8-30-09 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

I’D RATHER SEE A SERMON…

     I’ve been reading a book of late entitled Amish Grace that was loaned to me by Cathy O’Shea.  It’s really the story of how the Amish community at Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania forgave Charles Carl Roberts for shooting ten little girls in an Amish schoolhouse.  I think it also personifies verse 22 of the passage I read from the book of James.  James writes, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”  The book reveals the power of living what we believe.  Listen to this.

     In late October of 1991, Aaron and Sarah Stolzfus were joined together  in holy matrimony.  Following traditional Amish honeymoon custom, they went to visit extended family for a little while.  One Sunday afternoon they were returning home – as you might suspect – by way of horse and buggy.

     That very same day, seventeen-year-old Joel Kime came home from church, grabbed a bite to eat, then headed off to a soccer game with his brother and two friends.  Driving his family’s old AMC Concord – and eager to show off its power – he had already hit 70 miles an hour as he crested a hill on a narrow country road.  Up ahead was Aaron and Sarah’s horse and buggy, but Joel Kime decided to blow right past them.  At the last instant, Aaron and Sarah’s horse turned left…and Joel Kime couldn’t avoid them.  Sarah died in the hospital that night.

     On Monday evening – the day after the accident – Joel Kime’s parents took him to Aaron and Sarah’s house.  He had never been to an Amish home before, and he was afraid of what they might do.  Much to his surprise, Aaron’s grandmother hugged him and expressed her forgiveness.  So did Aaron’s father.  It happened again when Sarah’s parents put their arms around him and said, “We forgive you.”  Joel Kime himself said, “It was unbelievable.  It was totally, absolutely amazing.  I cannot express the relief that floated over me.”

     In a back room of the farmhouse Kime met Aaron, the shattered husband, staring at his deceased bride in a wooden coffin.  Kime said, “How can I ever repay you?”  Kime describes what happened next this way.  “He simply forgave me.  We hugged as the freedom of forgiveness swept through me.”

     Even at his trial, the Amish people wrote letters to the judge, begging   for his pardon.  Legally it was impossible for the judge to acquit Kime,     but because he was a minor, he did manage to avoid prison.

     The relationship between Kime and the Stolzfus family continued.  They got together about once a year in each other’s houses.  Five years after the accident, Kime invited them to his own wedding.  They came for the ceremony and the reception, bearing gifts.  Later, Kime and his wife became missionaries overseas, and the Stolzfus family helped support them financially.

     That, my friends, is the power of forgiveness.  That’s what it means to be doers of the word and not hearers only.  We see how it literally transformed the transgressor.  He ultimately became a missionary overseas. 

     So we’ve seen how forgiveness – living one’s faith – can transform the transgressor.  But what about the transgressed?  What does forgiveness –    or living one’s faith – do for the one who was hurt?

     To answer that question, let’s take a look at the Nickel Mines shooting itself.  Charles Carl Roberts, a local man who drove a milk truck, burst into the school on Monday, October 2, 2006.  I’m not going to go into all the gory details.  Suffice it to say that Roberts shot ten little girls, and five of them did not survive.  Roberts then, of course, turned the gun on himself.

     Shortly thereafter, the Amish community got to thinking about how devastated Charles Roberts’ family must be.  They went to them and they forgave them.  The Amish gave money to help the family out.  Many of them even attended Charles Roberts’ funeral.  As one of the Amish ministers put it, “If I hold a grudge for one day, it is bad.  If I hold it for two days, it’s worse.  If I hold a grudge for a year, then that man is controlling my life.  Why not just let go of the grudge now?”

     Like I said, forgiveness can transform the transgressor.  I think we can also clearly see that forgiveness transforms the transgressed.  It keeps us from becoming bitter.  It keeps us from dwelling on thoughts of hatred or vengeance or anger.  No one’s spirit can be at peace when such thoughts fill one’s mind.  Forgiveness transforms the transgressed as well.

     That does not happen overnight, of course.  According to Everett Worthington, author of the book Forgiveness and Reconciliation, there are actually two types of forgiveness.  There is decisional forgiveness, and there is emotional forgiveness.  Decisional forgiveness is essentially the decision not to act out of bitterness or revenge.  In other words, it is a conscious choice.   But that doesn’t always leave us feeling that we’re over the injustice.

