Sermons From Meadville FPC

02-05-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2012-02-06T11:06:00.001-08:00

ON EAGLE’S WINGS

The passage I just read from the book of Isaiah ends on a real high note, does it not? It says, “Those who wait upon the Lord shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Who doesn’t love the idea of soaring above the muck and the mire as the eagle does, looking down on creation below? Who doesn’t love the image of rising above the problems we encounter in life, as if we were resting on eagle’s wings? Yet before we explore life from an eagle’s perspective, I believe the prophet Isaiah invites us to explore life from a grasshopper’s perspective first.

Consider verse 22 in the passage I read from Isaiah. Speaking of God, Isaiah writes, “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth…and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.” Its inhabitants are like grasshoppers? In other words, Isaiah is saying that compared to God, humans are more like grasshoppers than they are like eagles. How does that make you feel?

I’ve never been too fond of grasshoppers myself. Some of my cousins grew up on farms in Iowa. I can remember wandering through fields of corn or soy beans as a child and being completely engulfed by swarms of grasshoppers. And have you ever had a grasshopper land on the bare skin of your arm or leg? It’s an eerie feeling you don’t soon forget.

As they were to the ancient Egyptians, they were to the Iowa farmer, as well: a plague. Grasshoppers could devastate a field of corn or a field of soy beans and ruin a farmer’s income for the year. Unfortunately, they never seemed to bother the rhubarb. Thus, I was still forced to endure rhubarb pie or rhubarb crisp or rhubarb...you name it. I do not agree with Garrison Keillor when he says in his Prairie Home Companion sketches that rhubarb is a part of the good life.

Grasshoppers have traditionally gotten a bad rap in literature over the years as well. In Aesop’s Fables, the grasshopper is the lazy one who takes it easy all summer long, making fun of the ant who is busy storing up food for the winter. Then, come wintertime, who’s pounding at the door of the ant looking for food? The grasshopper! As I understand it, this then carries over into a movie called, “A Bug’s Life,” where the grasshoppers torment the ants like a street gang. And this is that to which Isaiah compares us? Not very flattering, is it?

Yet grasshoppers do have some positive attributes. They do have wings. While they may not be able to soar like an eagle, they can jump to a height of about twenty times their body length. For a human being, such a feat would be akin to jumping about 120 feet in the air. Imagine how much money the NBA would pay for an athlete who could do that! What’s more, grasshoppers are among the most successful insects on earth. They come in roughly 11,000 different species. Apparently the brighter colored grasshoppers warn birds that they are not good to eat, although my grandfather once said that they were good dipped in chocolate. I think he was kidding.

But here’s the most amazing thing of all. Grasshoppers have five eyes. They have two compound eyes and they have three simple eyes. Part of their adaptability and survival comes from their ability to see everything around them in a great panorama. Perhaps there’s a lesson in this for us as well. Perhaps we need to learn to see not just what’s happening all around us, but what the things that are happening all around us really mean.

If we see only the next blade of grass in front of us, we will not grow or thrive. As long as we remain deeply embedded in the grass, content to look only in front of us, we will quickly become mired in minutia. We will become easily annoyed by the attitudes and behaviors of others. We will forever be caught up in our own selfish struggles. And we will never be able to look beyond what is happening right in front of us…to how God intends to redeem that which is happening.

When I read Isaiah, I hear him saying to us, “Look, grasshopper. Look around you at what’s happening in the world. Behind it all is your Creator, who has the power to redeem creation.” A part of faith is the capacity to look at the vast expanse of the world with a sense of awe and wonder and possibility. Seeing things with the eyes of amazement, and seeing ourselves in the context of being a part of what God is doing to redeem creation…enables us to mount up with wings like eagles. Thus, may we learn to live with an eagle’s wings and a grasshopper’s eyes.

What was the context for Isaiah’s challenging words? Isaiah was prophesying to the Hebrew people during a very difficult time in their history. The Babylonian army, having defeated the Assyrian army that had threatened Jerusalem for so long, invaded the country and destroyed Jerusalem in 587 B.C. Jerusalem’s king, a man named Zedekiah, tried to escape. He was subsequently captured and forced to watch the execution of his sons, and then his eyes were poked out. The execution of his sons was the last thing he ever saw. People could be quite cruel in those days.

The so-called “movers and shakers” of Jerusalem were deported to the city of Babylon. The only people who were allowed to stay in Jerusalem were the poorest of the poor. The deported Hebrew people were not slaves in Babylon. In fact, some of them even prospered. And what they saw in Babylon was eye-opening indeed. Let me try to show you the way the Hebrew people might have seen things by painting a picture that I actually presented to you in a sermon last year.

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

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

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

These are the people Isaiah is trying to address. Truth be told, they’re having a real hard time seeing beyond what’s right in front of them. They’re having a real hard time seeing why God would need to redeem a world such as theirs. They’re seeing that they’ve got it pretty darn good right now. Why on earth would they want things to change?

Can we blame them? Like them, we want quick and easy solutions. Why, these days we’ve come to expect life’s greatest mysteries to be resolved in the course of a thirty-minute sitcom or a sixty-minute drama or a two hour movie. What’s more, we’re most concerned with how things affect us directly. “Never mind the greater good,” we say. “What’s in it for me?”

Isaiah calls upon his people to remember. He calls upon them to remember the faith they were taught when they were young. He reminds them that God created the heavens and the earth. He points out that the inhabitants of the world are like grasshoppers before God. But perhaps most important of all, he reminds them that God gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. In other words, God has not forgotten or forsaken you. And what’s important to you is also important to God. God wants what’s best for you. Did you catch that? What’s important to you is also important to God. God wants what’s best for you.

The unfortunate thing for us here is this: God’s greatest gifts tend to emerge from great personal travail. Write that down. God’s greatest gifts tend to emerge from great personal travail. Case in point, the gift of a child. Now I’ve never had a baby, but I understand it can be quite painful. Yet after a while, I suspect, people tend to forget how painful an ordeal it really was. Otherwise no one would ever have more than one child. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to tell you that great spiritual awakenings are much the same. The greatest spiritual awakenings tend to emerge from great personal travail as well.

For example, I have recently had a great spiritual awakening that emerged from great personal travail. I feel as if I have failed in a couple of pastoral care issues. When a minister fails in a pastoral care issue, people can be hurt very badly. And any minister who’s worth his salt agonizes very deeply about that. It hurts us deep in our souls. None of us get into the business of ministry to hurt people. And when we do, inadvertent or not, it literally tears us up inside.

I’ve done a lot of thinking and praying about this. It struck me that in the Presbyterian Church we call the minister of a large church the Pastor/Head of Staff. Most of us tend to emphasize the Head of Staff part because there are others on staff who are called to address pastoral care. Thus, we end up spending the bulk of our time trying to run an institution. Yet in light of the agony I have felt over a couple of pastoral care issues, my great spiritual awakening is that I am going to dedicate myself anew to the Pastor part of my job.

And listen to this. A couple of women in this church were also aware of what happened. They were quick to point out that such things have been happening in this church – and other large churches, I’m sure – for 50 years or more. They came to me to work with me to devise a better system of communication in the church as a whole. That way, there will be fewer oversights. More specifically, there will be fewer pastoral oversights.

The greatest spiritual awakenings tend to emerge from great personal travail. If you find yourself suffering from some great personal travail, put on the eyes of a grasshopper. If we see only the next blade of grass in front of us, we will not grow or thrive. As long as we remain deeply embedded in the grass, content to look only in front of us, we will quickly become mired in minutia.

A part of faith is the capacity to look at the vast expanse of the world with a sense of awe and wonder and possibility. Seeing things with the eyes of amazement, and seeing ourselves in the context of being a part of what God is doing to redeem creation…enables us to soar on eagle’s wings. Amen.

12-18-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-12-28T12:32:00.000-08:00

ONE MORE THING

Several years ago, our oldest son, Rob, took the SAT and the ACT tests before he went off to college. The scores he achieved were higher than the scores my wife or I achieved when we were in high school. Upon learning that fact, Rob boldly pronounced himself to be the smartest member of the family…much to the chagrin of his younger brother and sister.

Not long after that, we all went to visit my wife’s family in Iowa. The day we returned to Meadville, we were packing all our suitcases in the back of my truck. Now we knew they fit because I’d managed to squeeze them all in the back of the truck on the way out. In any case, Rob took charge of the packing. Yet somehow, he couldn’t seem to make them all fit. Finally, our daughter Mariah said, “Dad, will you please come pack the suitcases? The smartest member of the family can’t seem to figure it out.” She’s always been very good at biting sarcasm.

That story is actually indicative of the recent data on Intelligence Quotients and Creativity Quotients. Researchers at Duke University examined IQ tests of 1.7 million fifth, sixth, and seventh graders between 1981 and 2010. What they discovered is that IQs have increased by an average of three points per decade. Thus, theoretically, the current generation should have IQs that are about 20 points higher than their grandparents. That explains why Rob had higher test scores that my wife and I, I suppose.

On the other hand, The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking indicates that the creative ability of American children has been trending downward over the last 20 years. This test examines a child’s ability to come up with original ideas and put them into practice. Call it a CQ, or, Creativity Quotient. Perhaps that explains why Rob couldn’t seem to figure out how to pack the luggage in the back of the truck.

The data seems to indicate that while Americans are growing smarter, they’re becoming less creative. IQ test scores are up while CQ test scores are down. The question I have for you now is: “How are our SQ test scores doing?” If IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient and CQ stands for Creativity Quotient…then SQ stands for Spiritual Quotient. It’s a term I thought I made up for this sermon, but when I looked it up, I found that there actually is such a thing. Yet the typical SQ test has little or nothing to do with Christianity. They advertize palm reading on those websites, for crying out loud.

Thus, allow me give you my own unsubstantiated theory. One’s Spiritual Quotient tends to be inversely proportional to one’s worldly savvy. In other words, the more one seems to be in tune with the ways of the world, the less one tends to be in tune with the ways of God.

I think a man named Graham Standish would agree with my theory. Graham Standish is an adjunct professor at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and is a contributing author to an organization called The Alban Institute. In a recent article addressing the decline of the mainline church, Standish wrote:

Many denominations, churches, pastors, and members have become mired in a series of worthless arguments in their attempts to diagnose why mainline denominations and churches are in decline. Too many in the mainline church think the problem has to do with theological position, style of worship or the availability of programs. So they say the decline is the result of churches being too liberal or too conservative, or the decline is due to our worship being too traditional. They say we don’t meet enough of people’s needs and we need to offer more programs.

Ladies and gentlemen, such conclusions are the result of burgeoning Intelligence Quotients and declining Spiritual Quotients. In other words, we truly believe we can figure things out for ourselves. Who needs God when we’re as smart as we are these days? Graham Standish calls this belief rational functionalism. What is rational functionalism? Rational functionalism is the belief that we can uncover all the mysteries of God and life through rational thought and disciplined investigation. Rational functionalism ignores the possibility of spiritual experiences and miraculous events. Rational functionalism actually has very little use for God. And therein lies the problem.

Consider Mary in the passage we read from the gospel according to Luke. The angel Gabriel appears to Mary and says to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” Then in verse 29, Luke adds, “She was much perplexed by his words…and pondered in her heart what sort of greeting this might be.” Perhaps a better description of Mary’s response would be this: “She was terrified beyond measure, and trembled at the sight of an angel in her room.”

In any case, the angel Gabriel describes what’s about to happen to her. She will conceive and bear a child, and that child will be called the Son of God. Not having a husband, Mary wonders how this will be. Gabriel tells her that the Holy Spirit of God will overshadow her. Then he even tells her how her kinswoman, Elizabeth, is about to bear a son as well. Gabriel concludes by saying, “For nothing will be impossible with God.” To which Mary then replies, “Let it be with me according to your word.”

Let it be with me according to your word. No more profound words have ever been spoken. I think of that famous line from Miracle on 34^th Street: “Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to.” Mary simply says, “Let it be with me according to your word.”

Ladies and gentlemen, that’s my job in a nutshell. Every single sermon I preach is basically aimed at increasing faith. Every single sermon I preach is aimed at getting you to say to God, “Let it be with me according to your word.” It’s the exact opposite of rational functionalism. And it will greatly enhance your Spiritual Quotient.

You see, I don’t think faith in Jesus Christ is just meant to get us into heaven when we die. I truly believe that faith in Jesus Christ can solve all the world’s problems. How different the world would be if everyone loved their neighbors as they love themselves. How different the world would be if people would only say, “Let it be with me according to your word.” We should leave room for spiritual experiences. We should leave room for miracles. We should leave room for God to speak and move and act by way of the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps the question now is, “How do we leave that room?” How do we leave room for God to speak and move and act? Abraham Heschel addresses that issue in his book, God in Search of Man. Listen to what he has to say:

To sense the presence of God, one must learn to be present to God. Presence is not a concept, but a situation. To understand love, it is not enough to read tales about it. One must be involved in love to understand love. One must be inspired to understand inspiration. Just as we cannot test thinking without thinking, we cannot sense holiness without being holy. Presence is not disclosed to those who are unattached.

“We cannot sense holiness without being holy,” and “Presence is not disclosed to those who are unattached.” Holiness and attachment: those seem like worthwhile goals for us, do they not? Perhaps the question now is, “How do we find them?”

That’s what we were attempting to do in the sermon series, The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ. I began the first sermon by making the case that Christ’s Great Commission, as recorded in the gospel of Matthew, is the reason for the church’s existence in the first place. The church is called to make disciples. Yet it the church is ever going to make disciples, the people who habituate the church…must first become disciples themselves. That’s what the seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ were all about.

The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are as follows: worship regularly, pray daily, study diligently, live faithfully, serve joyously, give generously…and witness boldly. The first sermon delved a little more deeply into the first covenant: worship regularly. We said in essence that it was Jesus’ custom to worship, and it should be ours, as well. Yet we should come to worship expecting God to speak, to move, and to act. That’s what keeps our faith from being a mile wide and an inch deep.

Then we examined the second covenant: pray daily. There we saw that we are called to share our hurts, our sorrows, and our joys with God. God listens to us in compassion and love…much like we do when our children come to us. And when we do that what we discover is that by praying, we learn how to pray.

Then we examined the third covenant: study diligently. We learned that God is responsible for the Scriptures in a revelatory way, not just in an informational way. The Bible is how God reveals God’s self to us. It’s something we absolutely, positively never could have come up with on our own. What’s more, we learned that you’ve got to read the textbook if you’re going to take the course.

Then we examined the fourth covenant: live faithfully. We learned about orthopraxis, or, right practice. People tend to pass judgment on Christianity by the way they see Christians living their lives. It is absolutely imperative that we set a good example.

Then we examined the fifth covenant: serve joyously. We learned that God calls each of us to ministry. God calls each of us to an occupation or to a task that God believes we are uniquely qualified to do. Just don’t forget that how you serve is every bit as important as who you serve. Attitude is everything.

Then we examined the sixth covenant: give generously. We learned that it’s our responsibility to form the framework of a world that is the unique dwelling place of the Immortal God. Thus, Christians in important secular environments have a responsibility to see to it that what’s done with the goods of the world is done as God would have it done. We must never take that charge lightly.

Finally, we examined the seventh covenant: witness boldly. We learned that the first step to witnessing boldly is to stop complaining. Yet the fact of the matter is, we encounter situations all the time where we realize that if family, friends or neighbors just had a little faith in God, a lot of their problems would be resolved. We need to be bold enough to invite them to share in our own life of faith. We need to stop being so blasted afraid of rejection.

But there’s one more thing. The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ aren’t just about raising up disciples within the church in order to raise up disciples outside the church. The seven covenants will also aid you in your quest for holiness…and will necessarily draw you closer to God.

So you see, there is something in it for us. Are you feeling unbelievable stress in your job on a daily basis? Maybe it’s because you don’t have your priorities in order. The seven covenants could help. Do you feel an emptiness deep inside that you can’t quite put your finger on but that you know is very real? Maybe it’s because you’ve drifted away from God. The seven covenants could help. Do you feel as if your life has no meaning, and that you’re wandering around on this earth without purpose? Maybe it’s because you’ve lost sight of God. The seven covenants could help.

The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ have become the vision statement for the First Presbyterian Church of Meadville. But there’s something in it for you as well. Take them home with you. Post them in a highly visible place. Live them to the best of your ability. Then, like Mary before us, we just might find ourselves saying to God, “Let it be with me according to your word.” And suddenly…the world won’t seem like such a bad place after all. Amen.

12-11-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-12-15T13:08:00.001-08:00

THE SEVEN COVENANTS OF A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST: PART VII

Several weeks ago my wife and I were driving in downtown Pittsburgh on our way to pick up our daughter at college. As we approached a stop light, there was one of those airport shuttles in front of us that – when it stopped at the light – was completely blocking the crosswalk. Trying to cross the street at that crosswalk was a blind man. We knew he was blind because of the distinctive white cane he was carrying.

The man seemed confused. He sensed there was something in front of him…and it was as if he did not know what to do. Suddenly a young woman, who’d been leaning against the side of a building waiting for the bus, sprung to his aid. She took his arm, whispered something in his ear, and led him around the bus to the other side of the street. Then she scurried back across the street to her post against the building.

When the light turned green and we began to proceed through the intersection, my wife caught that woman’s eye. She gave her the thumbs up sign. The woman just smiled. It was an absolutely beautiful picture of human compassion. When you witness an event like that, you’ve just got to tell everyone you see all about it. A good story like that simply begs to be told, does it not?

So does a bad one. Listen to this. As you know, before my mother died, she wanted to see me one more time. So I flew down to Phoenix, Arizona to see her. Now since my brother is going blind and has no business driving, my father gets confused on the road at night, and my sister is busy with her own life, I decided to rent a car. I rented a mid-sized car because I don’t really fit in a small car and a big car costs so much more. Yet when I went to the garage to pick up my car they didn’t have any mid-sized cars. The man in charge told me I could take a car from the second or the third row. The second row was full of little bitty cars. The third row was full of Chevy Malibus and Ford Crown Victorias. I found a key in a Chevy Malibu and drove off the lot. I ended up getting a full-sized car at a mid-sized price.

Two weeks later, my wife and I flew down to Phoenix for my mother’s funeral. I again rented a car for the same reasons I expressed earlier, and I rented it from the same place I had rented the last time. I told the man behind the counter about how I’d gotten a full-sized car at a mid-sized price and asked if it was going to be the same this time. He said, “No. We’ve got a full complement of mid-sized cars.” Then he told me that for a mere $55.00 more, I could have a full-sized car. So I agreed to pay the extra money, which with the local taxes on rental cars ended up being $75.00 instead of $55.00, and went to the garage to pick up my car. And wouldn’t you know it? The second row was full of little bitty cars and the third row was full of Malibus and Crown Victorias, just like it was the last time. The good news is, I drove out of there in a brand new Crown Victoria. The bad news is…that guy snookered me out of 75 bucks.

Good stories just beg to be told, do they not? Yet so do bad ones. When we see or hear something spectacular we can’t wait to tell everyone all about it. The same is true when we see or hear something bad. We simply cannot wait to express our sense of injustice or indignation.

Case in point, my family and I moved to Meadville a little more than eight years ago. I still remember how everyone told us that we’ve got to eat at…where? Eddie’s Footlongs. And for dessert we’ve got to try what? Hank’s Frozen Custard. Of course, I later discovered that there are Hank’s people and there are Casey’s people, but that’s another story. People simply could not wait to tell us all about Eddie’s and Hank’s. I honestly don’t think Eddie’s or Hank’s even have to advertize. They get all the publicity they need by word of mouth.

Perhaps the question now is: How good of a job do we do at publicizing the church by word of mouth? Or, perhaps even more important, how good of a job do we do at publicizing Christianity by word of mouth? Listen to this. Many years ago, two men moved into houses next door to one another. One Sunday morning, the two men walked out their front doors at the very same time. The first man said to the second, “Hey, I’m going golfing. You wanna come along?” To which the second man replied with a hint of indignation, “No. I’m going to church.”

The very next week the two men walked out their front doors at the very same time again. The first man said to the second, “Hey, I’m going golfing. You wanna come along?” To which the second man replied with a bit more indignation, “No. I’m going to church.”

Now believe it or not, this went on for twenty years. Yet another Sunday morning, the two men walked out their front doors at the very same time. The first man said to the second, “Hey, I’m going golfing. You wanna come along?” To which the second man replied, “No! I’m going to church!” Then he added, “You know, it would do you a lot of good to go to church sometime as well.” The first man looked at his neighbor and said, “You know, for twenty years I’ve been inviting you to go golfing with me. And in all that time…you’ve never once invited me to go to church with you.”

How good of a job do we do at publicizing the church by word of mouth? Or, perhaps even more important, how good of a job do we do at publicizing Christianity by word of mouth? A few years ago at a presbytery meeting, our General Presbyter said that the average Presbyterian invites someone to worship with them once every 17 years. On the plus side, at least that was better than the Methodists. The average Methodist invites someone to worship with them once every 24 years. Ladies and gentlemen, that has got to change. Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

A number of weeks ago we began a sermon series entitled, The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ. I began the first sermon by making the case the Christ’s Great Commission, as recorded in the gospel of Matthew, is the reason for the church’s existence in the first place. The church is called to make disciples. Yet if the church is ever going to make disciples, then the people who habituate the church…must first become disciples themselves. That’s what the seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are all about.

The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are as follows: worship regularly, pray daily, study diligently, live faithfully, serve joyously, give generously, and witness boldly. The first sermon delved a little more deeply into the first covenant: worship regularly. We said in essence that it was Jesus’ custom to worship, and it should be ours, as well. Yet we should come to worship expecting God to speak, to move, and to act. That’s what keeps our faith from being a mile wide and an inch deep.

Then we examined the third covenant: study diligently. We learned that God is responsible for the Scriptures in a revelatory way, not just in an informational way. The Bible is how God reveals himself to us. It’s something we absolutely, positively never could have come up with on our own. What’s more, we learned that you’ve got to read the textbook…if you’re going to take the course.

Finally, we examined the sixth covenant: give generously. We learned that it’s our responsibility to form the foundation and framework of a world that is the unique dwelling place of the Immortal God. Thus, Christians in important secular environments have a responsibility to see to it that what’s done with the goods of the world is done as God would have it done. We must never take that charge lightly.

Today we examine the seventh and final covenant: witness boldly. In his Great Commission, Christ challenged his disciples to make disciples of all nations. To make disciples of all nations, we must spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. We begin by sharing our faith and values with family, friends and neighbors. We aspire to fearlessly encounter situations where we have the courage to speak, and our Christian witness can truly make a difference.

I think that is exactly what Jesus was getting at in the passage we read from the gospel according to Matthew. “You are the light of the world,” he said. “You are the light of the world.” In other words, your life and witness as Christian disciples is meant to brighten an ever-darkening world. We can have all the faith in the world; we can possess the most profound theological knowledge in the world; we can have a perfect church attendance record for a decade…but if we don’t let our light shine in the world, what good is it? Listen to this.

Many years ago, a great legal battle was fought over a terrible automobile accident that involved a train near Blue Mountain, Georgia. The accident happened on a dark and rainy night as a fast-moving car flew down a mountain road and ran head-first into a train. Several people lost their lives in that accident.

In a fiercely contested courtroom battle, the railroad flagman told precisely how he had gotten off the train before it reached the railroad crossing. He then stood on the highway, swinging his lantern back and forth, to signal any approaching vehicle. It was a notoriously bad intersection, and on this particular night he had done precisely as he had been instructed, and has he had done on many occasions before.

Under determined cross-examination, he consistently answered each question regarding his procedure that fateful night. Yes, he got off the train ahead of the crossing. Yes, he swung his lantern back and forth. He even noted how he had had to jump out of the way of the speeding automobile just before it hit the train. The jury deliberated and in the end, the railroad won the case, primarily because of the unwavering testimony of the flagman.

About a year later, that flagman was fishing on a nearby lake. The attorney who represented the family who died in the crash just happened to be there as well. The attorney approached the flagman and said, “Hey, you were a witness at that railroad crash last year. You know, that was the best-fought trial I ever had. I should have won that case. You were the best witness I ever cross-examined. I lost that case because of your magnificent performance.”

The humble flagman squirmed a little and said, “Oh, man, I was scared that day! I have never been so frightened in all my life!” The lawyer replied, “Well, it didn’t show. You were great the way you handled me.” “Oh, I was scared,” the flagman said. “I was afraid you were going to ask the question.” “What question is that?” the attorney asked. “You know,” the flagman replied, “I was afraid you were going to ask, ‘Did you have your lantern lit that night?’”

Jesus says to us, “You are the light of the world.” But if our lanterns are not lit – if our lights do not shine – the world will remain forever dark. Listen, I see churches all across the country advertizing for ministers all the time. The ads are often quite similar. They want some young, dynamic minister to come in and inspire them to grow. They’re missing the point. It’s a different age. The church is not going to grow because of some young, dynamic minister. The church is going to grow when people in the congregation intentionally invite others to worship with them. Mass evangelism doesn’t work anymore. Relational evangelism is what works today. Relational evangelism has to do with forming relationships with people, and then letting them walk with you in your life of faith. If a church is going to grow, the people who populate that church must take an active, intentional role.

Now I could go on for another hour about this. So I’m just going to give you step one today. I don’t think the problem with the church today is that people aren’t witnessing boldly. People today are witnessing boldly. But what is that about which they are witnessing? They are witnessing about their own dissatisfaction. There is far too much complaining going on. One person says the music is too slow. Another says the preaching is boring. Someone else says that all they talk about at church is money. Yet another says the people aren’t friendly. Who would ever want to go to a church where all the people do is complain? Why, it’s a lot like waving a lantern that isn’t lit. Step one to witnessing boldly is to stop complaining.

