8-28-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THE WAY: PART VIII

    Back on the 15^th of May, we began a sermon series based upon John 14:6.  There Jesus says to his disciples, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” From that simple statement theologian Eugene Peterson derived the following theory: “The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life.”  While countless battles – and even wars – have been fought over the Jesus truth, very seldom do we invest much energy in discerning the Jesus way.  Well that is precisely what we are attempting to do in this series of sermons. The question thus becomes, “What is the Jesus way…and how do we go about following it?”

    As we noted initially, the Jesus truth – in and of itself – is not enough to bring about the Jesus life.  Jesus calls us to follow the Jesus way as well. Then we noted that the Jesus way is not a list of rules and regulations.   The Jesus way cannot be codified, or simplified, or even summarized.   The Jesus way is meant to be lived. 

    When we examined the life of Abraham, we discovered that the Jesus way involves testing and sacrifice.  God has a way of sifting people when he wants to use them to accomplish great things for his kingdom.  When we examined the life of Moses, we discovered that God has a unique purpose for our lives. What’s more, that purpose is subject to change from time to time and we have the responsibility of continuing to seek out God’s purpose for our lives in spite of whatever changes might take place.  When we examined the life of David, we discovered that living a godly life in spite of all our imperfections is part and parcel to walking the Jesus way.  God may not expect perfection from us, but God does expect noble intentions.  When we examined the life of the prophet Elijah, we discovered that the Jesus way involves making choices.  The question at the heart of the matter is this: Do we possess an insatiable desire to get our own needs fulfilled, or are we willing to simply be present to God?  And finally, when we examined the life of Isaiah, we discovered that God’s primary work in us is not condemnation.  God’s primary work in us is forgiveness.  When we live our lives in light of God’s grace and mercy, what we find are the roots of holiness.   

    Today we come to part VIII in our sermon series on The Way. In our journey through the Old Testament we have examined the lives of Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah and Isaiah. Today we examine the life of a man we call Second Isaiah.  If I were to come up with a subtitle for the sermon today it might be called: The Way of Second Isaiah or…The Way of Midrash.  In any case, I invite you to come along with me as we seek to discern The Jesus Way.      

    I suppose the first thing we need to do is to answer the question of who Second Isaiah really was.  Most of our Bibles record the book of Isaiah as one single unit.  However, close examination of the text reveals that sections of the book of Isaiah come from different eras in Israel’s history.  For example, First Isaiah – which consists of chapters 1 through 39 – discusses issues surrounding the Assyrian occupation of Jerusalem, which occurred around 700 B.C.   Second Isaiah – which consists of chapters 40 through 55 – discusses issues surrounding the dispersion of the Hebrew people following Jerusalem’s conquest by the Babylonians in 587 B.C.   Third Isaiah – which consists of chapters 56 through 66 – discusses something else altogether.  Are   you with me?  Today we’re going to be examining the life of Second Isaiah – whose real identity is actually unknown – as he prophesied to the Hebrew people during a very difficult time in their history.

    The Babylonian army, having defeated the Assyrian army that had threatened Jerusalem for so long, invaded the country and destroyed Jerusalem in 587 B.C.   Jerusalem’s king – a man named Zedekiah – tried to escape.  He was subsequently captured and forced to watch the execution of his sons, and then his eyes were put out.  The execution of his sons was the last thing he ever saw.  People could be pretty cruel in those days. 

    The so-called “movers and shakers” of Jerusalem were deported to the city of Babylon.  The only people who were allowed to stay in Jerusalem were the poorest of the poor.  The deported Hebrew people were not slaves in Babylon; in fact, some of them even prospered. Yet what they saw in Babylon was eye-opening indeed.  Let me try to illustrate.

    Imagine you were born and raised in Meadville.  Never in your life did you venture outside of Meadville, and Meadville was all you knew.  You’d be proud of that gleaming college up on the hill.  You’d believe that there could be no finer football venue than Barco-Duratz field.  And you would know in your heart that the sanctuary of the First Presbyterian Church was the most glorious and beautiful and holy place imaginable.

    Then Meadville gets overrun by Pittsburghers; kind of like Conneaut Lake in the summer.  Sadly, you find yourself deported to Pittsburgh.  There you come to realize that Meadville was not all you thought it was. You see the fabulous skyscrapers that dot the Pittsburgh sky-line.   You sit in Heinz Field and watch the Steelers play.  You worship in churches that are literally twice the size of the First Presbyterian Church of Meadville.  You come to realize that your previous world view was really rather limited. And then you start to wonder about some of the other things in life you had always believed to be true.    