     That’s where emotional forgiveness comes into play.  Emotional forgiveness happens when negative emotions – things like resentment, or hostility, or even hatred – are replaced by positive feelings.  Thus, perhaps we could say that forgiveness is both a short-term act and a long-term process.  In fact, the initial decision to forgive may actually spark the emotional change.  A decision to forgive does not mean a victim has erased bitter emotions, but I think it does mean that emotional transformation IS more likely to follow.

     Of course, the Amish look at this a little bit differently than do most Protestants.  The Amish come out of the Anabaptist tradition.  Anabaptist literally means “rebaptizer.”  At the time of the Reformation, many Anabaptists were persecuted; some were even burned at the stake.  Thank God we don’t settle our differences that way any more!

     Most Protestants believe that we forgive because we have been forgiven.  We call it the doctrine of justification.  By the grace of God in Jesus Christ, we have been forgiven.  Anabaptists believe that they must forgive in order to be forgiven.  To us, that’s salvation by works, but the Anabaptists have good reason for believing what they do.

     What do we say every Sunday morning when we recite the Lord’s Prayer?  We say, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”  To the Anabaptist, the failure to forgive means that they will not be forgiven themselves. We are asking God to forgive us in the same manner that we forgive other people.  It’s a pretty sound line of reasoning, don’t you think?  It is clearly a call for us to live the faith we profess.  It is clearly a call to be doers of the word, and not hearers only.

     This business of being doers of the word and not hearers only has been on my mind a lot lately.  Specifically, I’ve been wrestling with the issue of where we went wrong.  We had a fabulous vision a number of years ago when we called an Associate Pastor for Congregational Life and an Associate Pastor for Congregational Care.  As someone said in one of our cottage meetings, “We’ve done all these things before, just not at the same time.”  It seemed like a vision come from God.  If we made one mistake, I thought, it was that we tried to be all things to all people.  In any case, it did not work.  And I’ve been trying to understand why.  Why did God allow us to fail?

     I came across a pertinent article from The Alban Institute entitled, “The Bi-vocational Congregation.”  I want to read a little bit of that article to you now.  It says:

Any garden-variety atheist, agnostic, or even religiously indifferent materialist knows that if – and we do mean if – the church is to survive well into the future…it won’t be through a linear extension of today’s church.  Every index of the church as it has been indicates a decline, and many indicate a precipitous decline.  So what might tomorrow’s different church look like?

 

We believe the bi-vocational congregation offers a viable model for tomorrow’s church.  A bi-vocational congregation is a local church that operates upon two callings: the calling of function and the calling of mission.  We believe the bi-vocational congregation is more likely to survive into tomorrow to do God’s will and be God’s people because it is essentially organized around spiritual realities in tune with God’s redemptive work.

     So what is the problem?  Perhaps we’ve become too reliant upon paid staff to do the mission for us.  Maybe we need to become doers of the word and not hearers only.  Maybe every single member of this church needs to find a mission of his or her own.

     Lyle Schaller, the guru on church growth and leadership in the 1980s,

once said, “People used to join the church and say, ‘How can I help this church meet its needs?’  Today people join the church and say, ‘How can this church help meet my needs?’”  Do you see how we’ve turned it around?  Do you see how the culture of consumerism has gotten it backwards?

     You’re going to hear more about this in the days and weeks that lie ahead.  We need to become doers of the word and not hearers only.  We need to live the life of faith we profess, rather than try to get by by doing the least we can.  So I’m just going to end this sermon with a poem by a man named Edgar Guest.  I modified it a bit, but listen closely to the words just the same.

I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day.

I’d rather one would walk with me than merely tell the way.

 

          The eye’s a better pupil, and more willing than the ear.

          Fine counsel is confusing, but example’s always clear.

 

The best of all the Christians are those who live the creed,

For to see good put in action, is what all the world needs.

 

          I can soon learn how to do it if you let me see it done.

          I can catch your hands in action, but your tongue too fast may run.

 

And the lecture you deliver may be very wise and true,

But I’d rather get my lesson by observing what you do.

 

          And all the world can witness that the best of guides today,

          Are not the ones that tell them, but the ones who show the way.

Amen.

 

8-23-09 Sermon by Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

FAIR WEATHER FRIENDS

     I think I’ve told you the following story before, but I’ve recently had a new insight on it and it’s pertinent to where we’re headed today, so please bear with me.  About ten years ago, I had a woman in my church by the name of Elaine Best.  Now Elaine was about as dedicated a Christian and as hard-working a deacon as any minister could ever hope to have.  Yet Elaine had a major concern in her life and she shared it with me one day over coffee.