Listen, that’s the secret that a lot of these mega-churches today have uncovered. No, their music is not for everyone. And yes, their theology tends to be a bit shallow. But they brag about their programs. They brag about their staff. They’re proud of their church and they want everyone to enjoy it with them. Where would you rather go on a Sunday morning? Ladies and gentlemen, you are the light of the world. Witness boldly…and let your light shine. Amen.

11-13-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-11-14T13:02:00.001-08:00

THE SEVEN COVENANTS OF A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST: PART VI

Once upon a time, there was a very wealthy man who was not known for his generosity toward his church. In fact, he was not known for his generosity at all. There came a time when his church was involved in a major building campaign, so the fund-raising committee decided to pay him a visit. They set up the appointment, and over to his house they went.

During their meeting together, the fund-raising committee pointed out that in view of his considerable financial resources they were just sure that he would want to make a substantial contribution toward their building campaign. “I see,” the wealthy man replied. “So you have it all figured out, have you?” Then he added, “In the course of your investigation, did you discover that I have a widowed mother who has no other means of support but me?” Sheepishly, the committee chair replied, “No, we did not know that.”

The man went on to say, “Did you know that I have a sister, who was left by a drunken husband with five children and no means to provide for them?” Again the committee chair replied, “No, we did not know that either.” The man added, “And did you know that I have a brother who is crippled due to an automobile accident, and can never work another day to support his wife and family?” The committee chair replied, “Sir, we did not know that.”

The wealthy man then stood up and thundered, “I’ve never given any of those people a dime. So why would I ever give anything to you?” A man by the name of Robert Rodenmayer once wrote: “There are three kinds of giving: grudge giving, duty giving and thanksgiving. Grudge giving says, I give because I have to. Duty giving says, I give because I ought to. But thanks-giving says, I give because I want to. The latter comes from a full heart. Thanksgiving is an open gate into the love of God.” Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

A number of weeks ago we began a sermon series entitled, The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ. I began the first sermon by making the case that Christ’s Great Commission, as recorded in the gospel of Matthew, is the reason for the church’s existence in the first place. The church is called to make disciples. Yet if the church is ever going to make disciples, then the people who habituate the church…must first become disciples themselves. That’s what the seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are all about.

The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are as follows: worship regularly; pray daily; study diligently; live faithfully; serve joyously; give generously; and witness boldly. The first sermon delved a little more deeply into the first covenant: worship regularly. We said in essence that it was Jesus’ custom to worship, and it should be ours, as well. Yet we should come to worship expecting God to speak, to move, and to act. That’s what keeps our faith from being a mile wide and an inch deep.

Then we examined the second covenant: pray daily. There we saw that we are called to share our hurts, our sorrows and our joys with God. God listens to us in compassion and love…much like we do when our children come to us. And when we do that what we discover is that by praying, we learn how to pray.

Then we examined the third covenant: study diligently. We learned that God is responsible for the Scriptures in a revelatory way, not just in an informational way. The Bible is how God reveals himself to us. It’s something we absolutely, positively never could have come up with on our own. What’s more, we learned that you’ve got to read the textbook…if you’re going to take the course.

Finally, we examined the fifth covenant: serve joyously. We learned that God calls each of us to ministry. God calls each of us to an occupation or to a task that God believes we are uniquely qualified to do. Just don’t forget that how you serve is every bit as important as who you serve. Attitude…is everything.

Today we examine the sixth covenant: give generously. The way we give of ourselves and our resources should reflect the self-giving love of God in Christ. We begin by committing to giving a set proportion of our time, our talent and our financial resources to God. We aspire to live lives in which our giving is sacrificial.

Now this might be the least popular of all the covenants – the one about which people least desire to hear. However, I want you to reserve judgment on that until you hear what I’ve got to say about witnessing boldly in a couple of weeks. I have a sneaking suspicion you’re not going to like that one much either!

The sixth covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ is give generously. Perhaps the question now is, “Why do we give in the first place?” Most of us work hard for what we have. Why on earth would we want to work our fingers to the bone to earn what we have…and then simply give it away? The question is, “Why do we give in the first place?”

I think the best answer to that question is this: “Because God said so.” Consider the passage that Janice read from the book of Deuteronomy. Verses 22 and 23 say, “Set apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from the field. In the presence of the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose as a dwelling for his name, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, your wine and your oil – as well as the firstlings of your herd and flock – so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.”

Let’s take those verses apart. The first issue has to do with tithing. “Set apart a tithe of the yield of your seed,” it says. What exactly is a tithe? The old rule of thumb is that a tithe is ten percent. It was long believed that the concept of tithing 10% was introduced to the Church by Mosaic law. Yet the truth of the matter is, the 10% concept probably really came to the church by way of Roman law. Anyone who obtained a part of the public land in a conquered country automatically paid a tenth of the revenue earned from it to the State.

Of course, we pay a whole lot more than 10% of our income to the state, do we not? I think of an article I once read in the Wall Street Journal entitled, “God will provide…unless the government gets there first.” The United States government has taken on a lot of the responsibility that used to be held by the church. Specifically, the government tends to provide for those less fortunate than ourselves. In some respects, that might be a good thing. In other respects, perhaps it is not. But I really don’t want to get into all of that here. The point is that the government takes a whole lot more than 10% of our income.

Yet still a lot of church leaders blindly call for ten percent. I remember attending a conference on stewardship many years ago. The leader of the conference told we clergy to set an example for our congregations by giving 10% ourselves. Someone raised the question: “Do you mean 10% of gross or 10% of net?” The leader said, “You get to 10% of net, and then we’ll talk about gross!”

Tithing has traditionally meant 10% of our income. Yet we give a whole lot more than that to the government, do we not? Perhaps the point is that tithing doesn’t necessarily have to mean exactly ten percent. For some people it might be less. Yet for others, it might be even more. Let me try to explain.

The issue of tithing aside, why were the Hebrew people called by God to give in the first place? I think we see that explained in our passage from Deuteronomy as well. They were to bring their sacrifices – and a sacrifice wasn’t just what was left over at the end of the day – a sacrifice was something that truly cost them something. It was meant to be the first and the best of what they had. That’s important. They were to bring their sacrifices to one particular place, and they were to all feast together in the name of God.

Do you see what’s really going on here? God called for a sumptuous feast in thanksgiving for all he had done for them. What’s more, everyone got to partake of it. The wealthy, who probably ate well on a regular basis, feasted with the poor, who probably only ate well at this God-inspired banquet. It was meant to be a celebration of life. It was meant to show that God’s desire was for all to share in the bounty he provides. Yet let me also note that all were to contribute something. It was never God’s plan that anyone should receive a free ride. Because truth be told, God is the source of all that we have and all that we are. And it’s only when we sacrifice…that we truly act as if we really believe that.

Contrast this truth with the passage I read from the gospel according to Luke. There, a rich, young ruler approaches Jesus with a profound question. He says, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus tells him, in essence, to follow the Ten Commandments. To which the rich, young ruler replies, “I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus then looked at the man and said, “There is one thing you lack. Sell all that you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” As the story goes, the man hung his head and went away sad, for he had a great many possessions.

This passage – and others like it – have been used for centuries to disdain the wealthy. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to say that the wealthy are going to burn in hell. Because I don’t think that’s what the Bible says. The Bible doesn’t say that the wealthy are going to burn in hell. It only says they might. The issue is: Is wealth a means to an end, or is wealth an end it itself? If wealth is an end in itself, then like the rich young ruler, we have completely missed the point. But if wealth is a means to an end, then still there is hope.

Here’s the point. The role of the Christian minister, I think, is to communicate the gospel of God’s will to all…and to prepare those who stand in the crucial secular areas of the world to be faithful caretakers of the world’s goods. If we teach it well, Christians within important secular environments will then be on the job to see to it that what needs to be done with the goods of the world will be done as God would have it done. So you see, you have to pay attention in church.

I think a man named Dallas Willard sums things up quite well in a book called, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives. Listen closely:

The church certainly is to lead the way in charitable works, and after that is to exhort and advise all public agencies concerning policies of public welfare. But this is not to be the fundamental aspect of its service to the world. Its fundamental work is to show those who gather in its meetings how to enter into full participation in the rule of God where they are. In this way the church will ultimately bring all nations to itself to find out how humanity can realize the universal ethical vision of righteousness and well-being. Through vision and discipline taught and practiced, our Christian ministers and teachers should shape a people who can form the foundation and framework of a world that is the unique dwelling place of The Immortal God.

So you see, we give because our goal is to form the foundation and framework of a world that is the unique dwelling place of The Immortal God. It’s like we say in the Lord’s Prayer every week: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Thus, there is no shame in being wealthy or comfortable. And I’m not trying to make anyone feel guilty. It’s really just a matter of where your priorities lie. Amen.

10-23-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-10-24T08:35:00.001-07:00

THE SEVEN COVENANTS OF A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST: PART V

As Christians, we often times say that God calls us to a particular occupation, or God calls us to do a particular thing. Well, what exactly is a call from God? Frederick Buechner, in his book Wishful Thinking, defines it this way: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger…meet.” Personally, I’ve always believed that a call from God is accompanied by an inner urgency. In other words – try as we might – a call from God is something we feel deep inside that we cannot explain…and that we cannot dismiss.

Each and every minister has his or her own sense of call from God. Mine occurred when I was but 16 years of age. I was a junior in high school and was actually employed by the First Presbyterian Church in Sioux City, Iowa, as a custodian. There were a couple of us teenagers who worked as custodians at the church. We basically babysat doors while the choir practiced, mowed the lawn, and shoveled snow. It wasn’t a terribly taxing occupation. It was just a high school job. I think I made a whopping $1.40 an hour.

One Sunday morning after worship, I was walking up the aisle of the sanctuary and the minister, the Rev. William F. Skinner, was walking down the aisle after greeting the congregation. He said to me, “Brian, have you thought about what you’re going to do with your life after you graduate from high school?” I thought to myself, “That’s all I’ve been thinking about!” I said to him, “Well, I’ll probably go to Iowa State and become an engineer like my dad.” I couldn’t think of anything else. He said to me, “Have you ever thought about becoming a minister?” I quickly replied, “Me? A minister?” I was a skinny, quiet, shy kid in high school. It was something that I truly hadn’t considered…but I told him that I would.

That’s how the seed got planted. I wrestled with the idea – and in my late teens I literally ran from the idea – but I felt an inner urgency that I just could not explain…that I simply could not dismiss. Then Bill Skinner said something to me, that his father had said to him, that really cemented the issue in my mind. He said – and please pardon the sexist language – he said, “Use your talents in the best way that you know how to help better mankind.” I thought that writing and speaking were the things that I did best. What better way to utilize those talents than in the ministry? And the rest, as they say, is history.

That’s how I was called into the ministry. Like I said, each and every minister has his or her own sense of call from God. In the Christian church in general – and in the Presbyterian Church in particular – we say that ministers are called by God to serve. Perhaps the question now is: Does God call people to other occupations as well? Does God call doctors to practice medicine, lawyers to practice law, homemakers to make homes, and engineers to drive trains? That’s what an engineer does, right? Does God call people to occupations other than the ministry? Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

Several weeks ago we began a sermon series entitled, The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ. I began the first sermon by making the case that Christ’s Great Commission, as recorded in the gospel of Matthew, is the reason for the church’s existence in the first place. The church is called to make disciples. Yet if the church is going to make disciples, then the people who habituate the church must first become disciples themselves. That’s what the seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are all about.

The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are as follows: worship regularly; pray daily; study diligently; live faithfully; serve joyously; give generously; and witness boldly. Five weeks ago, we delved a little more deeply into the first covenant: worship regularly. We said in essence that it was Jesus’ custom to worship, and it should be ours, as well. Yet we should come to worship expecting God to speak, to move, and to act. That’s what keeps our faith from being a mile wide and an inch deep.

Four weeks ago, we examined the second covenant: pray daily. There we saw that we are called to share our hurts, our sorrows and our joys with God. God listens to us in compassion and love much like we do when our children come to us. And when we do that…what we discover is that by praying, we learn how to pray.

Two weeks ago, we examined the third covenant: study diligently. We learned that God is responsible for the Scriptures in a revelatory way, and not just in an informational way. The Bible is how God reveals himself to us. It’s something we absolutely, positively, never could have come up with on our own. What’s more, you’ve got to read the textbook if you’re going to take the course.

Last week we examined the fourth covenant of a disciple: live faithfully. We learned about orthopraxis, or, right practice. People pass judgment on Christianity by the way Christians live their lives. It is absolutely imperative that we set a good example.

Today we examine the fifth covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ: serve joyously. Each of us is called to ministry. We seek the field of ministry most closely aligned with the call of God on our lives that hauntingly stirs our deepest passion. We begin by engaging in some form of ministry with others. We aspire to create ministries in which we engage others as partners in ministry with us.

The first – and perhaps the most important – statement in the fifth covenant is this: “Each of us is called to ministry.” It’s not just ministers who are called. Each of us is called to ministry. That wasn’t always the belief that Christians held. As Os Guinness wrote in his book The Call, “For most Christians in medieval times, the term call was reserved for priests, monks, and nuns. Everyone else just had work.”

Reformation theologian John Calvin helped to change all that. In 1559, he addressed the notion of vocation or calling in his epic work Institutes of the Christian Religion. He wrote, “Wherefore no man can doubt that this vocation is, in the sight of God, not only sacred and lawful…but the most sacred – and by far the most honorable – of all stations in mortal life.” What is that most sacred and honorable station in life? Is it the ministry? No. Calvin went on to say, and I quote:

With regard to the function of magistrates, the Lord has not only declared that he approves and is pleased with it, but moreover, has strongly recommended it to us by the very honorable titles which he has conferred upon it. When those who bear the office of magistrate are called gods, let no one suppose there is little weight in that appellation. It is therefore intimated that they have a commission from God, that they are invested with divine authority, and in fact represent the person of God, as whose substitutes they in a manner act. Wherefore no man can doubt that civil authority is – in the sight of God, not only sacred and lawful – but the most sacred, and by far the most honorable, of all stations in mortal life.

What is the most sacred and honorable station in mortal life? It’s not the ministry. According to John Calvin, the most sacred and honorable station in mortal life is that of the politician. We need to remember, of course, that Calvin is not speaking of the person holding that office. He is speaking of the office or the calling itself. Regardless of whether the person holding that office is wise or is a fool, it is the office itself that is worthy of honor.

All I’m trying to say is that it’s not just ministers who are called by God. Doctors, lawyers, homemakers and engineers can all be called by God as well. Consider the passage I read from the book of Genesis. God said to Abraham, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” Was Abraham blessed that he might hoard those blessings unto himself? No, he was blessed that he might become a blessing to others. The same is true of us. We are blessed…to be a blessing.

Perhaps our dalliance into the arena of calling should take both mental aptitude and spiritual giftedness into consideration. Ideally, these factors should be wedded to a strong sense of mission, such that our blessedness might be a blessing to others. Questions that come to mind now are these:

1. What has God called YOU to do in partnership with the community of Christ?

2. How can you fulfill your mission for Christ in the world…based upon what you feel you have the mental aptitude and the spiritual gifts to do?

For Theresa, the defining moment came one night with an unexpected knock at the door. At the time, she was a teacher in a private girls’ school. But when she opened the door that night, she found a dying woman, crumpled up on her doorstep. Theresa took the dying woman from one hospital to another looking for help…but none of the hospitals would accept the woman as a patient. Finally, it was too late. The woman died in her arms.

It was a defining moment. It touched something deep inside her; a well of deep love and deep anger. From that moment on, Theresa was not the same. Her life would be dedicated to making sure that the poor people in her city died with dignity, knowing that they were loved. By the way, that woman named Theresa came to be known as Mother Theresa. She sensed what God was calling her to do, in partnership with the community of Christ. And she fulfilled her mission based upon what she felt she was gifted to do. She felt that she was called by God to make a difference in Jesus’ name, and she dedicated her life to fulfilling that calling.

It’s good to pay attention to such unexpected moments in our lives – moments that I think each of us have now and then – moments that reach deep down into our souls. They can sometimes become the foundation for our own unique ministries. They can sometimes become the foundation to our own call to serve joyously. A call from God does not refer exclusively to an occupation. Sometimes it’s more like a task that needs to be done…a task God thinks you are uniquely qualified to do. As someone once said, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger…meet.”

Does that seem a little out of reach to you? Are Mother Theresa’s aspirations perhaps a bit too lofty? Listen, people in this very church have felt called by God to take action in our community as well, and they have done so. That’s how the Fairview/Fairmont low-income housing development got started. That’s how the Meadville Area Free Clinic got started as well. People from this very community of faith felt called by God to accomplish something in Jesus’ name in their own community…and they did so.

I think of a woman from this church who was appalled by the fact that the Meadville high school no longer held baccalaureate services for graduating seniors. So she involved her husband, who is a teacher, she involved the student council, and she involved the Meadville Area Ministerial Association. We’ve been holding baccalaureate services in Meadville for 8 years now and attendance has grown each and every year. That’s what it means to be called by God. That’s what it means to make a difference in Jesus’ name.

I think of another woman from this church who finds it disturbing that so many young people who were raised in the church…do not involve their own children in the life of the church. This kind of thing upsets grandparents to no end. She recently formed a group that’s bit of a spinoff of a group called, Moms in Touch, and calls it, Grandmas in Touch. A group of grandmothers now gets together to pray for their grandchildren. I suspect God listens to “grandma” prayers. That’s what it means to be called by God. That’s what it means to make a difference in Jesus’ name.

Yet one more thing needs to be said. The fifth discipline of a disciple of Jesus Christ is not just to serve. It is, rather: Serve Joyously! That’s why I had Nancy read the story of Cain and Abel a little while ago. Attitude is everything.

As the story goes, Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain was a tiller of the ground while Abel was a keeper of sheep. One day they each made an offering to God. Abel brought the best he had to offer – the firstlings of his flock. Cain…Cain pretty much brought what he had left over. God was pleased with Abel’s offering, but he had no regard for Cain’s. Cain was angry about that…and in the end, he slew his brother, Abel. Why was God pleased with Abel’s offering and displeased with that of Cain? I think it comes down to attitude. Abel recognized that God was the source of all that he had and all that he was. Therefore, he offered up to God the best he had to give. Cain thought more of himself and his own efforts than he did of God. Giving – to him – was an afterthought…a burden. Attitude is everything. We are called not just to serve, but to serve joyously.

The fifth covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ is: Serve Joyously! Each of us is called to ministry. We seek the field of ministry most closely aligned with the call of God on our lives, that hauntingly stirs our deepest passion. We begin by engaging in some form of ministry with others. We aspire to create ministries in which we engage others as partners in ministry with us. Just don’t forget that how you serve is just as important as who you serve. As the Apostle Paul once put it in the second book of Corinthians, “The Lord loves a cheerful giver.” Attitude…is everything. Amen.

10-16-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-10-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

THE SEVEN COVENANTS OF A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST: PART IV

Are all of you familiar with the story of Samuel and Eli? Samuel’s mother, Hanna, had long desired to have a child. She prayed and prayed and prayed to God…and finally her prayer was answered. She had a son, and she named him Samuel. Then in gratitude to God for answering her prayer, she gave her son to God. After he was weaned, he was raised in the temple by Eli, the priest.

One night, God called to Samuel, saying, “Samuel, Samuel!” Samuel thought it was Eli who was calling him, so he ran to the sleeping Eli’s side, awakened him and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” After this happened about three times, Eli perceived that it was God who was calling the boy. He instructed Samuel to say, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant hears.” And the rest, as they say, is history.

Of this story, theologian Jack Hayford once said, “The younger generation needs the older generation to help them identify the voice of God, just as Samuel needed Eli to help him know that God was calling him.” Then he added, “Yet the older generation must also realize that God is speaking to the younger generation as well.” Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

You’ve heard me mention the name of David Kinnaman in the past. He and a man named Gabe Lyons were coauthors of a book called unChristian. The basic premise of that book is that Christians these days are characterized more by what they stand against than they are by what they stand for, and that’s not a good thing. Kinnaman’s latest book is entitled You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving the Church and Rethinking Faith. In it, I believe he raises some rather profound concerns for the modern day church.

David Kinnaman is currently the president of the Barna Group, which is a private, nonpartisan research and resource company. Though Kinnaman is only 37 years old, in his sixteen years with the Barna Group he has supervised more than 350,000 interviews with people on matters of faith, politics and social dynamics. In other words, he knows that of which he speaks.

Let me begin our discussion today by laying out the definitions of a few basic terms that Kinnaman refers to on a regular basis. People born prior to 1946 are often called America’s Greatest Generation, or Baby Boosters. Kinnaman refers to these people as Elders. People born between 1946 and 1964 are called Baby Boomers. Kinnaman just calls them Boomers. People born between 1965 and 1983 are often referred to as Generation X. Kinnaman calls them Busters. People born between 1984 and 2002 are often times called Generation Y, or, Millennials. Kinnaman calls this group of people Mosaics. A mosaic, of course, is a unique piece of decorative art. Now for those of you listening in who were born after the year 2002, I offer my sincere apology. You have not yet been categorized. Rest assured, however, in the knowledge that one day…you will be.

Okay, so we have Elders, Boomers, Busters and Mosaics. Bob Buford, in a book called Half Time, says that each generation uses about five words or phrases to describe itself. Elders use words like: World War II and the Great Depression, smarter, honest, work ethic and respectful. Boomers use words like: work ethic, respectful, values, morals, and smarter. Busters use words like: technology use, work ethic, conservative/traditional, smarter, and respectful. Mosaics use words like: technology use, music and pop culture, liberal/tolerant, smarter, and clothes.

For those of you keeping score at home, you will note that each generation refers to itself as being smarter than the previous generation. Yet when it comes to Mosaics, Buford points out, “Where has the word respectful gone? And what happened to the term work ethic?” Those are terms not chosen by Mosaics. Perhaps this is indicative of the fact that we are dealing with a different kind of generation here. David Kinnaman calls them discontinuously different. In other words, there’s never been anything quite like them before, so patterns of behavior from previous generations simply do not apply.

This is a group that, generally speaking, is missing from the pews of the church today. Often times Mosaics were raised in the church. In fact, many of them were quite active in the church as teenagers. Yet by the time they reach their early twenties, more often than not, they are no longer active in the institutional church. The reasons these young people drop out are very real and very personal to those who experience them. Yet the Barna Group, through a diligent research project, has uncovered a pattern to the church dropout problem. There are three basic ways that Mosaics are lost, when it comes to the church. David Kinnaman refers to these people as Nomads, Prodigals and Exiles.

Nomads walk away from church involvement, but still consider themselves to be Christian. Prodigals, on the other hand, lose their faith…and no longer describe themselves as Christian. Exiles are still invested in their Christian faith, but they feel stuck or lost between culture and the church.

Kelly is an example of a Nomad. She grew up in a Protestant church. Her father worked for Christian organizations during Kelly’s entire life and regularly teaches Sunday school. Both of her parents are committed churchgoers. Yet Kelly describes struggling with an anxiety disorder and feeling that she never fit in at church. As Kelly herself puts it, “The first strike against the church was the youth group where I didn’t fit in and no effort was made to help me. The second strike was in college when the campus ministry I attended started talking about quotas for getting people saved. The third strike was the judgments my parents received from their church friends about me. They actually told my parents that they must have done a poor job of raising me.” Yet Kelly fits the profile of a nomad because she claims she prays...and she reads her Bible regularly. As Kelly herself puts it, “I never lost faith in Christ, but I have lost faith in the church.” That’s a Nomad.

Mike fits the profile of a Prodigal. He grew up in the Catholic Church, but his love for science and razor-sharp wit – which was sometimes perceived as disrespect – often times put him at odds with parish leaders. After a period of searching and wrestling with his faith, Mike says, “I just stopped believing in all those Christian stories.” Time will tell if Mike will return to faith later in life, but the mindset of a Prodigal typically rejects that kind of outcome. In my mind, we need to pray for Prodigals, not argue with them. They believe what they believe for a reason.

Nathan fits the profile of an Exile. Nathan’s parents – like Kelly’s – were fixtures in the church during his childhood years. Then his parents split up. As Nathan puts it, “I was really volatile toward church and faith for a long time…but way more so toward church than faith.” In an interview with Relevant magazine he described his enormous cynicism toward all things having to do with institutional Christianity. He and his friends say they are embarrassed by a lot of the Christian subculture from which they came, but not necessarily embarrassed by their beliefs. They claim to be searching for something more from their faith. In other words, they want their faith to make a difference. Such is the profile of an Exile.

There you have it: Nomads, Prodigals and Exiles. Truth be told, I think there are Nomads, Prodigals and Exiles in more generations that just the Mosaics. That aside, the question thus becomes: What can we do about it? What can the church do about the questions and the cynicism that young people seem to have about the church today?

David Kinnaman believes that the dropout problem – at its core – is a faith-development problem. Kinnaman says, and I quote, “The church is not adequately preparing the next generation to follow Christ faithfully in a rapidly changing culture.” Then he adds, “To use religious language, we have a disciple-making problem.” We have a disciple-making problem? Now you know why I utilized Kinnaman’s work so extensively.

Several weeks ago we began a sermon series entitled, “The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ.” I began the first sermon by making the case that Christ’s Great Commission, as recorded in the gospel of Matthew, is the reason for the church’s existence in the first place. The church is called to make disciples. Yet if the church is going to make disciples, then the people who habituate the church must first become disciples themselves. That’s what the seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are all about.

The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are as follows: worship regularly; pray daily; study diligently; live faithfully; serve joyously; give generously; and witness boldly. Four weeks ago, we delved a little more deeply into the first covenant: worship regularly. We said in essence that it was Jesus’ custom to worship, and it should be ours as well. Yet we should come to worship expecting God to speak, to move, and to act. That’s what keeps our faith from being a mile wide and an inch deep.

Three weeks ago we examined the second covenant: pray daily. There we saw that we are called to share our hurts, our sorrows, and our joys with God. God listens to us in compassion and love, much like we do when our children come to us. And when we do that…what we discover is that by praying, we learn how to pray.

