5-23-2010 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

KNEE HIGH BY THE FOURTH OF JULY

    Once upon a time, a little girl was sitting at the kitchen table watching her mother do dishes.  She noticed that her mother had several long strands of white hair that really stood out on her brunette head.  Naturally, the little girl felt compelled to point that out.  “Mommy,” she asked, “why are some of your hairs turning white?”

     Her mother replied, “Every time a mother’s little girl does something bad or makes her cry, one of her hairs turns white.”  I’m not sure that’s a good thing to say to a child, but that’s what this mother said.  The little girl thought about that for a moment and then replied, “Mommy, is that why all of grandma’s hairs are white?”  That, my friends, is what we euphemistically refer to as “turning the tables.”  One little girl clearly turned the tables on her mother.

     In the passage we read from Acts, I suspect a lot of the Jews in Jerusalem felt as if the tables had been turned on them, as well.  As our passage notes, it was the day of Pentecost.  Perhaps we Christians think of Pentecost as a Christian holiday, but it was a Jewish holiday first.  It was one of three great festivals which every male Jew living within twenty miles of Jerusalem was expected to attend.  The feast of Pentecost was significant to the Jews.  It commemorated Moses’ reception of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.  It had an agricultural significance as well.  An offering was given to God on Pentecost in thanksgiving for the harvest.  They had done the work of cultivation, but they truly believed that it was God who provided the growth.  The point is that Jerusalem would have been full to overflowing as they celebrated the Jewish feast of Pentecost.

     Why would some of the Jews have felt as if the tables had been turned on them?  Some seven weeks before, the leaders of the Jewish faith had seen to it that a rabble-rouser named Jesus was crucified.  They had hoped that would be the end of Jesus and his message, but apparently it wasn’t.  His disciples were still in Jerusalem.  As they were gathered together in one place, suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind.  There appeared to them tongues as of fire that came and rested upon every one of them.  They were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.  Apparently the Jesus movement was still alive and well, and now it would be even more difficult to contain.  Like I said, I suspect there were some Jews in Jerusalem that day who felt as if the tables had been turned on them.           

   In the Christian Church we call this event the Day of Pentecost.  To us it signifies the disciples’ reception of the Holy Spirit.  What really happened on that day?  Luke, the author of the book of Acts – the same Luke who wrote the gospel according to Luke – tells us that when the tongues of fire rested upon the disciples, they began to speak in foreign languages.  Remember, there were literally thousands of people gathered in Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost.  They would have come from many lands and they would have spoken many languages.  The disciples managed to speak in the native tongues of all who were gathered there. We call this phenomenon glossolalia, which means literally, “speaking in marvelous, heavenly languages.”

     That’s the way I’ve always interpreted the glossolalia of Pentecost.  The disciples spoke in the native tongues of all who were gathered in Jerusalem for the feast.  In fact, that’s what Luke literally says.  In verse 4 he writes, “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”  Luke clearly tells us that speaking in tongues has to do with speaking a language that everyone can understand.

     Yet William Barclay, a biblical commentator for whom I have the utmost respect, takes issue with that interpretation.  He notes that Luke is really writing about an event at which he was not in attendance.  He tells the story as if the disciples suddenly acquired the gift of speaking in foreign languages…as if the gift of the Spirit was like a crash-course in Rosetta Stone.  Yet there was in the early Church a phenomenon that’s recorded on numerous occasions, most vividly in the 14^th chapter of the first book of Corinthians.  What would happen is that someone – in an ecstatic trance – would begin to pour out a flood of unintelligible sounds in no known language.  This speech was believed to be directly inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, and was a gift that was greatly coveted.  To speak in tongues meant that you had the Spirit!  Perhaps glossolalia is not so easily explained away.  William Barclay writes:

It seems most likely that Luke, a Gentile, had confused speaking in tongues with speaking in foreign languages.  What happened was that for the first time in their lives this motley mob was hearing the word of God in a way that struck straight home to their hearts and (that) they could understand.  The power of the Spirit was such that it had given these simple disciples a message that could reach every heart.

