in their minds, he did not impact life…one way or the other.  That, my friends, is what we call practical atheism.

     Practical atheism is the belief that the Lord will not do good, nor will he do harm.  God may be there, but he does not impact life one way or the other.  Practical atheism was rampant in the days of Zephaniah.  The question is, is practical atheism rampant in our world today as well?

     I think of a recent presidential candidate.  He was running as a Democrat, but the man himself was a Roman Catholic.  Let’s just say that the Democratic Party and the Roman Catholic Church have somewhat different views on the subject of abortion.  The candidate was asked about that.  He stated quite clearly that he would not allow his personal faith to influence his public life.  That, my friends, is practical atheism.  When our faith in God has no impact on the way we live our lives, God is rendered innocuous.  I suppose could go on all day about practical atheism, but I think you get the picture.  Practical atheism seems to exist in our world today as well.

     Zephaniah chastised the practical atheists of his day.  He chastised everything that was wrong about his world from a faith perspective.  Speaking of a great Day of the Lord, he told the people that they would in time be judged by God.  You would think that Zephaniah would use scare tactics to get the people to repent and to live more Godly lives, and he did.  But in the passage we read from Zephaniah a few minutes ago, he made a promise on God’s behalf to those who repented of their evil ways – a promise to those who found a way in their hearts to be faithful.  We call it Zephaniah’s song.

     The prophet Zephaniah cries, “Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel!  Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!  The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies.  The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;  you shall fear disaster no more.”  He concludes by saying, “At that time I will bring you home,   at the time when I gather you; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the Lord.”

     What do you suppose the emotional state of the Hebrew people was in Zephaniah’s day?  They were facing conquest by the Babylonians.  They would lose their property, they would   lose their homeland, and they would be dispersed to other lands.  Do you think they were happy?  My guess is that they were not.  But then Zephaniah speaks of God’s final conquest and their ultimate delivery.  That’s where their faith would have brought them joy.    

     Which brings us back to the question of our own spiritual condition.  We talked about how we’re inclined to tie our spiritual condition to the present state of our emotions.  If life is going well and we feel reasonably happy, then we think our spiritual condition is good.  If life is not going well and we don’t feel happy, then we think our spiritual condition is bad.  Our spiritual condition must move beyond the state of our emotions.  Because the fact of the matter is, there  is a monumental difference between happiness and joy. 

     Listen to this.  Many years ago, the only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island.  He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon in search of a ship, but every day he saw nothing but water.  Eventually he managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to shelter him from the elements and to store his few possessions.

     Then one day after scavenging for food, he went back to his hut, only to find it in flames.   The worst had happened.  Everything was lost.  The man was stunned with grief and anger.      He looked to the sky and cried out, “God!  How could you do this to me?  You’ve taken away absolutely everything!”

     Early the next day, however, he was awakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching the island.  It had come to rescue him.  The weary but grateful man asked, “How did you know   I was here?”  The captain of the ship replied, “Why, we saw your smoke signal in the sky.”

     Sometimes our lack of present happiness can lead to our ultimate joy.  A couple of weeks ago I said in a benediction that after all my years of preaching and teaching, I can make two distinct statements about the Bible.  Number one, God is trying to get us to think of someone besides ourselves.  And number two, God wins in the end.  God always wins in the end.  Our personal happiness may be fleeting.  It can rise and fall with the state of our emotions.  Joy is different.  For beneath true joy lies a confidence that God has everything well in hand.  God does have everything well in hand.  I mean, if you think about it, that’s what the Christmas story is really all about.  Amen. 

 

 

                      

 

9-18-09 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

WHO IS YOUR TIMOTHY?

Many years ago, when I was serving a church in southwest Minnesota, there was a woman in my congregation by the name of Lola.  Now I’m going to say that Lola was born in 1900, so she was well into her 90s by the time I knew her.  Lola was born in Maquoketa, Iowa.  She once told me a story about how she boarded a train in Maquoketa at the tender age of 17, and rode that train all the way to Philadelphia to stay with a cousin.  At night, Lola and her cousin would go to a dance hall and dance with soldiers about to be shipped overseas during World War I.  I was shocked!  I’ve been to Philadelphia.  There is no way on God’s green earth that I would allow my 17-year-old daughter to go to Philadelphia by herself!  I asked Lola, “Were they nice to you?”  Lola replied, “They were perfect gentlemen.”  Now before we romanticize too much about the early 1900s, let me say this.  Women were not allowed to vote back in those days.  And I’m guessing our nation would not have elected an African-American President back then either.  But on the other hand, perhaps people were a bit more Christ-like.  Our nation back then was perhaps a kinder, gentler place than it is today.

Case in point, as many of you know, my oldest son is a sophomore at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.  He’s in a fraternity, and not long ago some guys from his fraternity went to attend a fraternity function at Kent State University.  While he was there, my son met a young man from Ohio State University.  This young man bragged about the fact that on numerous occasions he had drugged girls.  He put something in their drinks that would make them vulnerable to whatever advances he might dream up.  Can you imagine a more vicious, more self-centered act than that?  It sounds to me as if this is a young man who could use a little spiritual renewal.  This is a young man who could benefit from the gospel of Jesus Christ…not to mention a little jail time!

Yet there’s a lot of resistance to the gospel of Jesus Christ these days.  My youngest son is a sophomore at the Meadville high school.  Just last week in one of his classes the students were asked to name who they thought was the most influential person in the history of the world.  My son, much to his credit, wrote down the name “Jesus Christ.”  When later he was asked who he wrote down, he was ridiculed for his answer.  One young man said, “There’s no proof that Jesus Christ even existed!”  I told him, “Yes, there is.  Apart from the Bible, we have the writings of a Jewish historian named Josephus, a Roman historian named Tacitus, and a Roman governor named Pliny the Younger.”  My son was angry at the response he received.  He said, “I wanted to punch that guy out!”  I said, “That might not be the most Christ-like response.”  He gets his temper from his mother, you know!  The point is this.  While Jesus Christ may be the answer to many of our social and spiritual ills, apparently far too few people are asking the question.