Last week we examined the third covenant: study diligently. We learned that God is responsible for the Scriptures in a revelatory way, not just in an informational way. The Bible is how God reveals himself to us. It’s something we never could have come up with on our own. What’s more, you’ve got to read the textbook…if you’re going to take the class.

Today we examine the fourth covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ: live faithfully. Our lives should be lived with integrity and holiness. We strive to live in harmony with the will of God. We begin by taking to heart that which we read in Scripture, comprehend in worship and sense in prayer. We aspire to live lives reflecting the faith we profess…looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

I know the Presbyterian Church failed my generation, in a manner of speaking. In Sunday school, in the early years, we were taught the basic Bible stories. Then by the time we reached junior and senior high school – at a time when we could finally begin to comprehend the meaning behind those stories – we were taught how to apply our faith. Do you see what I’m trying to say? In other words, our junior and senior high school Sunday school teachers were trying to build a house without laying a firm foundation. We were taught what to do, but we were never taught why.

In the passage we read from the gospel according to Matthew, Jesus tells a parable about just such a thing. He says, “Everyone who hears these words of mine – and acts upon them – will be like the wise man who built his house upon a rock. The rains fell, and the floods came, and beat upon that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act upon them, will be like the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. The rains fell and the floods came and beat upon that house and it fell…and great was the fall of it.”

We need a firm foundation. Jesus Christ provides that firm foundation. That foundation is built just like we said in the fourth covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ. We take to heart that which we read in Scripture, comprehend in worship and sense in prayer. In other words, we live what we believe. It’s a little thing theologians like to call orthopraxis. If orthodoxy means right belief, then orthopraxis means right practice. Easier said than done though, don’t you think?

I think the secret to living faithfully is revealed in something a wise man from this church recently said to me. He said, “When my wife and I got married, we both agreed to follow the rule of sixty/forty.” I said, “What’s the rule of sixty/forty?” He replied, “We agreed to give sixty and expect forty in return. Most people think marriage is fifty/fifty. It’s not. We agreed to the rule of sixty/forty.” Then with a glint in his eye he leaned forward and said, “Sometimes it’s seventy/ thirty.” The rule of sixty/forty must work…because Chuck and Janet Koller have now been married for more than 60 years.

You know, the people who leave the church generally don’t do so because of the church itself. They do so because they’ve been upset by people in the church. They sense an incongruity between the faith people profess and the way they live their lives. We need to learn orthopraxis. We need to learn to live the life of faith we say we believe.

I think the rule of sixty/forty just might apply to the discipleship practice of living faithfully as well. If we think that all of our relationships are going to be fifty/fifty, we’re going to be sorely disappointed and we’re going to feel as if we’ve been mistreated a great deal of the time. But if we approach our relationships with the attitude of sixty/forty – and are sometimes even willing to give seventy/thirty – then we will likely find ourselves living a whole lot more faithfully than we have in the past. And we’ll be well on the way…to living out the fourth covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ. Amen.

10-9-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-10-10T10:55:00.001-07:00

THE SEVEN COVENANTS OF A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST: PART III

One of my all-time favorite quotes comes from a book that was written by a man named James Allen in 1902. The title of the book is As a Man Thinketh. That title comes from the King James Version’s rendition of Proverbs 23:7 where it says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” In any case, here’s the quote:

And you, too, youthful reader will realize the Vision (not the idle wish) of your heart – be it base or beautiful, or a mixture of both – for you will always gravitate toward that which you, secretly, most love. Into your hands will be placed the exact results of your own thoughts. You will receive that which you earn; no more, no less. Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts, your Vision, your Ideal. You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration…The Vision that you glorify in your mind – the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart – this you will build your life by; this you will become.

That, my friends, is indicative of the power of the mind. “The Vision that you glorify in your mind – the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart – this you will build your life by…this you will become.” The problem today is that a lot of advertisers are now well aware of that fact, as well.

Some of them have even begun to play upon our subconscious minds in an effort to get us to buy more of their products. Martin Lindstrom is the author of a new book called, Brandwashed. He begins his book with these words:

Have you ever been primed? I mean, has anyone ever deliberately influenced your subconscious mind and altered your perception of reality without your knowing it? Whole Foods Market, and others, are doing it to you right now.

For example, let’s pay a visit to Whole Foods’ Columbus Circle store in New York City. As you descend the escalator, you enter a realm of freshly cut flowers. These are what advertisers call symbolics or unconscious suggestions. In this particular case, they let us know that what is before us is bursting with freshness. Flowers, as everyone knows, are among the freshest, most perishable objects on earth. That’s why flowers are placed right up front; to prime us into thinking of freshness from the moment we enter the store. Then the prices for all the fruits and vegetables are scrawled in chalk on little blackboards. This is meant to suggest that the prices are subject to change daily, just as they might at a roadside farm stand. The truth of the matter is, most of the produce was flown in days ago, and the price was set at the home office in Austin, Texas. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve just been primed.

I don’t know about you, but there are few things in this world that offend me more than being referred to as a consumer. To me that suggests that human beings are nothing more than automatons who blow their hard-earned cash on producers’ products rather than precious creatures created in the image of God. Yet advertisers are well aware of the power of suggestion…well aware of the influence of the mind. As James Allen put it so well, “The Vision that you glorify in your mind – the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart – this you will build your life by…this you will become.” I think of the words in that old United Negro College Fund commercial: “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Perhaps the question now is, “Are wasting ours?” Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

Several weeks ago, we began a sermon series entitled, “The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ.” I began the first sermon by making the case that Christ’s Great Commission, as recorded in the gospel according to Matthew, is the reason for the church’s existence in the first place. The church is called to make disciples. Yet if the church is going to make disciples, then the people who habituate the church must first become disciples themselves. That’s what the seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are all about.

The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are as follows: worship regularly; pray daily; study diligently; live faithfully; serve joyously; give generously; and witness boldly. Three weeks ago, we delved a little more deeply into the first covenant: worship regularly. We said in essence that it was Jesus’ custom to worship and it should be ours as well. Yet we should come to worship expecting God to speak, to move and to act. That’s what keeps our faith from being a mile wide and an inch deep.

Two weeks ago, we examined the second covenant: pray daily. There we saw that we are called to share our hurts, our sorrows and our joys with God. God listens to us in compassion and love, just like we do when our children come to us. And when we do that…what we discover is that by praying, we learn how to pray.

Today we examine the third covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ: study diligently. We study Scripture in an attempt to shape our minds to become more attuned to the will of God. We begin by setting aside a small block of time each day to read the Bible, and participating in at least one group learning experience each week. We aspire to spend a significant amount of time in Christian study every day, and take part in two or three learning experiences each week.

Theologian Eugene Peterson would seem to be in agreement with that. In fact, the Silent Reflection in your bulletins this week is taken from a book by Dr. Peterson entitled, Eat This Book. Peterson writes:

The challenge – never negligible – regarding the Christian Scriptures is getting them read, but read on their own terms, as God’s revelation. In this business of living the Christian life, ranking high among the most neglected aspects is one having to do with the reading of the Christian Scriptures. It’s not that Christians don’t own and read their Bibles. And it’s not that Christians don’t believe that their Bibles are the word of God. What is neglected, however, is the reading of Scriptures formatively; that is, reading in order to live.

The question thus becomes: “How do we read in order to live?” Many people are fascinated by the intellectual challenges of the Bible. Our Seminaries are full of students – and professors – who study their Bibles diligently and dig out some absolutely incredible truths…but they never apply those truths to their own daily lives. To them, the Bible is nothing more than intellectual fodder. Some come to the Bible with more practical concerns. They want to live well, and they want their children and neighbors to live well. The problem here…is that the issue seems to be more about us than it is about God. Still others come to the Bible for inspiration. In other words, they want their Bibles to make them feel better. As H. Richard Niebuhr once put it, “Too often we want a God without wrath, who brought men without sin, into a kingdom without judgment, through the minstrations of a Christ without a cross.” Truth be told, reading the Bible formatively is far more likely to keep us up at night wringing our hands in holy horror…than it is to bring us peace and relaxation.

C. S. Lewis, in the last book he ever wrote, talked about two different kinds of reading. One is reading in which we use a book for our own purposes, kind of like a self-help book. The other is reading in which we use a book for the author’s own purposes. Ladies and gentlemen, there is a significant difference. C.S. Lewis describes that difference this way:

When we receive it, we exert our senses and imagination and various other powers according to a pattern invented by the artist. When we use it, we treat it as assistance for our own activities…Using is inferior to reception because art – if used rather than received – merely facilitates, brightens, relieves or palliates our life and does not add to it.

In other words, when it comes to reading Scripture, we must learn to receive it rather than use it. We must learn to seek out the author’s purposes, and not merely use it for our own. And that just might take a little more effort. Perhaps the Scriptures themselves can show us how.

In the passage from Ezekiel that Henry read, and in the passage that I read from the book of Revelation, God said to his prophets, “Take this scroll and eat it.” Or, more succinctly put, God was not merely saying to them, “Read your Bible.” God was actually saying to them, “Eat this book!” As the one and only Eugene Peterson puts it, “Christians feed on Scripture. Holy Scripture nourishes the Christian community in the same way that food nourishes the human body.”

The act of eating a book is not merely looking at the words and trying to ascertain their meaning. The problem is that we’ve been trained these days to read books with a cool objectivity that attempts to preserve their scientific or theological truths by eliminating any kind of personal participation that could contaminate the true meaning. Yet in order to seek out an author’s purpose – in order to truly “eat this book,” that is exactly the opposite of what we must do. We must learn to personally participate in what we read in the Bible if we’re ever going to comprehend its deeper meaning…if we’re ever going to be even remotely impacted by what we read. We should stop and ask ourselves at multiple junctures, “What is God trying to say to me in this passage?” And if we see the finger of God constantly pointing at someone else, then we’re not reading the book as it was meant to be read. We’re not receiving it; we’re using it.

Listen: however we think that the words of the Bible got written down on paper, the Christian Church has always believed that God is somehow responsible. Yet the Church has also always believed that God is responsible in a revelatory way, and not just in an informational way. The Bible is revelation, personally revealed to us by God. It’s something we could never have come up with on our own. In other words, God is actually letting us in on something – telling us person to person – what it means to live our lives as men and women created in the image of God.

Eugene Peterson describes it this way:

This may be the single most important thing to know as we come to read and study and believe the Holy Scriptures: this rich, alive, personally revealing God we experience as Father, Son and Holy Spirit…is personally addressing us in whatever circumstances we find ourselves – at whatever age we are – and in whatever state we are.

Yet in my mind, there are two great themes that typify our culture and keep us at arm’s length from God. The first theme is the Burger King mantra: “Have it your way.” The second theme is what anyone who was ever in the retail business had drilled into their heads. And that theme is: “The customer is always right.” Thus, if culture does a thorough job on us – and it turns out to be awfully effective on most of us – we enter adulthood with the assumption that whatever we want, whatever we feel or whatever we need…has come to form the divine control center of our lives. And the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are reduced to a personal trinity of My Wants, My Feelings, and My Needs. Could we go so far as to say that consumption and acquisition have become the new fruits of the Spirit?

Yet the fact of the matter is – in spite of all our sophistication, knowledge and self-indulgence – we don’t know how to run our own lives. The sorry state of affairs in many people’s lives is a tribute to the path of self-reliance. The sorry state of affairs in this country is a tribute to the path of self-reliance. Where do you suppose we could find the God who loves us – the God who created us in his own image – revealing a better way?

Before I end this sermon, however, I’ve got one more thing to tell you. A man in this church – a man who wishes to remain anonymous – was asked to deliver the eulogy at his brother-in-law’s funeral. His brother-in-law’s name was Fred. What follows is a part of what he said. Listen closely.

Fred was a dedicated Christian with a strong faith. I remember talking with him on the phone a couple of months ago and telling him about a Bible study class that I was taking at church. I said that I really didn’t know the Bible as well as I should. He replied, “You have to read the textbook if you’re going to take the course.”

You have to read the textbook if you’re going to take the course. My friend’s eulogy went on to say, “While living with them on 8^th Street, he encouraged me to join their church – Gloria Dei Lutheran. I remained a Lutheran, until I married that cute pharmacy student…different denomination, same textbook.”

The third covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ is Study Diligently! We study Scripture in an attempt to shape our minds to become more attuned to the will of God. We begin by setting aside a small block of time each day to read the Bible…and participating in at least one group learning experience each week. We aspire to spend a significant amount of time in Christian study every day and take part in two or three learning experiences each week. Ladies and gentlemen, you have to read the textbook…if you’re going to take the course. Amen.

9-25-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-09-26T10:59:00.001-07:00

THE SEVEN COVENANTS OF A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST: PARTII

Back when I was a senior in seminary, I had what was called a student pastorate in a town called Manchester, Kentucky. One Sunday afternoon I was in the home of one the families in my church. Fourteen-year-old Ben was busy doing his science homework. All of a sudden he blurted out, “Mom! Did you know that the sun is 93 million miles away?” His mother replied, “Of course, Ben. Everybody knows that.” Ben scowled and said, “Well, I didn’t know that. I just thought it came up over here and went down over there!”

That story brings to mind the seed I want to plant in your minds for you to consider throughout the course of this sermon. Does the sun revolve around the earth, or does the earth revolve around the sun? And when we can’t see the sun, is it because the sun has turned away…or because the earth has turned away? Keep that though in mind as we move on.

Last week, we began a sermon series entitled, “The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ.” I began the sermon by making the case that Christ’s Great Commission, as recorded in the gospel according to Matthew, is the reason for the church’s existence in the first place. The church is called to make disciples. Yet if the church is going to make disciples, the people who populate the church must first become disciples themselves. That’s what the seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are all about.

The seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ are as follows: worship regularly; pray daily; study diligently; live faithfully; serve joyously; give generously; and witness boldly. Last week we delved a little more deeply into the first covenant: worship regularly. We said in essence that it was Jesus’ custom to worship and it should be ours as well. Yet we should also come to worship expecting God to speak, to move and to act. That’s what keeps our faith from being a mile wide and an inch deep. Today, we’re going to delve a little more deeply into the second covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ…the covenant that calls us to pray daily.

A disciple of Jesus Christ prays every day. Prayer is communication with God. It ushers us into communion with God. We begin by setting aside at least one time period each day when we will communicate with God. We aspire to live lives guided by God through continual prayer.

We yearn for prayer in our lives these days…yet we seem to hide from it as well. Why, it’s almost as if we’re drawn to prayer and repelled by it at the very same time. Deep down in our hearts we believe that prayer is something we should do – even something we want to do – but it seems as if there’s a great that chasm stands between us and God. Maybe we’re afraid that if we pray we might actually have to change something about ourselves. What happens then is we come to experience the emptiness of prayerlessness.

We’re not quite sure what it is that holds us back. Of course, we’re all busy with work and family obligations, but truth be told…that’s really a smoke screen. Our busyness seldom keeps us from eating or sleeping or going out on the town. Perhaps there’s something deeper – something more significant – that keeps us from having an active prayer life. Perhaps, in reality, the problem is that we don’t really know how to pray.

Living in a postmodern world as we do, we assume that prayer is something we master, like algebra or economics. That puts us in a position where we feel competent and in control. Prayer, however, doesn’t really work like that. Prayer puts us in a position of not being in control. In fact, in prayer, we deliberately surrender control. As Emile Griffin once wrote in a book called The Experience of Prayer, “To pray means being willing to become naïve.” That’s not exactly a feeling with which many of us are terribly comfortable.

Then we wonder if what we’re asking for in prayer is proper. Many years ago, I was leading a confirmation class at the First Presbyterian Church in Luverne, Minnesota. One of the things I like to do at the beginning of every session is to have one of the students lead the class in prayer. That particular day, a boy named Calvin led the class in prayer. He said something like, “Let us pray. Dear God, bless our confirmation class. Bless all the people in this church. And could you please make Jeanie Gamble like me? Amen.”

Someone immediately blurted out, “You can’t God ask for that in prayer!” I said, “Why not? God can take it. God wants to know what’s really on our minds. We are free to bring the deepest, darkest longings of our hearts to God. That’s what it means to be a child of God.”

Truth be told, we all come before God with mixed motives. We come before God feeling generous or selfish, merciful or hateful, loving…or bitter. Yet Jesus reminds us that prayer is a lot like a child making a request of his or her parents. Oh, we may not be pleased with everything our children ask of us, and sometimes the answer might be no, but aren’t we always glad they came to us, just the same?

I guess what I’m trying to say is that God receives us just as we are, and accepts our prayers just as they are. Richard Foster calls this kind of prayer, “Simple Prayer” or, “The Prayer of Beginning Again.” In Simple Prayer we are the focus of our prayers. Our needs, our wants and our concerns tend to dominate the conversation. And that’s all right…in the beginning.

What Richard Foster calls Simple Prayer is probably the most common form of prayer in the Bible. I think of Moses in the wilderness when his people grew tired of bread from heaven. They wanted meat. So Moses cried out to God, “I am not able to carry these people alone. The burden is too heavy for me. If thou must deal thus with me, kill me at once!” Then there was the prayer of Elisha after he took over from Elijah. Some little boys made fun of him and called him a baldhead. Elisha cursed them in the name of the Lord, and then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled the little boys. And in the 137^th Psalm the Israelites were upset with the Babylonians. They cry out to God against their oppressors: “Happy shall be he who takes your little ones…and dashes them against a rock!” Even some of the most significant biblical exemplars of faith would on occasion let their darker sides get the best of them.

The point is, we can bring before God that which lies on our hearts. Simple prayer involves ordinary people bringing ordinary concerns to a loving and compassionate Father. Thus, it was all right for Calvin to ask God to make Jeanie Gamble like him. It’s fine if we ask God to help us pass a calculus test. And there’s nothing wrong with asking God to make us feel better when we don’t feel very good at all. As C.S. Lewis once put it, “We should lay before God that which is really in us, not what we think ought to be in us.” For when we pray, the real condition of our hearts is revealed…and that is when God can truly begin to work with us. Again, when we pray, the real condition of our hearts is revealed and that is when God can truly begin to work with us.

Perhaps the best illustration of this is Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. He’d look up to the sky and talk about whatever was on his mind. In the song, “If I Were a Rich Man,” he sings, “Lord, Who made the lion and the lamb, You decreed I should be what I am. Would it spoil some vast, eternal plan…if I were a wealthy man? Ya da da da da da da…” Sorry.

Don’t worry about proper praying. Just talk to God. Share your hurts, your sorrows, and your joys…freely and openly. God listens in compassion and love, just like we do when our children come to us. God delights in our presence. And when we do this, perhaps we will discover something of inestimable value. Perhaps we will discover that by praying, we learn how to pray.

A good way to start is by getting yourself a devotional guide. I have a devotional guide that I’ve been using for more than 25 years. It’s called, A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants, by Rueben P. Job and Norm Shawchuck. I begin every day with devotions and prayer time. There’s an opening prayer, a Psalm and a daily Scripture reading. Then there’s what they call “Readings for Reflection.” Those are typically snippets from spiritual classics like, The God Who Comes, by Carlo Carretto, or, The Wounded Healer, by Henri Nouwen. And then, there’s a time set aside for prayer. I like to practice what we call contemplative or listening prayer.

What is contemplative prayer? It has to do with listening for God. Typically, when we pray, we fill the airwaves with our incessant chatter. Contemplative prayer has to do with giving God a chance to respond. We actually listen for God in silence.

Here’s how it works. Make yourself completely comfortable so that your body doesn’t become a hindrance in any way. I like to lean back in my chair, put my feet up on my desk, rest my hands in my lap and close my eyes. That’s why I keep my office door closed. If someone actually saw me like that, they’d think I was taking a nap. I’m not taking a nap; I’m praying!

The next thing to do is to completely clear your mind. Some people use what we call “The Jesus Prayer.” They repeat the words, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Repeat those words a number of times, and then just clear your mind. That’s one way.

I like to use a way that was taught by the unknown 14^th century English mystic who wrote a book called, The Cloud of Unknowing. He – or she – said to do this. Repeat the words, “God, God, God!” in your mind. Then simply clear your mind. Allow God an opportunity to communicate with you. Shut out the noise of the world, and just listen. Trust me…you’ll be amazed at the results.

But let me add what I think just might be the most important thing of all about prayer. All Christian prayer should be closed in Jesus’ name. Every prayer you’ve ever heard me say is closed with the words “We pray in Jesus’ name” or “Through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Why? Because apart from Jesus Christ, we do not have access to God. We pray in Jesus’ name because it’s through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross…that we have access to God. God made a covenant with the Hebrew people through Abraham. Jesus Christ fulfilled that covenant and established a new covenant – a covenant of grace and mercy. We are a part of that covenant of grace and mercy. And that’s why we pray in Jesus’ name. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s not just a formality. It’s a theological reality.

So let’s go back to our initial analogy of the earth and the sun. The sun is 93 million miles away from the earth, although Allegheny physics professor Dan Willey tells me that I can’t prove it. It’s just something that we accept. The question was, “Does the sun revolve around the earth, or does the earth revolve around the sun? And when we can’t see the sun, is it because the sun has turned away...or because the earth has turned away?” Science tells us that the earth revolves around the sun. And when we can’t see the sun, it’s because the earth has turned away…not the other way around.

Is this a good analogy for us and God? Could we be so bold as to say that God is the center of the universe and that we are not? And could we also say that when we can’t sense God in the day-to-day events of our lives that it’s we who have turned away, and not the other way around? I think we could say that. I think we could say that…and we’d be right.

The second covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ is: pray daily. Prayer is communication with God. It ushers us into communion with God. We begin by setting aside at least one time period each day when we will communicate with God. We aspire to live lives guided by God through continual prayer. Do that…and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. Amen.

9-18-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-09-19T11:19:00.001-07:00

THE SEVEN COVENANTS OF A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CHRIST: PART I

Artemus Ward was the pen name of a man named Charles Farrar Browne. He was an early American humorist who once was called America’s first standup comic. He lived from 1834 until 1867…and profoundly influenced another American humorist who went by the name of Mark Twain. Anyway, in one of his routines Artemus Ward tried to describe the South Platte River in northeast Colorado. He said it was a mile wide and an inch deep. “It would be a considerable river,” he added, “if it were turned on its side!”

A mile wide and an inch deep…a little research reveals that that particular phrase has been used to describe politicians, writers, consultants and T.V. newscasters. The question I have for you today however, is this: Does that statement also apply to the modern day Christian Church? Is the Christian Church in America today…a mile wide and an inch deep?

Recent surveys lead us to believe that 80 to 85% percent of Americans today identify themselves as Christian. One particular survey went so far as to say that 90% of Americans surveyed believe they have a personal relationship with God. One might naturally assume, then, that the battle is won. Oh, there may be a few stragglers, but America would appear – statistically speaking – to be a Christian nation. That’s the mile wide part. The question now is: How deep does that river run?

Obviously, that’s a very difficult question to answer. There is no way anyone can get inside a person’s head and measure the depth of his or her faith. However, a woman by the name of Yvonne Reeves-Chong has an intriguing story to tell on the subject. She writes:

My son is a wonderful young man with an amazing love for the Lord. As a teenager he was blessed to go on two high school mission trips: one to Zambia and the other to Los Angeles. He made a rather astute observation. In Africa, Christianity is rare. Evangelism is simple and direct, and the fruits of conversion are very evident. In Los Angeles, however, while almost everyone claims to be Christian…the fruit is nearly nonexistent. Los Angelians knew the language of Christ, but they did not know the love of Christ.

The question was: Is the Christian Church in America today a mile wide and an inch deep? A good scientist would tell me that I haven’t proved my point because I don’t have a broad enough sample, and that scientist would be right. So let me throw in a little something else. Loren Mead is the founder and President of The Alban Institute…which might be defined as a Christian think tank. In a book called The Once and Future Church, Loren Mead has this to say:

All the uncertainties and changes of the emerging age of ministry come to a head in the life of the local congregation. The church was once the stable center and foundation of community and family life. It witnessed to the deep values and commitments that made life coherent and whole. Today the local church has become merely one institution along-side all the others – competing for time and energy – and often less sure than the others… about its basic reason for being.

Do you understand what Loren Mead is saying? He’s saying that the church has become one institution alongside all the others. The church is an institution like the Masons, or the Rotary Club, or the Lion’s Club or Kiwanis. And like those other organizations, the church competes for the time and the energy – and dare we say the money – of its members. Yet often times in our society today the church is less certain than those other organizations about its basic reason for being.

Perhaps fifty years ago people were aware of the church’s basic reason for existence. Or maybe they weren’t. After all, fifty years ago it was a societal expectation that upstanding members of a community would naturally belong to a church. That is not the case today. Today people will not belong to an organization or an institution unless they have a good reason for belonging. Thus, we need to discern the church’s basic reason for existence. The church can no longer afford to be a mile wide and an inch deep. Its members have to know exactly why it’s here; or they won’t be.

I think that reason is revealed in the passage Howie read a moment ago. The church was established by none other than Jesus Christ. He said to his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and some say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.” Jesus then asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” It was Peter who spoke up first. He said, “You are the Christ, Son of the living God.”

Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” The church was built on the Apostle Peter’s confession of faith. The disciples were comfortable with that…but then Jesus went and died. As you know, they gave up on him for a time. They gave up on Jesus, and they gave up on his dream. Then Jesus made several post-resurrection appearances to them. In the passage Howie read, he gave them a charge as to what they should become. He gave them a commission that still serves as the mission of the church today. Jesus said to his disciples:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always…to the close of the age.

There you have it in a nutshell: the mission of the church. That, my friends, is the reason for our existence. We are to make disciples of all nations. We are to baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And we are to teach them to observe all that Christ commanded. Why? Because Jesus said so.