   When all is said and done, I really think that’s the point.  Whether the disciples spoke in foreign languages or whether they uttered the unintelligible sounds of heaven is inconsequential.  What matters most is that the people gathered in Jerusalem that day heard the word of God in a way that went straight to their hearts.  The disciples spoke a Spirit-filled message that everyone understood.

   Frankly, I think that’s the goal of preaching as well.  The goal of the preached word is a message that everyone understands.  The goal of the preached word is to speak in a way that goes straight to the heart of the hearer.  Yet how can that be done?  How can the preached word go straight to the heart of the hearer?   

     It’s a two-fold process, really.  Theologians tell us that the preached word is the word of God.  It’s not the preacher’s words that are the word of God rather, it’s the Holy Spirit working through the words of the preacher and in the minds of the hearers that make it the word of God.  Thus, the preacher has a grave responsibility in preaching.  He or she must construct a sermon through careful exegesis and through diligent prayer.  Yet the hearer has a grave responsibility as well.    I think Jesus describes the responsibility of the hearer quite well in a parable he told in the gospel according to Matthew.

     Jesus said, “A sower went out to sow.  As he sowed some seeds fell along the path and the birds came and devoured them.  Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they had not much soil, and immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched; and since they had no root they withered away.  Other seeds fell upon thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.  Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

   When Jesus told this parable, his disciples failed to understand.  So Jesus later explained it to them.  He said, “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart; this is what was sown along the path.  As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself…and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.  As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the delight of riches choke the word and it proves unfruitful.  As for what was sown on good soil, this is he who hears the word and understands it.  He indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

   The message here is clear.  For the word of God to pierce our hearts, we must somehow prove to be good soil.  And that takes a little effort on our parts.  Here’s one way to start.  Begin and end every day with prayer.  Thank God for the simple beating of your heart in the morning and thank God for the gift of the day at night.  Remember, prayer isn’t meant to change God.  Prayer is meant to change us.  Daily prayer just might change us, and it will help to make us good soil.  And do more with your Bible than set it on the coffee table for when the minister comes by for a visit.  Open it up and read it.  Start with the gospel of Matthew and read at least a chapter a day.  As we become more God-centered, the word of God will come to have new meaning for us.  Like I said, the hearer has some responsibility in the preaching event as well.  If we come to worship unprepared, the preached word will never reach our hearts.

   I think of an old farming analogy.  Farmers in the Midwest, when speaking of their corn crop, always say, “knee high by the fourth of July.”  If corn is to be “knee high by the fourth of July,” the field must be plowed ahead of time, the seed must be planted ahead of time, and the crops must be fertilized ahead of time.  God will provide the requisite sunshine and rain but the farmer clearly has some responsibility in this as well.  Encountering the word of God is really quite similar.  God will provide the seed, but we still have to cultivate the soil in which that seed is planted.  We must first prepare ourselves to receive the word of God.  Amen.  

5-16-2010 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

YOUR FAITH HAS MADE YOU WELL

     One of the things a lot of people in the church these days claim to be a primary need or desire for them is spiritual growth.  Of course, there is perhaps no greater way to enhance spiritual growth than by being a part of a small group Bible study. After all, faith was never meant to be lived in isolation.  Faith has always been intended to be lived in community.  And, truth be told, there’s really no such thing as the term that’s become so popular today: “spiritual but not religious.”  I’ll delve into that another time.

     In this particular church we have what is called the ChristCare small group ministry.  If you are truly interested in spiritual growth, you would be wise to seek to be a part of a ChristCare small group.  It does require the setting aside of a couple of nights a month, but hey…anything really worth having takes a little effort on our part, wouldn’t you say?  That’s my ChristCare commercial for the day. 

