02-24-2013 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

 

CHRISTIANITY 101: IN SEARCH OF THE KINGDOM

  On January 15^th, 2009, U.S. Airways Flight 1549 took off from LaGuardia Airport in New York City…bound for Charlotte, North Carolina.  During its initial ascent, the plane struck a flock of Canadian Geese and lost engine power, forcing the plane to land in the Hudson River.  The event came to be known as the “Miracle on the Hudson.”  It made a hero and a household name out of a pilot known as Sully Sullenberger.

  A man named Rick Elias was a passenger on that flight.  He was sitting in seat number one-D.  He later said that as the eerily silent plane descended toward the Hudson River, his mind was filled with thoughts about his life, his work, and his family.  He said that he thought about all the people to whom he wished he could reach out – all the fences he wanted to mend – but couldn’t.  He said that in that moment, he was sad about how often his priorities had gotten twisted around.  He regretted the time he had wasted on things that didn’t really matter.  He said that on that day – as the plane plunged toward the river – he knew he was going to die…and, while he was not afraid, he was sad.  He was sad because he felt as though he had missed out on the most important things in life.  Then, after the event was over, and he and the others survived, he said, “I was given the gift of two miracles that day.  The first was that I survived.  The second…was that I was afforded the opportunity to live my life differently.”

  Along those lines, there’s a wonderful prayer that Jewish people often use on the Sabbath Day.  It goes like this: “The days pass, and the years vanish; and we walk sightless among miracles.”  Ah, some pretty wonderful things do happen in this lifetime…things we often fail to even notice.  Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

  Last week we noted how – each and every day – we make decisions that move us closer to a life of virtue, or closer to a life of ruin.  Though the past may be written in stone, the future is more like wet cement…pliable, soft, and ready to be shaped by the decisions we make.  Our goal is to develop a more godly life narrative.  Our goal is to discover what it means to live a life of virtue.  Our goal is to discern where our deep happiness may truly be found.

  Today we’re going to begin by going in search of the kingdom of God.  Suppose you took the time to read the gospels.  If you did, you would find that Jesus mentions the kingdom of God more than one hundred times.  As Dr. James Bryan Smith once put it, “It is much more difficult to find a teaching of Jesus that is not about the kingdom…than it is to find one that is.”  Perhaps we could go so far as to say that the kingdom of God is a central tenet of the Christian faith.

  Consider the passage we read from the gospel according to Matthew.  Jesus had recently been baptized and was coming off of forty days of temptation in the wilderness.  The passage we read marks the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee.  And what were the very first words to come out of Jesus’ mouth?  He said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 

  Now let me quickly clarify something here.  The Greek words translated “kingdom of heaven” are basileia tone huranown.  They literally mean, “kingdom of heaven.”  The word huranown itself – translated heaven – literally means, “the dwelling place of God.”  The Greek words translated “kingdom of God” are basileia tou Theou.  My Greek lexicon says that the phrases basileia tone huranown and basileia tou Theou can be used interchangeably.  In other words, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven…are the very same thing.

  Now before Matthew tells us what Jesus said, he takes a moment to explain why Jesus said it.  He tells us that Jesus did not begin his ministry in Galilee until John the Baptist had been arrested.  Jesus then left his home town of Nazareth, some 65 miles north of Jerusalem, and made his home in Capernaum on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee.  Now there’s a very specific and important reason why Jesus chose to make his home in Capernaum.

  The town of Capernaum was situated in the old Jewish territories of Zebulun and Naphtali.  What were the old Jewish territories of Zebulun and Naphtali?  Zebulun and Naphtali were two of the twelve sons of the Hebrew patriarch, Jacob.  Recall that during a time of famine, Jacob and his family were forced to move to Egypt, where next-to-youngest son Joseph had risen to become second in command.  Finding themselves in bondage some four hundred years later, Moses led the twelve tribes of Israel out of Egypt – died before they reached the Promised Land – and then Joshua led the conquest of Canaan.  Once the land was theirs, the Hebrew people divided it into twelve large parcels, giving one to each of the twelve tribes of Israel.  The tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali received adjoining parcels of land on the north side of Canaan, and that’s where the town of Capernaum sat in Jesus’ day.

  So why does it matter that the town of Capernaum sat in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali?        It matters because of something the prophet Isaiah said nearly 800 years before.  He said, “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali – on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles – the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.  And for those who sat in the region and shadow of death, light has dawned.”  In other words, Isaiah prophesied that the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali would be the first to encounter God’s Messiah.