You know, my mother used to say that to me all the time. She’d tell me to do something and I’d say, “Why?” She’d say, “Because I said so.” That reason never carried much weight with me when I was a child, but as an adult I found myself saying it to my kids on occasion as well. The church does what Christ commanded…because Jesus said so.

Here at the First Presbyterian Church, we were certain that Christ’s Great Commission is, in fact, the reason for our existence. But we were also convinced that in order for us to make disciples, we would first have to become disciples ourselves. That’s why we spent a great deal of time and energy composing our own covenant of discipleship. We call it The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ.

Each individual covenant has three separate components. The first component is what we call a Discipleship Practice. That is essentially a spiritual discipline. The second component begins with the words, We Begin By. In other words, this is where you start. The final component begins with the words, We Aspire To. In other words, this is your ultimate goal. Are you ready? I present to you now, “The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ of the First Presbyterian Church of Meadville.”

The first discipleship practice is: Worship regularly! Worship is integral to the life of faith. It was Jesus’ custom to worship and it should be ours as well. Communal worship is the primary way Christians connect with God and with each other. We Begin By: Worshipping with a congregation on a weekly basis. We Aspire To: Worship God in every moment of life and join with God’s people as often as possible.

The second discipleship practice is: Pray daily! Prayer is communication with God. It ushers us into communion with God. We Begin By: Setting aside at least one time period each day when we will communicate with God. We Aspire To: Live lives guided by God through continual prayer.

The third discipleship practice is: Study diligently! We study Scripture in an attempt to shape our minds to become more attuned to the will of God. We Begin By: Setting aside a small block of time each day to read the Bible and participating in at least one group learning experience each week. We Aspire To: Spend a significant amount of time in Christian study every day and take part in two or three learning experiences each week.

The fourth discipleship practice is: Live faithfully! Our lives should be lived with integrity and holiness. We strive to live in harmony with the will of God. We Begin By: Taking to heart that which we read in Scripture, comprehend in worship, and sense in prayer. We Aspire To: Live lives reflecting the faith we profess, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

The fifth discipleship practice is: Serve joyously! Each of us is called to ministry. We seek the field of ministry most closely aligned with the call of God on our lives…that hauntingly stirs our deepest passion. We Begin By: Engaging in some form of ministry with others. We Aspire To: Create ministries in which we engage others as partners in ministry with us.

The sixth discipleship practice is: Give generously! The way we give of ourselves and our resources should reflect the self-giving love of God in Christ. We Begin By: Committing to giving a set proportion of our time, talents and financial resources to God. We Aspire To: Live lives in which our giving is sacrificial.

The seventh discipleship practice is: Witness boldly! In his Great Commission, Christ challenged his disciples to make disciples of all nations. To make disciples of all nations, one must spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. We Begin By: Sharing our faith and values with family, friends and neighbors. We Aspire To: Fearlessly encounter situations where we have the courage to speak, and our Christian witness can truly make a difference.

There you have it: The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ. Today we’re going to explore in a little more depth the first discipleship covenant: Worship regularly. Why do we worship regularly? I think the answer is revealed in the passage I read from the gospel according to Luke. That passage is famous for what Jesus said. He said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” This passage, of course, marks the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. It was from here that everything began, and that’s what preachers generally talk about when they preach on this passage.

Yet there’s something else in this passage that’s really quite easy to overlook. Jesus had just been baptized and shortly thereafter he went to his home town of Nazareth. In verse 16 it reads, “…and he went to the synagogue, as was his custom, on the Sabbath day.” Jesus went to worship God on the Sabbath day AS WAS HIS CUSTOM. Thus, why do we make the worship of God a habit? We make it a habit because Jesus made it a habit. There is no answer that could be more clear-cut than that.

Yet still people say, “I don’t need a church to worship God. I can worship God far, far better in nature than I can in a building.” To that I say, “That may be, but do you?” And then there’s the old, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” routine. To that I say, “Spiritual but not religious generally means that one turns to God when one wants something from him, but for the most part… one is pretty much content to leave God alone.” Of course, that brings to mind what has become my new favorite question of late. That question is this: Does God exist to serve us, or do we exist to serve God? I think you know the answer. We need to remember that worship is about God, not about us.

Craig Satterlee is the author of a book entitled, When God Speaks through Worship. In it I think he really puts a finger on why we come before God in worship. He talks about a minister who was struggling with what God was trying to say and do in worship. The minister says, “I have been to the mountaintop; those experiences don’t last. I’ve worked hard on the plain, and come away empty and exhausted. I want to get wet in the river. How do I get in…and how do I know when I’m there?” Satterlee answers that minister’s question this way:

Simply stated, we get into the river by worshipping. Though the extent in intensity of God’s transformation of our lives and our congregations may remind us more of a lazy river than a rapid stream, God works in worship over time to shape us and move us, as surely as flowing water smooths stones and carries them to the sea. Even when the current of God’s reconciling love does not knock us over and sweep us away, we can worship with the expectation that God is present, speaking, and acting. Expecting God to speak and act in worship makes us actively engaged.

That, my friends, is how we get into the river. Perhaps that’s also how we keep it from being a mile wide and an inch deep. The first covenant of a disciple of Jesus Christ is worship regularly. If we come to worship expecting God to speak, move, and act…then we will have taken the first step to becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. Amen.

9-11-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-09-12T08:22:00.001-07:00

THINGS WE DON’T UNDERSTAND

Where were you on September 11^th, 2001? That’s a question that I suspect a lot of us could answer with a great deal of accuracy. What happened on that day defined a generation, much like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963…or the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. Where were you on September 11^th, 2001?

I was serving the First Presbyterian Church of Salem, Ohio at the time. That night we held a prayer service in our sanctuary. I remember standing up and saying, “I don’t know what to say. Let’s just spend some time in prayer. Let’s just let the Holy Spirit intercede for us, as the Apostle Paul says, ‘in groans that words cannot express.’” And that’s exactly what we did. We sat there in stunned silence, not knowing what to say. Some sat for close to an hour.

About six months later, my family and I took a trip to New York City. While we were there, we went on a bus tour of the city. We sat in the open top of a double-decker bus. Our tour guide told us that we were going to be the first tour bus allowed to go past the original site of the Twin Towers. I remember the tour guide saying, “We would appreciate it if people would give the site the reverence that it is due.”

We then went by the original site of the Twin Towers. It was nothing but a pair of gaping holes filled with rubble. And everyone on the bus was completely silent. No one could bring themselves to say a word. In a manner of speaking, we found ourselves on holy ground.

The events of nine-eleven shook up our nation. It seemed as if everyone’s faith was impacted…one way or another. On the one hand, the Sunday after nine-eleven, churches all across this great nation of ours were packed to the rafters. It was a spiritual revival that lasted for nearly a week. For many others, however, faith was impacted in a negative way. The question was asked time and time again, “How could a God of love have allowed this to happen?”

Theologian Serene Jones describes trauma as something that happens not just to those who directly experience violence. She says our minds are like offices. They store incoming information in one of the thousands of files we have created to make sense of the world. When trauma occurs, the incoming information is so overwhelming…that we don’t know where to store it. It fits none of our categories and we are left stunned and confused.

Traumatic events then come to affect our faith. They affect our faith…one way or another. In times of crisis, some will turn to God with renewed fervor. Others will turn away from God, disgusted with the way they perceive God operates. Along those lines, I have a story I want to tell you now. It’s called, Potatoes, Eggs and Coffee Beans. I think it’s really quite pertinent to the subject matter at hand.

A number of years ago a woman was going through some very difficult times. She complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she just didn’t know how she was going to make it. She was tired of constantly struggling just to keep her head above water. It seemed to her as if – just as one problem was solved – another one cropped up to take its place.

Her father listened, nodded, and said, “Come with me.” They went into the kitchen where he filled three pots with water. He put them on the stove and turned the flames up high. Once the pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in the first pot, eggs in the second pot…and coffee beans in the third. He let them sit and simmer without saying a word to his daughter.

The woman waited impatiently, crossing her arms and tapping her foot, wondering what on earth her father was doing. After twenty minutes or so, he turned the burners off on the stove. He took the potatoes out of the first pot and placed them in a bowl. He took the eggs out of the second pot and placed them in a bowl. Then he ladled the coffee out of the third pot and placed it in a cup. Turning to her, he said, “My dear, sweet daughter, what do you see?”

“I see potatoes, eggs and coffee,” she snorted. “Look closer,” he said, “and touch the potatoes.” She did so, and noted that they were now very soft. He then told her to take an egg and break it. When she did so, she observed a hard-boiled egg. Then he told her to take a sip of the coffee. The coffee was good, and its rich aroma brought a smile to her face. “But Daddy,” she said, “what has this got to do with all my problems?”

He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and the coffee beans had each faced the same adversity. Each had been placed in boiling water. The difference, however, is that each one reacted differently. The potato went in strong, hard and unrelenting…but in boiling water it became soft and weak. The egg was fragile, with a thin outer shell protecting its soft interior, until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard and unyielding.

The coffee beans, however, were different. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and became something new. “Which are you?” he asked his daughter. “When adversity knocks upon your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean?” In this journey we call life, many things will happen all around us, and many things will happen to us. Perhaps the thing that matters most is what happens inside us.

Back in 1978, M. Scott Peck catapulted onto the American literary scene with his best-selling book, The Road Less Travelled. The book was labeled, “A new psychology of love, traditional values, and spiritual growth.” Yet perhaps the key to its success was embodied in the very first sentence. The book began with these words: “Life is difficult.”

Life is difficult. Traumatic events will occur in our lifetimes that will make us or break us. I think of something Billy Graham said at The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. immediately after the events of nine-eleven. He said, “God is sovereign…even in things we don’t understand.” God is sovereign, even in things we don’t understand. With those words as the foundation of our faith, we are far more likely to persevere in the face of adversity. We are far more likely to be a coffee bean than we are an egg or a potato. The question is, how do we get there?

The answer is simple, but the process is complex. I think the answer just might be something that a friend of mine in this church recently said to me. He believes he received a message from God. And frankly, to me, it sounds exactly like something God would say. He said, “Read your Bible, and pray to Jesus every day.” Read your Bible…and pray to Jesus every day.

When we read our Bibles, it will come to shape our minds in accordance with the will of God. We will read the ancient stories of faith. We will see how God was active in the lives of faithful people who went before us. And we will begin to comprehend the way God works in the world.

When we pray every day, we will come to be in communion with God. As someone once said, “Prayer doesn’t change God. Prayer changes us.” And that might be the best part of all. Perhaps we will come to be transformed into a man or a woman of God.

Like I said, I think the answer is simple but the process is a bit complex. Let me try to explain. Fourteen years ago my wife was diagnosed with Sartoli-Leydig cell cancer…a particularly deadly form of ovarian cancer. Every woman over the age of 40 diagnosed with this particular cancer had died. She was 35 at the time.

It was the summer of 1997. Our oldest son Rob was eight, our daughter Mariah was five, and our baby Travis was three. I was faced with the prospect of having to raise three children all by myself. She was faced with the prospect of not seeing them grow up at all. It was a particularly trying time in our life of faith.

Back then, I was just learning about what we call contemplative prayer. Contemplative prayer is listening prayer. In other words, instead of filling the airwaves with my incessant babble, I actually took the time to listen for God. During one of those periods of contemplative prayer – thinking about my wife’s situation – I sensed four distinct words. I did not hear voices; I wasn’t losing my mind. I sensed four distinct words. Those words were, “She will be fine.” My immediate response was to ask, “Does that mean she’s going to live?” And again I sensed those four distinct words: “She will be fine.” Then suddenly I knew – that whether she lived or whether she died – she would be fine. And if she would be fine…then perhaps the kids and I would be fine, too.

That was the singularly most profound spiritual thing I have ever experienced. My faith literally moved from my head to my heart as I came to realize that the promises of God are true. We call that the move from secondary faith to primary faith. We move from secondary faith to primary faith – in other words, our faith moves from our heads to our hearts – when we come to realize that the promises of God are true because we have experienced the grace of God for ourselves. And in light of such an event, we come to develop a spiritual memory. When we have a spiritual memory, we come to believe that…if God was faithful in the past, then why would we think God might not be faithful in the future as well? Again, if God was faithful in the past, then why would we think God might not be faithful in the future as well?

Perhaps M. Scott Peck put it best when he said, “Life is difficult.” Life is difficult. Yet if we read our Bibles and pray to Jesus every day, perhaps we will manage to persevere. Perhaps our faith will move from our heads to our hearts as we come to realize that the promises of God are true. Then, as Billy Graham put it so well, we will know in our hearts that God is sovereign…even in things we don’t understand. Amen.

9-4-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-09-12T07:44:00.001-07:00

THE WAY: EPILOGUE

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

From the time of Abraham to the time of Jesus Christ, the Hebrew people – our ancestors in the faith – lived in proximity to a succession of some of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known. There was Sumeria, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Their leaders stand tall in the leadership hall of fame: Hammurabi, Ramses, Tiglath Pilesar III, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Alexander the Great, and even Caesar Augustus.

But think about this. For many centuries, with all this empire-building going on around them, the Hebrew people kept to their own ways, and maintained a unique counterculture. It was a unique counterculture in terms of the way they worshipped God and the way they lived their lives. Ultimately, however, they wanted to be like everyone else. They wanted a king of their own. Finally God acquiesced. The prophet Samuel was called to anoint Saul to be the first king over Israel. Then David became king. Then Solomon became king. Then it all fell apart over the course of the next five hundred years. When all was said and done, there were no more kings over Israel. In fact…there was no more kingdom of Israel at all. And it was all because they abandoned their unique counterculture. It was all because they came – in time – to neglect the ways of God.

Then Jesus came and showed the world how to live in what he called the kingdom of God. That’s what we need to recover. That’s what we need to rediscover. As Christians, we need to become a unique counterculture once again. We should be different than the world around us. We should have alternative priorities. We should seek to live the Jesus life by encountering the Jesus truth and following the Jesus way. Perhaps then people will see us and say of us as they said of Christians some 1800 years ago: “See how those Christians love one another, while we ourselves are ready to kill one another.” Ladies and gentlemen, that’s what the Jesus life looks like. It looks like Christians who love one another.

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

When we examined the life of the prophet Elijah, we discovered that the Jesus way involves making choices. The question at the heart of the matter is this: Do we possess an insatiable desire to get our own needs fulfilled, or are we willing to simply be present to God? When we examined the life of the prophet Isaiah, we discovered that God’s primary work in us is not condemnation, but rather, God’s primary work in us is forgiveness. Then when we manage to live our lives in light of God’s grace and mercy, what we find are the roots of holiness.

And finally, when we examined the life of the unknown preacher we refer to as Second Isaiah, we uncovered the concept of Midrash, or interpretation. In other words, what do we see when we look at God? Do we see an angry, vindictive, judgmental God, or do we see a loving, forgiving, grace-filled God? What do we see when we look at the world? Do we see a frightening place filled with nightmares and terrors around every corner, or do we see a place filled with boundless potential and loving hearts just waiting to be unlocked? It all depends on Midrash. It all depends on how we interpret it.

Of course, at this point in time, a lot of you have to be saying to yourselves, “Those Old Testament characters lived way before the time of Jesus Christ. What do they have to do with the Jesus way if they didn’t even know him?” They may not have known him, but Jesus certainly knew of them. The Jesus way is his perfection of the righteousness of the holy ones who went before him. Unfortunately, Jesus did not give explicit lectures and seminars on how to LIVE in the kingdom of God. Jesus simply said, “Follow me.” We have seen that Jesus was anticipated by some 2000 years of men and women who walked in the way of righteousness. Some of their stories we know. We know of the stories of patriarchs and prophets like Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Isaiah and Second Isaiah. That’s why we considered the paths of their lives. Yet perhaps the issue now is what they had in common. How is it that Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Isaiah, and Second Isaiah were able to walk in paths of righteousness? What was the key to their exemplary lives?

In a word, it was discipline. Their lives were guided by what we call spiritual disciplines. In other words, if we want to live our lives the Jesus way, then we’ve got to practice the spiritual disciplines as well. Just what exactly are the spiritual disciplines? A man named Dallas Willard outlines them as well as anyone I’ve ever encountered. Dallas Willard was a professor at the University of Southern California, and an ordained Southern Baptist minister. He divides the spiritual disciplines into two distinct categories. There are Disciplines of Abstinence, and there are Disciplines of Engagement.

Roughly speaking, the Disciplines of Abstinence counteract sins of commission, while the Disciplines of Engagement counteract sins of omission. In the Disciplines of Abstinence, we abstain to some degree from the satisfaction of what we generally regard as normal and legitimate desires. In the Disciplines of Engagement, we involve ourselves in activities that are beneficial to our spiritual growth. The Disciplines of Abstinence include: solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy and sacrifice. The Disciplines of Engagement include: study, prayer, worship, celebration, service, fellowship, confession and submission.

That doesn’t sound like a cakewalk, does it? That’s why we have more and more churches these days that aim at being consumer-oriented. For example, a minister friend of mine by the name of Hal Shafer recently sent me a cartoon with a church billboard announcing “The LITE Church.” That’s L-I-T-E…just like the beer. The cartoon read: “The LITE Church. We have 24% fewer commitments, 10 minute sermons, 45 minute worship services and only eight commandments. It’s everything you ever wanted in a church…and less!” Does that sound appealing to you? Be truthful, now.

I was doing some research on preaching a number of years ago. I came across the most interesting statement in my Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. It said in essence, “If you’re preaching the message that Jesus preached, then you’re going to be met with the same reactions with which Jesus was met.” In other words, if you’re preaching the message that Jesus preached, you’re going to be met with ridicule, disrespect, scoffing, insults and the like. Preaching Jesus… will not make one popular. It might even breed animosity.

Once upon a time, a Catholic priest and a Presbyterian minister were fishing in a creek near a road. The two of them were clearly visible from the road. They made a sign and placed in on the roadside to make people turn around from imminent disaster. The sign said: “STOP! THE END IS NEAR! TURN YOURSELF AROUND BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!”

It was a quiet road and there wasn’t much traffic. Pretty soon a car finally did come down the road. The driver read the sign and was incensed by it. He yelled at the clergymen, “Leave us alone, you religious fanatics! Just keep your faith to yourselves!” The clergymen heard the man’s angry words as the man drove off, and then they heard a big splash. The priest said to the pastor, “Maybe we should have just written, ‘Bridge Out.’” Like I said, abiding by the Christian faith will not make one popular. And preaching the way of Jesus Christ…can make one even less so.

Still, theological integrity is important to me. Someone recently said to me, “You’re one of the five best preachers in the country.” I said, “I don’t know about that. I’ve heard many of the so-called best preachers in the country, and I don’t know if they’re any better than I am. That’s probably a matter of personal opinion. But here’s the difference between them and me. They’re all a lot more politically savvy than I am!” By that I mean…I don’t have sense enough to know when to leave well enough alone. I say what I think I should say and then let the chips fall where they may. Sometimes I have a bad case of what I like to call foot-in-mouth disease. Perhaps it’s God’s way of keeping me from being popular.

So I’m going to do it again. I’m going to say what I think needs to be said about the Jesus way and let the chips fall where they may. You may not like what I have to say, because it’s far from Christianity LITE. Walking the Jesus way requires discipline, and there’s nothing easy about it. It requires dedication, hard work and sacrifice. So here goes…

Here at the First Presbyterian Church, we have devised what we call The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ. Each covenant has a Discipleship Practice, which is a spiritual discipline. And each covenant has a line that says, “We Begin By” and “We Aspire To.” In other words, one is where you start and the other is your ultimate goal. Are you ready? Here are The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ.

The first discipleship practice is worship regularly. Worship is integral to the life of faith. It was Jesus’ custom to worship and it should be ours as well. Communal worship is the primary way Christians connect with God and with each other. We begin by: Worshipping with a congregation on a weekly basis. We aspire to: Worship God in every moment of life and join with God’s people as often as possible.

The second discipleship practice is pray daily. Prayer is communication with God. It ushers us into communion with God. We begin by: Setting aside at least one time period each day when we will communicate with God. We aspire to: Live lives guided by God through continual prayer.

The third discipleship practice is study diligently. We study Scripture in an attempt to shape our minds to become more attuned to the will of God. We begin by: Setting aside a small block of time each day to read the Bible, and participating in at least one group learning experience each week. We aspire to: Spend a significant amount of time in Christian study every day and take part in two or three learning experiences each week.

The fourth discipleship practice is live faithfully. Our lives should be lived with integrity and holiness. We strive to live in harmony with the will of God. We begin by: Taking to heart that which we read in Scripture, comprehend in worship, and sense in prayer. We aspire to: Live lives reflecting the faith we profess, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

The fifth discipleship practice is serve joyously. Each of us is called to ministry. We seek the field of ministry most closely aligned with the call of God on our lives that hauntingly stirs our deepest passion. We begin by: Engaging in some form of ministry with others. We aspire to: Create ministries in which we engage others as partners in ministry with us.

The sixth discipleship practice is give generously. The way we give of ourselves and our resources should reflect the self-giving love of God in Christ. We begin by: Committing to giving a set proportion of our time, talent and financial resources to God. We aspire to: Live lives in which our giving is sacrificial.

The seventh discipleship practice is witness boldly. In his Great Commission, Christ challenged his disciples to make disciples of all nations. To make disciples of all nations, one must spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. We begin by: Sharing our faith and values with family, friends and neighbors. We aspire to: Fearlessly encounter situations where we have the courage to speak, and our Christian witness can truly make a difference.

There you have it: The Seven Covenants of a Disciple of Jesus Christ. They reflect how the patriarchs and prophets who went before us lived, and they are the source through which we can once again create a unique counterculture. But perhaps most important of all, follow them...and you will be well on the way to living your life the Jesus way. Amen.

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

2011-08-29T12:20:00.001-07:00

THE WAY: PART VIII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2011-08-29T11:11:00.001-07:00

THE WAY: PART VII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2011-08-02T12:48:00.001-07:00

THE WAY: PART VI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7-17-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-07-18T13:55:00.001-07:00

THE WAY: PART V

Two months ago we began a sermon series based upon the first part of the sixth verse of the fourteenth chapter of the gospel according to John. There Jesus says to his disciples, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” From that one simple verse theologian Eugene Peterson devised the following theory: The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life. While church schisms – and even wars – have been fought over the Jesus truth, very seldom do we invest much energy in discerning the Jesus way. That is precisely what we are attempting to do in this sermon series. The question thus becomes, “What is the Jesus way, and how do we go about following it?”

As we noted initially, the Jesus truth – in and of itself – is not enough to bring about the Jesus life. Jesus calls us to follow the Jesus way as well. Then we noted that the Jesus way is not a list of rules and regulations. The Jesus way cannot be codified or simplified or summarized. The Jesus way is meant to be lived. When we examined the life of Abraham, we discovered that the Jesus way involves testing and sacrifice. God has a unique way of sifting people when he wants to use them to accomplish great things for his kingdom. And finally, when we examined the life of Moses, we discovered that God has a unique purpose for our lives. What’s more, that purpose is subject to change from time to time and we have a responsibility to continue to seek out God’s purpose for our lives in spite of whatever changes might take place. Are you with me so far?

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

If I were to tell you to turn in your Bibles to Psalm 151, many of you would open your Bibles in the middle, turn left, and look for it near the end of the book of Psalms. I also suspect some of you would realize that there are only 150 Psalms in the Bible. There is no 151^st Psalm. Yet when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, a 151^st Psalm was found. This is what it says:

Smaller was I than my brothers,

And younger than the sons of my father.

Yet he appointed me shepherd for his sheep,

And ruler over his kids.

My hands have made a flute,

And my fingers a lyre,

And I have given glory to Yahweh.

I said in my soul,

O that the mountains would bear witness for me,

And O that the hills would tell.

(Yet) the trees have taken away my words

And the sheep my works.

For who can tell,

And who can speak,

And who can recount my works?

The Lord of all saw,

God of all – he heard.

And he has heeded.

He sent His prophet to anoint me;

Samuel to make me great.

My brothers went out to meet him;

Handsome of form,

And handsome of appearance.

Tall in their height;

Handsome with their hair.

Them God did not choose.

But he sent and took me from behind the sheep,

And anointed me with holy oil.

And he appointed me leader for His people,

And ruler over the sons of His covenant.

Does that sound like anyone you know? It is now widely believed that the 151^st Psalm was written by none other than David himself. The words depict a humble boy who performed his appointed tasks in relative anonymity. No one noticed; no one knew what he did. Yet God knew. And because of his faithfulness to God and to his father, God would send the prophet Samuel to anoint him king over all of Israel. David’s career began in utter humility and gratitude to God.

As a boy, David was summoned to the court of King Saul. King Saul was deeply troubled in spirit and David was brought in to play soothing music for him. It brought peace to the king and he loved David very much – so much so that he made David his armor-bearer. Then came the battle between the Israelites and the Philistines. A giant named Goliath taunted the armies of Israel and insulted the name of God. David was the only person brave enough to face him. You know the story. David slew Goliath with a stone from his sling.

This turned David into quite a celebrity. As he grew to adulthood, he had more success on the battlefield. David’s success brought forth a deep-seated resentment in Saul. Saul made it his life’s mission to kill David. David was on the run with a few loyal warriors of his own. It was reported to Saul that David was in the wilderness at a place called En-gedi, just west of the Dead Sea. Saul took three thousand of his best warriors and went to En-gedi in search of David.

David and his men were hidden in a cave in the wilderness. The day was hot and the cave was cool. They were deep inside the cave, resting. Suddenly a shadow formed across the front of the cave. David and his men were astonished to discover that it was none other than King Saul himself. They were probably also surprised to find that he was that close in his pursuit of them. Saul entered the cave, but he did not see them lurking in the shadows. Saul was there to answer a call from nature. He had to go to the bathroom! So he threw aside his royal robe and turned his back on the men in the cave. David’s warriors wanted to kill him right there, but David stopped them. Instead, he snuck up and cut off a small piece of King Saul’s robe.