     My wife and I are part of a ChristCare small group.  Our small group met just last Tuesday night.  During the course of our evening’s conversation, one of our small group leaders – a retired teacher – said that when he was in the classroom, he always allowed for a moment of silence amongst the students before he gave a test.  He was asked if he led the class in prayer.  He said that he didn’t, but this moment of silence gave the students time to pray if they wanted to pray.  I had to laugh and repeat an old adage I heard many years ago.  I said, “Ah, as long as there are math tests, there will be prayer in school!”

     As long as there are math tests, there will be prayer in school.  What does that mean?  That means that math is hard and we are wont to turn to a higher source when we face a difficult task.  I can remember literally praying in seminary on more than one occasion, “Lord, if you really want me to be a minister, then you’re going to have to help me pass this Greek test!”  We are wont to turn to a higher source when we face a difficult task.  Tests are one thing.  Health concerns are another.  Have you ever faced a situation in your life where you or a loved one was diagnosed with cancer, or heart disease, or Alzheimer’s, or Parkinson’s?  You feel absolutely helpless in such a situation.  Why, it’s almost as if you’ve walked off a cliff and you’re waiting to fall, or to somehow be lifted up.  We turn to God when we face the most dire circumstances in our lives, because – truth be told – we have nowhere else to turn.

     Such was the case with Jairus in the passage we read from the gospel according to Mark.     He was facing dire circumstances and he felt he had nowhere else to turn.  Jairus was a leader    in the synagogue.  That meant that he was a rich and powerful man and that he held a position   of great authority.  Back in those days people attributed great personal wealth to the grace of God instead of to their own dogged determination, but that’s another sermon.  Jairus had likely heard rumors of the power Jesus had to heal, but going to see Jesus was risky business for him.  The leaders of the Jewish faith were none too keen on this “Jesus” who constantly seemed to be upsetting the apple cart…who constantly seemed to be upsetting their apple cart.

   Yet Jairus had deep need.  You see, Jairus had a little girl who was very sick.  She was nearly at the point of death.  Jairus loved his little girl.  There is a special bond between fathers and daughters.  Fathers love their sons, but they somehow see their sons as extensions of themselves.  Fathers don’t see their little girls that way.  Fathers see their little girls as precious and delicate flowers – as something they need to hold and protect and never let go.  Ask any father who’s had to walk his little girl up the aisle at her wedding.  We never want to let them go!  There is a special bond between fathers and daughters.  Jairus’ daughter was sick and Jairus was willing    to move heaven and earth to make her well.  Thus, Jairus went to Jesus despite any grumbling he might hear from his peers.

     Jairus said to Jesus, “My little girl is at the point of death.  Come and lay your hands on her   so that she might be made well and live.”  Now we don’t know why she was sick or what dreaded disease she may have had.  All we know is that Jairus was desperate and that he believed Jesus could make her well.  Jesus was obviously moved by Jairus’ faith – and by his love for his daughter – so he agreed to go and see the girl.

     As they made their way to Jairus’ house, a large crowd followed them and was pressing upon them from every side.  That’s where our story takes a rather peculiar turn.  As it says in verse 25, “Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.  She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; yet she was no better, but rather grew worse.”  The focus in the story has shifted from Jairus and his daughter to a woman with a medical problem. 

   The woman in the story likely suffered from a condition that was fairly common in those days, but which was very hard to heal.  The Jewish Talmud itself gave no fewer than eleven cures for this malady.  Some of them were tonics or astringents.  Some of them were sheer superstitions, like carrying the ashes of an ostrich egg in a linen rag in the summer and a cotton rag in the winter, or carrying a barley corn which had been found in the dung of a white female donkey.  Can you imagine?  No doubt this poor woman had tried all the remedies and superstitions and had found no relief.  The trouble was that this condition not only affected her health, it also rendered her what they called “ritually unclean.”  It would have shut her off from the worship   of God and it would have ostracized her from her friends.  This was a woman who was nothing   short of desperate.  Thus, she hatched a plan.

