1-27-2013 Sermon by Rev. Larry Peters

 

OUR CHRISTIAN MISSION

Rev. Larry Peters

January 27, 2013

 

Psalm 19:7-9

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

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Luke 4:14-21

  Today’s scripture lessons impress upon me the teachings of (1) How to have church, (2) What the church requires, and (3) What to do as the church.   We are called to think about who we are;  of what we mean when we say that Jesus Christ is our Lord;  what that calls us to be, and to do;  of what special tools or skills that we need;  of the way that we are to follow.

   These teachings are of great importance to us.   They are also of great importance to all those people with whom we come into contact.   You see, by coming to know our Lord Jesus Christ, we have come to know his life-saving grace!   We are changed!   Where once we were lost- now we are found, were blind- but now we see!   We are enabled!   We have a purpose!   We are on a mission!   We are to help others to see;  to see how their life can be changed—how they, too, can come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and to know his life-saving grace!

   We have this in common with everyone who is a Christian.   And this blessed assurance, that we are one in Christ, is what all of us celebrate!   This week, and everytime that we as God’s people gather together in churches and in communities all around the world—we are celebrating and witnessing to Christian unity!

  This unity, being one in the Body of Christ, is what is required of the church—what God requires of us.   How can the church be anything different?   How can the body function properly when it fails to work together as one?   And so, to ensure that the Christian’s faith and witness is sure;  that the church’s foundation is solid;  that the Body of Christ in the world today is strong—we notice, as does the psalmist in our call to worship, that God does certain things:

(1)    God gives us his law to follow.   The law of the Lord is perfect and right.   Happy are those who obey them!   They receive new strength!

(2)    God gives us commandments that are just, trustworthy, full of wisdom, and that we are able to understand.

(3)    We should understand what we are to give.   Of our giving every good thing to the Lord, our worship of the Lord is good;  it will continue forever!

  I remember once when I was attending church with the Methodists in Saegertown and the pastor was sharing a message with the children.   I don’t remember what the message was about.   I do remember a little girl of about five years of age asking in a loud voice; “How long does church last?”   Everyone laughed at that, and no one was quite sure how to answer.   However, here we are given an answer:  our worship is to be good;  and it will last forever!

(4)    We are also to understand that the Lord God gives judgment.   They are also just, trustworthy, full of wisdom, and they are always fair.   We should know and understand that God has the authority to judge and to give laws and commandments!   We should know and understand that God has a right to give these; and a right to expect his people to follow, that we are to give God loyalty and obedience!

  God has given Jesus all authority as Head of the Church!   We know the prayer of Jesus for God’s people, the Church:  that we may all be one, as God and the Son of God are one; that is all who believe in God and the Son, through the Word that they have received!   And Jesus prays; “that they also be one in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”   You see, the world is watching for our Christian witness, and our mission in the world.   The world watches to see what we mean when we say that Jesus Christ is our Lord; what this calls us to be, and to do.

  A popular hymn says that “They’ll Know that we are Christians by our Love.”   Our words, our actions should reflect this love.   Love is what we do; love is what we speak—and there should be no divisions among us—but that we be “perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”

  This perfection is what we as God’s people and God’s church are striving after—even in the midst of our imperfection!   Our Prayer of Confession that we said together explains our brokenness and how we pray for forgiveness when we have ignored God and become indifferent to God’s love.   The Bible says that we love because God first loves us.   But, if we are indifferent to God’s love, how can we exemplify God’s love?   How will the world know that we are Christians?

  In a “Peanuts” cartoon, Lucy is letting Charlie Brown have some of her anger and frustration when she concludes with the words: “and I don’t care if I ever see you again!   Do you hear me!?”   Linus turns to Charlie Brown and says: “She really hurt your feelings, didn’t she, Charlie Brown?   I hope she didn’t take all the life out of you.”   Charlie Brown answers: “No, not completely…. But you can number me among the walking wounded!”

  Some of us may know about the walking wounded.   Many can be found in church.   And the sad part is that often the wounds are inflicted by other Christians.   So, if we can start now to address one of those teachings mentioned at the beginning of this sermon, what the church requires is love, understanding, and acceptance.   The Apostle Paul is addressing this in his letter to the Corinthians.