That brings us to the discipleship issue with which we’ve been wrestling for the last several weeks.  The question was asked, “What constitutes a healthy disciple?”  The following criteria have been proposed:

1.      Who is your Lord?  In other words, when everything else is said and done, whose agenda are you truly following?

2.      Who are you?  At the beginning of each day, do you wake up thinking you’ll have to go out and win your own share of security and significance, or can you truly say that those are priceless gifts you have already received?

3.      Who is your Barnabas?  Barnabas spoke up for the Apostle Paul and was something of a mentor to him.  Who is your spiritual mentor, who is showing you how to follow Jesus Christ?

4.      Who is your Timothy?  Paul was something of a mentor to Timothy.  Who is your apprentice – the one to whom you are passing along the life lessons that God has entrusted you?

5.      Where is your Antioch?  Antioch was something of a safe haven for Paul where the call of God could find him.  What small group of friends is helping you discern the call of God in your life?

6.      Where is your Macedonia?  Macedonia was something of a field of ministry for Paul.  To what field of ministry is God calling you, that hauntingly stirs your deepest passion?

The question we want to wrestle with today is this: Who is your Timothy?  Who is your Timothy?  You see, discipling is how the gospel has been spread for the last 2000 years.  We need a Barnabas.  We need someone to show us how the live the Christian life.  And then we need a Timothy.  We need an apprentice to pass along the life lessons that God has entrusted us.  But how are we to find a Timothy if there aren’t any young people in church?  Apart from our immediate families, who are we going to mentor if there aren’t any young people in church?

As many of you know, we’ve been conducting a mission self-study in recent weeks.  The data is in and it’s somewhat startling.  The data reveals that almost to a person, we want to add new young families to our church.  Yet the data also shows that we don’t want to change very much in order for that to happen.  In fact, here’s a chart that plots out in part who we are as a church.  On the top of the chart is the word “adaptive,” which is a nice way of saying we’re willing to change.  At the bottom of the chart is the word “settled,” which is a nice way of saying we don’t want to change.  At the right side of the chart is the word “conservative,” which is a nice way of saying we’re conservative.  And at the left side of the chart is the word “progressive,” which is a nice way of saying – dare I say it? – liberal.  Do you know which side of the chart we were on in terms of progressive and conservative?  We were actually on the progressive side.  Not by a lot, but we were.  And do you know where we were when it came to being adaptive or settled?  We were near the bottom.  We were plugged in right about here.  (Let me show the choir…)  So here we are, caught between a rock and a hard place.  We desperately want to add new young families, but we don’t want to change for that to happen.  What are we to do?

I recently had something of an epiphany on that subject in a conversation I was having with Keith and Debbie Mink.  I told Keith that he was the source of my inspiration, and Debbie said that that was probably the case.  (I’m kidding.  That’s NOT what Debbie said.)  But here’s what I got to thinking.  Several weeks ago, in the class I was leading on the gospel according to John, we got to talking about what salvation is.  Is salvation just going to heaven, or can salvation happen in the here and now?  In the Bible, we are led to believe that salvation can happen in the here and now.  For example, in the Old Testament, the Hebrew people experienced salvation when Moses led them out of bondage in Egypt.  Salvation to them was essentially freedom from tyranny and oppression.  In the New Testament, Jesus gives us something of a different slant.  He says, “He who saves his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake and for the gospel’s will save it.”  In other words, we will experience our salvation, we will find our inner peace, we will become the people God intended us to be when we learn to die to self and to live for Jesus Christ.  In other words, we quit being so selfish, and we place our primary focus on others.  It occurred to me that the very same thing might be true of the church.  Too often in the church we only focus on what we need or what we want.  Maybe the church needs to die to the self as well.  Maybe the church needs to become what it was meant to be.  You see, we come to church to grow as Christians, and then we go out into the world in order to transform it.  Maybe the church will start to grow when we realize that.  What need in the Meadville community is the First Presbyterian Church called by God to fulfill?  Find the answer to that, and we will find our salvation.  Discipling is how the gospel has been spread for the last 2000 years.  If we don’t find our Timothys, this church will die, and the gospel of Jesus Christ will die alongside it.  Amen.   

 

 

 

9-11-09 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

WHO IS YOUR BARNABAS?

     I believe it was Red Skelton who once said, “All men make mistakes, but married men find out about it sooner.”  Again, “All men make mistakes, but married men find out about it sooner.”  While there may very well be some truth to Red Skelton’s observation, let’s place our focus today on the first part of his statement, which was this: “All men make mistakes.”  Or perhaps better put, “All people make mistakes.”

     Perhaps we could even say that people make mistakes when it comes to how they look at God.  The Rev. Dr. M. Craig Barnes, the senior minister at the Shadyside Presbyterian Church  in Pittsburgh, addresses this issue in his latest book entitled, The Pastor as Minor Poet.  He believes that people are often mistaken in how they look at God.  He goes on to say that one of the tasks of the minister is to help people to see God as God really is.  He writes:

Just because people call themselves “Christian” and have a long history in the church, (that does not mean) they have a biblical image of God.  To the contrary, the longer they’ve hung around religion, the greater the chance that they’ve acquired some false ideas about God that have a negative impact on their self-image.

 

In pastoral counseling, the minor poet (Barnes refers to the minister as the minor poet) in pastoral counseling the minor poet is wading through these false images, which are the real blocks to their ability to make changes.  We are thus made in the image of a false god, and until the image of God is seen correctly in the grace and truth of Jesus Christ, we never will be able to gain a correct image of ourselves.

 

When people tell me about their struggles with anger, a little digging reveals they believe God is angry with them.  Those who struggle with compulsive work patterns have been worshipping a demanding God who is never satisfied.  People who have a hard time trusting their hearts to others don’t really believe in the steadfast love of God.  None of them can discover real change in their lives apart from a Christological view of God.  So conversations that begin with improvements they want to make in life should end with the pastor demonstrating the changes Christ has already made to their lives.

 

Rather than use the few reflective listening skills we learned in our Introduction to Pastoral Care classes in seminary, which is only another way of holding up the judgmental mirror, we pastors need to hold up Jesus Christ.  “See him?” we say.  “That’s who you really are.  Everything else about you is just pretending.” 