     The woman reasoned that if she could make her way through the crowd and just touch the hem of Jesus’ robe, then she would be made well.  It was a desperate act by a desperate woman, but it was the only hope she had.  She saw Jesus making his way through the crowded city street.  She likely wedged her way between many others and in one desperate lunge, managed to touch the fringe of his robe.  And immediately upon touching that robe, she knew she had been healed.

     But then something happened that she hadn’t expected.  Jesus suddenly stopped and said, “Who touched me?”  His disciples looked at him incredulously.  “What are you talking about?” they said.  “Look at the crowd.  They’re pressing in from every side.  How can you say, ‘Who touched me?’”  But Jesus knew what had happened.  The woman then approached him in trembling and in fear.  She fell at his feet and confessed what she had done.  Then Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.  Go in peace and be healed of your disease.”  In other words, it wasn’t Jesus’ magic robe that healed her of her disease.  It was her faith in the Son of God that had really done the trick.  It was God who had healed her, not some tactic gleaned from a book or some far-fetched superstition.

     The message here is clear.  When all else fails, turn to God.  That’s what this woman did and she found her healing.  That’s what Jairus did, and we later discover that Jesus actually raised his daughter from the dead.  And that’s what we do when we come face to face with a math test or even some dread disease.  When all else fails, turn to God.  Keep that though in mind as we move forward.

     I’ve been reading an intriguing book of late entitled Vital Signs: The Promise of Mainstream Protestantism.  It was written by Milton Coalter, John Mulder and Louis Weeks.  I actually know those guys.  Milton Coalter was the librarian at the Louisville Seminary when I was there.  John Mulder was the President and Lou Weeks was the Dean of Students.  The book, however, is a little depressing.  It speaks at great length about the decline of the mainline church: denominations like Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist and Episcopalian to name a few.  The authors talk about how family worship was once a priority in America, but is so no longer.  They talk about how being a Christian was once a cultural expectation, but is so no longer.  Coalter, Mulder and Weeks put it this way:

For adults, church attendance and membership are increasingly a matter of choice, rather than an expected or encouraged pattern of behavior.  The church is one option among many for support or for the use of one’s time.  Contemporary American culture provides little encouragement to make the church a priority. 

     I suspect that comes as little surprise to those who raised their children in the church and now see their adult children choosing other options on Sunday mornings.  It breaks their hearts to see their grown children opt not to raise their own children in the church.  That’s why we see grandparents bringing grandchildren to church more and more every day.  That’s why we see membership and worship declines in the church more and more every day.  Like I said earlier, people refer to themselves as spiritual but not religious.  Of course, there is no such thing, but that seems to be beside the point.  Ah, the church is but one option among many for support or for the use of one’s time.  Contemporary American culture provides little encouragement to make the church a priority.  I told you the book was depressing, didn’t I?

     Yet the book’s title is Vital Signs: The Promise of Mainstream Protestantism.  Well if that’s the title, then there have to be some vital signs of hope in the church, don’t you think?  They do list a number of vital signs, but for the sake of time I’m only going to mention a few.  One of the vital signs is that the situation in today’s society provides an opportunity for an “awakening.”  An “awakening” is a time of religious renewal and revival.  Perhaps the time is ripe for a new Great Awakening.  The theory is that eventually people will say, “Enough is enough.” 

     Another vital sign is what they call the contribution of racial-ethnic minorities.  As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “America is never so segregated as it is at 11:00 on Sunday mornings.”  That’s the truth.  Maybe it’s time for that to change.  Another vital sign is a renewed dependence upon the word of God in Scripture.  Christians have always been known as “the people of the book.”  Maybe it’s time we became that again.  Coalter, Mulder and Weeks conclude, “In the midst of these changes, we are convinced that the Holy Spirit is creating something new in American mainstream Protestantism. A central task of the church at this time is to listen and respond to the leading of the Spirit, rather than becoming paralyzed and passive.” 