  Now when Isaiah said those words, the nation of Israel was enduring persecution at the hand of the nation of Assyria.  The words Isaiah spoke reflected the promise of God’s deliverance.  Ultimately, God delivered them by the hand of King Hezekiah.  In Jesus’ day, the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali were enduring persecution from the nation of Rome.  They sat in the region and shadow of death; they sat in the midst of taxation and occupation and oppression.  This time, deliverance would come by the hand of Jesus Christ.  Yet the deliverance would not be quite the same.  It would not be a physical deliverance.  It would be a spiritual deliverance. 

  After carefully setting the scene, Matthew records Jesus’ first proclamation, which was: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  The Greek word translated “repent” is metanoia.  It literally means, “a change of heart or mind.”  A lot of people think the word “repent” means, “shape up,” as in, “Shape up or ship out.”  Thus, the proclamation of Jesus here appears to be a kind of threat.  But the fact of the matter is: it is not a threat.  It is…an invitation.

  The story with which we introduced this sermon is a perfect example of what repentance really is.  Rick Elias was a passenger on U.S. Airways flight 1549.  As the plane was going down, he was convinced he was going to die.  He was not afraid to die; he was sad about the way he’d lived his life.  His priorities had been out of order.  He had neglected time with God, he had neglected time for self-care, and he had neglected his investment in important relationships.  Then, when he survived, he had a genuine change of heart.  He felt he experienced two miracles that day.  The first was that he survived.  The second was that he was given the opportunity to live his life differently.  That, my friends, is true repentance.  That, my friends, is a genuine change of heart and mind.

  Now most of us would probably rather avoid a near-death experience to motivate us to change our hearts and minds.  Fortunately, Jesus gives us a few less death-defying ways it can be done.  In Matthew 5:20, Jesus says, “I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  In Mark 10:15, Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”  And finally, in John 3:5, Jesus adds, “Truly, truly, I say to you; no one can enter the kingdom of God…without being born of water and the Spirit.”

  In the Matthew passage, Jesus indicates that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees.  At first glance, that may seem like a bit of a daunting challenge.  The scribes and the Pharisees were very good at abiding by the laws of God.  Yet truth be told, Jesus was often critical of the scribes and the Pharisees because their righteousness was primarily external.  They were more concerned with ritualistic hand-washing than they were with justice and mercy.  The righteousness we need is humility, purity of heart, and a desire to work on those aspects of our souls that are most important: things like integrity, gentleness, mercy, and love.  The scribes and the Pharisees were overly concerned with outward appearances.  Jesus is saying that in order to encounter the kingdom of God, we need to work on our interior life.

  In the Mark passage, the requirement for entering the kingdom of God is to become like a child.  Let me point out here that there is a difference between child-like-ness and child-ish-ness.           I think Jesus is aiming at child-like-ness.  Children, by nature, are innocent and trusting.  They do not naturally judge or hate other human beings.  Those are learned behaviors.  Love comes naturally to a child.  Yet perhaps the most important thing of all about childlikeness is that children to not feel the need to be in control.  And maybe that’s the key.  As long as we insist upon maintaining control over every aspect of our lives, we will never enter the kingdom of God.

  In the John passage, Jesus talks about being born of water and the Spirit.  When the ancients spoke of being born of water, they were not speaking of baptism.  They were speaking about natural birth.  All of us – if we are alive – are born of water.  Being born of the Spirit, however, is another matter entirely.  To be born of the Spirit is to be guided by the Spirit.  While this is not something we can control – while this is, in fact, something that happens in God’s good time – in order to enter the kingdom of God…we must surrender our lives to the Holy Spirit of God.

  Yet perhaps the most important thing Jesus is indicating here is that the kingdom of God is not just something we hope to attain in the future.  The kingdom of God is also a present reality.  In other words, we can abide in the kingdom of God in the here and now.  Thus, the kingdom of God of which Jesus speaks is not a place.  The kingdom of God of which Jesus speaks…is an interactive relationship with God.  Again, the kingdom of God of which Jesus speaks is not a place.  The kingdom of God of which Jesus speaks is an interactive relationship with God.

  A number of years ago there was a man who had a wonderful wife and four beautiful children.  He lived in a quaint, small town and life for him was good.  He and his wife could go out to dinner because they had lots of trustworthy babysitters around, and he got to spend a lot of time with his kids.  His life was full because his life was perfectly balanced. 

  Then he came up for a big promotion in the company for which he worked.  That man desperately wanted that big promotion.  He and his family prayed for it.  He even enlisted his small group Bible study to pray for it.  In the end, he received that big promotion.  He and his family picked up stakes and left the small town in which they had lived for many years to move to the big city.  It was the answer to a prayer…or was it?