     Barnes concludes with these words.  “The human self is never more truly itself than when it is living in Christ, the Restorer of the holy image of God in humans.”  Like I said, we all make mistakes.  Sometimes we even make mistakes in our image of who or what God is.  That’s when we need a guide.  That’s when we need a mentor.  That’s when we need someone to straighten out our misguided notions of God.

     Ladies and gentlemen, I think that brings us back to the discipleship question we’ve been wrestling with for the last several weeks.  The question was asked, “How can we identify a healthy disciple?”  The following criteria were presented:

1.      Who is your Lord?  In other words, when everything is said and done, whose agenda are you truly following?  Ideally, of course, the agenda we are following is that of Jesus Christ.

 

2.      Who are you?  At the beginning of each day, do you wake up thinking you’ll have to go out and win your own share of security and significance, or can you truly say that those are priceless gifts you have already received?  We noted a couple of weeks ago that Christ gave his life to secure our significance in the eyes of God.  There is nothing left  for us to prove.

 

3.      Who is your Barnabas?  Barnabas spoke up for the Apostle Paul and was something of a mentor to him.  Who is your spiritual mentor, the one from whom you are learning how to follow Jesus Christ?

 

4.      Who is your Timothy?  Paul was something of a mentor to Timothy.  Who is your apprentice – the one to whom you are passing along the life lessons that God has entrusted you?

 

5.      Where is your Antioch?  Antioch, to Paul, was a safe haven where the call of God could find him.  What small group of friends is your safe haven…that is helping you to discern the will of God in your life?

 

6.      Where is your Macedonia?  Macedonia was a field of ministry for Paul.  What field of ministry is most closely aligned with God’s call on your life, and hauntingly stirs your deepest passion?

 

     This week our focus is on the third criterion of a healthy disciple: Who is your Barnabas?  Who is your Barnabas?  Yet before we ask who your Barnabas is, perhaps we should answer the question of who Barnabas was.  That only makes sense, don’t you think?

     Barnabas makes his first appearance in the pages of Scripture in the fourth chapter of the book of Acts.  His real name was Joseph of Cyprus, but the apostles gave him the name Barnabas, which meant literally, “son of prophecy” or “son of encouragement.”  What did Barnabas do to warrant such a title?  It was in the early days of the church in Jerusalem.  The first century church seemed to advocate communal living.  Barnabas sold a field that belonged to him and he brought the money – all of the money – to the apostles and laid it at their feet.  They kept their money in a community treasury of sorts and shared it with fellow Christians as they had need.  No one in the early Christian community would have found themselves in want.

   Let me take a moment to explain early Christian communal living.  Yes, it appears that the first century Christians did in fact hold everything in common.  That does not bode well for our great American philosophy of individualism and capitalism, does it?  Yet let me also say this.  It is obvious that the communal living of the early church didn’t last for very long.  Perhaps we could even say that it did not work.  That’s why the practice was discontinued.  While that statement does not baptize the greed in many a Christian heart, it does seem to speak against any requirement of communal Christian living.  That should make everyone feel at least a little bit better.

     Let’s get back to Barnabas.  He laid the proceeds from the sale of a field at the feet of the apostles in Jerusalem.  His next appearance in Scripture is in the passage we read a moment ago.  Saul of Tarsus – later known as the Apostle Paul – was a fierce opponent of Christianity everywhere.  He would literally take Christians in chains to the Jewish authorities.  He stood and watched and approved of the stoning of a Christian named Stephen.  Saul of Tarsus was feared by Christians far and wide.  Yet on a lonely road to Damascus, Jesus Christ had appeared to him and he had been transformed.  When Saul came to Jerusalem as a new Christian convert, everyone was afraid of him.  It was Barnabas who went to Saul and brought him to the apostles.  In other words, if it weren’t for Barnabas, there would have been no Paul.  And if it weren’t for Paul, Christianity might not have ever reached the hearts of those who were not Jewish.  Paul brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, yet he did so after being mentored by Barnabas.

The Apostle Paul needed a mentor, and God provided him one in the person of Barnabas.

     Glenn McDonald describes how important this whole “mentoring” thing is in his book, The Disciple Making Church.  It’s the very same quote that is printed in the Silent Reflection portion

 of your bulletins.  He writes:

In his book The Divine Conspiracy Dallas Willard points out that all of us learn how to live – for better or for worse – from those who teach us.  Each of us is somebody’s disciple.  “There are no exceptions to this rule, for human beings are just the kind of creatures that have to learn and keep learning from others how to live.”  Most of us    have been discipled, consciously or unconsciously, by a diverse collection of “somebodies” over the years. 

     Think about it.  How did you learn right from wrong?  Did you figure that out on your own, or did somebody teach you?  How did you learn how to drive?  Did you figure that out on your own, or did somebody teach you?  How did you light upon your present career path?  Did you figure that out on your own, or did somebody teach you?  Glenn McDonald is right.  “Most of   us have been discipled, consciously or unconsciously, by a diverse collection of ‘somebodies’ over the years.”

     We could look at that conversely as well, I suppose.  I heard a story not long ago about a first grade teacher at a school in our community.  She asked the kids in her class a very simple question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  She was absolutely appalled when many of the kids replied, “When I grow up, I want to lay on the couch and watch T.V. all day like my dad.”  She said to one, “Where do you get your money to live on?”  The child replied, “We go to this place and they give him a check.”

     Here’s what that teacher did.  She brought meat and cheese and crackers to school with her one day.  Then she asked the kids, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  If a child replied, “I want to be a doctor,” she gave them a piece of meat, a piece of cheese and a cracker.  If a child replied, “I want to be a teacher,” again she gave them a piece of meat, a piece of cheese and a cracker.  But if they replied, “When I grow up, I want to lay on the couch and watch T.V. all day like my dad,” she only gave them a cracker.  When the child cried out, “I want a piece of meat and a piece of cheese, too!” she said, “You have to work for that.”

    Now there’s a brilliant teacher who brought a brilliant lesson home to a group of first-graders.  But it ignores the larger problem.  Where are these kids getting the idea that it’s all right to lay on the couch all day and watch T.V.?  They’re getting it from their Barnabas.  They’re getting it from their mentor.  They’re getting it from a person they love who is modeling how to live for them.  And therein lies the problem.  Everyone needs a Barnabas.  Everyone needs a mentor.  Everyone need someone to show them how to live, and how to live well.  