    Ladies and gentlemen, that is exactly what we are trying to do at the First Presbyterian Church of Meadville.  We recently formed a Church Revitalization Task Force aimed at transforming the decline in our own church.   At a recent congregational luncheon, we talked about our church being like a half a cup of water.  The question is, “Is the cup half empty, or is the cup half full?”  You see, if the cup is half full, we are grateful to God for all that we have.  If the cup is half empty, we will forever feel as if we have somehow been shortchanged.  We will constantly seek to have or to get more…and we’ll do nothing but complain until we get it.  We concluded that our cup was half full, and we listed many of the strengths of our congregation.  Among them were the following:

1.      Worship,

2.      Music,

3.      Staff,

4.      Stephen Ministry,

5.      ChristCare small groups,

6.      Congregational luncheons,               

7.      Youth programs, and

8.      Relationships.

     There were more items listed, but you get the gist of it.  Our cup is indeed half full.  We have a great deal to offer.  From this discussion, it was suggested that we need to create a new climate in our church.  As someone wisely put it, “In my opinion, you clean your house before you invite a bunch of new people over.”  I think that’s very well put.  Erma Bombeck would be proud!  The question is: How, exactly, do we clean our house?  How, exactly, do we create this new climate?

     I think of the passage we read from the gospel according to Mark.  A man named Jairus was faced with a situation that was beyond his capacity to resolve.  A woman with a flow of blood was faced with a situation that was beyond her capacity to resolve, as well.  What did they do?  They turned to God.  The solution to their situations was beyond their own capacity to resolve, so they turned to God.  Perhaps that’s how we create a new climate in our church as well.  We may not have all the answers now, but God knows what the answers are.  God is the One who can heal us of our disease.

  And that’s exactly what our Church Revitalization Task Force concluded last Wednesday night.  How do we create a new climate?  We need to turn that question over to God.  We need to pray.  We need to become a praying congregation.  We need to become a people that loves its church so much that we are willing to trust its future to God.  Thus I urge you as strongly as I can: Pray for your congregation.  Pray that the Holy Spirit of God would move mightily in our midst.  Then trust in God to provide the solution we need. 

     I believe it was Eugene Peterson who once said, “The most important thing a minister can do for a congregation is teach it to pray.”  If everyone in this church could learn to pray to God for our congregation’s well-being, then I will have done my job.  And Jesus will say to you as he said to the woman he healed, “Your faith has made you well.”  Amen.

 

 

 

 

5-2-2010 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

DOUGHNUTS ARE NEVER BIG ENOUGH

    Last Tuesday night my wife and I had both been at work all day long, then gone to a volleyball game at Maplewood, and I’d just gotten home from working out at the Y.M.C.A.  It was probably 9:00 p.m. as I flopped into my chair in the living room.  I was literally down for the count.  That’s when my wife reminded me that we were out of dog food.  She said, “Let’s go   get the dog food, then let’s go to Tim Horton’s.”

     Now normally I’m the one to suggest going to Tim Horton’s – and it may have been a ploy just to get me to go along – but out we both went just the same.  We got the dog food and then we went to Tim Horton’s.  We were graciously served by our church’s own Andrew Bartoe, nattily attired in his best Tim Horton’s brown.  I had a cup of coffee and a doughnut and my wife had a carton of milk and a doughnut.  Okay, I had a bagel and cream cheese too, but that’s beside the point.  As my wife finished her doughnut, she wistfully sighed and said, “Doughnuts are never big enough.”         

     Doughnuts are never big enough.  As she said that, I thought of two things.  First of all, I thought: What a great sermon title!  And second: What an intriguing philosophical statement!  Doughnuts are never big enough, just as the most precious and sacred moments of our lives are far too fleeting.  They are here for but a short time, and in an instant they are gone.

     I think of my mother’s reaction every time we leave Arizona.  As you know, my parents live in the Phoenix, Arizona area.  My mother’s health is such that she and my father can no longer travel to Pennsylvania.  And Phoenix is so far from here that my family and I only get down there about once a year.  Every single time we get ready to leave Arizona and travel back to Pennsylvania, my mother says the very same thing.  She says, “I can’t believe it’s been a week already!”  Ah, doughnuts are never big enough.  Doughnuts are never big enough, and the most precious and sacred moments of our lives are far too fleeting.  They are here for but a short time and in an instant they are gone.