    Such was exactly the case with the Hebrew people who were deported from Jerusalem to Babylon.  The glorious city they now inhabited made Jerusalem seem like an old cow town.  It was then that they started to wonder about some of the other things in life they had always believed to be true.  For example, could it be that their God was not as powerful as they had once believed him to be?  The Babylonian god Marduk appeared to have defeated their God quite soundly.  The life of faith, it seemed, was an exquisite but fragile flower that had been crushed by Babylonian boots.  As far as they were concerned, their God had either failed them   or abandoned them.   A great many of the Hebrew people then signed on with Marduk, and the unrivaled prosperity and the unbridled militarism of Babylon.  They bound themselves to the Babylonian culture…and their faith in God began to wane.

    Perhaps we find ourselves mired in a Babylon of sorts today.  For example, Public Policy Polling is an organization that conducts opinion polls.  Recently the subject of one of their surveys was God.  On the issue of God’s creation of the universe, 71% of the people surveyed approved.  Believe it or not, 5% of the population disapproved of God’s creation of the universe, and 24% were unsure. Pertaining to God’s handling of natural disasters, 50% approved, 13% disapproved, and 37% were unsure.  This left God with an overall approval rating of 52%.  Only 52% of the population approves of the job God is doing!  As an internet newspaper called The Huffington Post recently pointed out, God’s approval rating is still higher than all the members of Congress and media mogul Rupert Murdoch.  Alas, we find ourselves mired in Babylon.  Like the Hebrew people before us, our faith in God has begun to wane.  What do you suppose will come of that?

    Here’s what has come of that.  Between August 6^th and August 10^th, the London Riots occurred.  Many London districts suffered widespread rioting, looting and arson.  Perhaps an iconic scene was the 20-year-old college student in East London who was beaten for his bicycle, and fell bloody to the ground. His tormentors gently helped him back to his feet, then rifled through his backpack to get his phone and wallet.

    A youth worker named Shaun Bailey wrote, “Young people have been looting the shops they like: sporting goods stores and mobile phone shops have been hit, yet bookstores have been left alone…This is criminality in raw form, not politics.” In other words, people are not robbing and looting food to feed their families, they are robbing and looting what we might call luxury items.

    A doctor named Theodore Dalrymple believes that a degenerate British popular culture is at least in part to blame.  He wrote, “A population thinks that it is entitled to a high standard of consumption, irrespective of its personal efforts.  Therefore it regards the fact that it does not receive that high standard, by comparison with the rest of society, as a sign of injustice.”  In other words, they think they should live in the lap of luxury, without lifting a finger to earn it.  Much of what they have is provided by welfare programs, but they are not grateful.  Dependency does not encourage gratitude, rather, dependency seems to encourage resentment.

    Peggy Noonan writes in The Wall Street Journal that we’re starting to see the same kinds of things right here in the United States.  Philadelphia recently began enforcing curfew laws due to “flash mobs.”  Flash mobs occur when young people send out the word on a social media like

Facebook, and suddenly dozens or even hundreds of them hit a targeted store – steal everything on the shelves – then run…knowing that you can’t catch all of them.

    Noonan points out that a lot of these young people come from broken and terror-filled homes.  Many are raised in single-parent homes by overwhelmed mothers or beleaguered grandmothers.  Far too many of them have suffered from physical and/or emotional abuse. The normal response is something like this: “The government has to do something!  They need to start a program or create an agency.”  But our governments are tapped out. They’re cutting back, doing everything they can just to avoid bankruptcy.  Ladies and gentlemen, like the Hebrew people before us, we find ourselves mired in Babylon.   Is there any way out?   Is there any hope for the future of our nation?  

    Some twenty-five hundred years ago, the Hebrew people were mired in Babylon.  They were questioning their world view, they were questioning their belief structure, and they were questioning God.  And then, as if out of nowhere, there came a voice. It was a powerful, persuasive, convincing voice. It was the voice of the unknown prophet we refer to as Second Isaiah. He reminded the people of the glory of God.  He prophesied of a coming Messiah who would set all things right.  He was a powerful preacher who practiced an ancient art we call Midrash.