  That man now lives in a community where “keeping up with the Joneses,” is of vital importance.  He now has to commute nearly two hours to work each day.  He gets up at five, leaves the house at six, and gets to work by seven.  He seldom gets home before 9:00 at night.  His wife and his kids are not up when he leaves, and the children are often in bed before he gets back home.  His career is obviously tremendously successful.  Unfortunately, his life is not.  He longs for the days when life was simpler.  He longs for the days when his life was more balanced.

   How did that old Jewish saying go?  “The days pass, and the years vanish; and we walk sightless among miracles?”  One man was in possession of the kingdom of God, yet he was too blind to see it.  The kingdom of God is not a place; the kingdom of God is an interactive relationship with God…an interactive relationship that brings us peace of heart and mind.  May we be wise enough to see it when it’s right before our eyes.  Amen.

 

02-17-2013 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

 

CHRISTIANITY 101: HOW TO RUIN YOUR LIFE IN SIX EASY STEPS

  Dr. James Bryan Smith is a professor of theology at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas.  Dr. James Bryan Smith was also the primary speaker at that conference I recently attended in St. Pete Beach, Florida.  In a book entitled The Good and Beautiful Life, he tells a marvelous story of what can happen when a person bases their life on a faulty narrative.  Listen closely.

One summer I worked as an intern chaplain at a retirement center.  It was a pretty cushy job.  The residents were all in good enough health to not need constant care.  They seemed to enjoy living together…kind of like a college dorm experience for people with gray hair.  I saw smiling faces wherever I went.  In our daily chapel service, a woman named Gladys played a hymn, I gave a short devotion, and we ended with one more hymn and a benediction.  The rest of the day the residents spent talking about their children and grandchildren, having tea, or shooting pool.  It was a pretty nice job.  Sipping tea with grandmothers and shooting pool with grandfathers was not a bad way to spend a summer. 

Mostly I mingled during social times, but occasionally someone would request a visit.  One day my supervisor handed me a note that said, “Ben Jacobs in room 116 requests a visit from the chaplain.”  She looked at me and said, “Good luck with this one, Jim.”  Her tone indicated that I was in for a difficult afternoon.  “What could be so hard about this?” I asked myself, as I made my way to Ben’s room.  I knocked on the door and a deep voice replied, “Come in, young man.”  Ben sat in his rocking chair with a shawl around his legs, wearing a blue cardigan and a button-down shirt.  He had gray hair, a well-trimmed beard, and very severe features: large, deep-set eyes and a long, thin nose.  He looked serious and important…like one who was accustomed to giving orders.

“Good afternoon, Ben,” I said, reaching out to shake his hand.  “Sit down, son,” he said matter-of-factly, without shaking my hand.  For the next hour we discussed philosophy and world religion.  I wasn’t sure if he wanted to test my intelligence, or if he just wanted to impress me.  He certainly did impress me.  He knew a great deal about very sophisticated matters in religion and philosophy.  We engaged in a debate over which philosopher was best.  I suspected that he did not want to just debate philosophy, but I was not completely sure what he did want.  After a while, he said, “Well, you must have much to do.  I will let you go now.”  This time he did shake my hand, and as I left the room he said, “Would you please come back tomorrow?”

For the next six days I went to room 116 to talk with Ben.  Each day he opened up a little more…sharing his life in bits and pieces.  Then, on the seventh visit, I discovered Ben’s intention.  He wanted someone to whom he could confess his sin.  Not any one sin, mind you; Ben wanted to confess having lived a bad life.  Now the casual observer would probably say that his life was not so bad.  Some might even say it was a life well-lived.

Ben said, “I was born in 1910.  I made my first million by 1935.  I was twenty-five years old.  By the age of forty-five, I was the richest man in the state.  Politicians wanted to be my friend.  I lied, cheated and stole from whoever I could.  My motto was simple: Take all you can from whoever you can.  I amassed great wealth and everyone was impressed with me.  I had a lot of power in those days.  I had two thousand employees, and all of them looked up to me or were afraid of me.  Making lots of money was all I cared about.  I had three wives, all of whom left me because of neglect, or because they caught me in one of my many affairs.  I have one daughter, who is now in her early forties, but she refuses to even speak to me.”

Ben paused to look at me to see if I was judging him.  I wasn’t.  I was actually pretty stunned.  He looked so grandfatherly in his sweater.  He looked nothing like the kind of person who could have lived such an ambitious and selfish life.  He went on to say, “I suppose you could say that I have ruined my life, because today, I have nothing.  Oh, I still have a lot of money.  I have more money than I could ever spend.  But it brings me no joy.  I sit here every day just waiting to die.  I have nothing but bad memories.  I cared for no one in my life, and now no one cares for me.  You, young man, are all I have.”