     Perhaps we could raise the very same issue when it comes to our own faith.  How did you learn how to be a Christian?  Did you figure that out on your own, or did somebody teach you?  Or, perhaps even better put, how did you learn how to live as a Christian?  Did you figure that out on your own, or did somebody model that for you?

     Relationships that entail mentoring are not intended to be the exception to the rule.  Discipling is just the way God does things.  Jesus Christ himself gave himself fully to a dozen interested men.  He loved them, he lived with them, he told them stories, and he stretched their imaginations.  He scolded them when their hearts were calloused and he nurtured them when they were confused.  He invited them to walk with him into situations that ranged from the ambiguous to the controversial to the outright dangerous.  Sometimes he was formal, sometimes he was rhetorical.  Frequently he engineered opportunities for his disciples to place their trust in God.  Yet on every occasion, Jesus was communicating one important thing.  He was saying to them in essence, “Let me show you how to live.”        

     George Mason has been the senior minister at the Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas for more than 20 years.  In a recent address, he said:

For those of us who grew up on T.V., the quirky “Gilligan’s Island” is part of our culture.  You know it must be because now that we are middle-aged and have some buying power, commercials are using the theme song and bringing back characters to plug their products.  But what was its appeal?  Endearing characters, people we could identify with, certainly.  The blow-hard skipper, the brainy professor, the millionaire and his wife, the movie star, the plain-Jane girl, and a bumbling first mate.  Sounds a lot like society in general.  But the story is the thing.  Shipwrecked on an island, they don’t always get along, they are none of them alike, but they all need each other.  They have to work together to survive and build the best life possible because they are all in the same boat, literally.

     Along those same lines, G.K. Chesterton once said of humanity: “We are all in a small boat on a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.”  Life is not easy for anyone.  Everyone is a disciple, and everyone needs a mentor.  Everyone needs someone to model the Christian life for them.  So I ask you again, “Who is your Barnabas?”  If you can’t answer that question now, perhaps you should begin to look into how you can.  Amen.  

    

    

    

    

                  

 

  

  

    

 

    

 

9-27-2009 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

WHO ARE YOU?

     A number of years ago, a little girl on the East Coast made the following statement.  She said, “My name is Martha Bowers Taft.  My great-grandfather was President of the United States.  My grandfather was a United States Senator.  My daddy is an ambassador to Ireland.  And I am a Brownie.” 

     Perhaps we could say that little girl was very fortunate in that she knew exactly who she  was.  If life’s most important question is, “Who’s in charge?” then perhaps life’s second most important question is this: “What is your relationship to the one who is in charge?”  In other words, “Who are you?”

     As you hopefully know by now, we’ve been doing a sermon series on discipleship.  A couple of week ago the question was asked, “How can we identify a healthy disciple?”  The following criteria were presented:

1.      Who is your Lord?  In other words, when everything is said and done, whose agenda are you truly following?  Last week we discussed how Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice for us, and how we ought to be willing to make some sacrifice for him.  And don’t think for a minute that it doesn’t matter.

 

2.      Who are you?  At the beginning of each day, do you wake up thinking you’ll have to go out and win your own share of security and significance, or can you truly say that those are priceless gifts you have already received?

 

3.      Who is your Barnabas?  Barnabas spoke up for the Apostle Paul and was something of a mentor to him.  Who is your spiritual mentor, the one from whom you are learning how to follow Jesus Christ?

 

4.      Who is your Timothy?  Paul was something of a mentor to Timothy.  Who is your apprentice – the one to whom you are passing along the life lessons that God has entrusted you?

 

5.      Where is your Antioch?  Antioch, to Paul, was a safe haven where the call of God could find him.  What small group of friends is your safe haven…that is helping you to discern the will of God in your life?

6.      Where is your Macedonia?  Macedonia was a field of ministry for Paul.  What field of ministry is most closely aligned with God’s call on your life, and hauntingly stirs your deepest passion?

     Our focus this week will be on the second criterion of a healthy disciple: Who are you?  In other words, at the beginning of each day, do you wake up thinking you’ll have to go out and win your own share of security and significance, or can you truly say that those are priceless gifts you have already received?  Or, perhaps better put, do you feel you have to prove your worth on a daily basis, or has your value been bestowed by God already?

     I guess the place to start is by asking what matters most to us in life.  Think about it.  What are our essential needs in life?  Perhaps no one has described better what our basic needs in life are than psychologist Abraham Maslow.  He developed what we call Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  The first things we need to consider are our physiological needs.  We need oxygen, food and water and, as he puts it, “a relatively consistent body temperature.”  As human beings, I suppose it’s quite obvious that those are our basic needs.

     Once our biological needs are met, then we can consider our safety needs.  We want a safe place to live, a secure environment for our families – that sort of thing.  Then we need love and affection and a sense of belonging.  If we can satisfy those needs – if our biological, security and sense of belonging needs are satisfied – then we deal with our self-esteem.  Humans, so says Maslow, have a need for a stable, firmly based, high level of self-respect AND respect from others.  This is the one that hangs us up, as we’ll see in a moment.  And finally, if all our other needs are met, we have a need for self-actualization.  In other words, we seek out a way to do what we feel we were born to do.  There you have it, our basic human needs in a nutshell.      

    The one we seem to have a problem with is the need for self-esteem.  We seem to think we can gain our self-esteem by way of material splendor.  The more we have, the happier we seem to be.  And better still if we have more than the next guy.  As someone once put it, “Some people want the front of the bus, the back of the church, and the center of attention!”  But listen to this.  Lillian Daniel addresses this issue in an article she wrote in The Christian Century entitled, “Affluent Christians.”  She writes:

David Myers, a professor of psychology at Hope College, believes that we – as a nation – are growing more unhappy and depressed.  Myers writes about the bad side of affluence.  Apparently too much money may buy a supersized case of the blues.  Today’s youth and young adults have grown up with much more affluence, slightly less overall happiness, a much greater risk of depression and a tripled teen suicide rate.  Never has a culture experienced such physical comfort combined with such psychological misery.  Never have we felt so free or had our prisons so overstuffed.  Never have we been so sophisticated about pleasure or so likely to suffer broken relationships.