  One of the great Biblical affirmations is that we are created in God’s image.   And the image that we see in Paul’s letter to the church is that we are one body made up of many parts.   Christians are the Body of Christ, and individually members of it, since we are all baptized into the one body.   Each member is unique.   Each one is different.   Each has a special skill, talent, God-given ability to be used for the good of all.   And so everyone is important!   Everyone is blessed!   Here everyone should receive a blessing.   Here everyone should be invited, welcomed, loved, accepted, understood, and together we look forward to going on to perfection even in the midst of our imperfection.

  If you were to ask some different people, “why do you come to church?” or “what does church really mean to you?” you’re likely to get some different, yet similar answers.   An aged man or woman may say that they have always felt part of the ministry, and that the church has always been home.   A member of the Youth Group might say, “I like my friends here.   We have fun together.”   And couples with families, or those separated or divorced, widowed or single might say, “The church is a place where people really seem to take an interest and care about what happens.”   Brokenness is a part of our human condition.   Caring and helping are part of our Christian mission.

  And so, we are starting to see (1) how to have church, (2) what the church requires, and (3) what to do as the church.   Now let’s think outside the box.   Often when we think of the church, we picture a building.   Do we see the church when we see each other?   Let’s go deeper than that.   Do we see Christ in one another?   And if we didn’t have the building, would we still be the Body?

  What if there were no church building or meeting place?   And what if our members were dispersed and relocated?   Or imagine a war situation where all of you had been captured and taken to a foreign land for a period of years—until all of you could return to home and church, assembled as family again.   What would be the most important element of your celebration?   May it be to re-establish yourself, your family, and your fellowship with your church family around God’s Word!

  Such a situation can be seen in our scripture lesson of Nehemiah.   The people had been captured and relocated to a foreign land during the Babylonian Exile.   And after years of being away, they returned home to find Jerusalem in ruins and the Temple destroyed.   How could they celebrate their freedom and homecoming?   What would they do now?   The scripture says they all assembled together and asked Ezra, the priest, the pastor to read the book of the Law—God’s Word to them!

  These people had been so disconnected and out of touch for so long that they now had a hunger to hear the Word of God again!   They all stood from early morning until after noon, listening to their preacher read the Bible to them!   All the people listened attentively to the law.   Because the people had rebelled against God, they had been captured or removed from their homes and their place of worship.   And now, when the people heard again what the law required, they were so moved that they began to cry.

  What does God require?   Repentance; then we receive forgiveness; and then we rejoice; and then we are fitted for service!   Our Christian mission is to enjoy the work that we have been given to do; and to understand that to help relieve the suffering of our human condition is to love, care and share with those who do not have enough.

  Our lessons today teach us (1) what to do as the church, (2) what the church requires, and (3) how to have church.   The scriptures say that the people, the church was so filled with the Holy Spirit and rejoicing, that new things began to happen in the church.   Phrases such as “praise the Lord!” and “Amen!” were heard, and “people knelt in worship with their faces to the ground!”

  As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, people came to see that there is “no division in the body, but all its different parts have the same concern for one another.”   Paul says that we should “strive for the greater gifts.”   That greater gift is the unity of the Body.   As members of the Body of Christ, we are called to strive for unity even in the midst of our diversity!   Diversity itself can be seen as a gift when it stretches us to see beyond the familiar to experience something new.

  The scriptures teach us that all of us have gifts that should be used for the greater benefit of everyone.   We should learn to see and use these gifts, and encourage others to do so.   Christians are the Body of Christ.   And so when Jesus reads from the prophet Isaiah, and we recognize him as the one anointed to:

n  Bring good news to the poor

n  Proclaim liberty to those who are captive

n  Proclaim recovering of sight to the blind

n  To free the oppressed

n  And to announce that the time has come when the Lord will save His people

  We also recognize that this is part of our Christian mission to a broken and suffering human condition.     The church is called to continue the ministry which Jesus Christ began.   We can start by confessing that we are all sinners in need of the Savior.   And to recognize our need for God; and to rejoice that God has provided for us.   We then learn how to love as God loves us, and to accept and understand one another.   God has blessed us with many unique and good gifts; and we are to use them for the benefit of all, and to the glory of God.   This is our Christian mission!   May it receive the blessing of Christ our Lord.   May it come true today in your hearing.   Amen!