When King Saul finished his business, he put on his robe, strapped on his sword, and walked down the mountain. Once he was a safe distance away, David appeared at the mouth of the cave and cried out, “My lord, the king!” Saul looked back in astonishment. David bowed down, reverently honoring the king. Then he said, “Why do you listen to those who tell you that I am your enemy? See what I have in my hand? It is the skirt of your robe. Just now, instead of cutting your robe, I could have cut you. But I will not do that because you are God’s anointed.”

David was known for killing Philistines. In fact, David was known for killing just about anyone who opposed God’s people, Israel. It was a part of the bloody barbarism of what we call the Iron Age. People then did not think and act the way we think and act today. Life was not nearly so precious. Yet here David reveals his integrity, his compassion and his faith in Almighty God. Why, at this point in time, one might even say that he was noble. That, however, was all about to change.

David soon became king over Israel. As it says in verse 1 of chapter 11 in the second book of Samuel, “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers, and all Israel with him…but David remained at Jerusalem.” It was there, when David was walking on the roof of his palace, that he spied a woman bathing. Her name was Bathsheba, and David wanted her for himself. He committed adultery, and when Bathsheba turned up pregnant he concocted a plan to put her husband at the forefront of a battle where, of course, he died. Ah, sin begets sin, does it not? Not only was David guilty of adultery, now he was also guilty of murder.

As someone once said, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The Learning Channel recently ran a special called “Sex, Lies & Power.” With a single tweet, U.S. Congress-man Anthony Weiner set off a series of events that smeared his reputation and toppled his once promising career. Just weeks earlier, Maria Shriver left her longtime husband Arnold Schwarzenegger, after it was revealed the former governor had fathered a child with the household help. And then, perhaps most blatant of all, there was presidential candidate John Edwards’ covert extramarital affair. The list goes on and on.

The question was asked, “Why do these men cheat, and what makes them think they can get away with it?” The answer is really quite simple. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. They come to believe they are above the rules and regulations that guide the rest of us. Perhaps we could say that the same was true of David. But he did not fool God, did he? God knew what David had done, and he sent the prophet Nathan to confront him about it.

Yet perhaps an even more blatant example of David’s disregard for the rules that govern the rest of us occurred in a little-know story in the 3^rd chapter of the second book of Samuel. While battles raged between the house of Saul and the house of David, Saul’s military commander, Abner, decided to defect to David’s army. Yet David would only accept Abner if he would bring David’s former wife, Michal, back to him. By this point in time, she was married to another man – a man named Paltiel.

Abner did as he was told. Michal was forcibly removed from her husband and her home and taken to David. Paltiel followed her, weeping and wailing all the way. It’s really quite a heart-breaking scene – Paltiel and Michal, husband and wife – ripped apart by a self-serving political stratagem. There is no evidence that David felt any emotion or regret about what he had done. He was oblivious to both Michal and Paltiel. David was not about to let personal feelings interfere with his political maneuvering. If the scene at En-gedi showed David at his best, then in the matter of Michal and Paltiel, he is at his worst. He has become a man willing to sacrifice his humanity at the altar of power.

There can be no confusion as to what is revealed in the stories of David. The life of David is a paragon of good and bad, perhaps not so much unlike our own lives. What we admire in David does not cancel out what we despise in David, and what we despise in David does not cancel out what we admire. The life of David is not a model for imitation, nor is he himself a candidate for a pedestal. The story of David is simply an immersion in humanity – an immersion in humanity conditioned by its culture and flawed by its sin. Perhaps we could even go so far as to say that the story of David is not a story of what God wants us to be, rather, the story of David is a story of God working with the raw material of our lives as he finds us. Write that down. The story of David is not a story of what God wants us to be, rather, the story of David is a story of God working with the raw material of our lives as he finds us. In other words, God still loves us – and God can still work with us – in spite of any mistakes we may have made along the way. Ladies and gentlemen, the God we love – the God we worship – is always willing to give us a second chance.

About ten years ago, I wrote a poem called The God of Second Chances. I actually wrote it for a woman in my church in Salem, Ohio who was getting married for the second – or maybe it was the third – time. Yet I think it’s applicable to other mistakes we may have made as well. In any case, listen now to a poem entitled, The God of Second Chances.

To come of age in this wide world,

One finds life’s full of dances.

One knows there is, yet turns not to,

The God of second chances.

We want to spread our mighty wings

To soar far as we can.

A conquest here, a conquest there:

Who thought it’d be this grand?

We have success and all is good

In this terrestrial life.

To top it off, we then seek out

A husband or a wife.

We fall in love and happiness

Is all we think and feel.

And then along come one, two, three

Children with which to deal.

But that’s all right. It gives our life

A sense of true delight.

We always have more love to share.

It simply feels so right.

We live our lives by our own rules

‘bout each and every day.

We have success, but then come woes

To boot, along the way.

A child in whom we took such pride

Turns out not like we’d planned.

He takes a wrong turn here and there

In spite of our demands.

And then that husband or that wife

No longer feels the same.

So they want out. And we want out.

It’s such a hurtful game.

Then there’s that job for which we strove

Our hardest every day.

Turns out it’s simply a dead end.

We only work for pay.

Or what if everything’s still grand?

In life we find no “whys?”

But then that one we loved so much

Gets sick and then he dies?

We find that life is not all fun

And games along the way.

We have our good days and our bad.

So then we learn to pray.

As long as we maintain our faith

Across life’s wide expanses,

We’ll find that we are blessed by Him:

The God of second chances.

To get a second chance at life

And love; a chance to cope.

We want it and we find that this

Is all for which we hope.

Perhaps the second time around

We won’t take it for granted.

The seed of love now in our hearts

Will be securely planted.

We learn life has its ups and downs,

But still, we do find love.

We find a sense of happiness:

It comes from up above.

Oh, there are those who’ll think we’ve failed

And made a few mistakes.

But until life takes twists and turns,

You don’t know what it takes.

No longer are we fooled by all

Life’s trials, hoops and trances.

We’ve found we now owe all to Him:

The God of second chances.

David got a second chance. We might say David got a third and a fourth and a fifth chance, as well. Yet David always managed to confess his sin and to throw himself upon the mercy of God. Truth be told, that’s what the Psalms are all about. We would do well to do the same… because the fact of the matter is, living a Godly life in spite of all our imperfections is part and parcel to walking the Jesus Way. Amen.

7-10-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-07-11T11:44:00.001-07:00

TWO SIDES TO EVERY STORY

I have an incredible story for you this morning. Ultimately it has to do with the true nature of forgiveness. It’s just that it takes a somewhat circuitous route to get there. Thus, I invite you to sit back – get comfortable – and encounter one of the most startling stories to come out of World War II. It’s a story that probably should have made front-page news, yet somehow it failed to do so. Listen closely just the same.

At 4:00 a.m. on July 16^th, 1945, Hunters Point Dock in San Francisco, California is a quiet, deserted place, and it strikes many of the crew of the USS Indianapolis as odd. Usually Hunters Point Dock harbors some 15 ships, but tonight it’s like a graveyard. The Indianapolis is a heavy cruiser designed to bombard enemy placements on land and blow enemy aircraft out of the sky. She’s 610 feet long – a floating city with enough weaponry to lay siege to San Francisco. She’d been at Mare Island Naval Yard for two months for repairs. Four days earlier, however, this respite had been abruptly terminated by orders that the Indianapolis set sail immediately.

From out of the fog, two army trucks thunder to a stop, and a detachment of armed Marines steps out. The canvas flaps at the rear of the trucks are parted to reveal a black metal canister and a large wooden crate. A cable from a crane aboard the Indianapolis snakes down above the crate – which is secured with straps, lifted skyward, and set upon the hangar deck. The crate is then placed under strict guard by the Marine detachment.

The canister, meanwhile, is taken aboard by two sailors, who carry it up the gangway suspended from a metal pole. It’s secured to the deck in Admiral Raymond Spruance’s cabin, then padlocked. (The Admiral is in Guam, planning the invasion of Japan.) Accompanying the canister are Major Robert Furman and Captain James Nolan who introduce themselves as artillery officers. In reality, Nolan is a radiologist and Furman is an engineer engaged in top-secret weapons development.

The captain of the ship gives the order to get the Indianapolis under way. At about the same time, on an expanse of desert in New Mexico, a tremendous flash fills the morning sky. It’s an explosion of staggering magnitude and the aftershock knocks men off their feet five miles away. It’s the first explosion of an atomic device in the history of the world.

Inside the crate sit the integral components of the atomic bomb known as Little Boy. Packed in the canister in the admiral’s cabin is a large quantity of uranium-235, totaling half the fissile material available to the United States at the time. In three weeks, the bomb will be dropped on Hiroshima. At 8:00 a.m. the captain of the Indianapolis clears the harbor and sails past the Golden Gate Bridge into the nuclear age.

The Indianapolis sails from San Francisco to Tinian Island in the Philippine Sea – a journey of 6214 miles. After unloading their precious cargo, they sail toward Guam, about 140 miles away, to receive more routing orders. They’re told to sail from the Marianas Frontier to the Philippine Frontier. The captain is told that conditions along his proposed route are normal, even though Japanese submarines are known to be in the area. In fact, three days earlier, the USS Underbill had been sunk by a torpedo, killing 119 men. On July 28^th, the USS Indianapolis sets sail into a sea the captain thinks he understands.

Sixty feet below the surface of the Pacific, in the submarine I-58, Lieutenant-Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto, the son of a Shinto priest, frets. Incredibly, during his four years at sea, he has yet to sink an enemy ship. He’s erected a shrine aboard the sub and he prays to it for his luck to change.

Suddenly, about 10,000 yards away, Lieutenant-Commander Hashimoto sees something up ahead – a blur on the horizon. He can’t believe his luck! He orders the sub to attack depth and creeps ahead at a quiet three knots. He’s studying the approaching vessel through the periscope, but he can’t make out what type of ship she is. Realizing a kill shot will be difficult from head on, Hashimoto swings the sub around and falls into position to meet the ship broadside. From this angle, he can see that it’s a warship – a huge one. It’s the Indianapolis, headed for the Philippine Frontier.

One eye pressed to the rubber cup of the periscope, he gives the order to fire. Each torpedo carries 1210 pounds of explosive – enough firepower to level a six-story building – and Hashimoto releases six of them, at three second intervals, in a widening fan of white lines.

While the torpedoes race toward the Indianapolis, her crewmen are playing poker, reading paperback novels, making coffee and sleeping. Marine Private Giles McCoy – remember that name – Marine Private Giles McCoy, only 19 years old, is guarding two prisoners down in the brig.

At about 12:02 a.m., the first torpedo blows an estimated 65 feet of the bow skyward. The explosion sends a plume of water lit from within by red streamers of flame 150 feet into the air, showering the men on deck with foaming sea water, fuel oil, and burning shrapnel. A second torpedo hits below the waterline and careens through a powder magazine and a tank filled with thousands of gallons of fuel. This explosion is massive. The Indianapolis seems to pause for a moment, like a huge beast struck between the eyes, and then she continues plowing ahead at 12 knots. With her bow gone, she begins scooping up seawater by the ton. Already, 100 men are probably dead and the Indianapolis is listing to starboard. She has very little time left and those aboard have even less time in which to decide their fate.

The captain gives the order to abandon ship. As many as 500 men are massing at the port rail near the stern, and they begin jumping, screaming as they drop 30 feet into the sea. The ship’s angle is now lifting propellers Number 3 and Number 4 out of the water – and Number 3 is still running. Some of the men drop into the massive, spindling blades and are cut to ribbons.

After jumping, the men are scattered in a jagged line that will eventually stretch for 20 miles. A vast, poisonous blanket of black fuel oil pours from the ship’s ruptured hull and spreads across the water. It coats and clogs the men’s eyes, ears and mouths – eating away at the sensitive membranes. As they drift, many of them are in shock, and nothing is visible of their blackened faces except the whites of their eyes.

As the Indianapolis sinks, distress signals are sent. These messages are sent out repeatedly by two men in a pair of radio rooms filling with smoke. Somebody – somewhere – should be receiving them. In fact, four U.S. vessels will receive S.O.S. messages from the Indianapolis, and none of them will take any conclusive action to determine their accuracy. That’s because Japanese forces, hoping to draw out helpless rescue vessels, have regularly broadcast bogus distress signals. Thus, no one comes to help.

Marine Private Giles McCoy – remember him? – desperately attempts to swim away from the ship. As the 10,000 ton Indianapolis sinks completely, it lets out one last tremendous explosion. McCoy gets sucked under water and blacks out. He comes to moments later as he feels himself rushing back toward the surface. He’s caught in a giant air bubble that eventually lifts him three feet out of the water. He returns to a dismal world of screaming men.

Coughing up seawater, Giles McCoy makes his way toward a life raft. A body drifts out of the darkness toward him. McCoy can’t tell who it is, but he pulls the man close and cuts off his life vest. The corpse sinks beneath the waves and is gone.

As Private McCoy stares into the darkness, he spots something on the horizon. He thinks it’s a rescue ship. He pulls out his pistol and fires two shots in the air. Then he realizes he’s not looking at a rescue ship. It’s the Japanese sub, prowling the kill zone. Throughout the war, it’s been the practice among Japanese sub commanders to machine-gun a sunken ship’s survivors. The sub circles the area for half an hour, but when the risk of being discovered by a destroyer seems too great, the I-58 takes off. Assuming he has sunk the ship, Lieutenant-Commander Hashimoto orders up a celebratory meal of boiled eels and potatoes for his crew. Little does he know that in seven day’s time, the members of his family will be vaporized by a new kind of weapon…a new kind of weapon called the atomic bomb.

The crew of the Indianapolis who remain alive are convinced that rescue can only be a day or two away. At 10:00 a.m. the following morning, they unexpectedly drift free of the oil slick and beneath them the ocean lights up like an enormous green room. The relief from the stinging oil is instant. But then the sharks arrive in frenzied schools.

“You know how a bobber on a catfish line floats on the surface above the bait and runs when a fish hits?” Seaman John Bullard will later recall. “The last time I saw this one fellow, his head was running like a bobber. A shark had hit him.” Of the men adrift in life vests, those who thrash end up dying, and those who play dead survive.

Subtler forces are also taking their toll. At this near-equatorial latitude, the Pacific is a steady 84 degrees – warm by most ocean standards – but still cool enough to induce hypothermia. Dehydration and dementia are also setting in. Then men start to hallucinate.

On Thursday, August 2^nd – four days after the Indianapolis was sunk – a 24-year-old Navy pilot accidentally discovers the remaining crew. Rescue vessels are sent. Out of a crew of over 1200, only 321 men survived.

The following week, the Enola Gay drops Little Boy on Hiroshima and 120,000 people are annihilated. President Truman later steps into the Rose Garden to announce the surrender of Japan. The effect is simple: Either by design or by happenstance, the Indianapolis disaster is buried under the headlines announcing America’s victory.

Remember Marine Private Giles McCoy? He became a physician to dedicate his life to something good. In Hawaii, in 1990, on the 49^th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he met Lieutenant-Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto. Hashimoto, of course, commanded the sub that sank the Indianapolis. Through an interpreter, Dr. McCoy managed to say to Hashimoto, “I forgive you.”

Hashimoto replied, “Well, I forgive you, too.”

“Forgive me for what?” shot back Dr. McCoy.

“Tell Dr. McCoy,” Hashimoto answered through his interpreter, “that I came from Japan to be with him, to pray with him for the losses I caused on the Indianapolis. And I ask him to pray with me for the losses I suffered at Hiroshima, because I lost my whole family in the bombing.”

There are two sides to every story, aren’t there? Forgiveness is a two-way street. Let us keep that in mind when we finally find ourselves big enough to forgive our transgressors. For its altogether possible that they have suffered just as much as we have. Amen.

6-26-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-07-11T10:26:00.001-07:00

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

A couple of years ago, my oldest son and I were walking the dog in the woods at Colonel Crawford Park. Suddenly we heard a loud crack off in the distance. I said to my son, “Rob, did you hear that? What would you do if that was a bear?” Rob said, “I’d run!” I said, “Rob, you can’t outrun a bear!” To which Rob replied, “I don’t have to outrun a bear. I only have to outrun you!” Great! This child I have loved and nurtured for 22 years – for whom I have sacrificed my all – is going to outrun me and let me get eaten by a bear!

I remember the day he was born like it was yesterday. I was getting ready for work in our house in Columbus Junction, Iowa when my wife said to me, “I think it’s time!” We raced to the hospital in Iowa City as fast as we possibly could. The doctor who delivered Rob had the fastest scalpel west of the Mississippi. My wife had to have a C-section. Rob was delivered, and my wife was being wheeled out of the room in less than 25 minutes. Once they had Rob all cleaned up, they stuck him in my arms. It was the first time I’d ever even held a baby. I thought, “What am I supposed to do with this?” It was the most incredible thing that had ever happened to me. Suddenly I realized that along with God’s great blessings comes great responsibility.

Consider Abraham of whom Susan read a moment ago. God came to Abraham some 4000 years ago and promised to make of him a great nation. But was Abraham blessed that he might hoard those blessings unto himself? Was Abraham blessed that he might stockpile his wealth? No, he was blessed to be a blessing to others. He was to share the grace of God with the world. This story answers what has become my new favorite question of late. My new favorite question is this: Does God exist to serve us, or do we exist to serve God? We exist to serve God because – as we see with Abraham – along with God’s great blessings comes great responsibility.

The same thing was true for the disciples of whom we read in the gospel according to Matthew. Twelve men Jesus called, and they all began to follow; ever so slowly at first, doubting him every step of the way. They watched as he healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, and mended the lame. They listened as he spoke of a kingdom that had no end. What had begun as mere curiosity had turned into a call to discipleship. What had begun as mere friendship had grown into a deep abiding love. The more they saw – the more they heard – the more they came to love this man called Jesus with a love they had never known before. They were with Jesus as they celebrated their last supper together. They prayed with him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Then they watched him get arrested, and they saw him hung on a cross to die. Yet after Jesus’ death, he made several appearances to his disciples. In the passage we read from Matthew, he gave his disciples what we call the Great Commission. He said, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you…and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” The disciples were blessed to have walked with Jesus Christ. Yet along with God’s great blessings comes great responsibility.

Let’s talk about this sacrament of baptism the disciples were told to administer for a moment. Baptism is meant to symbolize three basic things. Number one, baptism symbolizes our admission into the Church universal. Number two, baptism symbolizes our cleansing from sin. And number three, baptism symbolizes our reception of the Holy Spirit. What exactly is the Holy Spirit? We know God the Father as God over and above us. We know God the Son as God with us and for us. And we know God the Holy Spirit as God in us. And this is what worries me. We are raising a generation of young people apart from the church. Thus, we are raising a generation of young people absent the sacrament of baptism. Can we not thus infer, from a theological standpoint, that we are raising a generation of young people bereft of the Holy Spirit? Ladies and gentlemen, that should scare us to death. For apart from the Holy Spirit, human beings are capable of almost anything. Yet the sacrament of baptism is not some magic elixir guaranteeing that your children will live a godly life. The sacrament of baptism is like planting a seed. And how do you make a seed grow? You must water it and fertilize it and nurture it. Along with God’s great blessings comes great responsibility. In other words, we – as parents – must become disciples ourselves.

The real question thus becomes, “How does one become a disciple of Jesus Christ?” Here at the First Presbyterian Church of Meadville we have devised what we call the seven covenants of a disciple of Jesus Christ. Those seven covenants are printed on the blue inserts in your bulletins. Each discipleship covenant has three separate parts: Discipleship Practice, We Begin By, and We Aspire To. Now I’m not going to go over all of them. Let me just say this. To be a disciple of Jesus Christ, one must worship regularly, pray daily, study diligently, live faithfully, serve joyously, give generously, and witness boldly. Ah, along with great blessings comes great responsibility. But if we, as parents, manage to do just that…then perhaps the fate of our children will no longer be in our hands. The fate of our children will be in God’s hands. Frankly, I can’t imagine a better place than that, can you? Amen.

6-19-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-06-21T07:39:00.001-07:00

THE WAY: PART IV

Five weeks ago, we began a sermon series based upon the sixth verse of the fourteenth chapter of the gospel according to John. There Jesus said to his disciples, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father…but by me.” Perhaps we could even say, “The Jesus way plus the Jesus truth equals the Jesus life.” While we seem to speak often of the truth of Jesus Christ and the life of Jesus Christ, very seldom do we speak of the way of Jesus Christ. The question thus becomes, “What is the Jesus way…and how do we go about following it?

As we noted initially, the Jesus truth – in and of itself – is not enough to attain the Jesus life. Jesus calls us to follow the Jesus way as well. Then we noted that the Jesus way is not a list of rules and regulations. The Jesus way cannot be codified or simplified or summarized. The Jesus way is meant to be lived. Then when we examined the life of Abraham, we discovered that the Jesus way involves testing and sacrifice. God has a unique way of sifting people when he wants to use them to accomplish great things for his kingdom.

Today we come to Part IV in our sermon series on The Way. Two weeks ago we examined the life of Abraham. Today we’re going to be examining the life of Moses. Thus, if I were to come up with a subtitle for this sermon, it might be The Way of Moses, or The Way of God’s Purpose. In any case, I invite you to come along with me as we seek to discern the Jesus Way.

The other day, my wife and I were walking the dog out at Woodcock Dam. As we passed a group of fishermen, I heard one of them say, “They’re just a couple of educated idiots. I’ll bet they don’t even fish!” I said to my wife, “Are they talking about us?” She said, “I don’t know!” The fact of the matter is, I have no idea who or what they were talking about. But their impressions of someone had clearly been formed…probably on the basis of one particular issue or encounter. I guess we all have a tendency to do that. We tend to pass judgments on people based upon our own perceptions, regardless of how limited those perceptions might be.

A lot of people have passed judgment on a man named Jim Tressel of late. Jim Tressel was the head football coach at The Ohio State University from 2001 until 2011. He won a national championship in 2002. He recently lost his job, however, amid accusations that some of his players exchanged sports memorabilia for tattoos at a Columbus tattoo parlor. What got Jim Tressel into trouble was the fact that he supposedly knew about it, and then he lied about it to NCAA investigators. Someone also told me that a recent Sports Illustrated article iterated a number of other rules violations that supposedly occurred while he was coaching at Youngstown State before he moved to Ohio State. The name Jim Tressel will forever be associated with cheating and lying and deceit in many minds based upon this one incident.

Let me tell you a story about another side of Jim Tressel. In my last church in Salem, Ohio, I had a member by the name of Jack Rance. I loved Jack Rance. He was on the Personnel Committee from the time I arrived in Salem in 1996 until the day he died in 2003. The thing I loved most about Jack was that he was always in church and he was always on my side. Now Jack was known in Salem, Ohio as Mr. Buckeye. He was the biggest Ohio State fan I ever knew. Even the most rabid of Penn State fans would have a hard time rivaling Jack. He had an autographed picture of Woody Hayes hanging in his living room. He had a football autographed by former Heisman Trophy winners Archie Griffin and Eddie George. He had an Ohio State Buckeye emblem on the toilet seat in his bathroom, and a Michigan Wolverine emblem inside the toilet bowl. That’s all I’m gonna say about that! Jack Rance was affectionately known as Mr. Buckeye.

In the spring of 2003, Jack was diagnosed with terminal cancer. For a time, he was at the James Cancer Research Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Someone from Salem called the Ohio State football office and told them that Salem’s own Mr. Buckeye was in the hospital there. Jim Tressel went to visit Jack Rance himself. He sat by that man’s hospital bed and talked football – and life – with him for 45 minutes. Nothing on God’s green earth could have made that dying man feel any better. That’s how I will remember Jim Tressel. He didn’t have to go visit a dying man in the hospital, but he did.

Perhaps there is more to us than meets the eye. Perhaps there are two sides to all of us. I think the side of love and compassion and goodness is the side of us that God tends to see. God sees the best in us. And because God sees the best in us, he knows what we can be. He knows what we can become. He knows what we can accomplish if we will but set our minds to it…and trust him to help us along the way.

Case in point, consider Moses of whom we read earlier. Moses, as you know, had a fairly interesting background. Moses was of Hebrew descent, and the Hebrew people were being held in bondage in Egypt. Yet the Hebrew people were becoming so numerous – and in the mind of Pharaoh posed such a threat to Egypt – that he ordered Hebrew midwives to let all female babies live, but to put all male babies to death. Yet the Hebrew midwives disobeyed

Pharaoh’s orders, so he subsequently ordered that all male Hebrew babies should be cast into the Nile River.

Moses’ mother gave birth to Moses, but she couldn’t bring herself to drown him in the Nile. So she hid him as long as she could, then she sent him floating down the Nile in a basket. She sent Moses’ sister to follow the basket on the shoreline to see what would become of him. As luck would have it, Pharaoh’s own daughter found the basket and wanted to keep the baby for herself. Moses’ own mother was commissioned to nurse him and when he came of age he went to live in Pharaoh’s house as Pharaoh’s adopted grandson.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Moses knew something of his roots. As a young man, he saw the suffering of his people and he was filled with compassion. When he stumbled upon an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, he put a stop to it. He killed the Egyptian, and hid his body in the sand. The next day, when he tried to stop two Hebrew slaves from fighting, one of them said to him, “Who made you a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”

Moses knew his deed had become public knowledge. Thus, he fled from Egypt and landed in a place called Midian. After rescuing the daughters of the priest of Midian from marauding shepherds, he settled in Midian and married one of the priest’s daughters. He became a shepherd himself. He had a wife and a family. Egypt was now but a blip on the radar screen of his life.

One day, as Moses was minding his own business, leading his flock of sheep, he noticed a burning bush. The bush seemed to be on fire, but somehow it was not consumed. When he turned aside to see that great sight, the voice of God cried out to him, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses did the only thing he could. He answered the call of the burning bush.