     Elaine’s daughter was married to a brilliant young man.  He was a neurosurgeon by trade and had earned a Ph.D. on top of that.  So in other words, this guy taught neurosurgeons how to do neurosurgery.  Like I said, he was a brilliant young man.

     The problem, in Elaine’s mind, was that this brilliant young man did not believe in God.  It was a concern primarily, I suspect, because he was the father of her grandchildren.  Elaine would do her level best to present her case for belief in God to him, but he would shoot her down at every angle.  I said, “Let me have a crack at him.”   Elaine said, “Oh, he’d kill you in an argument!”

    I said, “That may be true.  But here’s what I’d say.  I’d say, ‘It’s a mistake to think that we have the luxury of choosing or rejecting God completely on our own.  God first chooses us and once God chooses us, we can’t help but respond.  The grace of God is irresistible.  In other words, if God wants you, God’s gonna get you.  The reason you don’t believe in God is because God has not chosen you.’”

     Elaine said, “You can’t say that!”  And that was pretty much the end of our discussion.  But there’s a reason why I like to present that particular argument to atheists.  First of all, it’s theologically sound.  The Church has always believed that God first chooses us and then we respond.  That’s what verse 65 means in the passage I just read.  And the reason I do it is because it puts the atheist on his or her heels.  It really makes them rethink their position when someone says to them that maybe the problem isn’t that they’ve rejected God, but rather, maybe the problem is that God has rejected them.  No one wants to think that God may have rejected them.

     John Calvin, the so-called “father” of the Reformed tradition, would have agreed with me whole-heartedly.  He was an advocate of what we call “double predestination.”  In other words, there are the elect and there are the reprobate.  The elect God has chosen from the beginning of time.  The reprobate God has rejected from the beginning of time.  It sounds a bit harsh, perhaps, but Calvin’s ideas were merely a development of Augustine’s ideas some 1100 years before.  In other words, it’s what the Church has always taught. 

     It is important to know what the Church has always taught.  Although listen to this.  Some say in this day and age we have moved from an Encyclopedia Britannica faith to a Wikipedia faith.  No longer do we abide by the time-honored doctrines of the Church espoused by experts in the faith.  Now we’re just as likely to accept what pretty much anybody posits.  Moving from an Encyclopedia Britannica faith to a Wikipedia faith, my friends, is NOT a good thing!

     In any case, here’s how I’ve begun to rethink my position.  Karl Barth was arguably the greatest theologian of the 20^th century.  He struggled with the rigidity of double predestination as well.  Thus, he came up with a bit of a different spin.  He believed that in the person of Jesus Christ, God was saying “Yes” to the salvation of every human being.  Now before you throw your hands up in holy horror and say, “That sounds like universalism to me,” let me say this. 

     This is where free will comes into play.  God says “Yes” to everyone’s salvation in the person of Jesus Christ.  Yet some people choose to say “No” to God’s “Yes.”  In other words, God has chosen each of us, but some of us refuse to be chosen.  Barth’s ideas fit with the time-honored doctrine of the Church that says that God first chooses us, although the grace of God is no longer irresistible to him.  But Barth’s ideas do coincide with the time-honored doctrine of human free will.  God chooses all of us, and God wants all of us to follow his Son, Jesus Christ.  Yet some choose to say “No” to God’s gracious “Yes.”  There’s your theology lesson for the day.

     Jesus Christ himself was facing just such rejection in the passage we read from the gospel according to John.  He had recently fed the 5000 with but five loaves of bread and two fish.  He had an incredibly large and an incredibly enthusiastic following at the time.  But then Jesus began to talk about living bread.  He said things like, “You must eat my flesh” and “You must drink my blood.”  As we discovered last week, he was referring to the sacrament of communion and how he must be in us by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.  Yet the people who were listening to his words got hung up on the details.

     They said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”  The Greek word translated “hard saying” here is SKLAY-RAHS.  It means literally not “hard to understand,” rather, it means literally, “hard to accept.”  The crowds following Jesus found his words hard to accept.  Thus, as it says in verse 66, “After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.”  In other words, essentially they chose to reject Jesus Christ.