 

 

                                                                    

                                                          

 

01-13-2013 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

 

CHRISTIANITY 101: GOD IS SELF-SACRIFICING

  Daniel T. Rodgers is a professor at Princeton University and the author of a new book entitled, Age of Fracture.  In it he describes how words like dedication, courage, responsibility, self-scrutiny, and sacrifice have largely faded from the public discourse of our nation’s life.  “In particular,” he writes, “the language of sacrifice has disappeared as the values of a consumer-driven economy have swept over us – except for the sacrifice of a volunteer military, which sacrifices for us.”  In other words, the last thing on God’s green earth that we want to talk about these days…is our own personal sacrifice.

  Among the most important places this shift can be seen is in presidential speech making.  Rodgers points to the ways that earlier presidential speeches essentially mimicked Protestant preaching.  For example, John F. Kennedy once said, “And so my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”  “Beginning with Ronald Reagan,” Rodgers writes, “with his rhetoric of psychic optimism, older rhetorical formulas with their calls for sacrifice and responsibility were overwhelmed by new, softer, less demanding ones.”  In other words, the President as Protestant preacher was replaced by the President as motivational speaker.  Perhaps the election of 2012 serves as a vivid reminder of how foreign the language of sacrifice and responsibility is to contemporary American culture.

  Erskine Clarke is the editor of Journal for Preachers magazine.  Along those very same lines, he addresses today’s Protestant preacher in a recent article.  He writes, “So as a preacher, if you dare to claim the old rhetoric and traditions of the church, if you dare to model your preaching on something other than entertainment, if you dare for your preaching to plunge into the biblical texts – with their calls for personal and social self-scrutiny, repentance and sacrifice – you will be participating in a very un-American activity.”  Thus, ladies and gentlemen, we are about to embark upon a very un-American activity today.  Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

  Several weeks ago, we talked about the contrast between our tendency to gratify the desires of the flesh and the Apostle Paul’s call for us to live by the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit.  We noted how human will power lacks the capacity to change much of anything within us.  Change happens when something else is modified.  What is it that needs to be modified?  What needs to be modified is our personal narrative of who and what God is.  We need to have the proper story in our minds as to who and what God is, if we’re ever going to change who and what we are, because everything about us stems from our own internal narrative.

  As Jesus is God Incarnate, we determined to let Jesus establish our new internal narrative.  We noted how one of the false narratives that many people have of God is that God sticks it to us if we do something wrong.  Citing a passage from the gospel according to John, we saw Jesus and his disciples encounter a man who was blind from birth.  His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned – this man or his parents – that he was born blind?”  In their minds, it had to be one or the other.  Blindness was believed to be punishment from an angry God.  Thus, Jesus set out to establish a new narrative within them.  He quickly replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned.  He was born blind that the works of God might be made manifest in him.”  In other words, “God is good; God wills the good…and the glory of God will ultimately be revealed in him.”  Then Jesus healed the man born blind.  The point is that God wills what’s best for us.  The problem is that we don’t see the big picture as God sees the big picture.  Yet the narrative Jesus clearly sets out to establish here…is that God is good.

  We considered how much of our experience might lead us to believe that God cannot be trusted.  Why, even Jesus was not spared the agony of the cross when he begged God to do so.  Thus, what we did was embark upon the process of conducting a spiritual inventory.  In other words, we took the time to count our blessings.  What we discovered is that while our troubles are indeed very real, they are really quite small compared to God’s widespread mercy.  The more we are able to comprehend how many blessings we really have – freely given and freely received – the more we come to realize that God truly does will what’s best for us.  And when that moment of revelation occurs, we can’t help but discover that God is indeed trustworthy.

  Then we explored what we called a performance-based narrative.  A performance-based narrative dictates that the good are rewarded with good, while the bad are rewarded with bad.  The problem with a performance-based narrative about God is that it completely neglects the concept of grace.  Thus, while looking at the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, we encountered a landowner who gave not on the basis of what the laborers earned, but rather, on the basis of his abundant generosity.  Jesus’ intent, of course, was to equate the landowner with God.  We discovered that – while the way of the world may be survival of the fittest – the way of God is generosity to a fault.

  Looking at another angle of the performance-based narrative, we wrestled with whether or not God loves us only when we are good.  We considered the parable of the prodigal son.  There we discovered that there is a difference between hating the sin and hating the sinner.  God loves us unconditionally and longs for our return.  He will not rest until all of his children are securely under his roof.  What remains for us is to decide whether life in the Father’s house is better than life on our own.  Some come to that realization later than others, and some never come to it at all.  Yet the Father’s love remains undaunted, for the love of God is unconditional.