  What do most of us want more than anything else in life?  Chances are, what most of us want more than anything else in life…is to be happy.  No one seeks a dull, boring, meaningless life.  We want to be happy, and we want to be happy all the time.  I’m sure Ben Jacobs – the man we spoke about earlier – wanted to be happy as well.  With the course he set for his life as a young man, he probably thought he was pursuing happiness.  The problem was that the ideas Ben had as to what constituted happiness…were wrong.  His dominant narrative – like all dominant narratives – dictated his behavior and produced certain outcomes.  No one ends up in a situation like Ben’s all at once.  It takes a long time to ruin a life.  Yet it all starts with the stories by which we live.  It all starts with our dominant life narrative.

  Many years ago, my little brother and I were having a philosophical discussion that might be construed as referring to the subject of dominant life narratives.  I remember saying to him, “The ways of the world and the ways of God are polar opposites.”  He said, “What do you mean by that?”  I honestly don’t remember what I said to him then.  But now that I’ve had a little time to think about it, I know what I’d say to him now.

  The ways of the world are these: Look out for number one.  Nice guys finish last.  All’s fair in love and war.  If it feels good, do it.  He who dies with the most toys wins.  And, “What does it matter what I do, as long as I’m not hurting anyone else?”  Those, my friends, are the ways of the world.  The ways of God can probably be summed up in a couple of sentences.  Perhaps Jesus put it best when he said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.  And you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.”  The ways of the world and the ways of God are polar opposites.  Following the ways of the world as our dominant life narrative will likely put us in the same boat as Ben Jacobs.  Following the ways of God as our dominant life narrative is the only thing that can bring us the true happiness we all so desperately seek.

  The Apostle Paul describes what it means to follow the ways of the world in the passage we read from the book of Romans.  In fact, we might even title this particular passage: How to Ruin Your Life in Six Easy Steps.  What Paul is essentially saying is this.

  The first step toward ruining your life is to refuse to let God be God.  In verse 21 Paul writes, “For though they knew God, they did not honor him as God, or give thanks to him.”  Paul refers here to humanity before the advent of Jesus Christ.  The point is that we can see God’s handiwork in the creation that surrounds us.  To refuse to see God as God is to fail to see God as the source of all that we have and all that we are, and to simply take it for granted.

  The second step is that the mind darkens.  Refusing to honor God as God, in Paul’s mind, is a step away from reality.  It goes against the truth of the universe.  Therefore our minds – which thrive on truth and reality – darken.  As Paul put it, “They became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools.”

  The third step is idolatry.  Paul believes that we all need a god of some kind.  If we reject God Almighty, then we need something to take God’s place.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  What we’d really like is a god who will do things for us and ask very little in return.  So in order to have such a thing, we create idols.  As Paul put it, “They exchanged the glory of God for images resembling a mortal being.”  Idols these days, however, are not necessarily graven images.  Idols are those things in which we invest our lives in order to gain pleasure, happiness, or a sense of purpose.  The key is that the idol serves us by giving us our desires, and we serve it by sacrificing our life’s energy to it.  Ah, fame and fortune are powerful idols, are they not?

  The fourth step is the wrath of God.  The Greek words translated “wrath of God” are orge theou.  They mean, in essence, that God simply leaves us to reap that which we sow.  Perhaps C.S. Lewis put it best when he said, “There are those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done.’  And there are those to whom God says, ‘Thy will be done.’”  As the Apostle Paul put it, “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts.”  That’s what the wrath of God is.  God simply gives us over to the consequences of our own actions.

  The fifth step is that pleasure is pursued at all costs.  Disconnected from reality and on our own, we must find a way to gain fulfillment.  The easiest route is through our mortal bodies.  Lust, avarice, greed and gluttony become the routes to happiness.  Of course, the “high” that comes from our bodies has a constantly diminishing effect.  Each time we engage in those practices the pleasure decreases, thus requiring greater frequency or greater quantities to attain the level of pleasure sought.  Paul put it this way: “For this reason, God gave them up to degrading passions.”  The initial “lusts of their hearts” has now turned into “degrading passions.”

  Last but not least, the sixth step in how to ruin your life is that sin reigns.  Sin becomes normative behavior.  When we reject God and try to replace him with things that do not satisfy, we naturally begin to reflect that which stands against God…namely, sin.  Paul wrote:

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done.  They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness and malice.  Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters; insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless and ruthless.

  Does that sound like anyone you know?  Every time you turn on the evening news you see exactly what Paul was talking about.  How do you ruin your life in six easy steps?  It all begins with that first fatal step – the same step that tripped up Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden – refusing to show God the respect, the honor, and the thankfulness he deserves.   