     Jesus faced a major defection.  People turned away from him, ostensibly to look for another Messiah.  What was the problem?  These people had come to Jesus Christ to get something from him.  When it came to suffering for him and giving something to him, they quickly turned away.  Again, these people had come to Jesus Christ to get something from him.  When it came to suffering for him and giving something to him, they quickly turned away.  Perhaps we could call them fair weather friends.

    Our passage also hints at Judas Iscariot’s betrayal.  Jesus said, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.  But among you are some who do not believe.”  Our passage goes on to note that Jesus knew from the start who were the ones who did not believe, and who was the one who would betray him.  So we see defection in the crowds that turned away from Jesus, but we also see defiance in the response of Judas Iscariot.

     As you know, Judas was one of the original twelve disciples.  He was a trusted member of the inner circle – so trusted that he was in charge of the disciples’ little treasury.  Some say Judas was a thief and that his betrayal of Jesus was simply true to   his character.  Others say that what Judas was really doing when he betrayed Jesus to   the Jewish high council was that he was trying to force Jesus’ hand.  He thought it would be better to overthrown the Roman government by force rather than to passively submit to it.  He also thought Jesus would never allow himself to be put to death on a cross.  Surely, Judas believed, Jesus would call upon a legion of angels to come and squash the hated Romans.  Jesus had laid out God’s plan for his own destiny, but Judas thought he had a better idea.  Judas’ response to Jesus was essentially one of defiance.  Yet again, perhaps, we could call someone a fair weather friend.

     Jesus is facing defection and defiance.  He sees the crowd turn away from him when he tells them that following him will not be all wine and roses, and he knows in his heart what Judas is preparing to do.  So he turns to his disciples – he turns to his inner circle – and says to them, “Do you also wish to go away?”  Peter responds, “Lord, to whom can we go?  You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

     Peter’s bold confession here shows that he is no fair weather friend.  Of course, we also know that once Jesus was arrested and condemned, Peter denied him three times in the courtyard of the high priest, but that’s beside the point for now.  Peter made a bold confession of faith.  It is one that each of us should be bold to make as well. 

     Speaking of bold confessions of faith, listen to this.  His name was Bill.  He had wild hair, wore a T-shirt with holes in it, ragged jeans and sandals.  This was literally Bill’s wardrobe for his entire four years of college.  But Bill was bright.  And Bill had also become a Christian while he was in college.

     Across the street from his apartment was a very well-to-do and a very prim and proper Presbyterian Church.  Sure, they had talked about welcoming people who were not the same as them, but they weren’t exactly sure how to do so.  One Sunday morning, Bill decided to attend a worship service there.  He walked into the church wearing the very same clothes he always wore. 

     By the time Bill arrived, the service had already started.  Bill walked down the aisle looking for a place to sit, but the people were already in their favorite pews and there was nowhere left to sit.  By this time, people were getting a bit uncomfortable, but of course, nobody said a word.

     Bill got closer and closer to the pulpit and when he realized there were no seats left, his simply plopped right down on the floor. The tension in the church was so thick you could have cut it with a knife.  About this time, from the back of the church, an elder started slowly making his way to Bill.  This elder was in his eighties, had silver hair and wore a three-piece suit; a Godly man, very elegant, very dignified, very refined.  He walked with a cane and began making his way toward Bill.  Everyone thought to themselves that you couldn’t really blame the elder for what he was about to do.  How could you expect a man of his age and his background to tolerate some college kid on the floor?

     It seemed to take an eternity for the elder to reach the boy on the floor.  The church was utterly silent except for the clicking of the man’s cane on the floor.  All eyes were focused on him; you could have heard a pin drop.  Even the minister can’t start his sermon until the elder does what he has to do.

     Then the congregation saw this elderly man drop his cane on the floor.  With great difficulty, he lowered himself and sat down next to Bill so he wouldn’t have to worship alone.  Everyone was choked up with emotion.

     The minister then strode to the pulpit and said, “What I’m about to preach, you will likely never remember.  But what you have just seen, you will likely never forget!

     That elderly elder made a bold confession of faith.  He was no fair weather friend, for by his actions, he revealed the depth of his commitment.  Think about your own level of commitment.  How bold are you willing to be?  How do you respond when God asks something of you?  How do you respond when your church asks something of you?  The church, of all places, should never be foundering in attendance, or scrambling to find Sunday school teachers, or beating the bushes for financial support, or failing to welcome those who are not like us…not when its members are committed; not when we refuse to be fair weather friends.  Amen.    