     Wow!  What does that say about our current American culture?  Obviously, something is missing.  Obviously, having more and more things is not the answer.  Maybe the answer to      the question, “Who are you?” is not, “I am a consumer.”  Perhaps we can look to the passage   we read from the gospel according to Luke to find the answer to who we really are.

     You know the story.  It’s the story of the prodigal son.  It seems a man had two sons and the younger of the two came to his father and said, “Father, give me the share of property that falls to me.”  In other words, “I want what you’re going to give me anyway when you die.”  How’s that for an endearing conversation starter?

     We are not told how the father felt about his son’s request, we are only told that he did as he was asked.  So the son took the money and went to another country.  He squandered everything on what we might call “loose living.”  Just let your imagination run wild.  In the end, he had nothing left and wound up feeding pigs, yet even the pigs ate better than he did. 

     He began to recall how well his father’s servants lived.  He decided to return to his father and live as a hired hand.  He would beg for his father’s forgiveness and hope that he would not turn him away.  Yet what happened when his father saw him off in the distance?  His father ran to him and declared a celebration!  He put a robe on him, a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  He even killed the fatted calf – one they were likely saving for a special occasion – and hosted a sumptuous feast.

     I think Jesus tells that story to point out how precious each and every human being is to God.  God does not want any of us to be lost.  God wants us to repent and to return to him.  Unlike far too many human beings, God is guided by love, not by vengeance.  Again, God is guided by love, not by vengeance.

     It reminds me of a poem entitled, “Heaven.”  The author is unknown.  Listen closely to the words.

I was shocked, confused, bewildered

As I entered Heaven’s door,

Not by the beauty of it all,

The lights or its décor.

 

            No, it was the folks in Heaven

            Who made me sputter and gasp –

            The thieves, the liars, the sinners,

            The alcoholics and the trash.

 

There stood the kid from seventh grade

Who swiped my lunch loot twice.

By him was my old neighbor

Who said not one thing nice.

 

            Herb, who I always thought

            Was rotting away in hell,

            Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,

            Looking incredibly well.

 

 

I said to Jesus, “What’s the deal?

I’d love to hear your take.

How’d all these sinners get up here?

Did God make a mistake?

 

And why are folks so quiet?

            So somber – give me a clue.”

            “Hush, child,” he said, “they’re all in shock

            At the thought of seeing you!”

 

     Like I said, each and every human being is oh, so precious to God.  God does not want any lost, for God is motivated by love, not by vengeance.  But there remains the older brother, does there not?  The older brother had remained loyal to his father while the younger brother had squandered his inheritance.  When he came in from the fields that night, he saw a party taking place in the house.  After asking a servant what was going on, he was dismayed to say the least.  In fact, he refused to go into the house.

     His father came out and spoke to him.  He said to him, “All that is mine is yours.”  In other words, “Your faithfulness will be rewarded.  You don’t have to worry about that.”  But he also expressed his infinite joy in having his son return.  In spite of what the younger boy had done, the father still loved his son.  In spite of what we may have done, the Father loves us as well.

     That’s how the story ends.  We do not know if the older boy went in to the party, or whether he ever restored his relationship with his brother.  If he did, in fact, restore his relationship with his brother, there was one thing he needed to overcome.  He needed to overcome his own sense of self.

     Ladies and gentlemen, that is the secret to knowing who we are.  Each of us is one of six billion people here on earth, each of whom we can presume God loves equally.  Yet we are also like an only child in that we are the most precious thing in the world to God.  It’s quite a conundrum, isn’t it?  Yet in order to be truly reconciled to one another, and in order to be truly reconciled to God, we must overcome our own sense of self.  That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Those who would save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”  We must recognize that God has given us the best that he has to give: he gave us his Son.  And we must also recognize that God did so for a reason.  He did it that all the world might be saved.  We need not worry.  Everything the Father has to give to us will be ours.  We just need to recognize the fact that God has other children as well.

   Once upon a time, in a third grade classroom, there was a nine-year-old boy who wet his pants.  There was even a little puddle on the floor.  He thought his heart would stop because he could not imagine how it happened.  It had never happened before, and he knew that once the other boys found out they would never let him hear the end of it.  And once the girls found out, he would be ostracized.

  The boy was devastated, so he did the only thing he could think of to do.  He said a little prayer.  He said, “Dear God, this is an emergency!  I need help now!  Five minutes from now I’m dead meat!”  He looked up from his prayer and the teacher was approaching him with a look in her eyes that said he had been discovered.

     As the teacher was walking toward him, a classmate named Suzie was carrying a goldfish

bowl that was full of water.  Suzie tripped in front of the teacher and dumped the entire bowl of water in the boy’s lap.  The boy pretended to be angry, but all the while he said to himself, “Thank you, Lord!  Thank you, Lord!”

     All of a sudden, instead of being an object of ridicule, the boy was the object of sympathy.  The teacher took him downstairs and gave him a pair of gym shorts to wear while his pants dried out.  The other children cleaned up the mess around his desk.  But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his was transferred to someone else.  It was transferred to Suzie.  She tried to help clean up, but the other kids yelled at her, “You’ve done enough, you klutz!”

     Finally, at the end of the day, they were waiting for the bus.  The boy walked over to Suzie and whispered, “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”  Suzie whispered back, “I wet my pants one time, too.”

     In a silly story like that lies the key to who we are.  When we remember that all of us make mistakes, when we can put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, we can put ourselves aside for someone else’s sake.  Therein we just might find our ultimate happiness.  Amen.

    

 

 

 

           

  

    

 

9-20-2009 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

MAN OVERBOARD!

    Last Sunday morning, we talked at great length about nametags.  Of course, it wasn’t really a sermon about nametags, was it?  It was really a sermon about discipleship.  The question was asked, “How can we identify a healthy disciple?”  The following criteria were presented:

1.      Who is your Lord?  In other words, when everything is said and done, whose agenda are you truly following?

 

2.      Who are you?  At the beginning of each day, do you wake up thinking you’ll have to go out and win your own share of security and significance, or can you truly say that those are priceless gifts you have already received?