    What is Midrash?  Midrash refers to a particular way of reading and interpreting a biblical text.  It is the activity of a person who seeks out the true meaning of the word of God.  That is exactly what Second Isaiah did.  He cried to the people in essence:

Did you think Creation was over and done when the mountains were carved, and the

rivers were set flowing, and the cedars of Lebanon were planted?  Did you think that salvation was only a date in the history books and some stories you heard from your grandparents?  The Creator is still creating, right here in Babylon!  The Savior is still saving…right here in Babylon!

     Second Isaiah restored the faith of the dispersed Hebrew people through the ancient art of   Midrash.  He interpreted the events of their lives in light of the Scriptures.  He wove a pattern with his words that recreated a tapestry of faith.  And the Hebrew people were inspired.

    Midrash has to do with interpretation.  A woman named Barbara Johnson was good at that.  Barbara Johnson was the founder of Spatula Ministries and the author of a book called Stick a Geranium in Your Hat and Be Happy.  She once wrote:

Look at it this way: One family out of 5000 lost a son in Viet Nam. We are one of those families.   One family out of every 800 has a child killed by a drunk driver.  We experienced that, too.   Statistics say that one family out of every ten will have a homosexual child.  We know all about that.  One out of every forty women will develop adult onset diabetes.  This is something that is brand new in my life.

    Barbara Johnson had every reason to suffer from depression.  Barbara Johnson had every reason to be angry, to be bitter and to question her faith in God.  Yet like I said, Midrash has to do with interpretation.  Here’s how Barbara Johnson interpreted her situation.  She wrote:

We can choose to gather to our hearts the thorns of disappointment, failure, loneliness   and dismay due to our present situation.  Or, we can gather the flowers of God’s grace, unbounding love, abiding presence and unmatched joy.  I choose to gather the flowers.

    Midrash has to do with interpretation.  What do we see when we look at God?  Do we see an angry, vindictive, judgmental God?  Or do we see a loving, forgiving, grace-filled God?  What do we see when we look at the world?  Do we see a frightening place filled with nightmares and terrors around every corner or do we see a place filled with boundless potential and loving hearts just waiting to be unlocked?   As 19^th century Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle once said, “It’s not what we have, nor even what we do that gives us our kingdom. It’s what we are that gives us our peace.”  What do we see when we look at the world around us?  Every tree and every flower, every dog and every cat, every little girl’s beauty and every old man’s worn face…has a deeper meaning.  There is always far more than meets the eye.  Midrash is required to see all that stands before our eyes – to see the surface, but also to penetrate beneath the surface.  Such was the gift Second Isaiah brought to the Hebrew people.  He taught them to see the real beauty of the earth.

    Ladies and gentlemen, sin is not redeemed by scrubbing it out of existence. Sin is redeemed when we see it as a sacrifice that Jesus Christ conquered on the cross. That, obviously, is what Jesus Christ did.  But we are not Jesus Christ, are we?  Yet perhaps we can participate in what Jesus did with the sin of the world.  We can enter into the WAY of Jesus Christ…and become participants in God’s reconciliation.  Perhaps salvation is not an escape from what is wrong, but rather, a deep and reconciling and transformational embrace of all that is wrong.  I suspect…it’s all in how you look at it.  Amen.

 

8-21-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THE WAY: PART VII

    Quite some time ago now, we began a sermon series based upon John 14:6.  There Jesus says to his disciples, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” From that simple statement, theologian Eugene Peterson derived the following theory: “The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life.”  While countless battles – and even wars – have been fought over the Jesus truth, very seldom do we invest much energy in discerning the Jesus way.  Well that is precisely what we are attempting to do in this series of sermons. The question thus becomes, “What is the Jesus way…and how do we go about following it?”

    As we noted initially, the Jesus truth – in and of itself – is not enough to bring about the Jesus life. Jesus calls us to follow the Jesus way as well. Then we noted that the Jesus way is not a list of rules and regulations.  The Jesus way cannot be codified, or simplified, or summarized.  The Jesus way is meant to be lived. 

    When we examined the life of Abraham, we discovered that the Jesus way involves testing and sacrifice. God has a way of sifting people when he wants to use them to accomplish great things for his kingdom.  When we examined the life of Moses, we discovered that God has a unique purpose for our lives. What’s more, that purpose is subject to change from time to time, and we have the responsibility of continuing to seek out God’s purpose for our lives in spite of whatever changes might take place.  When we examined the life of David, we discovered that living a godly life in spite of all our imperfections is part and parcel to walking the Jesus way.  There are times when we have to throw ourselves upon the mercy of God and sincerely strive     to do better in the future. And finally, when we examined the life of the prophet Elijah we discovered that the Jesus way involves making choices. We are called to choose between God and culture.  The question at the heart of the matter is this: Do we possess an insatiable desire to get our own needs fulfilled, or are we willing to simply be present to God?