  By contrast, virtue is what brings about a godly life.  Virtue is not the outward appearance of a person; virtue is the inward reality of the heart.  Virtue is what brings about true happiness.  In his early years, Thomas Merton despised the word virtue.  To him, the word meant, “prudery practiced by hypocrites.”  Yet Merton later discovered that virtue – the power that comes from moral excellence – is the only way to happiness.  In The Seven Storey Mountain Merton wrote:

Without virtue there can be no happiness, because virtues are precisely the powers by which we can come to acquire happiness: without them, there can be no joy, because they are the habits which coordinate our natural energies and direct them to the harmony and perfection and balance, the unity of our nature with itself and with God, which must, in the end, constitute our everlasting peace.

  Each and every day we make decisions that move us closer to a life of virtue or closer to a life of ruin.  Though the past may be written in stone, the future is more like wet cement…pliable, soft, and ready to be shaped by the decisions we make.  Join us over the course of the next few weeks as we seek to develop a more godly life narrative.  Join us over the course of the next few weeks as we seek to discover what it means to live a life of virtue.  Join us over the course of the next few weeks…as we seek to discern what happiness really is.  Amen. 

 

02-10-2013 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

 

CHRISTIANITY 101: TIME IN A BOTTLE

  Many years ago, an American missionary in China found it necessary to leave his family for an extended period of time.  Fearful his youngest daughter would not understand, he placed in his pocket a rare treat in that part of China – a shiny, red apple – to give to her as he boarded the train.  Today he would likely have given her an iPad equipped with Skype so they could communicate face-to-face, but that was not an option a hundred years ago.  So he brought an apple.

  Finally, the moment for his departure came.  He embraced his wife and each of his older children in turn.  Then it came time to say goodbye to his youngest daughter.  Picking her up in his arms, he placed the apple in her hands.  He hoped the gift would soften the impact of his leaving.  Instead, when he boarded the train and looked back, he saw the apple slip from her hands and roll across the platform.  Tears streaming down her face, she ran beside the train and cried, “Daddy!  I don’t want what you give!  I want you!”

  Perhaps the most important commodity we have to give is our time.  Perhaps the most important commodity we possess is our time.  Yet time cannot be saved, it can only be spent.  And we are the ones who control exactly how our time is spent.  Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

  Last week we worked hard to establish the premise that maybe Jesus Christ did not go to the cross primarily to do for us wretched sinners what we could not do for ourselves.  Maybe Jesus Christ went to the cross primarily because he loved us enough to want something better for us.  What Christ wants for us is eternal life in heaven, and a transformed life on earth.  The question thus becomes, “Are we grateful enough to want that for ourselves?”

  We postulated that our spiritual lives are shaped by three basic things: our narratives, our practices, and our communities.  Our narratives frame our understanding of God and of ourselves.  Our practices are the things we do on a regular basis that help to form who we are.  Our communities are the places we go where we are surrounded by – and influenced by – other people…for better or for worse.

  We worked hard over the course of the last few months to establish new narratives about God.  We determined that God is good, God is trustworthy, God is generous, God is love, God is holy, God is self-sacrificing, and God transforms.  Yet in order for us to truly be transformed, we need to examine our spiritual practices and our communities, as well.  Today we begin the process of examining our spiritual practices.  Our spiritual practices – or disciplines – place us before God so that God can transform us.  Yet before we get to that, we need to wrestle with something else.  We need to wrestle first…with how we spend our time.

  Never before in the history of the world have a people enjoyed so many technological marvels designed to save them time.  From indoor plumbing, to refrigeration, to the automobile, to the computer, to the cell phone…theoretically we have the world at our fingertips and the potential for more leisure time than ever before.  Yet today in America, the average parent spends more time answering e-mails than they do with their children.  Apparently something has gone dreadfully wrong.

  Several weeks ago, my wife and I were having dinner at Applebees.  After we finished our meal and paid our bill, we began to walk out of the restaurant.  There, in the booth behind us, sat a young couple, who were probably in their late twenties, and their two small children.  While the children ate, both parents’ meals were sitting on the table…only about half finished.  We noticed that both mother and father had their heads down, looking at their cell phones, madly typing out text messages.  I kid you not!  There they were – sitting in the midst of their family – maintaining communication with someone else.  While we may indeed have the world at our fingertips, it’s almost as if we have lost the ability to communicate face-to-face.  We have lost the capacity for intimacy.  Can you hear me now?

  My twenty-year-old daughter tells me that she and her friends have come up with a way to combat this problem.  Let’s say six of them go out to dinner.  What everyone has to do is place their cell phone in the middle of the table.  If anyone picks up their cell phone during dinner, they have to pay for everyone’s meal.  That’s one way to create face-to-face communication!