 

3.      Who is your Barnabas?  Barnabas spoke up for the Apostle Paul and was something of a mentor to him.  Who is your spiritual mentor, the one from whom you are learning how to follow Jesus Christ?

 

4.      Who is your Timothy?  Paul was something of a mentor to Timothy.  Who is your apprentice – the one to whom you are passing along the life lessons that God has entrusted you?

 

5.      Where is your Antioch?  Antioch, to Paul, was a safe haven where the call of God could find him.  What small group of friends is your safe haven that is helping you     to discern the will of God in your life?

 

6.      Where is your Macedonia?  This was a field of ministry for Paul.  What field of ministry is most closely aligned with God’s call on your life and hauntingly stirs     your deepest passion?

   Our focus this week will be on the first criteria of a healthy disciple: Who is your Lord?  In other words, when everything is said and done, whose agenda are you truly following?  Again, when everything is said and done, whose agenda are you truly following?

    In the passage we read from the gospel according to Mark, Jesus presents what we call his first passion prediction.  In other words, he was trying to tell his disciples of his impending crucifixion and resurrection.  He began by saying to his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”  They answered him, “Some say John the Baptist.  Others say Elijah or one of the prophets.”  Jesus said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”  It was Peter who first replied, “You are the Christ, Son of the Living God.”

     “You are the Christ, Son of the Living God.”  What does that really mean?  What does it mean to say that Jesus is the Christ, or to say that Jesus is the Messiah?  I think Jesus himself explains what it means in the verses that follow.  He says, “If any wish to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”  In other words, Jesus Christ must become Lord of our lives.  Jesus Christ must become the one who dictates the plan for our lives.

     And that’s all well and good, in theory.  The Apostle Paul points out what more often happens in reality.  Addressing the plight of humanity in the first chapter of Romans, he writes, “Ever since the creation of the world, God’s eternal power and divine nature – invisible though they are – have been understood and seen through the things he has made.  So people are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images (or idols)… Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”

     Can we safely say that there’s an element of that going on today?  Are not there those who worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator?  I propose that our entire mindset has been shifted to serve the creature rather than the Creator.  And one of the culprits in this transition is the advertizing industry.

     For example, if we don’t use the right shampoo, we’re going to end up with split ends or dandruff and be repulsive to those around us.  If we don’t use the right toothpaste, our teeth won’t be their whitest and that might keep us from getting the perfect job.  And if we don’t use the right deodorant or cologne, we won’t have crazed members of the opposite sex leaping on us in grocery store aisles.  The advertizing industry does its level best to convince us that without their product, our lives will not be full.  The advertizing industry does its level best to convince us to worship the creature rather than the Creator. 

     George MacDonald tries to set us right in his book, Creation in Christ.  He believes the opposite – that we should be worshiping the Creator rather than the creature.  He writes:

I will tell you.  Get up, and do something the Master tells you; so make yourself his disciple at once.  Instead of asking yourself whether you believe or not, ask yourself whether you have this day done one thing because he said, “Do it,” or once abstained because he said, “Do not do it.”  It is simply absurd to say you believe, or even want to believe in him, if you do not anything he tells you.  If you can think of nothing he ever said as having had an atom of influence on your doing or not doing, you have too good ground to consider yourself no disciple of his.

But you can begin at once to be a disciple of the Living One – by obeying him in the first thing you can think of in which you are not obeying him.  We must learn to obey him in everything, and so must begin somewhere.  Let it be at once, and in the very next thing that lies at the door of our conscience!  Oh fools and slow of heart, if you think of nothing but Christ, and do not set yourselves to do his words!  You but build your houses on the sand.

     To be a disciple of Jesus Christ is to be able to answer the question, “Who is my Lord?”  The answer, of course, is: “Jesus Christ is my Lord.”  And if Jesus Christ is truly your Lord, you will take up your cross and follow.  For if Jesus Christ is truly your Lord, you will do what he tells you to do.

     It won’t be easy and it won’t always be pleasant.  So the question now, I guess, is this: Is it worth it?  Why bother to be a disciple of Jesus Christ if it entails suffering and sacrifice?  Why even try to make Jesus my Lord?

     I think Glenn McDonald gives us a wonderful reason in his book, The Disciple Making Church.  I call this story, “Man Overboard!”  Listen to this:

To celebrate their fiftieth anniversary, my parents decided that they would host their own party.  They invited their three sons and three daughters-in-law to join them on a Caribbean cruise in February.  I don’t recall agonizing for very long over the invitation.  When someone hands you a free Get-Out-of-Indiana-in-February card, you take it.  Speaking as veteran cruise passengers, my parents gushed, “We’ll do all kinds of things together, and before dinner on the second day we’ll even get a chance to stand in line and meet the captain.”  I rolled my eyes and said to (my wife), “Don’t worry.  I’ll figure out a way to get us out of that one.”

The trip was wonderful.  Cruises are designed to be multisensory, it’s-all-about-me experiences for the guests.  At the end of the first evening of water-gazing and over-indulging in the dining room, we headed for bed.  While we slept the boat quietly cruised out into the open water beyond Puerto Rico.  At 4:48 a.m., however, everything changed.  We were awakened by a disembodied voice on the cabin intercom.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain.  I am very sorry to disturb you so early in the morning, but we have an urgent concern.  We have an unconfirmed report that a passenger has fallen overboard.  We have already turned the ship around and initiated a search.”  At that moment I realized for the first time that the boat was no longer moving.  The captain continued, “Please go to your room if you are not there at this time, and account for everyone in your party.  If anyone is missing, please report their name to the purser’s desk immediately.”

Thirty minutes passed.  Through our window we could see searchlights sweeping across the swells of black water in the pre-dawn darkness.  The U.S. and Dutch Coast Guards had arrived on the scene.  We found ourselves praying, “God, if anyone is out there alone in that ocean, may your mercy be upon him.”  The captain spoke a second time.  “Ladies and gentlemen, two men are currently unaccounted for.  Their names are John Garcia and Eric Armstrong.  If you know the whereabouts of either of these men, please bring word to us right away.”