  Then we contrasted the grace of God with the holiness of God.  The grace of God has to do with God’s unconditional love and acceptance, while the holiness of God has to do with God’s passing judgment on sin.  We compared the grace of God and the holiness of God to the wings of a bird.  How far can a bird fly by flapping only one wing?  The world needs the grace of God on the one hand – and the holiness of God on the other hand – if it is ever going to fly; if it is ever going to change; if it is ever going to grow.

  Today our goal is to establish the narrative that God is self-sacrificing.  We noted earlier how out of touch the concept of sacrifice is with contemporary American society.  And, truth be told, many of us have a problem with the sacrifice Jesus made.  I knew a woman once who was very devout in her faith.  She’d taught Sunday school for years, she’d been Moderator of the Presbyterian women’s group, and she’d even served on Session.  But she had a problem with the sacrifice Jesus made.  “I just don’t understand why God would allow his Son to die on a cross like that,” she once said.  “To me…that borders on child abuse.” 

  The sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, I think, serves as a deterrent to many who would consider the Christian faith.  Why did God allow his Son to die such a horrible death?  And, pushing the envelope a little further still, wasn’t it God who sent him there in the first place?  If we take the time to think about it, I suspect a lot of us have a problem with the sacrifice Jesus made.  I suspect a lot of us have a problem with the death of God’s Son on the cross.

  In order to fully understand what God was up to in the Easter event, I think we need to consider what we call Trinitarian theology.  We know God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  God the Father is God over and above us, God the Son is God with us and for us, and God the Holy Spirit is God in us.  We believe in one God, revealed to us in three persons.  Yet the word “person” comes from the Latin word persona, which literally means “mask.”  So in other words, we literally have one God who essentially puts on masks to reveal himself to us in three ways.  Are you with me?  What I am saying is this: Jesus Christ dying on a cross does not reveal child abuse on God’s part.  It was God himself who went to the cross that day.  And that, my friends, is what we call the self-sacrifice of God.

  Now, the issue of why the cross was necessary is a subject for another sermon.  What we are concerned with today is the self-sacrifice of God.  So, rather than consider the rationale behind the cross, let’s instead look to what motivated God to go to the cross.  What was God thinking when he went to the cross to die?

  Richard Francis Xavier Manning – better known as Brennan Manning – is an American author and a Catholic priest.  In a book called, The Wisdom of Tenderness: What Happens When God’s Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives, he tells the story of how he came to be known as Brennan.  While growing up in Depression-era New York City, his best friend was a boy named Ray Brennan.  The two of them did everything together.  As teenagers they bought a car together, they double-dated together, and they went to high school together.  Later, they enlisted in the Marine Corps together, they went to boot camp together, and they fought on the front lines together in Korea. 

  One night, while sitting in a foxhole, Manning was reminiscing about the good old days in Brooklyn, while his friend listened and ate a chocolate bar.  Suddenly, a live grenade dropped into the foxhole.  His friend looked at him, smiled, dropped his chocolate bar, and threw himself on the hand grenade.  It exploded – killing him – but Manning’s life was saved.

  When Manning later became a priest, he was instructed to take on the name of a saint.  He thought of his friend, Ray Brennan.  From that point on, Richard Francis Xavier Manning came to be known as Brennan Manning.  Years later, Father Manning went to visit Ray Brennan’s mother in Brooklyn.  As they sat up late one night drinking tea, Father Manning asked her, “Do you think Ray loved me?”  Mrs. Brennan got up off the couch, shook her finger in Father Manning’s face, and cried, “Dear God, what more could he have done for you?” 

  Father Manning said that at that moment, he experienced an epiphany.  He imagined himself standing before the cross of Jesus, wondering: “Does God really love me?”  Then he thought of Jesus’ mother Mary pointing to Jesus on the cross and crying out, “Dear God, what more could he have done for you?” 

  The cross of Jesus Christ is God’s way of doing all that he could do for us.  Now we need not wonder: Am I important to God, does God care about me, or does God really love me?  All we have to do…is look to the cross of Christ.

  When it comes to God’s self-sacrifice, we often ask the question: Why did Jesus have to die?  Maybe the answer is that Jesus did not have to die.  Maybe the answer is that Jesus chose to die.  Why?  For God so loved the world.  Amen.