God was calling Moses to do a great thing for him. He wanted Moses to go back to Egypt and say to Pharaoh, “Let my people go!” Moses was a murderer. He was literally a fugitive from justice. Yet perhaps there were two sides to Moses as well. Perhaps God saw in Moses what he could become. He knew what Moses could accomplish if he would but set his mind to it, and trust God to help him along the way. The trick here, however, would be convincing Moses of it first.

God said to Moses, “I have seen the suffering of my people, Israel. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt.” To which Moses replied, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out?” God said, “I will be with you. And this shall be the sign for you, when you have brought my people out of Egypt. You shall worship God on this mountain.”

Moses replied, “So I say to the Israelites, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what will I say to them then?” So God told Moses what to say. “Say, ‘I Am who I Am. I Am has sent me to you.’” To which Moses replied, “But what if they don’t believe me? What am I supposed to do then?” Then God showed Moses how to turn his staff into a serpent and how to make his hand become leprous. To which Moses replied, “But I don’t speak so good. Don’t you think someone else could do a better job?” Why it almost sounds like a church nominating committee trying to recruit deacons and elders, does it not? Moses came up with one lame excuse after another. It’s an absolute wonder that God stuck with him.

Eventually Moses acquiesced. He went into Egypt and faced down Pharaoh. Imagine the courage that must have taken. Pharaoh knew Moses had killed one of his subjects. Moses was literally walking into a lion’s den. Ten times Moses spoke God’s word to Pharaoh: “Let my people go.” And ten times Pharaoh’s heart was hardened and he would not let God’s people go. So ten times God sent plagues upon Egypt. After the last plague – the angel of death who took all of Egypt’s first-born sons – Pharaoh relented. Then he changed his mind again. When the Hebrew people were up against the Red Sea, Pharaoh’s chariots came charging after them. And that’s when God parted the Red Sea. The Hebrew people passed safely to the other side, while Pharaoh’s army was swallowed up by the sea.

Now you would think that such a dramatic rescue would convince the Hebrew people that their God was a God who could be trusted. Their God was a God who could do anything. Yet once they were in the wilderness, they did nothing but complain. They complained when they had no water, so God brought forth water from a rock. They complained when they had no food, so God sent bread from heaven. They complained when they grew tired of bread, so God sent quails that they might have meat. Then what did they do when Moses was atop Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments? They built a calf out of gold and said, “This is your god, O Israel; the god who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

The Hebrew people spent the next forty years wandering in the wilderness. The trip from

Egypt to the Promised Land should have taken closer to forty days than forty years. Why did they wander for forty years? It has been suggested that Moses was a man. And being a man, he refused to stop and ask directions! Now that may very well be, but I think there might be a little more to this story than that.

The Hebrew people, led by Moses, wandered in the wilderness for forty years. And in those forty years, they were utterly dependent upon God. They relied upon God for food. They relied upon God for water. They relied upon God for protection and they relied upon God for guidance. They were literally being shaped into the people of God. And what happened to Moses in the end? He climbed atop Mount Nebo and looked upon the Promised Land. And there it was that he died. He led his people for forty years in the wilderness, but he never set foot in the Promised Land himself.

What does that mean? For years my answer was always this: It’s the journey that counts, not the destination. And that’s a good answer, I suppose. But when it comes to Moses living out the Jesus Way, I think there just might be another answer as well. Moses fulfilled God’s purpose for his life. And once he fulfilled God’s purpose for his life, he was granted rest from his labors.

The message here is clear. God has a purpose for our lives as well. We need to discern that purpose and do our best to fulfill it. But here’s the catch. There may be more than one purpose to our lives. And once we fulfill one purpose, we would be wise to look for the next one.

Of all people, Conan O’Brien has a marvelous take on that in a speech he recently delivered

to the Class of 2011 at Dartmouth. Now I’m no Conan O’Brien fan. I don’t think I get his brand of humor. That aside, listen to what he had to say. O’Brien said:

Your path at 22 will not necessarily be your path at 32 or 42. One’s dream is constantly evolving, rising and falling, changing course. This happens in every job, but because I have worked in comedy for 25 years, I can probably speak best about my own profession.

Way back in the 1940s, there was a very funny man named Jack Benny. He was a giant star, easily one of the greatest comedians of his generation. And a much younger man named Johnny Carson wanted very much to be Jack Benny. In some ways he was, but in many ways he wasn’t. He emulated Jack Benny, but his own quirks and mannerisms, along with a changing medium, pulled him in a different direction. And yet his failure to completely become his hero made him the funniest person of his generation.

David Letterman wanted to be Johnny Carson, and was not, and as a result my generation of comedians wanted to be David Letterman. And none of us are. My peers and I have all missed that mark in a thousand different ways. But the point is this: It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It’s not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention…Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen.

Now Conan O’Brien was talking about fulfilling one’s dreams. I’ve been talking about fulfilling God’s purpose for your life. But the point remains the same. You may sense God’s purpose for your life changing as well. And that’s okay. Keep searching for God’s purpose for your life every day. Live it out as best you can, and when you fulfill one purpose, start looking for the next one. The Jesus way plus the Jesus truth equals the Jesus life. A part of the Jesus way has to do with fulfilling God’s purpose for your life. Once Moses did so, his life came to an end. If we fail to do so, perhaps our lives will never even begin. Amen.

6-5-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-06-06T11:27:00.001-07:00

THE WAY: PART III

The Jesus way plus the Jesus truth equals the Jesus life. As I mentioned in Parts I and II of this sermon series, that’s a line quite similar to one Eugene Peterson uses in his book, The Jesus Way. What Peterson actually says is, “The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life,” but in my mind the meaning of those two statements is essentially the same. Perhaps the question thus becomes, “What is the Jesus way, and how do we go about following it?”

As we noted three weeks ago, the Jesus truth – in and of itself – is not enough to attain the Jesus life. Jesus calls us to follow the Jesus way as well. Then, two weeks ago, we noted that the Jesus way is not a list of rules and regulations. The Jesus way cannot be codified or simplified or summarized. The Jesus way is meant to be lived. Today we tackle Part III on the Way of Jesus Christ. If I were to come up with a subtitle for this sermon, it might be, “The Way of Abraham,” or perhaps better still, “The Way of Sacrifice.”

Back in the 1940s, there was a well-known radio host/comedian/song writer in Hollywood by the name of Stuart Hamblen. He was actually the son of a Methodist preacher, but had long since given up his traditional Methodist ways. By the late 1940s, he was known as a drinker, a gambler and a womanizer.

One day, a young preacher came to Los Angeles to hold a tent revival. Hamblen made arrangements to have the young preacher on his radio show, presumably to poke fun at him. Then, in an attempt to gain material for his show, Hamblen actually went to one of the tent revival meetings. Early in the service the preacher said, “There is one man here tonight who is living a lie.” Now in the city of Los Angeles, there were probably a lot of people who thought he was talking about them, but Stuart Hamblen was convinced the preacher was speaking right to him. At first he was defiant, but the preacher’s words began to eat away at him.

A couple of nights later, Hamblen showed up at the preacher’s hotel door at 2:00 a.m., drunk as a skunk. He demanded that the preacher come out and pray for him. At first the preacher refused, saying, “This is between you and God, and I’m not getting in the middle of it.” Eventually, however, the preacher did invite Hamblen inside and they talked until five in the morning. In the end, he dropped to his knees and cried out to God. One might say he had a conversion experience.

Stuart Hamblen quit drinking, quit gambling and quit chasing women. He quit everything he had once referred to as “fun.” Soon he began to lose favor with his old Hollywood cronies. Then when he refused to accept a beer company as a sponsor for his radio show, he was fired. Hard times were upon him. He tried writing a couple of Christian songs but the only one that had any success was a song called, “This Old House,” written for a friend named Rosemary Clooney.

As he continued to struggle, a long-time friend named John took him aside and said, “You know, all your troubles began when you got religion. Was it worth it?” Stuart quickly replied, “Yes, it was worth it.” His friend added, “You liked your booze so much. Do you ever miss it?” When Stuart said, “No,” his friend John said, “I just don’t understand how you could give it all up so easily.” To which Stuart then said, “It’s no big secret. All things are possible with God.” His friend replied, “Now that’s a catchy phrase. You should write a song about that.”

Stuart Hamblen did write a song about that. It goes like this: “It is no secret what God can do. What he’s done for others, He’ll do for you. With arms wide open, He’ll welcome you. It is no secret what God can do.” By the way, the friend named John who questioned him about his life was John Wayne. And the young preacher who counseled him in the wee hours of the morning was Billy Graham. The point, however, is that for Stuart Hamblen to learn to walk in the way of Jesus Christ, he had to make a sacrifice. He had to give up what had once been nearest and dearest to his heart.

Abraham faced a somewhat similar predicament in the passage we read from the book of Genesis. This passage is one of the most traumatic and hard to understand passages in all of Scripture. God tells Abraham to take his son Isaac to the top of a mountain and make of him a burnt offering. It’s a little thing we call child sacrifice.

Abraham prepared to do as he was told. He gathered some wood, took a couple of servants, and set his son upon a donkey. They travelled to the place God told them to go. Then Abraham took wood and fire and Isaac to the top of a mountain. Isaac said, “Father, the fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Little did he know that he was to be the burnt offering himself.

Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound Isaac’s hands and feet and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham drew back a knife to slay his only son. And you think your parents gave you psychological issues with which to deal! At that moment, God called to him from heaven saying, “Abraham! Abraham! Do not lay your hands on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, you only son, from me.” Then suddenly, there was a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. Abraham slew the ram and used it as a burnt offering instead.

Did God really want Abraham to offer his only son as a living sacrifice? Is that the God to whom we turn for comfort and assurance and hope? A lot of people who interpret this passage try to soften it a little bit. Child sacrifice was, in fact, a fairly common thing in the Middle East some 4000 years ago. Thus, some interpreters say that this event was actually God’s way of showing Abraham that child sacrifice was a bad thing. For those of you who need a gentle, passive God who always makes perfect sense and wants us to live a life of comfort and ease, there’s your explanation. Let’s say Abraham misunderstood God’s request, and God was able to rectify things before it was too late. If that’s the kind of God you need, then you’d better tune out now. Because I think there may be another explanation as well…one that isn’t quite as innocuous.

As it says in verse 1 of chapter 22, “After these things, God tested Abraham.” In other words, the Bible doesn’t say that this passage is a testament to the evils of child sacrifice. It literally says that God was testing Abraham. Well, “Testing him for what?” is the first question that comes to my mind. And the answer is: God was testing Abraham to see if he was ready to receive God’s blessing and covenant. Again, God was testing Abraham to see if he was ready to receive God’s blessing and covenant.

Let’s face it, whether this is a comforting thought or not, God has a habit of first testing those he plans to use to accomplish great things for his kingdom. For example, what happened to Jesus Christ immediately after he was baptized? The Holy Spirit drove him into the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil. Jesus passed the test and the rest, as they say, is history. Abraham himself had already had some experience with God’s testing, as well.

The story of Abraham really begins in the 12^th chapter of the book of Genesis. As the story goes, God called Abraham at the tender age of 75 to leave his family and his homeland and go to the land that God would show him. Abraham did as he was told, not knowing where he was going. One could conceivably say that Abraham passed his first test right there. But when a famine struck the land and Abraham and his wife, Sarah, were forced to go into Egypt, Abraham was concerned for his own safety. You see, Sarah was very beautiful, and Abraham was afraid Pharaoh would want her for himself, and maybe even kill him in the process. So he told Pharaoh that Sarah was his sister, and Sarah went along with the plan.

Pharaoh then took Sarah into his house and made her his wife. And he gave Abraham oxen and camels and sheep and donkeys to boot. Then God afflicted Egypt with plagues and Pharaoh perceived it had something to do with Sarah. So he gave Sarah back to Abraham and chastised him for saying that she was his sister. God was testing Abraham in Egypt, and it was a test that Abraham failed quite miserably. He took matters into his own hands and tried to live a lie.

Abraham was wealthy beyond measure, but there was one thing he lacked – one thing for which his heart literally ached. He wanted an heir. He wanted a son. God told Abraham his descendants would be as numerous as the stars. God promised Abraham a son. But Abraham was now 86 years old…and still he had no son.

Sarah offered Abraham her maid – an Egyptian slave girl named Hagar – that Abraham might obtain a son through her. Hagar conceived and she bore a son named Ishmael. While God came to bless Ishmael and his descendants, I see this as yet another example of Abraham’s failing a test from God. God had promised Abraham a son. Abraham became impatient and again took matters into his own hands. The story of the bitter rivalry between Sarah and Hagar, and the later clashes between Isaac and Ishmael, is proof of the fact that Abraham had once again failed a test from God.

Finally, a son was born to Abraham and Sarah. As the story goes, Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90 when Isaac was born. Perhaps they measured years differently back then. Let’s not get hung up on details here. A few years after that, we come to our passage in chapter 22 which begins by saying, “After these things, God tested Abraham.” Now listen to this. Abraham had become wise in his many years of life. This “test” that came upon him was nothing new to Abraham. God had been testing Abraham all his life. Abraham was prepared this time. Listen to a couple of details in the story that are really quite easy to miss.

As I mentioned before, Abraham gathered some wood, rounded up a couple of servants, and set his son upon a donkey. They arrived at the mountain to which God directed them. Now pay close attention to what Abraham says to his servants. He says, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” Abraham did not say, “The boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then I will come back to you.” Abraham said, “The boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” I don’t think Abraham thought for a minute that he was going to actually have to sacrifice his son. I think he knew all along that it was a test. I think he knew all along that somehow …God would provide.

Yet God still gave the test, did he not? In the test God discovered that Abraham’s first loyalty was to God, not to the things of this world…or even his beloved son. Abraham’s first loyalty was to God – not to God’s attributes or to what God could do for him or what he could get from God. Abraham was willing to sacrifice what was nearest and dearest to his heart…in the name of God. Abraham’s primary loyalty was now to God. Abraham was finally ready. He was finally ready to receive God’s blessing and covenant. And it only took him a little more than 100 years!

God has always had a way of testing people when he wants to use them to do great things for his kingdom. Don’t think for a minute that God has changed his ways today. God tests us each and every day as well. Perhaps the question then is not, “Did we pass or fail?” Perhaps the real question is, “Do we even see the test when it’s placed before us?”

Along those lines, I have an absolutely marvelous story that was given to me by Dr. John Robb, and I use it with his permission. John and his wife, Marilyn, were on their way back to Meadville after wintering in Alabama. They were in a hotel restaurant near Birmingham. In walked a man with a cane. He was obviously a double amputee. The man sat down at a table by himself.

Marilyn said to John, “Go and see if you can help him.” John said, “I’m not going over there.” Marilyn said, “Go and see if you can help him.” John said, “I’m not going! He doesn’t want my help!” Marilyn said, “Go and see if you can help him.” So John went over to see if he could help.

John sat down at the table across from the man. He said, “My wife wanted me to come over here and ask you if you needed any help.” The man said, “My wife is just like that, too. Aren’t we lucky?”

The man explained his situation. He said, “I’m a World War II double amputee.” John said, “I was in World War II.” The man said, “I was drafted right after high school.” John said, “I was drafted right after high school.” The man said, “I was in the infantry in the Pacific.” John said, “I was in the infantry in Europe.”

The man continued his story. He lost both of his legs in Okinawa when he was 20 years old. He came back to the United States and went to college on the G.I. bill. He became an accountant and eventually started his own business. He said his customers were wonderful. He even went to their children’s weddings and graduation parties. He finally sold his business because – as he put it – he didn’t want to die with his boots on. Throughout their conversation, John was struck by the fact that the man kept saying, “God is good.” He’d suffered for more than 60 years without his legs, but still he said, “God is good.” At the end of his story, he looked at John and said, “Aren’t we lucky?” What a beautiful outlook on life!

John told me he was so moved by this man’s story that he’s been telling it ever since. In fact, he was recently in the hospital and he told that story the woman who was drawing his blood. She said to him, “Aren’t you glad you listened to your wife?”

Ladies and gentlemen, I see this story as a test from God. Dr. John Robb passed the test – thanks in no small part to his wife – and he has been truly blessed because of it. Abraham was more than 100 years old when he finally passed his test. Dr. Robb is only 86!

The Jesus way plus the Jesus truth equals the Jesus life. A part of living the Jesus way necessarily entails testing and sacrifice. Abraham found that out when he was asked to sacrifice his only son. Of that story, Eugene Peterson says, “Why did our ancestors place this story so imperiously on the very threshold of the Way? Didn’t they know that many of us coming on this story so early on, offended and outraged, would just shut the book and go shopping for something or someone more benign to guide us on our spiritual quest, like, say, the Buddha?”

Along those lines, I think of what Teresa of Avila once said of God. She said, “Lord, if this is how you treat your friends, it’s no wonder you have so few!” God may not have an abundance of friends, but the ones he’s got – the ones who are doing their level best to walk in the Jesus way – are probably pretty good ones. Amen

5-22-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-05-24T06:23:00.001-07:00

THE WAY: PART II

According to an Associated Press article in last Thursday’s Meadville Tribune, the second coming of Christ was supposed to occur on Saturday, the 21^st of May. That particular date was calculated by a retired civil engineer by the name of Harold Camping. For those of you keeping score, that would have been yesterday. Now if Christ did in fact return yesterday, then there are a lot of us who’ve been left behind.

When I first read the article, I thought, “Gosh, I may not have to write a sermon this week.” I decided to write one anyway just in case this Harold Camping fellow was wrong. Now I’m not making light of the second coming of Jesus Christ. It’s just that Jesus himself said, “Of that day and hour no one knows, not the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” So let’s not worry about the end of the world today. Let’s worry instead about the way we live in the world we have.

Speaking of living in the world we have, let me say this: The Jesus way plus the Jesus truth equals the Jesus life. As I said last week that’s a line quite similar to one Eugene Peterson uses in his book, The Jesus Way. What Peterson actually says is, “The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life,” but the essential meaning of those two statements is about the same. As we noted last week, the Jesus truth is not enough in and of itself to attain the Jesus life. Jesus calls us to follow the Jesus way as well. As Jesus himself put it in the passage we read from the gospel according to John, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father…but by me.” Could it be that Jesus is actually calling us to live the faith we say we believe? Perhaps the question thus becomes, “What is the Jesus way, and how do we go about following it?”

Along those lines, I want you to consider a famous poem written by a man named Robert Frost. It was first published in 1916 in a collection of poetry called Mountain Interval. The name of the poem is, “The Road Not Taken.” Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Listen closely to the words just the same.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost came to the proverbial fork in the road. There, he found he had a choice to make. He made his choice, and then he had to live with it. And in the long run, he came to sense that the path he picked ultimately made all the difference. Ladies and gentlemen, we come to forks in the road every day, and we have choices to make as well.

For example, imagine you’re taking an algebra test. Do you trust in your ability to retain the data you have studied, or do you sneak a peek at the paper of someone who does better in the lass than you? Or, imagine you’re working on a major business deal. A person who works below you comes up with an idea that is sure to make the transaction a huge success. Do you jump on the idea and claim it as your own, or do you give credit where credit is due and sacrifice a big promotion? Or, imagine you’ve been married for many, many years. Relationships tend to go through peaks and valleys, and you feel like you’re in a valley. Then someone you meet seems to take a profound interest in you. It’s flattering, it’s gratifying…it’s exciting. Do you stick to your marriage vows, or do you give in to your baser impulses? Ah, the stakes seem to get higher the older we get, do they not?

The choices we make do matter. As C.S. Lewis once put it, “With every choice we make we are turning the central part of ourselves – the part that chooses – into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature.” Don’t think for a moment that the choices we make don’t matter. They do matter. They matter a great deal.

Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less travelled by…and that has made all the difference. We all come to the proverbial fork in the road, and we all have choices to make. The choices we make at the fork in the road make all the difference in this world…as well as in the world to come.

The Psalmist was well aware of that fact in the passage Bill read from the book of Psalms a moment ago. He wrote, “Blessed is the one who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on God’s law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous…but the way of the wicked will perish.”

The Psalmist is saying that those who choose to abide by the way of God will prosper in the long run. Those who choose not to abide by the way of God – those who choose to abide by the way of the world – will be judged in the long run. Ladies and gentlemen, we have to look at this psalm through the eyes of faith. Because in this world, sometimes those who choose the way of the world are quite successful in this world. We have to believe that someone – somewhere – is keeping score. We have to believe that there are eternal consequences for the choices we make on a daily basis.

The Jesus way plus the Jesus truth equals the Jesus life. The question was, “What is the Jesus way and how do we go about following it?” Perhaps we’ve just answered the second part of that question. How do we go about following the Jesus way? The Jesus way is, first and foremost, a choice. It is a choice that – in the long run – will come to make all the difference in the world. Thus, when we come to that proverbial fork in the road – and you know we will – we must come to choose the Jesus way.

Allow me to literally prove to you the difference the Jesus way can make in the world in which we live. Byron Johnson is the author of a book entitled, More God, Less Crime. In it, he compiled a survey of every study conducted between the years 1944 and 2010 that measured the possible effect of religion on crime. Literally 90% of those studies revealed that more religiosity resulted in less crime. Believe it or not, however, 2% of those studies actually found that religion produced more crime. (I’d guess there was some kind of surveyor bias there.) And 8% of the studies found that there was no relationship either way.

Richard Freeman, a Harvard professor of economics, interviewed 2,358 young men living in downtown Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia. He found that religious behavior was associated with substantial differences in how young men behave. More churchgoing resulted in less crime, less alcohol, and fewer drugs. So I ask you now, “Does the Jesus way matter?” It would appear that it does indeed.

So if following the Jesus way is a choice, perhaps we now need to take a look at what the Jesus way really is. As this is only sermon number two in a series, I am not prepared to give you the definitive answer right now. Yet perhaps I can lay a good foundation. Let me start by saying that the Jesus way is more about the way we live than it is about rules and regulations.

If you look at chapter 20 in the Old Testament book of Exodus, you will find what we call the Ten Commandments. You’ll find a lot more rules and regulations in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. In fact, if you were to read what the Jewish people call the Torah, you would find 613 separate laws of conduct. God gave the Hebrew people a set of laws with which to conduct themselves, but somehow they failed to produce the results God desired.

That’s why God sent his Son. As Christians, we believe Jesus Christ is the revelation of God. In other words, what we know to be true of Jesus, we know to be true of God. Yet Jesus didn’t give us a list of rules and regulations to follow, did he? Jesus simply lived his life in accordance with God’s plan, thereby revealing the way for us to live as well. Perhaps that’s what the Jesus way really is. The Jesus way is a life lived in harmony with God.

The Jesus way is a life lived in harmony with God. I think Eugene Peterson gives us a marvelous illustration of that in his book, The Jesus Way. He writes:

Years ago I was traveling along a spectacular mountain road with an old college friend who was visiting from Texas. This road is one of the scenic wonders of North America. My friend had a map open on her knees. I kept pointing out features in the landscape around us: a five-hundred foot waterfall, a glacial formation, a grove of massive Western Red Cedars, a distant horizon of mountains upon which a storm was forming.

She rarely looked up. She was studying the map. When I, with some impatience, tried to get her attention, she told me that she wanted to “know where we are.” And knowing where we are, for her, was defined by a line on a map. She preferred the abstraction of a road map to the actual colors and forms, the scent and texture of Mount Reynolds, the roar of Logan Creek, or an alpine meadow on the way to Piegan Pass, luxurious in bear grass.

Perhaps the Jesus way is more than rules and regulations or a line on a map. Perhaps the Jesus way has to do with being present to everything on the way: the sights and the sounds, the beauty and the elegance, the friendships and the relationships. Perhaps the Jesus way cannot be codified or simplified or summarized. Perhaps the Jesus way must simply be lived.

Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and devout Roman Catholic. She once said, “All the way to heaven is heaven, because Jesus said, ‘I am the way.’” Perhaps we, too, will find the Jesus way when we start to realize that all the way to heaven is heaven as well. Amen.

5-15-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-05-16T13:07:00.001-07:00

THE WAY: PART I

The Jesus way plus the Jesus truth equals the Jesus life. That’s a line similar to one Eugene Peterson uses in his book, The Jesus Way. What Peterson actually says is this: “The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life,” but I like my wording better. The Jesus way plus the Jesus truth equals the Jesus life. The question now is: What is the Jesus way, what is the Jesus truth, what is the Jesus life…and how do we get there?

Once upon a time, a man dreamed that he died and he was met at the Pearly Gates by none other than St. Peter himself. St. Peter said to the man, “Welcome to the kingdom of heaven. Would you like me to show you around?” The man replied, “Oh, I’d like that more than anything else in the world.”

As St. Peter began to show the man around, he was surprised to discover that the kingdom of heaven was like a long hallway with an unending series of doors. As the two of them approached the first door, the man heard beautiful singing. The man said, “What’s behind that door?” St. Peter replied, “Oh, that’s the Methodists. They just love to sing.” As the two of them approached the second door, the man heard fiery preaching. The man said, “What’s behind that door?” St. Peter replied, “That would be the Baptists. You know how they love their fire and brimstone.”

As they approached the third door, St. Peter stopped the man and said, “Shh. We have to be very quiet as we go past this door.” The man said, “Why is that?” St. Peter replied, “Because behind this door are the Presbyterians. They think they’re the only ones here.”

Now of course, Presbyterians don’t really believe that, but it’s always safer for me to make us the brunt of the joke rather than to pick on someone else. Yet the fact of the matter is, there are some Christian denominations who truly believe that they’re the only ones who are going to end up in heaven. Why do they believe that? They believe that because they have somehow come to accept the fact that they have cornered the market on truth. In other words, if you don’t believe exactly as they believe – and speak the exact same religious platitudes they speak – then in their minds, they are right, you are wrong, and you’re not going to make it to the kingdom of heaven. Personally, I’ve always liked C.S. Lewis’ take on that. He once said, “When we get to heaven, I think we’re going to be very surprised by some of the people we see…and I think we’re also going to be surprised by some of the people we don’t.” Now there’s some food for thought.