There were 1700 guests on the cruise boat and more than 700 crew members.  From the list of 2400 passengers the captain had narrowed the search to just two individuals.  Fifteen minutes later he addressed us again.  “Ladies and gentlemen, we are looking for Eric Armstrong.”  The energies of everyone on board were now focused on the hunt for a solitary person.  Though he was a stranger to us, we all knew his name.

Two hours later the sun rose above the Caribbean.  Once again we heard the captain’s voice.  “Ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to tell you we have just found Eric Armstrong.  A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter is at this moment airlifting him to safety.    He appears to be in good condition.  Thank you for your cooperation during this time.”

     The successful search-and-rescue had a dramatic effect on the rest of the cruise.  Every passenger now knew: I’m sailing with someone who would turn this ship around  in the middle of the night and come looking for me.  Who was Eric Armstrong?  Was he a V.I.P.?  A U.S. senator?  The first mate?  Someone intimately related to the captain?  No, he was a 20-year-old man who at about 4:30 a.m. was in a restricted area and had apparently fallen off the bow while doing the Titanic thing – I’m king of the world!

Before dinner on that second day, there was no question what I wanted to do.  I stood in line to meet the captain.  I wanted to shake the hand of the man who I knew would pull out all the stops to find one lost person, even someone who was doing the wrong thing at the wrong place at the wrong time.

     McDonald concludes his story with these words.  “It occurred to me later that this is precisely what Jesus did on the cross.  He pulled out all the stops to launch a search-and-rescue for an entire world of lost people – a great many of whom remain oblivious to his very existence.”  So I ask you again: Why bother to be a disciple of Jesus Christ if it entails suffering and sacrifice?  Why even try to make Jesus my Lord?  That’s why.  Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice for us.  Can’t we make a little sacrifice for him?

     Leo Tolstoy points out that every person has to choose between two gods.  Most people opt for “the god who is here to serve me.”  The difficulty, as Tolstoy reminds us, is that such a god doesn’t exist.  Clinging to the expectation that Christ exists only to make me happy is a recipe for deep disappointment.  Tolstoy’s alternative is the God whom I myself am called to honor and serve.  The Lordship of Jesus Christ means waking up to the conviction that we have received the gift of life in order to do what Jesus wants us to do.  Perhaps we could even say that the cruise is not about us. The cruise…is about the captain.

     And don’t think for a minute that it doesn’t really matter.  Christ did not come just to save you and me.  Jesus Christ came to transform the world.  Chuck Colson recently wrote an interesting commentary on that very subject.  He wrote:

I see no hope for our culture if the Church is not revitalized.  Culture is religion incarnate, and culture shapes politics.  So if we’re going to change the direction of our society, the Church has to fulfill its role as the conscience of society.  Well, I can already hear you saying, “Isn’t worldview just an abstract subject that tweedy professors like to talk about?”  Emphatically, no!  Everybody’s got a worldview that determines how they live their lives.  The sum total of all the worldviews in our culture determines the kind of society we have.  And frankly, Christian are losing the worldview battle.

We need to teach the next generation what we believe, why we believe it, why it matters, and how it plays out in every walk of life.  Worldview determines how we form our families, what is taught in schools, what laws our communities pass, what kind of music we listen to, and what we believe about art and science.

The great apologist Francis Shaeffer was right when he said that Christians must be missionaries to their own culture. Our culture speaks a different language, and thinks differently, than Christians do.  And if we don’t understand this, we can’t communicate effectively with our non-believing neighbors.

I pray fervently that there will be a mighty movement of God’s people learning and then teaching a Christian worldview to others.  If we don’t, if we sit passively in our pews, we’re going to witness the world collapsing – or perhaps I should say finish collapsing – all around us.

     To be a disciple of Jesus Christ is to be able to answer the question, “Who is my Lord?”  Don’t think for a minute that it doesn’t matter.  Amen.   

 

9-13-2009 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THAWING THE FROZEN CHOSEN

     There is a website called JARGON DATABASE.COM.  Jargon, of course, is defined as the technical terminology used by a particular group of people.  For example, there is such a thing as political jargon.  Computer programmers certainly have their own unique jargon.  One could even say that there is such a thing as religious jargon.  People outside the faith are not likely to understand what Christians mean when they say sacrificial lamb, regeneration, or even The Apostles’ Creed.

     JARGON DATABASE.COM defines some of our religious jargon.  For example, they explain that a believer’s baptism is a baptism performed on someone who has made a profession   of faith.  To join the choir invisible is to die and to go to heaven.  They also define the term, “God’s Frozen People.”  God’s Frozen People is defined as, “a wry term for Episcopalians; not considered derogatory.”  I’m not so sure about the derogatory part, but that’s what it says.

     JARGON DATABASE.COM also defines the term, “Frozen Chosen.”  In fact, they claim that the term Frozen Chosen is looked up more than any other word.  How do they define Frozen Chosen?  It says this: “Frozen Chosen – Presbyterians.  This particular flavor of the Protestant faith is known fairly accurately for a quiet, reserved manner.”  JARGON DATABASE.COM says that the definition of Frozen Chosen…is Presbyterian.  The question we have to ask is this: Is it true?  More specifically, is it true of our church?

     Now before I get into all of that, I need to tell you a story.  I told this story in a sermon just a few weeks ago, so my apologies to those of you who heard it then.  But once we get to where we’re going this morning, I think you’ll understand why I had to tell it again. 

   His name was Bill.  Bill had wild hair.  He wore a T-shirt with holes in it, tattered jeans and ratty sandals.  This was literally Bill’s wardrobe for his entire four years of college.  But Bill was bright.  And Bill had also become a Christian while he was in college.

     Across the street from his apartment was a very well-to-do and a very prim and proper Presbyterian Church.  Sure, they had talked about welcoming people who were not the same as them, but they weren’t exactly sure how to do so.  One Sunday morning, Bill decided to attend a worship service there.  He walked into the church wearing the very same thing he always wore – a T-shirt with holes in it, tattered jeans and ratty sandals.