 

01-06-2013 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

 

CHRISTIANITY 101: GOD IS HOLY

  People are funny.  They have an absolutely profound need to feel as if they are somehow in control of their lives and the world around them.  One of the ways we maintain our sense of control is by pinning labels on people.  And members of the clergy experience this just as much as anyone else.  For example, whenever a minister begins to serve a new parish, one of the questions he or she is inevitably asked is this: “Are you a liberal, or are you a conservative?”  The person who asks such a question asks it so they can understand where you are coming from – such that they might maintain a measure of control – by either accepting you or rejecting you.

  Now I don’t like the terms “liberal” and “conservative” because I think they are relative terms.  For example, at the Presbyterian seminary I attended, I anchored the conservative wing.  But just down the street there was a Southern Baptist seminary.  There I would have been considered a raving liberal.  Like I said, I don’t like the terms “liberal” and “conservative” because I think they are relative terms. 

  Thus, when I am asked that question – and I’ve been asked it many times – I respond by saying, “I am orthodox.”  Orthodox means “standard” or “right belief.”  It is built upon 2000 years of Christian theological history.  You see, from a theological standpoint, conservatives tend to emphasize personal piety and holiness, while liberals tend to emphasize social justice and peacemaking.  As an orthodox theologian, I believe those two concepts are like the wings of a bird.  How far can a bird fly by only flapping one wing?  The world needs personal piety and holiness on the one hand, and the world needs social justice and peacemaking on the other, if it is ever going to fly…if it is ever going to grow. 

  Now try this thought on for size.  What if the grace of God – and the holiness of God – are also like the two wings of a bird?  Maybe the world needs the grace of God on the one hand, and the holiness of God on the other hand, if it is ever going to fly…if it is ever going to grow.  Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

  Several weeks ago, we talked about the contrast between our tendency to gratify the desires of the flesh and the Apostle Paul’s call for us to live by the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit.  We noted how human will power lacks the capacity to change much of anything within us.  Change happens when something else is modified.  What is it that needs to be modified?  What needs to be modified is our personal narrative of who and what God is.  We need to have the proper story in our minds as to who and what God is, if we’re ever going to change who and what we are, because everything about us stems from our own internal narrative.

  As Jesus is God Incarnate, we determined to let Jesus establish our new internal narrative.  We noted how one of the false narratives that many people have of God is that God is an angry judge.  Citing a passage from the gospel according to John, we saw Jesus and his disciples encounter a man who was blind from birth.  His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned – this man or his parents – that he was born blind?”  In their minds it had to be one or the other.  Blindness was believed to be punishment from an angry God.  Thus, Jesus set out to establish a new narrative within them.  He quickly replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned.  He was born blind that the works of God might be made manifest in him.”  In other words, “God is good; God wills the good…and the glory of God will ultimately be revealed in him.”  Then Jesus healed the man born blind.  The point is that God wills what’s best for us.  The problem is that we don’t see the big picture as God sees the big picture.  Yet the narrative Jesus clearly sets out to establish here...is that God is good.

  We considered how much of our experience might lead us to believe that God cannot be trusted.  Why, even Jesus was not spared the agony of the cross when he begged God to do so.  Thus, what we did was embark upon the process of conducting a spiritual inventory.  In other words, we took the time to count our blessings.  What we discovered is that while our troubles are indeed very real, they are really quite small compared to God’s widespread mercy.  The more we are able to comprehend how many blessings we really have – freely given and freely received – the more we come to realize that God truly does will what’s best for us.  And when that moment of revelation occurs, we can’t help but discover that God is indeed trustworthy.

  Then we explored what we called a performance-based narrative.  A performance-based narrative dictates that the good are rewarded with good, while the bad are rewarded with bad.  The problem with a performance-based narrative about God is that it completely neglects the concept of grace.  Thus, while looking at the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, we encountered a landowner who gave not on the basis of what the laborers earned, but rather, on the basis of his abundant generosity.  Jesus’ intent, of course, was to equate the landowner with God.  We discovered that, while the way of the world may be survival of the fittest…the way of God is generosity to a fault.