Jesus seems to address this issue in the passage we read from the gospel according to John. The context of our passage is an upper room in Jerusalem. Jesus is sharing his last supper with his disciples shortly before his arrest and crucifixion. Prior to their departure to the Garden of Gethsemane, he shares some words of wisdom with them. He tries to tell them of how soon he will be leaving them, yet somehow they fail to understand just exactly what he means.

Jesus says, “In my Father’s house there are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am, you may be also.” Then he adds, “And you know the way where I am going.” Thomas, of Doubting Thomas fame, quickly replies, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus then utters some of the most profound words in all of Scripture: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father…but by me.”

Why, it’s almost as if Jesus says it himself: The Jesus way plus the Jesus truth equals the Jesus life. In other words, the Jesus life is not found by cornering the market on the Jesus truth alone. One must also follow the Jesus way. It’s the Jesus way PLUS the Jesus truth that equals the Jesus life, and therein lies our problem. We seem to have lost sight of the Jesus way. We are quite well-versed on the American way, but we seem to have lost sight of the Jesus way.

The curricula of the American way is designed to help us get ahead in whatever field of work we find ourselves – be it sales, politics, business, or even church. We take courses that instruct us in skills and principals that we are told are foundational for success, and then we are taught how to use those skills and principals to get what we want out of life. We seek to embrace the methods and techniques of successful people, who then write books and give lectures telling us how we can do what they are doing if only we follow all the right steps. Of course, this all plays right into our consumer mentality. And it all works wonderfully, as long as getting ahead and achieving worldly success are our ultimate goals. But that’s not the Jesus way. That’s the way of the world. And the way of the world is often in direct contrast with the Jesus way. Eugene Peterson has an interesting take on the contrast between the way of the world and the Jesus way. He writes:

To take a person trained in ways and means that are custom-formulated to fit into the world’s ways, and then place that person in the worshipping, evangelizing, witnessing, reconciling, peace-making, justice-advocating people of God, is equivalent to putting an adolescent whose sole qualifications consist of a fascination with speed, the ability to step on the accelerator, and expertise in operating the radio, behind the wheel of a brand-new Porsche.

Any of you who have ever had teenagers know exactly what Peterson means. In fact, I know of two fathers in Meadville who did just that. One put his sixteen-year-old son behind the wheel of a brand new Mustang G.T., and the other put his sixteen-year-old son on the back of what we call a crotch rocket motorcycle. Guess what? Both boys ended up in the hospital after high-speed accidents, and both are lucky to be alive today. Just as you can’t put a sixteen-year-old boy behind the wheel of an incredibly fast car or a high speed motorcycle, you can’t expect a person equipped in the ways of the world to be proficient in the way of Jesus. We need to learn, as Jesus says time and time again, to repent. To repent is to have a change of heart or to have a change of mind. It has to do with reversing our current direction. It has to do with a radically different way of life.

The Jesus way plus the Jesus truth equals the Jesus life. To find the Jesus life entails more than having a handle on the Jesus truth. It also demands that we follow the Jesus way. That’s where we seem to come up short, and that’s what we’re going to be exploring over the course of the next few weeks. We’re going to be seeking the Jesus way. It may not be easy. It may even require some sacrifice or some change in the way we live our lives, but I think it’s worth exploring, just the same.

From the time of Abraham to the time of Jesus Christ, the Hebrew people – our ancestors in the faith – lived in proximity to a succession of some of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known. There was Sumeria, Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece and Rome. Their leaders stand tall in the Leadership Hall of Fame: Hammurabi, Ramses, Tiglath-Pilesar III, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Alexander the Great, and even Caesar Augustus.

But think about this. For many centuries, with all of this empire-building going on around them, the Hebrew people kept to their own ways and maintained a unique counterculture. It was a unique counterculture in terms of the way they worshipped God and the way they lived their lives. Ultimately, however, they wanted to be like everyone else. They wanted to have a king of their own. Finally, God acquiesced. The prophet Samuel was called to anoint Saul to be the first king over Israel. Then David became king. Then Solomon became king. Then it all fell apart over the course of the next five hundred years. When all was said and done there were no more kings over Israel. In fact, there was no more kingdom of Israel at all. And it was all because they abandoned their unique counterculture. It was all because they came to neglect the way of God.

Then Jesus came and showed the world how to live in what he called the kingdom of God. That’s what we need to recover. That’s what we need to rediscover. As Christians, we need to become a unique counterculture once again. We should be different than the world around us. We should have alternative priorities. We should seek to live the Jesus life by encountering the Jesus truth and following the Jesus way. Perhaps then people will see us and say of us as they said of Christians some eighteen hundred years ago, “See how these Christians love one another, while we ourselves are ready to kill one another.” Do you see the difference?

While I cannot give you a definitive description of the Jesus way in the time we have left this morning, perhaps I can give you a glimpse into what a part of it might look like. Many years ago, there was a minister and his wife who had two sons and a daughter. The minister and his wife loved their family and they loved their congregation. Then one of the couple’s boys was killed in a tragic shooting accident.

The minister and his wife were devastated beyond belief. Yet when they came to the church that night, nearly half the congregation was in the fellowship hall to offer all the love and support they could. Love and support in a time of desperate need: That, my friends, is the church being the church. And that, my friends, is what the Jesus way looks like.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we’re going to be examining how we can approach the way of Jesus on a more frequent and regular basis. I invite you to come along for the ride. Amen.

5-01-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-05-09T11:02:00.000-07:00

GOD IN RETROSPECT

“What does it feel like to die?” That’s a question I was asked a number of years ago and the woman who asked it had every right – and every reason – to ask it. In the course of a few short years she lost her husband, and then she lost her only son. So she asked me, “What does it feel like to die?”

I can honestly say that in all my years of schooling, I have never encountered a scholarly answer to that question. Ask me about the soteriological aspects of the doctrine of the atonement or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin – those questions I can answer, or at least pretend to – but, “What does it feel like to die?” That’s a tough one. I mean, not many books have been written by authors who’ve experienced death themselves.

Thus, I had no biblically-based, theologian-backed answer. So I told her a story I encountered a long time ago. I read it in one of Peter Marshall’s sermons, in a book published by his widow, Catherine. The book is entitled, A Man Called Peter. The story goes like this:

Once upon a time, a little boy was suffering with leukemia. Death was imminent and the boy was well aware of it. It was almost as if he could feel the life slipping away from his tired, little body. One evening, while sitting alone with his mother, he asked her, “Mommy, does it hurt to die?” His mother was completely taken aback with the question and quickly averted her eyes to choke back her tears. She thought about the question for a moment or two, and then she turned back to her sick little boy.

She said, “Do you know how sometimes, late at night, you fall asleep on the couch between your father and me?” The little boy said, “Yes.” His mother added, “After you fall asleep, your father lifts you into his arms, gently carries you upstairs, and puts you into bed. Then the next morning, you wake up in your own bed…only you don’t know how you got there. That’s what death is like, I think. You simply wake up and find that you’re in heaven with God.”

What does it feel like to die? It’s like you fall asleep and wake up somewhere else, only you don’t know how you got there. You simply wake up – in heaven – with God. That’s a powerful story, and one that gives us tremendous comfort, I think. It depicts a scenario we can profess and embrace because of what happened to Jesus Christ on that first Easter Sunday. But what if we didn’t know the Easter story? What if we were completely unaware of what we call the doctrine of the resurrection? How would we deal with the prospect of death if we did not believe there is life after death?

Such was the case with the two men we encountered in the passage we read from the gospel according to Luke. It was a Sunday afternoon – Easter Sunday afternoon – and these two men were making the seven-mile trek from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Jesus of Nazareth had been crucified the Friday before, and it was a devastating turn of events for everyone who was close to him.

These two men – Simon and Cleopas were their names – were followers of Jesus Christ. Perhaps they weren’t in the so-called inner circle, but they were close to Jesus just the same.

They may not have been numbered among the original twelve disciples, but they had been captivated by his message just the same. Only now, he was gone.

Now in those days, Judaism did have a remote idea of some kind of life after death, but that was only after some sort of far-off Judgment Day. So for them, death was basically the end of things. Three women – Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James – claimed to have seen Jesus alive, but to all concerned, it seemed to be nothing more than an idle tale. The men simply would not listen to the women. Of course, that would never happen today!

So here we are, with Simon and Cleopas, making the long and arduous journey to Emmaus. They’re discussing the events of the past few days, trying to make some kind of sense of it all, when suddenly they’re joined by a third man. This third man is Jesus, but as our passage says, somehow, “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”

The mysterious stranger said to Simon and Cleopas, “What is this conversation which you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Cleopas said to him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, “What things?”

They went on to explain all the events that had transpired. Surely they spoke of Jesus’ triumphal ride into Jerusalem, his cleansing of the Temple, his confounding of the Pharisees, and his Last Supper with his disciples. Then they likely spoke of his brutal crucifixion, and how some of their own company now said that he was alive.

The stranger said, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then Jesus – as yet unknown to Simon and Cleopas – spoke of how Old Testament prophets had foretold all these things. And as they listened, their hearts burned within them.

Finally, they arrived in Emmaus. The third man appeared to be going further, but Simon and Cleopas constrained him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is on toward evening and the day is now far spent.” I believe this seemingly insignificant turn of events holds a profound message for us. Had Jesus not been invited inside, he would have kept right on going. Ladies and gentlemen, Jesus walks with us as well…and he will keep right on going unless we take the time to invite him inside.

I think of how Jean Vanier describes his L’Arche community, a ministry to the mentally handicapped. (Pardon my French, but I’m doing the best I can.) In any case, Vanier describes his ministry this way. What would happen if you held a wounded bird in your hands and you closed your hands together? The answer is, the bird would be crushed or suffocated. And what would happen if you held that wounded bird in flat, open hands? The answer is, the bird would fly away or fall to its death.

But what would happen if you held that bird in cupped hands? There the bird would be nurtured until it was well. Vanier believes that that’s the way God holds us. He does not close his hands together such that we be crushed or suffocated. He does not hold his hands flat such that we might fall to our death. Instead, God cups his hands to hold us. We can still fly away, or we can rest in God’s hands and be nurtured. In a way, I think that’s what our passage is trying to say to us. If we want God to hold us, then we must invite him to do so. If we want the Christ to be with us, then we must take the time to invite him inside.

Once inside, Simon and Cleopas and the unknown stranger sat down to dinner. Then the stranger took bread in a strangely familiar way. Then he blessed it and broke it in a strangely familiar way. Suddenly their eyes were opened and they recognized Jesus! Then as quickly as he had been recognized, he vanished out of their sight.

Simon and Cleopas said to one another, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he walked with us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” This day had probably been about the lowest point in the lives of Simon and Cleopas. Yet suddenly Simon and Cleopas realized that – at the lowest point in their lives – Jesus had been with them all along. Jesus had been with them all along, yet they had not recognized him. They did not realize that Jesus had been with them until they looked back on their trying times.

How often the same is true for us. It is not until we look back on the trying times in our lives that we come to realize that God was with us every step of the way. Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps we could even say that we see God in retrospect. We see God when we look back on the troubled times in our lives and come to realize that God was with us all along.

I think of a famous story by an unknown author entitled, “Footprints.” You know the story. A man dreamed one night that he died and he stood before the throne of God. The scenes of his life were laid out before him and they appeared as two sets of footprints in the sand. One set of footprints belonged to God, the other set of footprints belonged to him. Then he noticed that at the most troubling times in his life, there was but one set of footprints in the sand. He said to God, “Lord, you promised me that you would never forsake me; that you would never leave me alone. Why is it, then, that at the most distressing times of my life, there is but one set of footprints in the sand?”

To which God replied, “My precious, precious child. I love you and I would never leave you alone. The single set of footprints in the sand you see…are the times I carried you.” We see God in retrospect. We see God when we look back on troubled times in our lives and realize that God was with us all along.

Speaking of seeing the footprints of God, listen to this. A hospice physician in Denver, Colorado was heading home from work at 5:00 p.m. on a Friday afternoon in January. It was rush hour and he was driving down Colorado Boulevard, and the traffic was unbearable. Then suddenly, his nearly new car just died. He managed to coast into the parking lot of a convenience store. He found himself cursing his apparent bad luck but he was thankful that at least he wasn’t blocking traffic on Colorado Boulevard. He pulled out his cell phone, called a tow truck, and settled in to wait.

He noticed a young woman walking out of the convenience store with a couple of small bags in her hands. Suddenly, she slipped on the ice and appeared to hit her head on a gas pump. Naturally, the physician got out of his car to see if she was all right. As he helped her to her feet, he noticed that she had dropped something. He quickly picked it up and handed it to her. It was a nickel.

Then he noticed that she had only put $4.95 of gas into a rusty old Suburban. Today that would buy you, what? A little more than a gallon of gasoline? Anyway, inside that rusty old Suburban he saw three children – one of them still in a car seat. The woman said, “Please. I don’t want my children to see me cry.” The two of them then stepped to the other side of the gas pump.

The woman began to tell her sad story. She was from Kansas City, and her boyfriend had walked out on her and the children. She called her parents in California, with whom she had not spoken in five years, and they invited her to come and stay with them until she could get back on her feet. Then the doctor asked the woman, “Were you praying?”

The woman stepped back a couple of steps and looked at him like he was a nut. The doctor said, “I’m not a fanatic. I just want to help.” Then he swiped his credit card at the gas pump and gave her a full tank of gas. He went into a McDonald’s next door and bought three big bags of food. The kids tore into it like ravenous wolves. The woman looked at the man and said, “Are you an angel?” The doctor said, “No. Sometimes God just sends ordinary people to do his bidding.”

He sent the woman and her kids on their way with a full tank of gas and full stomachs. Then the doctor went back to his car and – just for the heck of it – put the key into the ignition and turned it. Miracle of miracles, the car started right up and the doctor drove home. Looking back on that situation, the doctor believed he had seen the footprints of God.

We see God in retrospect. We see God when we look back on troubled times in our lives and realize that he was there all along. Take the time to look back on some of the troubled times in your own life. Then ask yourself, “What do I see? What do I really see?” Amen.

4-24-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-04-25T10:53:00.000-07:00

ARE YOU A FAN OR A FOLLOWER?

Albert Einstein was a German-born physicist who lived from 1879 until 1955. He’s credited with discovering the theory of general relativity, which created a quite a stir in his field. In 1921 he received the Nobel Prize in physics. Albert Einstein was brilliant. In fact, he was so brilliant that the very word “Einstein” is now synonymous with the word “genius.” It was common sense that most often tripped up Albert Einstein.

Many years ago, Albert Einstein boarded a train in Princeton, New Jersey. Before long, the conductor came strolling down the aisle, punching the tickets of all the passengers. When he came to Albert Einstein, Einstein reached inside his vest pocket for his ticket, but the ticket wasn’t there. So he reached inside his pants pockets, but the ticket wasn’t there either. He opened up his briefcase and looked inside, but still there was no ticket. Then he checked the seat beside him, but the ticket was nowhere to be found.

Finally the conductor said, “Dr. Einstein, I know who you are. We all know who you are. I’m sure you bought a ticket. Don’t worry about it. We’ll just let it slide today.” Albert Einstein smiled and nodded appreciatively.

The conductor continued making his way down the aisle, punching the tickets of all the passengers. Yet as he prepared to move on to the next car, he noticed Albert Einstein down on his hands and knees, checking the floor around his seat, still looking for his ticket. The conductor rushed back and said, “Dr. Einstein, don’t worry! I’m sure you bought a ticket. I know who you are.”

Albert Einstein then looked at the conductor and said, “Young man, I, too, know who I am. What I don’t know…is where I’m going!”

It’s important to know where we’re going, is it not? I mean, we all know where we’re going in an eschatological sense, don’t we? That’s why we’re all gathered here this morning. A number of years ago, an Easter-week edition of Newsweek magazine reported that 87% of all Americans believe that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. Thus, preachers and ushers all across the land know that much of that 87% of the population will be coming to church this morning, trying to find a seat. We know where we’re going. We’re going to heaven. After all, isn’t that the point of the resurrection? Isn’t that why we believe in Jesus Christ in the first place?

The Son of God came into the world some 2000 years ago. Many began to listen to him as he taught in the land of Galilee. They walked beside him and watched in amazement as large crowds of people began to appear wherever he was. They watched in awe as he did what no one had ever done before – restore sight to the blind, heal the sick, mend the lame, and raise the dead. They even followed him to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of the Passover and watched in wonder as thousands cheered him and welcomed him and waved palm branches in the air and called him “Messiah.”

Then they watched in fear as an angry mob surrounded him one night and arrested him for blasphemy and sedition. They did what any sane person would do. They fled in terror, abandoning him to his fate. Maybe they were still on the edge of the crowd that Friday morning when he appeared before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. Maybe they heard the crowd turn against him and demand his execution. Maybe they even watched from afar as he was nailed to a cross and hung on it to die.

Jesus wasn’t the only thing to die on that Friday afternoon. So did his followers’ hopes that in him, something new and beautiful had come to earth. Hearing him teach, watching him heal the sick, mend the lame and raise the dead, seeing him restore peace to a man possessed by a demon – why, one could almost imagine a world like that: a world where goodness and kindness and gentleness prevail, instead of meanness and cruelty and violence. One could almost imagine a world where children are fed and the sick are cared for; a world where there are no concealed weapons and innocent children are not gunned down in the streets; a world where the elderly are secure and where precious resources are invested in life, not weapons of mass destruction. That’s what died on that first Good Friday. Jesus died, and so did his followers’ hope for a better world.

And then there came reports that he was alive. If he was alive, then so was the dream. If he was alive, then so was the hope. If he was alive, then that meant that they had the hope of life everlasting. I mean, that is what he promised, is it not? And if he was alive, then so was their hope for a better world. Thus, there was much they still had to do. They would have to take over the mission and ministry Jesus started. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, once put it, “The resurrection of Jesus Christ is an eschatological event that makes possible a radical new style of life.” Again, “The resurrection of Jesus Christ is an eschatological event that makes possible a radical new style of life.”

In other words, we seek to emulate in our own lives the life of Jesus Christ. That’s the radical new style of life Rowan Williams was talking about. We seek to emulate in our own lives the life of Jesus Christ. Easter is all about the risen Lord. Thanks to him, we now know where we are going in an eschatological sense. Now there is life after death. One day, we shall abide in that realm of God we call heaven. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s all about Jesus on Easter Sunday. His resurrection necessarily evokes in us a response of gratitude and thanksgiving. Thus, I feel compelled to ask you now: are you a fan or a follower? Are you a fan of Jesus Christ, or are you a follower of Jesus Christ?

The most basic definition of a fan is this: an enthusiastic admirer. A fan is nothing more than an enthusiastic admirer. For example, I’ve been a St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan since my family moved to St. Louis in June of 1968. I might add that it’s easier to be a St. Louis Cardinals fan than it is to be, say, a Pittsburgh Pirates fan or a Cleveland Indians fan because the Cardinals win so much more…but I digress. As a Cardinals fan I am nothing more than an enthusiastic admirer. I do not take part in any of the games, I do not contribute to wins and losses, and I am absolutely, positively not allowed on the field! In other words, being a fan costs me nothing.

A fan is nothing more than an enthusiastic admirer. So I ask you again, are you a fan of Jesus Christ, or are you a follower of Jesus Christ? The answer to that question makes all the difference in the world. You see, Jesus was never really interested in having a lot of fans. When he defines the kind of relationship he wants us to have with him, the term “enthusiastic admirer” is never listed as an option. I like the way Kyle Idleman puts it in his book, Not a Fan. He writes:

My concern is that many of our churches in America have gone from being sanctuaries to becoming stadiums. And every week all the fans come to the stadium where they cheer for Jesus, but (they) have no interest in truly following him. The biggest threat to the church today is fans who call themselves Christians but aren’t actually interested in following Christ. They want to be close enough to Jesus to get all the benefits, but not so close that it requires anything from them.

We are called to be followers of Jesus Christ, not just fans of Jesus Christ. How does one move from being a fan to becoming a follower? I think a man named Chester Eastep describes it very well in a story he wrote called, “Easter in Nosara.” He writes:

Like many people, I thought my retirement years would be a time of hard-earned leisure. (By the way, the word “retirement” is nowhere to be found in the Bible.) But two things altered my course: a violent storm at sea and an unfinished church.

My wife Martha and I wintered on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. Strolling through the town of Nosara, we came upon two fairly new cinderblock walls standing among some scrub palmettos. I was curious, so I stopped a man and asked him about them. He explained that the parish had run out of money and couldn’t complete the church. Then he pointed to a ragged thatched-roof structure supported by four precarious posts. “For now, we worship there,” he said, “when it doesn’t rain.”

I stared at the half-built church and the oddest notion came to me: somehow I should help complete the church. I was gung-ho at first, but my enthusiasm soon waned. The parishioners were not as forthcoming as I’d hoped – most worked long hours for little pay – and soliciting people back home was difficult. I let the project lapse.

I wasn’t thinking about the church at all one Sunday a couple years later when I joined two friends and a guide named Pablo for a morning of offshore fishing. We had pretty good luck, and then Pablo suggested that we head in. When he pulled the motor’s starter cord, the engine just sputtered and died. Another pull yanked the cord clear out of the motor casing. “Oh, no,” I thought, squinting back at the shore, which was by now just a thin dark streak on the horizon.

We had no radio on board, and all we had in the way of tools was a pair of pliers and a Swiss Army knife. Pablo labored well into the afternoon on that motor. Finally he threw the pliers down in despair and said, “We’d better drop anchor. Maybe it will hold us here until help arrives.” The water was deep and the line wasn’t long enough to reach the bottom. Soon a stiff breeze kicked up and pushed us even further from shore. The wind grew stronger and colder, stinging us with sea spray. Sleep was not an option.

“Oh, Lord,” I prayed, “please save us. But if it’s my time, please be with me now.” Then in my mind I saw that little unfinished church and I was filled with aching regret. It was a vow I hadn’t kept – a promise between myself and God. It was a regret, apparently, that I would take to the grave.

I didn’t bargain with God, but I told myself that if I somehow got out of this alive, I would do everything in my power to finish the church. A sudden peace came into my heart. The storm continued to pound, but I was no longer afraid. Then late in the afternoon, we heard the roar of an airplane engine. It flew just above us and dipped its wing to acknowledge our presence. A short time later, over the crest of a wave, we saw lights. It was a ship in the distance, coming to rescue us.

The next day we were back onshore with our families. The day after that, I threw myself into the church-building project with renewed determination. Money dribbled in and construction resumed with farmers and fishermen pitching in when they could spare the time.

Nine years later, the church was completed. On Easter Sunday 1990, 250 people showed up to worship. We sang hymns through the night and when dawn broke over the Pacific, many of us were still there. I couldn’t help but think of another ocean sunrise on a morning when all hope seemed lost. I had been delivered from despair to hope.

We have been delivered from despair to hope as well, thanks to Christ’s rising from the dead. We have the hope of life everlasting and we have the hope of a better world in the here and now. That should make a difference in the way we order our lives, don’t you think? It should make us respond in gratitude and dedication rather than apathy and entitlement. So I ask you again: Are you a fan or a follower? Are you willing to give the best you’ve got to give in the name of Jesus Christ, or are you content to simply be an enthusiastic admirer? Amen.

4-17-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-04-18T13:53:00.001-07:00

YEARNING FOR LIFE: PART VI

As many of you know, our oldest son, Rob, is a student at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa. And as many of you also know, he’s had issues with post-concussion syndrome since his football playing days in high school. That’s why I was a little concerned about his judgment – or lack thereof – when I discovered that the young men on the lacrosse team had talked him into playing with them in a college tournament in Chicago. Now as I understand it, he did mention his concussion issues to a few of them, but they assured him that he wouldn’t hit his head if he was playing as a defenseman. So he went with them last weekend. Believe it or not, he did not solicit my opinion on the matter. Yet I should have suspected that something was up when he wanted us to send him his old football cleats.

I believe it was last Saturday afternoon when my wife stopped by my office at the church. We were getting ready to go to Logan Luce’s birthday party in fellowship hall. She said to me, “Rob just called. He’s in the emergency room at a hospital in Chicago.” Now news like that has never set well with me. My first response is usually somewhat less than compassionate. I said, “What did he do this time?” She said, “He got hit in the hand with a lacrosse stick and apparently he broke two fingers pretty badly.”

I just shook my head and said, “When is that child ever going to grow up?” My wife looked at me incredulously and said, “Do ya hear yourself? Now that’s the pot calling the kettle black!” I was a little hurt. I’m not sure I know what she was trying to say. Sure, I play basketball with a bunch of other old guys on Mondays and Thursdays, but we do it for the exercise. It’s not that we can’t grow up, or that we’re overly competitive, or anything like that. We’re not concerned with who wins or who loses. It’s just a low-key game among friends and we play strictly for fun. (Isn’t that right, Marty?)

Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that we were a little competitive. Have you ever known anyone who was competitive to a fault? They do not like to lose, do they? They will do anything in their power to win. They feel like they have to win at all costs and if they don’t, they take it personally. That competitiveness then tends to extend beyond game playing and into other aspects of their lives. They have to make more sales than anyone else. They have to win more awards than anyone else. They have to have the spotlight on themselves more than anyone else. When someone is competitive to a fault, they can make themselves and everyone around them absolutely miserable. The question we need to ask ourselves here is this: Do setbacks and losses eat away at me?

I think of one of the best things I ever heard in terms of having a successful, long-lasting marriage. Someone once said, “You can choose to be happy, or you can choose to be right.” People who are competitive to a fault tend to opt for choosing to be right. Like I said, they can make themselves and everyone around them absolutely miserable. Perhaps they need to ask themselves: Do setbacks and losses eat away at me?