    Today we come to Part VII in our sermon series on The Way.  In our journey through the Old Testament we have examined the lives of Abraham, Moses, David and Elijah.  Today we will be examining the life of the prophet Isaiah. Thus, if I were to come up with a subtitle for the sermon today it might be called: The Way of Isaiah, or…The Way of Holiness.  In any case, I invite you to come along with me as we seek to discern The Jesus Way.

    The characteristic name for God throughout the book of Isaiah is “The Holy.”  Thus, if God is known as “The Holy,” then what does it mean for us to be holy?  Eugene Peterson defines it this way.   “When the ways and means by which God works…interpenetrate the ways and means by which we work, we have a name for it.  We call it holy.”

    “Holy” may be the best word we have for the all-encompassing providence of God that transforms us into a uniquely formed and set-apart people.  Yet to be holy is never something that can be understood apart from the bodies we inhabit or apart from the neighborhoods in which we live or apart from the God whom we worship and serve.  Holy is something that we live.  It is the life of God breathed into our own lives.  A theologian might call this “sanctification.”

    Unfortunately, the culture in which we live tends to look down upon sanctification or holiness.  Holiness is often reduced to banality.  We call it boring or dull or uneventful.  Ellen Glasgow has a telling statement along those lines in her autobiography. Of her father – a Presbyterian elder who was pious and rigid – she wrote, “He was entirely unselfish, and in his long life, he never committed a pleasure.”  How’s that for boring, dull and uneventful?

    Twenty years ago, I was teaching a confirmation class at my church in Luverne, Minnesota.  As is typical of confirmation classes, some are there because they want to learn and they want to become active members of the church.  Others are there because their parents force them to go, and there are a million other places they’d much rather be.  Such was the case in this particular class some twenty years ago. Sarah was there because she wanted to be there, while Tim was there because his parents made him go.

    Sarah was a model child.  She worked hard in school, she attended church regularly, and she truly aimed to please. Tim was not a model child.  He was frequently in trouble at school and he usually sought attention in negative ways.  Tim always wore a hat to confirmation class that had thumbtacks on the bill – some stuck up and some stuck down.  When I asked him why the tacks were there he said, “To keep people from stealing my hat!” If someone tried to grab his hat, they would invariably get pricked by one of the tacks. 

    One time in class I asked a question – I don’t remember now what it was – and Sarah quickly answered it.  From the back of the class Tim blurted, “Sarah’s such a goody-goody!”  Sarah shot back, “I’m not a goody-goody!”  It was as if she was embarrassed about choosing to be good.  I said, “What’s wrong with being good?  The problem these days is that those who choose not to do well are always putting down those who do.  And all we end up doing is lowering our standards.  Why must we perpetually sink to the lowest common denominator?”  I suspect there’s a teacher or two here today who could relate.

     Of course, my lecture did no good at all.  And in the end, I let them both join the church.  Sarah continued to be active in the church, while I never saw Tim again.  Holiness is often reduced to banality.  We call it boring or dull or uneventful.  Yet holiness is meant to be an interior fire.  It is designed to be an all-consuming passion for living for God.  And truth be   told, there’s nothing boring or dull or uneventful about that at all.

    Isaiah saw holiness as an all-consuming passion for living for God. That’s why we find him in the sixth chapter of the book of Isaiah – sitting in the Temple waiting on God.  But before we get to that, there’s one thing we have to consider first.  Verse 1 of chapter 6 begins with these words: “In the year that King Uzziah died.”  Before the story of The Holy is told, a warning is posted in bold letters.  The warning is the name of Uzziah.  Everyone in Isaiah’s world would have known what that name meant.  It meant, “Caution.  Danger Ahead.  Watch Your Step.” 

    Uzziah was king in Jerusalem for 52 years.  By all accounts, he was a good king.  He subdued the Philistines, he built a strong army, he developed the country economically, and he learned of the Lord in the Temple.  As it says of him in the second book of Chronicles, “His fame spread far      and wide, for he was marvelously helped (by God)…until he became strong.”

    Once Uzziah became strong, the power went to his head.  He arrogantly walked into the Temple and took it over.  He told the priests to get lost.  He was trying to create a religion of his own choosing. He was trying to create God in his own image. No more of this taking God for who he was and for what he had to say. He was looking for a God he could control. And what happened to Uzziah in the end?  He was struck with leprosy.  He spent the rest of his life in isolation – not only from the Temple, but also from the community.  As Eugene Peterson puts it himself, “The holy is never something of God that we can take as if we owned and use for our own purposes.”