  Looking at another angle of the performance-based narrative, we wrestled with whether or not God loves us only when we’re good.  We considered the parable of the prodigal son.  There we discovered that there is a difference between hating the sin and hating the sinner.  God loves us unconditionally and longs for our return.  He will not rest until all of his children are securely under his roof.  What remains for us is to decide whether life in the Father’s house is better than life on our own.  Some come to that realization later than others, and some never come to it at all.  Yet the Father’s love remains undaunted, for the love of God is unconditional.

  Today our goal is to establish the narrative that God is holy.  In light of that, consider the question we posed earlier.  What if the grace of God – and the holiness of God – are also like the two wings of a bird?  Maybe the world needs the grace of God on the one hand, and the holiness of God on the other hand, if it is every going to fly…if it is ever going to grow.  While the grace of God has to do with God’s unconditional love and acceptance, the holiness of God has to do with God’s passing judgment on sin.  Does the world really need both?

  Let’s begin by considering the concept of sin itself.  What is sin?  Sin is defined as separation from God.  I like to look at sin another way, however.  If that lectern over there is God, my obedience necessarily draws me closer to God.  Sin, aptly defined as separation from God, has to do with turning in another direction.  In other words, sin is simply turning one’s gaze in the wrong direction.  And what does it accomplish?  All it does is separate us from God.

  But you’re educated people, are you not?  The Bible is full of some pretty ridiculous rules, particularly in the Old Testament.  For example, in the 11^th chapter of the book of Leviticus, it lists the animals that are not to be eaten.  Verse 4 says, “But among those that chew the cud or have divided hooves, you shall not eat the following…The pig, for even though it has divided hooves and is cleft-footed, it does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you.”  That’s why Jews don’t eat pork.  That sounds pretty ridiculous, does it not?  But what can happen if you eat pork that is undercooked?  It’s a little thing called trichinosis.  Tell me, how good were the microwave ovens 3000 years ago?  There weren’t any microwave ovens 3000 years ago.  Eating pork was risky business 3000 years ago because the likelihood of eating it undercooked was high.  So you see, as ridiculous as this law sounds to us, it was designed for the people’s own good.  That’s the way the laws of God are.  They are not meant to oppress us; they are designed for our own good. 

  The question was, “Does the world need the grace of God on the one hand, and the holiness of God on the other?”  Listen to this.  Dr. James Bryan Smith is a theology professor at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas.  He talks about preaching a sermon in a Wichita church where he spoke about the grace of God.  “God loves you without condition,” he said.  “God has reconciled you to himself, and in Christ you are a new creation.”

  Shortly after the service, a woman approached him and said, “Thank you so much for that sermon.  It was very freeing!”  She went on to say, “You see, I’ve been living with my boyfriend for the past six months.  I was raised in a church that said this was a sin, and I felt really guilty.  But this morning you said that God loves us without condition, and that Jesus has forgiven us all our sin, and then I realized that my guilt was unnecessary.  So I just wanted to thank you for preaching such a liberating message.”

  As she smiled and bounded away, Dr. Smith’s heart sank.  He had labored long and hard to present the message that the love of God is unconditional.  What he had failed to present was that God also has some standards by which we are called to live.  What he failed to include was the holiness of God. 

  The passage we read from the book of Malachi addresses God’s holiness.  The historical setting is shortly after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, and the subsequent fall of the Babylonians to the Persians.  The people of God had been dispersed to foreign lands and longed to return to their homeland.  Malachi quotes God when he writes, “Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them.  Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.”

  Yet before he gets to that, Malachi describes what God is doing to his people.  “For he is like a refiner’s fire; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendents of Levi and refine them like silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.”  The purification of the people is compared to the process of refining metal…removing the dross and leaving the pure metal. 

  Some time ago, a women’s Bible study group was examining the book of Malachi.  They came upon that remarkable expression in the third verse: “And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.”  They were curious about it, so one of the women decided to visit a silversmith and report to the others on what he said about the subject.  So she went, and – without telling him the reason for her visit – begged the silversmith to tell her about the process of refining silver.  After he had fully described it to her, she asked, “Sir, do you sit while the work of refining is going on?”

  “Oh, yes ma’am,” the silversmith replied.  “I must sit and watch the furnace constantly, for – if the time necessary for refining silver is exceeded in the slightest degree – the silver will be compromised.”  The woman at once saw the beauty in the expression, “He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.”

  Yet before she left, she asked the silversmith one final question.  “How do you know when the process is complete?” she asked.  “Oh, that’s easy,” the silversmith replied.  “The process is complete…when I can see my reflection in the silver.”