     That’s probably a good summation of how the disciples felt in the passage we read from the gospel according to John.  They had just finished sharing what would come to be known as their “Last Supper” with Jesus.  Soon they would head to the Garden of Gethsemane where he would be arrested, and you know what happened after that.  Three years they had spent with the Master – not a lifetime, to be sure – but it was time enough for him to have grown on each and every  one of them.  They watched as he healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, and mended the lame.  They listened as he spoke of a kingdom that had no end.  The more they saw – the more they heard – the more they came to love this man called Jesus with a love they had never known before.  Only now he would be leaving them.  Doughnuts are never big enough.  Surely they,   too, felt as if the most precious and sacred moments of our lives are far too fleeting.  They are here for but a short time and in an instant they are gone.

     Like I said, the disciples had just finished sharing what would come to be known as their “Last Supper” with Jesus.  During that last supper, Jesus instituted what we now know as the sacrament of communion.  After giving thanks to God, Jesus broke the bread and said, “Take, eat, this is my body broken for you.  This do in remembrance of me.”  Then in the same manner after supper Jesus took the cup saying, “This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood.    Whenever you drink of it, do so remembering me.”  In this simple act Jesus revealed something to the disciples that they did not understand at the time.  Jesus was showing them that spiritually, he would always be with them.  That very same promise is ours when we partake of the sacrament of communion as well.

     Interestingly enough, we find the institution of the sacrament of communion in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.  John does not tell us of the sacrament of communion.  Instead, John paints a different picture.  After supper, Jesus filled a basin with water and girded himself with a towel.  Then he began to wash his disciples’ filthy, dirty feet.  As you heard me say a couple of weeks ago, this was a task that was typically reserved only for the lowest of the low.  Yet here was the Lord of life, washing his disciples’ feet.  After he had done so he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you?  You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am.  So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another’s feet.”

     The passage we read from the gospel of John occurs shortly after the foot washing.  There Jesus says, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and in him God is glorified.”  At last Jesus’ hour had come.  “Now is the Son of man glorified,” Jesus says, and because the Son of man is glorified, God will be glorified as well.  How was Jesus to be glorified?  Well, what was about to happen?  Jesus was about to be crucified, was he not?  In other words, it was through Jesus’ crucifixion that he would be glorified, and through him, God would be glorified as well.

   We need to take a look at what it means to be glorified.  The Greek word for “glorified” is “hedoxasthay.”  It means literally, “to make visible.”  Thus, in this context, to glorify God is to make visible the presence of God.  Jesus’ crucifixion makes visible the presence of God. 

     I think of a line from what we call The Shorter Catechism.  The Shorter Catechism is taken from what we call The Westminster Confession of Faith.  The Westminster Confession of Faith was written in 1646 by a group of Calvinists and Puritans trying to establish the Protestant faith in England and Scotland.  The Rev. John Wallis – also a geometry professor at Oxford – later wrote The Shorter Catechism to help children understand The Westminster Confession.  Sorry  to muddy the waters here, but that’s what The Shorter Catechism is.  Like I said, on the subject of glorifying God, I think of a line from what we call The Shorter Catechism.

     The question is asked, “What is the chief end of man?”  Pardon the sexist language, but remember the era in which it was written.  The question is asked, “What is the chief end of man?”  In other words, “What is the role of humanity in the world?” or even, “What is the purpose of human life?”  The answer is, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”  The chief end of humanity is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.  In other words,    the purpose of our very lives is to glorify God.  The purpose of our very lives is to make visible the presence of God.  And when we do so, we will enjoy God forever.