    In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah went to the Temple to listen for God.  He never intended to use the holy for his own purposes.  He was there merely to be present to God.  It was there that he saw a vision. He saw the Lord sitting on a throne and the hem of his robe filled the Temple.  Heavenly beings flew into the room and cried, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”  The foundations of the Temple shook and the house filled with smoke.  Isaiah dropped to his knees and cried, “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips!”

    Do you understand what Isaiah was doing here?  Isaiah was making a confession of sin.  He recognized the fact that he was unworthy to be in the presence of God.  He understood that his life was full of sin.  So he dropped to his knees and he made his confession.  Ladies and gentlemen, that is the always the first step to holiness.  It all begins…with confession.

    Have you ever noticed the way our worship services are set up?  There are four basic parts.  They are: We Gather Around God’s Word, God’s Word Is Spoken to Us, God Moves Us to Respond, and God Sends Us Forth to Serve.  Our worship is not set up that way by accident.  Now I’m not going to go into a long explanation about all the parts of our worship service, so let me just say this.  Consider how the part entitled, “We Gather Around God’s Word” is set up.  We begin with a Call to Worship, usually based upon one of the Psalms.  Then we say a Prayer of Adoration. We sing a hymn, then we hear a Call to Confession. We confess our sin corporately, and then – ideally – we confess our sin individually as well.  After that, of course, we hear an Assurance of Pardon.  But do you understand the preparation that goes into every worship service before we come to hear God’s Word? We are not prepared to encounter God’s Word until we have first confessed our sin.  We are not prepared to encounter the holy until we have first sought forgiveness for our mistakes.

    And we do make mistakes, do we not?  Close your eyes for a moment, and reflect upon your life.  That’s something we very seldom do.  We surround ourselves with so much noise and activity that we never have the opportunity to reflect upon our deeds…or misdeeds.  What mistakes have you made in your life?  Where have you fallen short of the holiness God desires of you?  And remember, there are sins of commission and there are sins of omission. Sins of commission are those things we ought not to have done but have done anyway.  Sins of omission are those things we ought to have done but didn’t.  Close your eyes and take a quick inventory.  If we’re honest with ourselves, our hearts should be breaking and our eyes should be filling with tears.

    That’s the position in which Isaiah found himself when the Lord appeared to him. “I am a man of unclean lips,” he cried, “and I live among a people of unclean lips.”  Then one of the heavenly beings touched Isaiah on the lips with a burning coal.  He said, “Now your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”  Isaiah confessed his sin before the Lord, and he found himself forgiven.

    God’s primary work in us is not condemnation, rather, God’s primary work in us is forgiveness.  As it says in John 3:17, “For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”  We find acceptance rather than rejection.  We find conversation rather than a tirade. We find that holiness is no longer outside of us, but rather, through the working of the Holy Spirit, it now dwells within us.  Instead of focusing on what we have been, we are now freed to focus on what we can become.  Again, instead of focusing on what we have been…we are now freed to focus on what we can become. And it all begins with   an overwhelming sense of inadequacy – an overbearing feeling of unworthiness – and an over-arching awareness of sin.  Yet like Isaiah, through our confession, what we find is God’s mercy and what we encounter is God’s grace.  What does that mean?  Listen to this.

    Once upon a time, there was a peasant girl named Miriam who lived in a small village. Her widowed mother spent a great deal of time teaching her right from wrong.  Yet when Miriam was 12 years old, her family became quite destitute.  A severe drought had caused the family’s little garden plot to wilt and to die.  There would be no vegetables to can for the cold winter months that lay ahead.  Food had become quite difficult to find.

    At first, Miriam missed the taste of fresh corn and carrots.  Then she craved them.  Each day Miriam had to venture further from home to find water for her family, and each day she desired even more what she had always taken for granted.  Then the day came when Miriam discovered an artesian well.  Cool, clean water gushed forth from deep underground.

    She followed the stream as it flowed from the well and discovered a beautiful garden filled

with corn, potatoes, carrots and cabbage.  She could almost taste the fresh pot of homemade soup her mother could make from it.  And the longer she looked at the garden, the more she desired its contents.  Miriam then quickly loaded her apron with as many vegetables as she could carry.  As she made her way back home, she glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone had seen what she had done.  She knew she had stolen.  She knew that what she had done was wrong.