  In a book called Margin, author Richard Swenson notes that in 1967, a group of futurists told a Senate subcommittee that by 1985 – thanks to modern technological advances – Americans would be working but twenty-two hours a week for twenty-seven weeks a year.  The average worker would retire by the age of thirty-eight.  They predicted that we might have too much time on our hands.  Yet the reality is that – since 1973 – leisure time in America has actually decreased by 37 percent.  How did that happen?

  Modern technology certainly does reduce the time we have to spend on certain tasks.  Thanks to the microwave oven, one can bake a potato in a fraction of the time it would take to use a conventional oven.  Rewriting a school paper on a computer is much quicker than it used to be when we had to use typewriters.  E-mail allows us to contact friends and family all across the country in a matter of seconds, whereas conventional “snail mail” would take days.

  So where did all of this predicted leisure time go?  We use it on other things.  Our modern technological advances have raised the expectations of what we can accomplish, so what we do is book more into our schedules.  We increase our workload to keep up with – or to get ahead of – other people.  And if we fail to raise the bar, we will fall behind, be less productive, and thus feel less important.

  In a single lifetime, the average American spends six months sitting at traffic lights, eight months opening junk mail, one year searching through desk clutter, two years trying to call people who are not in, three years in meetings, and five years waiting in line.  In a single day the average American will commute forty-five minutes to work, be interrupted seventy-three times, receive six hundred advertising messages, and watch four hours of television.  And what do we have to show for all this increased productivity?  We have greater health problems, unbearable stress, and less time for the most important things in life.

  When we get too busy, there are three basic things that we tend to drop from our schedules.  And, believe it or not, they typically fall in this particular order.  The things busy people drop from their schedules are: 1) Time with God – things like worship and prayer; 2) Time for self-care – things like diet and exercise; and finally, number 3) Investment in important relationships.  We spend less time with family and friends.

  Near the end of 2008, right about the time when our nation’s economy tanked, worship attendance and stewardship in this church decreased dramatically.  It happened in a lot of other churches all across the country as well, but we were determined to find out why.  Was it a problem with the church?  Was it a problem with the minister?  Was it a problem with the Presbyterian faith in general?  We were determined to get to the root of the problem. 

  We formed what we called The Church Revitalization Task Force.  One of the things we did was visit all those people in the congregation whose attendance patterns had changed over the course of a couple of years.  One person said, “The minister doesn’t preach from the Bible enough.”  Another person said, “The minister preaches from the Bible too much.”  There wasn’t a whole lot we could do to resolve that particular problem.  In general, however, what we found was that people’s priorities had changed.  In other words, they were busy with other things.  Like I said, when we get too busy we tend to drop important things from our schedules.  And the first thing we tend to drop…is time with God.

  In the passage we read from the gospel according to Luke, Jesus and his disciples were welcomed into the home of a woman named Martha.  Now Martha had a sister named Mary.  She also had a brother named Lazarus, who is not mentioned here.  In any case, Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to him teach, while Martha scurried about the house.  It is not easy to get ready for thirteen guests, and Martha had a lot to do.  As she cleans up the front room, I can almost hear her cry, “Lazarus!  Must you always leave your tunic in a pile on the floor?”  As she begins to prepare the evening meal, I can almost hear her say, “Mary, I could use a little help in the kitchen!” 

  Martha was busy making ready for her guests, but was getting no help from her siblings.  Finally, she raised her concerns to Jesus.  “Lord,” she said, “do you not care that my sister has left me to do all of the work by myself?”  To which Jesus replied, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things.  One thing is needful.  Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.”

  Now the fact of the matter is: Who would have cleaned the house, if not for Martha?  Who would have prepared the evening meal, if not for Martha?  You see, this is not a matter of choosing the right thing or the wrong thing.  This is a matter of choosing the greater thing or the lesser thing.  And therein lies the difficulty for us, as well.

  Most of us do not need to eliminate bad things from our lives in order to find balance.  Instead, we must choose between multiple good activities.  We simply do not have the time to do all that we might like to do.  When we add too many things to our lives, something has to be eliminated.  Unfortunately, busy people often rid themselves of the most important things: Time with God, time for self-care, and investment in important relationships. 

  All too often we suffer from what Dr. James Bryan Smith calls “hurry sickness.”  Hurry is an inward condition that comes from a feeling of a lack of time.  Hurry is not merely acting quickly; it is an inward condition that comes about when we over-commit.  As Carl Jung once said, “Hurry is not of the Devil; hurry is the Devil.”  The point is that we will never achieve spiritual growth – we will never encounter a transformed life – as long as we suffer from hurry sickness.