  Perhaps that is also what the holiness of God implies.  God does not establish rules and regulations to make life hard on us.  The laws of God are for our own good.  For you see, what God really desires…is to see his own reflection in us.  Amen.

 

12-30-2012 Sermon by Rev. Larry Peters

A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

Rev. Larry Peters

December 30, 2012

Psalm 72:12-14

Isaiah 60:1-6, 17-22

Matthew 2:1-18

 

  At Christmas, God gives us his perfect gift of his Son, the Messiah, the Promised One.  We love Christmas!  We love to hear the story of how God’s love came to be with us.  And what a precious love it is!  A child!  God’s Word made flesh; prophecy fulfilled; the  shepherds quake; the angels sing; the wise follow.  We are drawn to the light.  We want to come nearer; to bow down in glad and humble worship; to behold this most precious and perfect gift.  For a while, at least, the dark, evil, turbulent world seems at peace in the soft, warm glow of this nativity scene.

  But let’s not forget the cold, harsh reality of why this scene is what it is.  The child is born in a manger because there was no room at the Inn, symbolic of how people are unwilling to give him a place in their heart as Lord of their life.  And let’s not overlook God’s protection and providence in this scene.  The child is born in this unimagined, obscure place because there are evil forces that would seek to destroy him.  Yes, we know that this is a violent world and this is yet another cold, dark night.

  But God is here!   This is Christmas Remember the Christmas message as announced by the angels (Luke 2:10-12):  “Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.  To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord!  This will be a sign for you; you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger!”  The gift that God gives us at Christmas is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior and Hope of the world!  So then a multitude of heavenly hosts suddenly appear praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” (V. 14).

  We love Christmas, Christ’s birth, God’s precious love with us!  But, to understand the full value of God’s perfect gift, we must look beyond the nativity at Bethlehem and journey to the Garden of Gethsemane, the hill of Calvary, the cross, the empty tomb, to Resurrection morning, and to our Lord’s promised coming again in glory!

  When we walk this faith journey with Christ, we come to learn about him and we come to understand his ways.  We come to learn and understand more about who he is; why he has come to be with us; and why we should follow him.  We come to learn about and to understand our human need; about God’s perfect way and design to fulfill our need; and about a need for our response.  Already, as we look about the nativity scene at Christmas, we see our situation; the human situation to which God has come.  The Son of God is born in a manger because people are unprepared or unwilling to receive him as Lord and to give him proper place in their lives.  Whatever it is, greed, selfishness, indifference, there are so many things that come between us when the Lord comes to be with us.

  So many things, including fear and jealousy.  We hear in our gospel lesson of today from Matthew chapter two that king Herod was upset upon learning that there was one born to be king of the Jews.  Out of fear and jealousy, Herod ordered a search for the child, that he be destroyed.  Oh – he had let on to the wise men that he wanted to “pay homage” to the new born king.  You know, of course, the deception that evil likes to employ in its path of destruction.  This is the kind of dark, dangerous, deception and evil world that we live in; the world that Jesus came to.  The Good News is that Jesus has come to conquer evil and to save us from our sins!  Jesus is our hope, our salvation!  Jesus is the way out of our corrupt human situation!  Jesus is a Light in the Darkness! 

  Thanks be to God that he loves us so much that he gives his only begotten Son to be our Lord and Savior!  Those who believe in him are delivered from their fears – even our fear of death; and we have a new promise, a new hope!  God comes to save!  God will take care of us!  God is with us!

  Now it may be on some people’s hearts to ask: was God with the children, the teachers, the innocent victims of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School?  Why didn’t God take care of them?  Why didn’t God save them?  Some have tried to answer by saying that it is a result of our having dismissed God from our schools.  The trouble, I think, with such a statement is that it wrongly assumes that we have some authority over God.  We have no ability to tell the God who created this world to be perfect, the God of the universe who orders all things – where he can and cannot be!

  As Christians we can believe that God was there – in the courage of the teachers to confront the gunman and attempt to overpower him; in the judgment of  those sounding warning and seeking safety for others; in the compassion of outstretched arms embracing and protecting one another.  Yes, we can believe that God was there because love was there; and God is love.