    Suddenly a voice resounded out of nowhere: “Where did you get those vegetables?”  Miriam was startled, and she replied, “I, uh…I found them.”  “In the middle of a drought?” the man then asked.  “I think not.”

    Miriam wrestled with defiance, then anger, then a rather feeble attempt to justify her thievery.  In the end, she could do no less than to admit to the man that she had stolen the vegetables.  The man replied, “I knew you took my vegetables.”  “Your vegetables?” Miriam asked.  “Tis true,” the man replied. “I have worked hard all summer growing these crops and I had grand plans for them,” he added.  “I am so sorry,” Miriam confessed, bowing her head in shame. 

    The man was warmed by Miriam’s act of contrition. Then he said, “I am willing to extend to you either mercy or grace.  Which do you desire?”  “Are they not the same thing, sir?” Miriam asked.  “Indeed they are not.  If I were to grant you mercy, you would be completely forgiven   for taking my vegetables,” the man stated.  Miriam quickly interrupted, “Then mercy is what I desire most.”

    The man continued, “Perhaps that is true, but first you should hear of the matter of grace.

Should I extend grace, you would be invited to come and gather any vegetables from my garden that you like, at any time you like.  It would be as if you were a member of my own family with all the rights of a daughter.”

    Miriam marveled at the opportunity afforded to her.  She knew that she did not deserve the man’s kindness, yet she longed in equal measure for both mercy and grace.  “Sir,” she said, “I   do not deserve either mercy or grace. For I deserve punishment and am in no way deserving of the rights of a family member.  Still, I could not leave with a contented heart without an equal measure of both.”

    The man smiled broadly and replied, “My dear child, you shall indeed have both – mercy and grace.  For in my mercy I will not exact the punishment that is justly deserved, and in my grace I will give you that which you could never earn.” 

    Like I always say, confession is good for the soul. We avert the punishment we justly deserve, and we receive from God that which we could never earn.  God’s primary work in us is not condemnation.  God’s primary work in us is forgiveness.  And in the end what we find are the roots of holiness.  Amen.

 

7-31-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THE WAY: PART VI

    Quite some time ago now, we began a sermon series based upon John 14:6.  There Jesus says to his disciples, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” From that simple statement theologian Eugene Peterson derived the following theory: “The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life.” While countless battles have been fought over the Jesus truth, very seldom do we invest much energy in discerning the Jesus way.  That is precisely what we are attempting to do in this series of sermons.  The question thus becomes: What is the Jesus way…and how do we go about following it?

    As we noted initially, the Jesus truth – in and of itself – is not enough to bring about the Jesus life.  Jesus calls us to follow the Jesus way as well. Then we noted that the Jesus way is not a list of rules and regulations.  The Jesus way cannot be codified, or simplified, or summarized.  The Jesus way is meant to be lived. When we examined the life of Abraham, we discovered that the Jesus way involves testing and sacrifice. God has a unique way of sifting people when he wants to use them to accomplish great things for his kingdom.  When we examined the life of Moses, we discovered that God has a unique purpose for our lives. What’s more, that purpose is subject to change from time to time, and we have a responsibility to continue to seek out God’s purpose for our lives in spite of whatever changes may take place.  And finally, when we examined the life of David, we discovered that living a godly life in spite of all our imperfections is part and parcel to walking the Jesus way.  Sometimes we find that we have to throw ourselves upon the mercy of God…and sincerely strive to do better in the future.

    Today we come to Part VI in our sermon series on The Way.  In our journey through the Old Testament we have examined the lives of Abraham, Moses and David.  Today we’re going to be examining the life of the prophet Elijah. Thus, if I were to come up with a subtitle for the sermon today, it might be called, “The Way of Elijah,” or “The Way of Making Choices.”   In any case, I invite you to come along with me as we seek to discern the Jesus Way. 

    A few days ago, I was taking the dog out to Woodcock Dam for a walk.  I was driving, and the dog was sticking his head out the window in the back.  We were stopped at one of Meadville’s infamous four-way stop signs when a man and a woman who looked to be in their early forties happened by. The man said, “Why do you have to be such a pretty boy?” I looked at him and said, “I hope you’re talking to my dog!”  While the woman doubled over laughing, the man turned red-in-the-face and sulked away.  Hey, you never know in this day and age.  We live in a brand new kind of culture where it seems as if anything goes.   