     So just exactly how do we glorify God?  Just exactly how do we make visible the presence   of God?  Do we, too, have to climb up on a cross and die?  Actually, I think Jesus tells us how that is done in the next few lines of our passage.  There Jesus says, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”        Thus, Jesus has commanded his disciples to love one another, and he has given them the perfect example of how to do so.  The perfect example of how to love is first revealed in Jesus washing his disciples’ feet.  And the perfect example of how to love is further revealed by Jesus willingly going to the cross for our poor sakes.  We might go so far as to say that love is modeled in the foot washing and enacted fully in his crucifixion.  In any case, what Jesus is saying is this: Love is the way that God is glorified, and love necessarily implies humility and self-sacrifice.  Again, love is the way that God is glorified, and love necessarily implies humility and self-sacrifice. 

     Now since Mother’s Day is next week, and since we have our annual Mother’s Day musical and I don’t get to preach, let me give you a “motherly” illustration of this.  Once upon a time, a man stopped outside a flower shop to order some flowers to be sent to his mother who lived 200 miles away.  As he got out of his car, he noticed a little girl, sitting on the curb, crying her eyes out.  He asked her what was wrong and she replied, “I wanted to buy a red rose for my mother.  But I only have 75 cents and a rose costs two dollars.”  The man smiled and said, “Come into the store with me.  We’ll get a rose for your mother.”  He bought the little girl a rose and ordered the flowers to be delivered to his mother.  As they were leaving, he offered to drive the little girl home.  She said, “Thank you very much.  You can take me to see my mother.”

     The little girl directed him on where to drive.  It wasn’t long before they arrived at a cemetery. There the little girl placed her rose on a freshly-dug grave.  The man returned to the flower shop and cancelled the flowers that were scheduled to be delivered to his mother.  Then he picked up a bouquet and drove the 200 miles to his mother’s house.  Love necessarily implies humility and self-sacrifice.  How sad it is that we must so often learn these things the hard way.

Yet it is through such love that God is glorified.

     The purpose of our lives is to glorify God, and we glorify God by loving one another.  Jesus said to his disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.”  Yet there are many kinds of love, are there not?  There is the love of a husband for a wife.  There is the love of a mother for a child.  There is love between best friends, and then there is the love of which Jesus speaks here.  I think Frederick Buechner describes the love of which Jesus speaks quite well in his book, The Magnificent Defeat.  He writes:

The love for equals is a human thing…of friend for friend or brother for brother.  It is     to love what is lovely and loving.  The world smiles.  The love for the less fortunate is     a beautiful thing…the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor; the sick, the failures, the unlovely.  This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.

 

The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing…to love those who succeed where we   fail; to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice; the love of the poor for the rich,      or the (servant for the master).  The world is always bewildered by its saints.

 

And then there is the love for the enemy…love for the one who does not love you, but mocks, threatens and inflicts pain.  The tortured’s love for the torturer.  This is God’s love.  It conquers the world.

     Thus far, we’ve pretty much been speaking on an individual level.  It occurs to me, however,

 that maybe there’s more to it than that.  Maybe that’s the purpose of the Church as well.  The Church is called to glorify God.  And the Church glorifies God when it learns to love the ones    it is called to serve.  And that’s what we’ve got to figure out.  Who are we called to serve, and how can we best love them?

     But before we get to that, I think we need to look at our lives as if they were a cup of water.  The cup contains half a cup of water.  The question is: “Is the cup half full, or is the cup half empty?”  It’s a very important question.  When our cup is half full, we are grateful to God for what is in our lives.  Yet when our cup is half empty, we will always feel that we’ve been short-changed.  We will always be seeking to have or to gain more.  One of these ways is the way of God.  One of these ways is the way of the world.  I’ll let you decide which is which.

     When we learn to see that our cups are half full…when we come to love not just those who love us in return, but also the poor, and the successful, and those who actually oppose us, then God is glorified.  Those are precious and sacred moments.  Yet in reality, moments like this are far too fleeting.  They are here for but a short time and then they are gone.  Ah, doughnuts are never big enough, are they?  So do what I like to do.  Order two.  Amen.