  What we really need to do is slow down a little bit and learn to see what’s really going on all around us.  We need to stop and smell the proverbial roses.  Dr. James Bryan Smith describes just such a thing in his book, The Good and Beautiful God.  He writes:

One day, in the midst of my efforts to slow down and become present to God, I decided to take an afternoon to try to live deliberately.  It was an unseasonably warm mid-February day, so I sat in an Adirondack chair in my back yard.  Of course, the leaves had long ago fallen, but one bushy tree stood out.  Normally, I would not have paid much attention to this tree, and given the time of year, I would not have spent more than a few minutes in the back yard.  But there I was, and the tree had my full attention.

 

After a few minutes, I noticed something strange about this tree in addition to its leaves: it had lots of tiny grape-like berries.  I began to wonder why it was so full of berries at this time of year.  Because I had been in and out of prayer all afternoon, I turned my attention to God and asked, “God, why is this tree so full of berries?”  Right on cue, a little bird the size of a finch, flew to the tree, skewered a berry, and flew to a nearby bush where it began to dine.  The Spirit whispered, “That is why the tree is full of berries.”

 

It was as if the Sermon on the Mount was being preached in my own back yard.  “Look at the birds of the air, how they neither sow nor reap, but are fed by their Father in heaven,” Jesus said.  But the sermon was not over.  The Spirit then led me to consider just how many berries were on that tree.  There were thousands.  And then I was led to consider how small those little birds were – so small they could fit in the palm of my hand.  The point was that God has provided for them more than they will ever need.  The application is that when we live in harmony with God, we have access to more than we will ever need, as well.

  As The Rev. Dr. Robin A. Myers once wrote in his book, Morning Sun on a White Piano, “In every waking hour a sacred theater is in session, played out before an audience that is largely blind.”  That audience is largely blind…because it doesn’t take the time to pay attention.

  Singer/songwriter Jim Croce once wrote: “If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I’d like to do…is to save every day – ‘til eternity passes away – just to spend them with you.”  It’s a wonderful sentiment, but like I said at the very beginning of this sermon, time cannot be saved…it can only be spent.  But it can be spent more wisely. 

  What we need to do is learn to prioritize.  What we need to do is learn to create margins in our lives.  What we need to do is learn to live deliberately.  Then – and only then – will we be ready to begin the process of trying to live a transformed life.  Amen.

 

02-03-2013 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

 

CHRISTIANITY 101: GOD TRANSFORMS

  When I was growing up in the 1960s and the 1970s, my parents – like most parents – took my brother, my sister and me to church every Sunday morning…whether we wanted to go or not.  Then when we grew up and were old enough to make our own decisions, my brother and my sister drifted away from the church, while I became a minister.  The irony of that is that I was the so-called black sheep of the family.  Oh, I wasn’t so bad…it’s just that I had to experience everything for myself, and no one could tell me anything.  If you were to ask my wife of 26 years about that last statement, she might tell you that I’ve changed very little in that regard.

  In any case, my sister has absolutely nothing to do with the institutional church to this day.  One time we were having a telephone conversation and the subject matter, for some strange reason, turned to the afterlife.  I said, “What do you think will happen to you when you die?”  She said, “Why, I’ll go to heaven, of course.”  I said, “Really?  Why?”  To which she replied, “Because I’m a good person.”  I said, “You know, I’m a minister…and I’m a vile, evil, despicable sinner.” 

  Now let me pause for a moment to interject something here.  Garrison Keillor of A Prairie Home Companion on National Public Radio says that when the minister admits that he’s a sinner, the first thing the congregation thinks is adultery, and the second thing the congregation thinks is, “With whom?”  It’s not like that at all.  Truth be told, in the Reformed tradition, of which we are a part, we are taught in seminary about the total depravity of humanity.  The basis of the concept of the total depravity of humanity…is that everyone is a sinner.  That’s why God had to send his Son in the first place.  In fact, it has been my experience that the closer one is to God, the more cognizant one tends to be of one’s own depravity.  In other words, those who know God the best seem to be aware their sinfulness the most.  I’m going to attempt to make the case today that that may not be the best narrative for us to have.  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 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 somehow 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 perceived to be punishment from a vindictive 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 cannot help but conclude 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 punished with bad.  The problem with a performance-based narrative about God is that it completely ignores 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 to decide is 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 two 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.

  Finally, we considered the self-sacrifice of God.  We determined through considered examination of Trinitarian theology that God did not casually send his Son to die on a cross to save us from our sin.  It was God himself who went to the cross that day.  Why did God have to die?  Maybe the answer is that God did not have to die.  Maybe the answer is that God chose to die.  Why?  For God so loved the world.