    Speaking of culture, Gary Eberle is the author of a book called The Geography of Nowhere.   In it he claims that our postmodern American culture is attempting to do what no other culture in history has ever attempted to do.  We are attempting to live our lives…without a moral and spiritual center.  To illustrate, he compares the modern commercial strip – much like what we might find on Peach Street in Erie – with a medieval city.  He postulates the theory that where a civilization places its economic and emotional resources is a reflection of its spiritual values. While medieval cities placed churches with their towering steeples in the center of town, with everything else built out around it, our economic and emotional resources go to build fast food franchises with glittering neon lights and shopping malls with easy highway access.  Pertaining to that, Eberle writes:

In the middle ages, people spent vast amounts of time and money to pilgrimage to shrines or the Holy Land. Today the object of travel is more likely to be the mall or Disney World.  In a spiritual society, people hope to see the face of God.  In a post-modern one, they opt for Mickey Mouse.

      Do we lack a spiritual center?  Has culture infiltrated our relationship with God?  A sociologist by the name of Christian Smith thinks it has.  He recently studied the religious beliefs of more than 3000 U.S. teenagers and re-interviewed them when they were in their early twenties.  The goal was to examine how they were faring as young adults in terms of their religiosity. The results were not overly encouraging. Smith has devised a concept to describe their belief system.  He calls it Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.  Moralistic Therapeutic Deism bears little resemblance to the historic teachings of the Christian faith.  Instead, it reflects a version of a God who is more like Santa Claus than the God of the Bible.  They see a God who fixes things, who rewards good behavior with a happy afterlife, and who roots for your favorite sports team.  Ah, perhaps culture has infiltrated our faith in God.  It seems to have colored it in some rather distressing ways.

    Culture had managed to color the faith of the Hebrew people in Elijah’s day as well.  The prophet Elijah lived about 100 years after the death of King David.  The kingdom David united had split into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah shortly after the death of David’s successor, Solomon.  The city of Jerusalem – the religious center of the Jewish faith – was located in the southern kingdom of Judah.  Thus, the king of the northern kingdom   of Israel felt compelled to create a religious center that would rival the sanctity of Jerusalem. A king by the name of Omri built just such a city and called his creation Samaria.  Yet as the country grew stronger economically and politically, it became much weaker spiritually…perhaps not the last time that a better standard of living would be accompanied by a worse way of life.

    The northern kingdom of Israel did not necessarily repudiate the worship of God Almighty, but they did somewhat accommodate it to the faith of the culture.  It’s a little thing we call syncretism.  It has to do with merging different faith traditions.  The god of the culture that gained a toehold in Samaria was a Canaanite deity by the name of Baal.  He had a consort by the name of Asherah.  Now, Baal was the god of rain.  The theory was that it rained when Baal and Asherah came together.  Thus, the way the people invoked Baal to send rain upon the land was for them to come together with a temple prostitute. I’ll let you figure out how that worked for yourselves.  Now believe it or not, this did not sit well with God.   So God sent the prophet Elijah to call upon the king of Israel, who by this time was a man named Ahab.  Are you with me?

    Elijah’s first recorded sermon is to a congregation of one.  He speaks to King Ahab alone.  Elijah’s sermon is brief and abrupt.  It consists of a mere 17 words in Hebrew.  To the casual observer it sounds like little more than a weather forecast.  Elijah says, “As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years…except by my word.”   In other words, a drought is coming upon the nation of Israel…for an undetermined amount of time.

    There’s a certain irony to Elijah’s words.  Do you remember the kind of god that Baal was supposed to be?  Baal was the god of rain. What would a drought prove to the people of Israel?   It would prove that Baal was impotent and ineffective.   It would prove that Baal and Asherah were essentially nonexistent.  Elijah’s seventeen-word sermon to Ahab…is an altar call.

    God then instructed Elijah to go into hiding.  While King Ahab may not have picked up on   the subtle meaning of Elijah’s words, his wife, Jezebel, certainly would.  And she would have had Elijah’s head if he’d stuck around.  So Elijah disappeared for a period of about three years.

    A severe drought came upon the land of Israel, the likes of which the people had never seen before.  When Elijah returned and met with King Ahab, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, O troubler of Israel?”  Elijah replied, “I have not troubled Israel; but you have, because you have forsaken the commandments of God and followed Baal.”  He then instructed Ahab to assemble the people of Israel – along with the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah – atop Mount Carmel for an epic confrontation.  Elijah meant to prove – once and for all – that there was but one God of Israel…and that Baal was a figment of their sordid imaginations.