Then there are the internal monologues that can sometimes go on in our heads. Suppose we get into a disagreement with someone. We argue with them and in the end, we come out the obvious loser. In those instances, I like to say I have 20/20 hindsight. I always know what I should have said! The question is, how long do we stew about that? Do we go over it again and again in our minds to the point of distraction? Or, can we simply let it go and chalk it up to experience? The question is: Do setbacks and losses eat away at me?

One of my all-time favorite quips is this: If you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans! But we still make plans, do we not? We still have hopes and dreams. It can hurt very deeply when life does not go according to our best-laid plans. A child we loved more than life itself doesn’t turn out quite the way we planned. The economy collapses and we lose half our savings, meaning retirement will not be quite the way we dreamed. Then a husband or a wife dies, and you feel as if half of yourself has been torn asunder, meaning your golden years will not be quite the way you hoped. It’s easy to become bitter. It’s easy to focus on what is wrong with our lives instead of what is right. How do we resolve to face the world when our deepest hopes and dreams have been dashed before our very eyes? Again the question is: Do setbacks and losses eat away at me?

Ladies and gentlemen, today is Palm Sunday, otherwise known as the sixth Sunday in Lent. As I’ve mentioned each Sunday over the course of the last five weeks, Lent is a time for self-examination. And if we are to be about the business of self-examination, then perhaps there are a number of questions we should be asking ourselves as we seek God’s presence in Lent – as we find ourselves yearning for life in Lent. Perhaps we should be asking ourselves questions like the following:

- Do I ever feel as if I am in a wilderness?

- Do I doubt God, myself, or others?

- Do I see weakness in myself and the need to change?

- From what – or from whom – do I run away and hide?

- How far have I strayed from God’s purpose for my life?

- Am I facing temptation that I need help to resist?

- What do I need to confess in order to be free of guilt?

- With what am I struggling and in pain?

- What do I need to allow to die in me in order to be closer to God?

And then there’s the question we’ve been wrestling with today. Do setbacks and losses eat away at me? Ah, things don’t always work out the way we plan, do they? The question is: Do setbacks and losses eat away at me?

Now at first glance, the passage I read from the gospel according to Matthew would not appear to have anything to do with setbacks and losses. I mean, we just read about Jesus’ triumphal ride into Jerusalem amid pomp and circumstance; amid shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” What on earth does that have to do with set-backs and losses?

I want you to think for a moment about what transpired by the end of the week. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a Sunday afternoon. He taught the multitude in the streets who were gathered there for the feast of the Passover. He created quite a scene in the temple, overturning the tables of the money changers. He celebrated what came to be called his Last Supper with his disciples. Then on Thursday night, he was arrested. By Friday he had been tried in a kangaroo court and hung on a cross to die. The fact of the matter is, Jesus knew all this would happen to him when he rode into Jerusalem in the first place.

How was Jesus able to ride into Jerusalem when he knew it spelled his ultimate demise? Clearly setbacks and losses didn’t eat away at Jesus. He was about to experience the consummate setback and loss. What was his secret? How was he able to fulfill his mission in spite of what he knew lay ahead? The secret, I think, is the hope that burned inside his heart. He knew that beyond his crucifixion lay his resurrection. He knew that his ultimate welfare was in the hands of God. The question is, how do we get there ourselves? How do we come to trust our ultimate welfare to God?

I think a part of the secret can be explained by what we call The Law of Expectation. The Law of Expectation says that whatever we expect with emotional conviction has a tendency to materialize. What’s more, this is equally true for both positive and negative things. That which we expect to see is what we generally come to see.

For example, before I came to Meadville, I don’t think I ever noticed a Subaru Outback station wagon on the road. Yet now that I’ve come to Meadville and a good friend of mine drives one, I see them all the time. I think half of the professors at Allegheny drive Subaru Outback station wagons! The point is, now that the Subaru Outback station wagon is in my mind, I see them all the time.

That’s kind of how The Law of Expectation works. We come to see that which we expect to see. We come to see what we’re looking for. If setbacks and losses eat away at us, we thus have a tendency to look for the dark side of everything. It can literally become a self-fulfilling prophecy. What if we were to start looking for God in the things we see? What if we were to start looking for the good in everything we encounter? Don’t you think we’d start to see things a little bit differently? Don’t you think The Law of Expectation would come to apply to us?

Jesus saw God in everything around him. Jesus saw the good in everything he encountered. That might be how he was able to ride into Jerusalem in the face of certain death. He trusted God to deliver him in the end. The question is, how do we get there ourselves? How do we come to trust in the fact that God will deliver us in the end?

Charles and Winnie were homeowners in New Orleans, Louisiana. Charles was 70 years old and Winnie was 63. They’d moved out of the 9^th Ward and into a blond brick ranch-style home in eastern New Orleans just a few weeks before Hurricane Katrina. Both of their houses were flooded in the storm. In fact, the old house was knocked clear off of its foundation. Volunteers from all across the country came to help, but after more than a year, Charles and Winnie’s homes were still in shambles. They were living in a FEMA trailer in the front yard of their newer home.

The trailer was small, even by FEMA standards. You couldn’t stand side-by-side inside the trailer, and the bedroom was basically a bed squeezed between two walls. The bathroom was so small that you couldn’t lift your arms to wash in the shower. They could tolerate the cramped quarters themselves, but they really wanted their house to be finished. You see, Winnie’s mother was 97 years old, and she needed to come to live with them as well.

The rebuilding crew was a good bunch of folks – about 25 strong – mostly from Pittsburgh. Many were teenagers, but there were a few couples, and even entire families there. Seventy-year-old Charles did what he could to help. Now I’ve been on mission trips where we worked on people’s houses myself. It’s frustrating when you’re out there working in the blazing sun, while the people you’re there to serve are sitting inside an air-conditioned house smoking cigarettes, but I digress. Charles did what he could to help. He even managed to bond with many of the teenagers.

On Good Friday, they gathered in the front room of the house for a sort of dedication. Most of the major work was done and much of the group would be going home over the course of the next few days. A Pittsburgh pastor led the dedication, strumming a guitar and leading the group in song.

Then the pastor pointed out how appropriate it was that they were gathering there on a Good Friday. Like so many who lived in New Orleans, Jesus had felt forgotten and forsaken when he died. It was a dark day, he said, but the best part about that was knowing that things were going to get better. “New Orleans,” he said, “like Jesus, will one day rise again.” Then the pastor from Pittsburgh asked this question: “When have you ever felt that God has forsaken you?”

Then Winnie, through her tears, began telling their tale: How they’d just moved into the house when the storm hit, and they’d moved so they would have a place to bring her mother. She talked about losing her father after the storm, and how it felt to be homeless. Then she added, “I know what it’s like to be hungry. I know what it’s like to go to bed at night listening to the crying and moaning of people around you. I know what it’s like to be in pain and to think that God has abandoned you.”

Her soft sobs sparked tears all around the room. Charles, who rubbed his wife’s neck with one hand while she spoke, then took over for his wife. He said he knew they’d suffered some, but still he believed that they had been blessed. He may have had arthritis pain in his shoulder, but at least he could still lift his arm, and there were so many people who couldn’t even walk when “Uncle Arthur,” as he put it, came to visit. So many people had lost loved ones in the storm, but he hadn’t had to bury any of his children or grandchildren. He may have lost everything, but people came forward to give. “Everything I’ve got on, someone gave me,” he said, tugging at a Pirates baseball cap.

“God is good,” Charles said, “God is good.” He knew this because God had sent so many wonderful strangers to New Orleans to help his family put their life back together. Charles concluded his speech with these words: “God may not come when you want him to, but he’s always right on time.”

God may not come when you want him to, but he’s always right on time. I think that might have been Jesus’ mantra as well. He was able to face Good Friday because he knew that Easter was right on its heels. He trusted in the fact that God would deliver him in God’s time. And that, my friends, is why setbacks and losses should not eat away at us. It’s all a matter of trusting in God. Just remember that God’s time is not the same as our time. Thus, while God may not come when you want him to, he’s always right on time. Those are the words of life. Amen.

4-10-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-04-18T13:32:00.001-07:00

YEARNING FOR LIFE: PART V

“Dear Abby,” the letter began. “I am a 21-year-old male who feels lost and unfulfilled because I don’t know what I want from life. I am one of three adopted children. I was the child who always needed the family support system the most. I come from a not-so-happy family, one with all of its priorities centered around money – or, more accurately – the lack thereof. I never felt the love a child should feel from his family.

“My problem these days is my alcohol intake. I can’t stay away from beer. I drink to forget my family problems and the fact that I can’t seem to get anything right. I dropped out of college because I don’t have a passion for anyone or anything. I used to have hobbies, like writing and photography, but the alcohol has taken away my motivation and my creativity. I feel like I’m losing my will to keep trying. I want so badly to keep trying, but my emotions are keeping me down. I just want something new, something I can give my all to, something that won’t hurt me in the future.” Signed, “What Can I Do?”

Abby’s response was to recommend that that young man seek out a support group called Emotions Anonymous. My recommendation would have been a little bit different. I would have suggested that this young man learn how to pray, that he take the time to worship God, and that he pick up a Bible and read it at least five minutes a day. In short, I would have suggested that he seek to discern GOD’S purpose for his life. As Saint Augustine put it some 1600 years ago, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.” I believe the young man who wrote the letter to “Dear Abby” has a restless heart, and it will forever be restless until it finds its rest in God.

Ladies and gentlemen, today is the fifth Sunday in Lent. As I’ve mentioned each of the last four weeks, Lent is a time for self-examination. If we are to be about the business of self-examination, then perhaps there are a number of questions we should be asking ourselves as we seek God’s presence in Lent – as we find ourselves yearning for life in Lent. Perhaps we should be asking ourselves questions like the following:

- Do I ever feel as if I am in a wilderness?

- Do I doubt God, myself, or others?

- Do I see weakness in myself and the need to change?

- Do setbacks and losses eat away at me?

- From what – or from whom – do I run away and hide?

- Am I facing temptation that I need help to resist?

- What do I need to confess in order to be free of guilt?

- With what am I struggling and in pain?

- What do I need to allow to die in me in order to be closer to God?

And then there’s the question we’re going to be wrestling with today: “How far have I strayed from God’s purpose for my life?” As Saint Augustine said, “Our hearts will be restless until they find their rest in God.” So let us ask ourselves now: How far have I strayed from God’s purpose for my life?

A 21-year-old man wrote a letter to an advice columnist seeking purpose in his life. Up to this point in his life, he has been unable to find it and has found himself turning instead to alcohol. I believe a good counseling professional would say that he is currently self-medicating. He is using alcohol to numb the pain and the emptiness he feels inside. Yet if Augustine is right, perhaps the reason HE has not found purpose in his life is because he has not yet found GOD’S purpose for his life. Have any of us ever found ourselves in a similar predicament? Have any of us ever strayed from God’s purpose for our lives?

Perhaps the place to start is to explore just exactly what God’s purpose for our lives really is. Does God have a purpose for our lives? I believe God does have a purpose for our lives. Yet in order to discern that purpose, I think there’s one basic question that we have to get right first. That question is this: Does God exist to serve us, or do we exist to serve God? Does God exist to serve us, or do we exist to serve God? You see, if we get the answer to that question wrong, we’re never going to get the rest of it right either. And unfortunately, there are a lot of otherwise very intelligent people who get the answer to that question wrong.

The day after the events of nine-eleven, Anne Graham Lotz – the daughter of Billy Graham – was interviewed by Jane Clayson on “The Early Show.” Clayson said, “I’ve heard people say, those who are religious, those who are not, that if God is good, how could God let this happen?” I think the basic theory behind that question is the belief that God exists to serve us. And if, in fact, God does exist to serve us, then clearly God failed us in this instance. Clayson then added, “To that, you say?”

Lotz replied, “I say God is also angry when he sees something like this. I would say also for several years now Americans, in a sense, have shaken their fist at God and said, ‘God, we want you out of our schools, our government, our business…we want you out of our marketplace.’ And God, who is a gentleman, has just quietly backed out of our national and political life – our public life – removing his hand of blessing and protection. We need to turn to God first of all and say, ‘God, we’re sorry we have treated you this way and we invite you now to come into our national life. We put our trust in you.’ We have our trust in God on our coins; we need to practice it.”

Does God exist to serve us, or do we exist to serve God? Get the answer to that question wrong and we’re never going to get the rest of it right either. Jane Clayson saw a God who exists to serve us. Anne Graham Lotz saw us existing to serve God. Ladies and gentlemen, we exist to serve God. That does not mean that God does nothing for us. I mean, if God did nothing for us, then what would be the point of having him around? Yet first and foremost we must remember that we exist to serve God. We serve God not in order to get something from him, rather, we serve God because of what he has already done.

In fact, we see just exactly how God wants us to serve him in the passage Scott read from the book of Micah. The question is asked, “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?” The passage then goes into what God doesn’t want, but then it dictates just exactly what he does. The words of God are these: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” For those of us looking for purpose in life, I think we’ve found our starting point.

The Presbyterian faith is called a “confessional” faith. By that I mean we consider the creeds and confessions of the church to be a part of our faith foundation as well. They are what we call “sub-Scriptura,” which means they rank just below Scripture in formulating our belief system. The creeds and confessions of the church include the Nicene Creed, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Westminster Confession of Faith, to name but a few.

The Shorter Catechism is one of those confessions to which the church adheres. The Shorter Catechism is essentially a condensed version of the Westminster Confession, originally written to aid children in learning about the Christian faith. The Shorter Catechism is a series of short questions and answers. Yet when it comes to expressing God’s purpose for our lives, nothing defines it any better. The question is asked in the Catechism, “What is the chief end of man?” In other words, what is our purpose in life? The answer is, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” To enjoy God forever, obviously, is to have joy in this lifetime and to have eternal life as well. Yet how do we glorify God? The Old Testament would say, “Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.” Yet I think Jesus has something more to add in the passage we read from the gospel according to Matthew.

The scene is a mountaintop in Galilee. Jesus has been crucified, resurrected, and has made several post-resurrection appearances to his disciples. This is his last appearance to them before his ascension. And here is what he had to say: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”

These words have been called “The Great Commission.” Think about it. What does the word “commission” really mean? It literally means “co-mission.” The Great Commission is a great co-mission that we are called to undertake with none other than Jesus Christ himself. For those of us looking for purpose in life, I think we’ve found our answer right here. Our purpose in life is to make disciples of all nations. Our purpose in life…is to make a difference in Jesus’ name. Yet just exactly how do we go about making a difference in Jesus’ name? Listen to the story of one woman who seems to have figured it out.

Once upon a time, some dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life in general. One man, the Chief Executive Officer of a large corporation, decided to explain his understanding of the problem with education. He blurted, “What’s a kid going to learn from someone who decided that their best option in life was to become a teacher? It’s true what they say about teachers, you know. Those who can, DO. Those who can’t, TEACH.” Then he looked right at one of the other dinner guests, an elementary school teacher named Susan. He said to her, “You’re a teacher, Susan. Be honest. What do you make?”

Susan replied, “You want to know what I make? I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could. I can make a C-plus feel like the Congressional Medal of Honor, and I can make an A-minus feel like a slap in the face, if the student did not do his or her best. I can make 30 kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall in absolute silence. I can make them tremble in fear when I threaten to send them to the principal’s office.

“You want to know what I make? I make kids wonder. I make them question. I make them critique. I make them apologize…and mean it. I make them write. I make them read and read and read some more. I make them spell the word ‘beautiful’ over and over again until they will never misspell it the rest of their lives. I make them show all of their work in math and hide it all on their final drafts in English.

“I elevate them to experience music and art and the joy of performance so their lives are rich and full of culture, and they take pride in themselves and their accomplishments. I make them understand that God is up above, watching over them like a mother hen cares for her chicks. I make them believe that if they have the brains, they should follow their hearts…and if someone ever tries to judge them by what they make, they should pay them no attention.”

The mouths of the other dinner guests were agape as Susan concluded: “You want to know what I make? I make a difference. What do you make?” And that, my friends, was pretty much the end of the conversation.

Augustine once said, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.” Our hearts will forever be restless until we find our purpose in life. Our purpose in life is found when we find God’s purpose for our lives. And we will find God’s purpose for our lives when we find a way to make a difference…when we find a way to make a difference in Jesus’ name. Amen.

3-20-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

2011-03-23T09:03:00.000-07:00

YEARNING FOR LIFE: PART II

Stephen Ambrose is the author of a book entitled, Undaunted Courage. In it he tells the story of an excursion led by a man named William Clark and a man named Meriwether Lewis in the year 1804. Perhaps this excursion is more commonly known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition. It was an exploration of what was then called the Louisiana Purchase and the Northwest Passage.

After two long years of battling nearly insurmountable odds – including hunger, fatigue, desertion, hostile enemies, illness and even death – the crew finally reached the headwaters of the Missouri River. All their advance information had led them to believe that once they reached that point, they would face about a half day’s portage, reach the waters of the Columbia River, and then float gently into the Pacific Ocean. Ah, they were well on their way to hero status. The hardest part of the trip was behind them now…or so they thought.

Meriwether Lewis left the rest of the expedition party behind to climb the bluffs that would enable him to see the other side. There he was sure he would see the waters of the Columbia River that would gently carry them to the Pacific Ocean. Imagine what he felt when he saw not the gentle, sloping valley he expected. Instead, he was the first non-Native American to lay eyes on the Rocky Mountains!

I can almost picture Meriwether Lewis turning and dropping to his seat on the ground. Then he motions to the rest of his party to stay behind a little longer while he tries to figure out how to break the news. “Hang on a minute, guys,” he says. “Don’t come up just yet. I…I have a little surprise for you.”

What do you do when you’ve already come through the valley of the shadow of death, only to discover that the Rocky Mountains lie ahead? What do you do when you think your biggest problems are behind you, only to find that the worst is yet to come? While the Lewis and Clark Expedition crew was hoping for a downstream ride, they found that they still had to climb the highest mountain of all.

I believe there’s someone in the passage we read from the gospel according to Matthew who might have experienced a similar feeling. Matthew calls him a rich young man. Mark just calls him a rich man, while Luke calls him a rich young ruler. In any case, here we encounter a man who seems to have it all. He has wealth, he has power, he has youth…perhaps he even has fame. Yet somehow there’s something missing from his life, and he seems to be painfully aware of the void. In the midst of his opulent lifestyle, he still found himself yearning for life.

Thus, the rich young ruler approached Jesus as he taught in the region of Judea. “Teacher,” he said, “what good deed must I do to inherit eternal life?” Now before we go on, I think we need to take a moment to unpack just exactly what this rich young ruler is asking of Jesus. He appears to be in search of eternal life. Yet perhaps that doesn’t mean what it would seem to mean on the surface. In other words, perhaps he isn’t really asking about what we might call heaven.

The Greek word translated life here is zoane. What that literally means is life: more specifically, it means the life of believers which proceeds from God and Christ. What proceeds from God and Christ? The Holy Spirit proceeds from God and Christ. In other words, perhaps what this rich young ruler is really looking for a Spirit-filled life. He’s looking for a life of holiness. He’s in search of inner peace. He knows that somehow, something is missing from his life. The question he literally might have been asking himself is this: “What do you do when everything you’ve ever wanted isn’t enough?” That might be a good question for us as well. “What do you do when everything you’ve ever wanted isn’t enough?”

The rich young ruler was yearning for life. He was in search of inner peace. Thus, he said to Jesus, in essence, “What good deed must I do in order to inherit inner peace?” He was looking for a magic bullet. Perhaps he thought if he just said the right prayer, or gave a little something to the right charity he would find that which he sought. “What good deed must I do?” he asked. “What good deed must I do?”

Jesus knew immediately what the problem was. It was not a DEED that was going to save him. It was not a DEED that was going to bring him inner peace. Still, Jesus strung him along for a moment or two. He gave the young man the typical rabbinic answer: “You shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not commit adultery…you know, follow the Ten Commandments.”

The young man replied, “All these I have done since my youth. What do I still lack?”

Then Jesus got to the heart of the matter. He said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” Let’s take a moment to unpack that statement as well. “If you wish to be perfect,” Jesus said. None of us are perfect. None of us can be perfect, and perhaps we don’t even want to be. As someone once said, “There was only one perfect man in the history of the world, and look what they did to him!” Perhaps the word “perfect” is not the best translation here.

The Greek word translated perfect here is telios. It means literally, having attained your true purpose. So perhaps a better way to look at what Jesus really said to the man is this: “If you wish to attain your true purpose in life, go, sell your possessions, give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

This is not to say that wealth – or the possession of it – is bad. The issue was not how much money this rich young ruler had. The issue was its priority. Apparently his wealth was the central focus of his life. It was what he leaned on for security. It was what gave him his identity. Thus, it simply had to go. To have inner peace, to attain your true purpose, and to live a Spirit-filled life…is to lean on God for your security and for your identity. God becomes your top priority, for where your treasure is…there will your heart be also.

What do you do when you’ve already come through the valley of the shadow of death, only to discover that the Rocky Mountains lie ahead? What do you do when you think your biggest problems are behind you, only to find that the worst is yet to come? This rich young ruler truly believed that he had followed Old Testament law to the letter. He thought the worst of the journey was over. Now he was looking for that gentle passageway that would float him down to inner peace. What he found instead was the Rocky Mountains. What he found instead was that the worst was yet to come. The rich young ruler was being asked to give up that which he valued most. He was being called to relinquish that which he believed gave him his security and his identity.

As I said last week, we want our faith to bring us joy and happiness and an absence of pain.

We want God to help us live fulfilling and comfortable lives. Our deepest desire seems to be reaching the splendor and grandeur of Easter without the desolation and heartache of Good Friday. Yet the season of Lent – that season in which we find ourselves now – never fails to take us through Good Friday before we get to Easter.

In the season of Lent, we are invited to examine biblical stories that evidence waiting and yearning. Stories of waiting and yearning in Lent and Holy Week are laced with strange mixtures of excitement on the one hand and fear on the other; success on the one hand and failure on the other; loyalty on the one hand and betrayal on the other; affirmation on the one hand and denial on the other; life on the one hand and death on the other. Thus, perhaps we could say that Lent is a time for self-examination. And if we are to be about the business of self-examination, then perhaps there are a number of questions we should be asking ourselves as we seek God’s presence in Lent. We should be asking ourselves questions like the following:

- Do I ever feel like I am in a wilderness?

- Am I facing temptation that I need help to resist?

- What do I need to confess in order to be free of guilt?

- With what am I struggling and in pain?

- Do setbacks and losses eat away at me?

- How far have I strayed from God’s purpose for my life?

- Do I doubt God, myself, or others?

- From what – or from whom – do I run away and hide?

- And then, of course, there’s the question of the day: What do I need to allow to die in me in order to be closer to God? Again: What do I need to allow to die in me in order to be closer to God?

Jesus said to the rich young ruler, “If you wish to be perfect – if you wish to be fulfilled and to find inner peace – then go, sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” Jesus was calling upon that young man to give up that which he valued most; to sacrifice what he perceived to be his security; to surrender what he had come to believe was his identity. In other words, something needed to die in him in order for him to be closer to God. While he thought the worst of the journey was over when he managed to obey the Ten Commandments, he found that his journey was only beginning. Upon hearing Jesus’ suggestion, what did the rich, young ruler do? He turned and walked away because he thought the sacrifice was just too great.

What do you do when you’ve already come through the valley of the shadow of death, only to discover that the Rocky Mountains lie ahead? What do you do when you think your biggest problems are behind you, only to find that the worst is yet to come? Let’s go back to the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Expecting a gentle stream that would lead to the Pacific Ocean, they found the Rocky Mountains staring them in the face. It had to be incredibly disheartening for each and every one of them.

Crossing the Rocky Mountains, however, would come to be the supreme achievement of the entire trip. The challenge would call forth tremendous stamina, creativity and perseverance. It would lead them to spectacular sights and unforgettable memories. It would build tremendous confidence in them because once they had tackled the Rocky Mountains, they would know they could tackle almost anything. What they perceived to be sacrifice at the time would ultimately lead to their greatest achievement of all.

The word “sacrifice” comes from the Latin words sacer and facere. Sacer means “holy,” while facere means “to make.” Thus, in its original context, the word “sacrifice” literally meant, “to make holy.” For the rich young ruler, it was his wealth that was getting in the way. It was his wealth that kept getting between him and God. While he was yearning for life, it was that which kept him from finding it. If only he could have brought himself to sacrifice that which he valued most – if only he could have brought himself to make holy his priorities – he would have found his inner peace.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow.” Thus, instead of calling something a sacrifice, perhaps we could call it a miracle. Think about that for a minute. We are the only creatures on God’s green earth who can willingly do that which we don’t want to do. That in itself is a miracle. Thus, perhaps we could even say that sacrifice is the miracle that makes great things possible. Sacrifice is the miracle that makes great things possible.

I grew up in a middle class Catholic neighborhood in Sioux City, Iowa. Thus, many of my friends were Catholic, and they always gave up something for Lent. They’d say to me, “What are you giving up for Lent?” I’d say, “Presbyterians don’t do that.” Yet when I’d ask them

what they were giving up for Lent, they’d say things like broccoli or asparagus or meat loaf… things they didn’t like anyway.

Maybe we do need to sacrifice something for Lent – and not just the things we don’t like anyway. Maybe we could sacrifice our insatiable pride. Maybe we could sacrifice our need to always be right. Maybe we could sacrifice our desire to be in control. Maybe we could sacrifice our perpetual longing for more. Maybe we could sacrifice…well, you fill in the blank. Sacrifice is the miracle that makes great things possible. When we, like the rich young ruler, find ourselves yearning for life…perhaps we should learn to sacrifice that which keeps getting in the way. Amen.