     By the time Bill arrived, the service had already started.  Bill walked down the aisle looking for a place to sit, but the people were already in their favorite pews and no one was willing to move over.  By this time, people were getting a bit uncomfortable, but of course, nobody said a word.

     Bill got closer and closer to the pulpit and when he realized there were no seats left, he simply plopped right down on the floor.  The tension in the church was so thick you could have cut it with a knife.  About this time, from the back of the church, an elder started slowly making his way toward Bill.  This elder was in his eighties, had silver hair and wore a three-piece suit – a Godly man – very elegant, very dignified, very refined.  He walked with a cane, and he began making his way toward Bill.  Everyone thought to themselves that you couldn’t really blame the elder for what he was about to do.  How could you expect a man of his age and his back-ground to tolerate some college kid on the floor?

    It seemed to take an eternity for the elder to reach the boy on the floor.  The church was utterly silent except for the clicking of the man’s cane on the floor.  All eyes were focused on him; you could have heard a pin drop.  Even the minister couldn’t start his sermon until the elder did what the elder had to do.

     Then the congregation saw this elderly man drop his cane on the floor. With great difficulty, he lowered himself and sat down next to Bill so he wouldn’t have to worship alone.  Everyone was choked up with emotion.

     The minister then strode to the pulpit and said, “What I’m about to preach, you will likely never remember.  But what you have just seen, you will likely never forget!

     Isn’t that a wonderful story?  I told that story in a sermon a few weeks ago.  Two days later, we received the following e-mail from someone who was there.  Listen closely:

            Dear Dr. Jensen,

This past Sunday, my wife and I and our grandson attended your church for the 8:30 service.  Our grandson recently moved to Meadville and has been looking for a church to regularly attend.  Your church certainly is a beautiful one and we did enjoy your sermon, entitled, Fair Weather Friends.  However, unlike the old elder who sat on the floor alongside the poorly dressed guest, I doubt anyone at this service would do the same.  We were guests at your church, and no one greeted us or made us feel welcome or – in our grandson’s case – suggest that he come again and that they would be glad to have him.  Now perhaps if we would have filled out the cards, etc. that you mentioned, things would have been different.  I doubt this very much.  I was raised in a Presbyterian church, but have attended a Methodist church for the past 50 years.  After attending your church, I’m glad we do.  I’d much rather attend where people are friendly and make an effort to greet strangers and make them feel welcome and at home.

     That’s the letter in a nutshell.  Now please don’t misunderstand.  I tell this not to make anyone feel bad.  I tell this simply to point out the fact that we have a problem.  This, my friends, cannot continue to happen.  I look at it as a wakeup call.  I look at it as a way of thawing the frozen chosen.

     We talked about this letter at a staff meeting and at a session meeting.  We came up with a number of suggestions.  One was nametags – blue ones for members, red ones for visitors.  Another suggestion was that we greet one another during the worship service itself.  Someone suggested that we have a group of people – a group of people who like people, that is – who go around the sanctuary greeting everyone.  Someone suggested better greeter and usher training.  The list goes on and on.

     Thus, we’re going to be doing a greeting every Sunday morning, at both services.  And I’m asking you to please start wearing nametags.  Lyle Schaller, the guru on church growth and leadership in the 1980s, once said that if a church expects to grow, everyone will wear nametags!  So we’ll have blue nametags for members and we’ll have red nametags for visitors.  That way, we’ll be able to identify who’s who.  That way, you can’t walk up to someone and say, “Are you visiting with us this morning?” only to have them retort, “I’ve been a member of this church for 35 years!”  Please, please, please wear the nametags.

     Perhaps the root of our problem is discipleship.  Consider the passage I read from the gospel according to Matthew.  It says, “When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’”

     The “harvest” to which Jesus referred are the people God wishes to be a part of his kingdom.  You encounter them every day of your lives in the world, but you especially encounter them when they visit our church.  The laborers are the people who are supposed to bring the people to Christ.  The laborers then were obviously Jesus’ disciples.  Today those laborers are you and me.  We are called to bring people to Christ.  At the very least, we need to welcome the ones who visit our church, don’t you think?

     Glenn McDonald addresses what’s been happening in Protestant churches regarding this issue in his book, The Disciple Making Church.  He writes:

Classically, North American congregations have relied on a single individual to generate church-wide progress in bringing people to Christ.  That person is the pastor.  For roughly 300 years, Protestant pastors have been charged with the spiritual development of everyone within the church’s reach – a mission to be accomplished through preaching, teaching, worship leadership, counseling, direction of appropriate boards and committees, home visitation, correspondence, administration, janitorial duties, praying at civic functions, and whatever other ‘hats’ might be required apparel at a particular church.  The ultimate issue therefore becomes: How can we expose a maximum number of people to the work of our pastor, so that he or she can work a maximum amount of spiritual magic?

     The pastor can’t do it alone.  The pastor can’t be a disciple for you.  Each and every one of you needs to become a disciple yourself.  We’re going to be wrestling with this issue of discipleship in the weeks that lie ahead.  For now, let me just say this.  How can we identify a healthy disciple?  Again, how can we identify a healthy disciple?  A disciple is someone who can answer – with ever-growing conviction and understanding – the following six questions.

1.      Who is your Lord?  In other words, when everything is said and done, whose agenda are you truly following?

2.      Who are you?  At the beginning of each day, do you wake up thinking you’ll have to go out and win your own share of security and significance, or can you truly say that those are priceless gifts you have already received?

3.      Who is your Barnabas?  Barnabas spoke up for the Apostle Paul and was something of a mentor to him.  Who is your spiritual mentor, the one from whom you are learning how to follow Jesus Christ?

4.      Who is your Timothy?  Paul was something of a mentor to Timothy.  Who is your apprentice, the one to whom you are passing along the lessons that God has entrusted you?

5.      Where is your Antioch?  What small group of friends is helping you to discern God’s will for your life?

6.      Where is your Macedonia?  What field of ministry is most closely aligned with God’s call on your life and hauntingly stirs your deepest passion?

          As we wrestle with these questions and seek God’s answers to them in the weeks that lie ahead, perhaps our church will become a different kind of place.  Perhaps we’ll start to become better disciples ourselves.  Perhaps we’ll even begin thawing the frozen chosen.  Amen.