    The day of reckoning arrived.  All of Israel was gathered on Mount Carmel, as were the prophets of Baal and Asherah.  Elijah drew near to the people and boomed, “How long will    you go limping with two different opinions?  If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is god, follow him!”  Elijah was calling upon the people of Israel to make a choice.  “Choose God, or choose Baal,” was what he was saying in essence.  Yet the people responded with    blank stares.  They could not bring themselves to say a single word.

    So Elijah concocted a scheme to put the two gods to the test.  Two bulls were brought to the top of the mountain.  The prophets of Baal and Asherah were to cut one bull into pieces and lay it on some wood.  Elijah would do the same.  The god who answered with fire from above was the god who was really God.     

    The prophets of Baal and Asherah were up for the challenge.  They cut up their bull and laid   it on the wood.  Then they cried from morning until noon, “O Baal, answer us!”  But there was no voice, there was no answer, and there was no fire.  Elijah began chiding them.  “Cry louder!” he said.  “Surely he is a god!  Maybe he’s meditating, or maybe he’s gone on a journey, or maybe he’s asleep!  Cry louder!”  The prophets of Baal cried aloud and cut themselves with swords until blood gushed out all over them…but still there was no answer.

    Now it was Elijah’s turn.  He built an altar to the Lord and dug a trench around it.  He put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, and laid the bull upon the wood.  Then – just for effect – he told the people to pour four jars of water on the bull and on the wood.  When they did so, he told them to do it a second time.  When they did so a second time, he told them to do it a third time. By now the bull and the wood were soaking wet and the trench around the altar was full.  That’s when Elijah called upon the Lord.  And God rained down fire from heaven that consumed the bull and the wood.  It consumed the stones and the dust and the water in the trench.  Then, upon Elijah’s instructions, the people of Israel seized the prophets of Baal and Asherah and put them to an untimely death.  And it wasn’t long before the rain began to fall.

    God takes a dim view of syncretism.  God takes a dim view of combining culture with faith. 
“Harlotry” is the word the prophets so frequently use against those who do just that.  While the word “harlotry” has a literal reference to the Temple prostitution of the Baal cult, perhaps it is also a metaphor that extends into the entire theology of worship.  Perhaps we could call worship harlotry when it accepts the needs and desires and passions of the worshipper as its baseline.  In other words, is worship about us…or is worship about God?  Harlotry in worship is worship that says, “I will give you satisfaction.  You want religion to make you feel good?  I will make sure that it does.  You want your own needs fulfilled?  I will do it in the form that is most arousing to you.”  Harlotry in worship reduces worship to the whims and desires of the worshipper.  Harlotry in worship says that worship should be interesting, relevant and exciting and that I should always “get something out of it.”  Because after all, worship is really all about ME. 

    When Elijah faced down the prophets of Baal and Asherah, he was alone at the altar.  It was a relatively quiet affair.   It was worship that was centered on the God of the covenant.  Elijah prepared the altar, then prayed briefly and simply.  Something was said: words that called men and women to love, to serve, to obey, to sing, to adore, to act responsibly, and most of all…to choose.  Authentic worship means being present to the living God who penetrates the whole of human life. Again, authentic worship means being present to the living God who penetrates the whole of human life.  Nothing is done simply for the sake of the sensory experience involved – which eliminates all propagandistic and emotional manipulation. Worship has to do with being present to God.  And worship is first and foremost about God…not about us.

    This was not an easy thing for the people of Elijah’s day to accept.  You see, they were used to gods that were meant to serve them. Perhaps the same thing is true of us today.  It brings to mind what has become my favorite question of late.  That question is this: “Does God exist to serve us, or do we exist to serve God?”  Again, “Does God exist to serve us, or do we exist to serve God?”  Get the answer to that question wrong…and we’re never going to get any of the rest of this faith stuff right either.

    The prophet Elijah called upon the people of Israel to make a choice.  “Choose God,” he said, “or choose Baal.”  It was not an issue of compromise or tolerance.  It was an all or nothing proposition.  Perhaps the very same challenge could be posed to us today.  “Choose God, or choose Baal.”  “Choose God…or choose culture.”  It is not an issue of compromise or tolerance for us either.  It’s an all or nothing proposition.  What it seems to come down to is this: Do we possess an insatiable desire to get our own needs fulfilled…or are we willing to be present to God?  That choice, my friends…is yours.  Amen.