  Today our goal is to establish the narrative that God transforms.  Earlier we considered the total depravity of humanity.  The basis of the concept of the total depravity of humanity is that everyone is a sinner.  As I mentioned a moment ago, it has been my experience that the closer one is to God, the more cognizant one tends to be of one’s own depravity.  Those who know God the best tend to be aware of their sinfulness the most.  The question now is: “Is that really the best narrative for us to have?”  Should we be primarily focused on our own sinfulness?

  Martin Luther is referred to by many as the father of the Reformation.  In formulating his famous slogan of the Reformation, Martin Luther coined the Latin phrase, “simul justus et peccator.”  It literally means, “simultaneously righteous and a sinner.”  I suspect this was Luther’s way of arguing against the idea that our own efforts play any role in our salvation.  We are reconciled to God by the grace of God and the grace of God alone…and all the while remaining the miserable, wretched sinners that we are.

  Though the idea that even the best Christians are sinners seems true – and has been articulated by theologians for the past 2000 years – maybe it’s not the best way for us to look at ourselves.  Dr. David C. Needham is the author of a book entitled, Birthright: Christian, Do You Know Who You Are?  In it, he poses this question: “What could be more frustrating than being a Christian who thinks himself to be primarily a self-centered sinner, yet whose purpose in life is to produce God-centered holiness?”  Again, “What could be more frustrating than being a Christian who thinks himself to be primarily a self-centered sinner, yet whose purpose in life is to produce God-centered holiness?”  Perhaps it’s time we devised a new narrative about ourselves.

  Try this one on for size.  Maybe Christ did not go to the cross primarily to do for us wretched sinners what we could not do for ourselves.  Maybe Christ went to the cross primarily because he loved us enough to want something better for us.  Again, maybe Christ did not go to the cross primarily to do for us wretched sinners what we could not do for ourselves.  Maybe Christ went to the cross primarily because he loved us enough to want something better for us.

  My wife and I have three children, and let me tell you…they are expensive.  Our oldest son is in graduate school, and our daughter and our youngest son are in college.  If anyone wants to adopt one of them for the next couple of years, please see me after church.  Like I said, my wife and I have three children, and they are very expensive.

 For example, our oldest son drives a Jeep Grand Cherokee that is nearing 100,000 miles.  Just last week, the rear differential went out on it.  It’s going to cost anywhere between 1500 and 2000 dollars to fix.  Our oldest son is perfectly content to let me pay for it.  What upsets him the most is that he’s not going to have a vehicle for a couple of days.

  Our daughter is a junior at Point Park University in Pittsburgh.  Her student loan for the coming semester will not be finalized until the middle of February.  Yet the rent for her apartment is due by the end of January.  So, guess who’s paying that.  Now she feels bad about that and promises to pay us back, and maybe she will.  Then again, maybe she won’t. 

  Our youngest son is studying to become a pilot at the University of Dubuque in Dubuque, Iowa.  The aviation program at the University of Dubuque costs about $10,000.00 a year more than the regular school tuition, and we took that into account when we worked out his student loans.  The problem is that the University of Dubuque grossly underestimated how much the program was going to cost his first semester.  His flight account was empty by the end of October, and it costs $200.00 every time he flies…and he normally flies three times a week.  I’ll let you do the math yourselves.  Unlike his older brother, however, our youngest son feels terrible about that, and recently took a part-time job selling shoes.     

  My point here is not to bemoan my financial predicament.  My point is that my wife and I – like any one of you – will do whatever it takes to help our children.  Do we do it because they cannot do it for themselves?  No, we do it because we love them enough to want something better for them.  Parents will make whatever sacrifices are necessary…for the benefit of their children.

  Why would the same not be true of God?  Maybe Christ did not go to the cross primarily to do for us wretched sinners what we could not do for ourselves.  Maybe Christ went to the cross primarily because he loved us enough to want something better for us.  What he wants for us is eternal life in heaven…and a transformed life on earth.  The question now is, “Are we grateful enough to want that for ourselves?”

  Our spiritual lives are shaped by three basic things: our narratives, our practices, and our communities.  Our narratives tend to frame our understanding of God and of ourselves.  Our practices are the things that we do on a regular basis that help to form who we are.  Our communities are the places we go where we are surrounded by – and influenced by – other people…for better or for worse.

  We’ve worked hard over the last couple of months to establish a new narrative about God.  We have determined that God is good, God is trustworthy, God is generous, God is love, God is holy, God is self-sacrificing and God transforms.  Yet in order to be fully transformed, we need to examine our spiritual practices and our communities, as well.  Thus, can anyone guess where we’re going to be headed over the course of the next few months?  Amen.