  The Bible says that Jesus loves the innocent, loves the children as he said:  “Bring the little ones to me, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”  (Luke 18:16).  They know that they are loved and cared for.  They know the fulfillment of their salvation.  It is for us to be about the task of healing, caring for and saving children, families and communities through the love of God in us.  Sadly, it seems that it takes tragedies such as this to get our attention and to motivate us to a right kind of action.  The Bible says there’s one thing that gets God’s attention more than anything else, and that is the innocent blood which cries out to him.

  There has been spilling of innocent blood from the earliest mention of human interaction beginning in the Book of Genesis.  Early in chapter four Cain kills his brother Abel; and God says to Cain: “Listen, your brother’s blood is crying out to me!”  And in today’s gospel lesson we are told again of “The Slaughter of the Innocents,” the children killed by order of Herod whose fear and jealousy was of a new born king.  And a great weeping was heard throughout the land because the children were no more.

  Indeed that must have been a terrible time of weeping and heartbreak and again as families cry over loved ones at Newtown, Connecticut and whenever, wherever such terrible loss of life occurs.  It is a sadness that touches us deeply.  I cried for those families, children and teachers as many Americans have.  I remember how my wife, Susan, and I cried for our still-born Son, Tyler, in August of 1998.  Susan had carried Tyler to almost full term when one day she felt no movement.  At the hospital we learned that Tyler had died.  We were shocked, horrified; this wasn’t supposed to happen.  We were joyfully expecting the birth of our son when all of a sudden the joy, the hope, the promise, the future, the life we loved was taken away from us.

  But God was with us; and God was with Tyler.  God was in the gentle concern of the doctor who induced labor and helped Susan to deliver our still-born son.  God was in the sensitivity of the nurse who gently washed Tyler and bundled him in clean cloths so that we could hold him.  We were allowed to spend important time with Tyler, and all the while under the care of the doctor and nurses.  And God was in the compassion and concern of friends who would comfort us.

  I remember in particular a couple from one of the churches that we served who came to the hospital room and ministered to us by allowing us to express our grief.  They knew the grief.  They had lost their only child, a son, in a motor vehicle accident.  They came and hugged us and gave us a shoulder to cry on; and I cried like I had never done before.  And God was in the tears.  I’ve learned that a good cry can actually help a person to feel better.  It feels like a cleansing, and then you feel ready for a fresh start and a new beginning.  God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning, the end, and all times in between!  Yes, God is our Emmanuel!  God is with us!  And people, like the ones I mentioned and many others like them, are important in the ways that they help to bring healing to those that are hurting.  I remember how they helped me and I will always think of them as heroes.

  People need heroes every day.  Maybe you could use one.  Maybe you could be one.  People need healing.  Let’s try to find ways to help one another.  I came across a letter written by Max Lucado; it reads:

                “Dear Jesus,

It’s a good thing you were born at night.  This world sure seems dark.  I have a good eye for silver linings.  But they seem darker lately.   These killings, Lord.  These children, Lord.  Innocence violated.  Raw evil demonstrated.  The whole world seems on edge.  Trigger-happy.  Ticked off.  We hear threats of chemical weapons and nuclear bombs.  Are we one button push away from annihilation?  

Your world seems a bit darker this Christmas.  But you were born in the dark, right?  You came at night.  The shepherds were night-shift workers.  The wise men followed a star.  Your first cries were heard in the shadows.  To see your face, Mary and Joseph needed a candle flame.  It was dark.  Dark was Herod’s jealousy.  Dark was Roman oppression.  Dark with poverty.  Dark with violence.

Oh, Lord Jesus, you entered the dark world of your day.  Won’t you enter ours?  We are weary of bloodshed.  We, like the wise men, are looking for a star.  We, like the shepherds, are kneeling at the manger.  This Christmas, we ask you, heal us, help us, be born anew in us.

Hopefully,

Your children”

  Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior and Hope of the world!  Jesus is a Light in the Darkness!  The message, as we get through the struggles of one year and get ready to start a new year, is that there is hope!  Remember to keep the light of Jesus shining brightly!  The prophet Isaiah tells us to “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!”  There is a thick darkness over the land and over the peoples.  But we are not to let it get us down.  Again Isaiah says; “Lift up your eyes and look around.  Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice….Your days of mourning shall be ended.  Your God will be your glory.  The Lord will be your everlasting light!” (Isaiah 60:1-5, 19-20).  Amen!