 

6-28-2009 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THE FIRST RESORT

     I believe it was William Shakespeare who once wrote, “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”  Joseph Heller, in his book Catch-22, made a slight modification to Shakespeare’s line.  He wrote, “Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.”  Well I’m going to put my own little spin on Shakespeare’s line as well.  Be not afraid of humility: some are born humble, some achieve humility, and some have humility thrust upon them.  Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

     Dr. Kenneth Cooper is recognized as a leader in the international physical fitness movement and is credited with motivating millions of people to exercise.  In fact, Dr. Cooper is also credited with coining the word aerobics in a book he wrote in 1968 by  that title.  Dr. Cooper – one of the world’s leading experts on physical fitness – has often commented that of all the professional people he sees, ministers are in the worst physical shape.

     A 2002 Duke Divinity School study seems to back that statement up.  According to that study, 79% of all male clergy are overweight, and 52% of female clergy are over-weight as well.  In spite of these glaring statistics, nearly 75% of the clergy rate their health as either “excellent” or “very good.”

     That very same study reported that 60% of the clergy never doubted their call to ministry, and 70% have never thought about leaving their profession.  The good news    is, we clergy know that God has called us.  The bad news is, apparently we clergy hear Krispy Kreme calling us as well.

     As many of you know, I had a little blood clot issue after some shoulder surgery about a year and a half ago.  I was hospitalized for several days and after I got out, I had to give myself Heparin shots in the stomach for three or four days.  Now I lift large amounts of weights and even did a little boxing when I was young and foolish.  I am not afraid of much, but needles make me weak in the knees.  (I’m afraid of dentists too, but that’s another story.)

     The nurse at the Meadville Medical Center was explaining how I was to give myself the shot.  She said, “Just take hold of a little roll of fat, push the needle in, and press the top.”  I said, “How am I going to do that?  How am I going to push a needle through these rock-hard, washboard abs?”  The nurse said, “Lift up your shirt.”  So I lifted up my shirt and she said, “You won’t have any problem.”  She was all business!

     How did that saying go?  Be not afraid of humility: some are born humble, some achieve humility, and some have humility thrust upon them.  Ladies and gentlemen, in that particular instance, I truly had humility thrust upon me.

     Such was the case with Jairus in the passage we read from the gospel according to Mark.  Who was Jairus?  The Bible simply calls him “one of the leaders of the synagogue.”  What does that mean?  It means Jairus must have been a man of considerable importance.  He would have been the administrative head of the synagogue.  He would have been president of the board of elders.  He would have been responsible for the conduct of services.  Oh, he may not have taken part in the services – the rabbi would handle that – but he was the one responsible for the services taking place.  The leader of the synagogue was one of the wealthiest, most important, most influential, and most respected people in the community.

     How would Jairus have seen Jesus?  Truth be told, he would have seen Jesus as some-thing of a rabble-rouser.  Here’s this man upon whom the people are designating the title of Messiah, and he doesn’t seem to deny it.  Here’s this man who heals on the Sabbath, eats with tax collectors, and talks incessantly about the kingdom of God.  Jesus was doing his level-best to upset the religious establishment – the religious establishment Jairus was sworn to uphold.  Surely Jairus would have seen Jesus as a threat to all he held dear.

     But there was a problem.  Jairus had a little girl, and he loved that little girl more than life itself.  For her, Jairus would have moved heaven and earth.  His little girl was ill – she was at the point of death – and Jairus was desperate.  So he put aside his pride, he put aside his prejudice, he put aside his dignity, and he put aside the thought of what people might say.  Jairus came to Jesus, dropped to his knees, and begged Jesus to come and heal his daughter.  He came to Jesus as a last resort.

     Do not be afraid of humility: some are born humble, some achieve humility, and some have humility thrust upon them.  Jairus had humility thrust upon him because of the condition of his daughter.  And much to Jesus’ credit, he responded to Jairus.  A lot of us might not have been so gracious.  A lot of us might have made Jairus squirm.  “How do you like me now?” is the catch-phrase of the day.  Jesus, however, responded to Jairus’ pleas.  Of course, by the time he arrived at the home of Jairus, the little girl had already passed away.  Yet Jesus went in and raised her from the dead.  The point of the story is that Jesus has power, even over death.  Jairus humbled himself, and God granted him a miracle.

     Now I could end this sermon here on a pretty high note.  Jesus raised that little girl and Jesus will raise your loved ones as well.  If I ended this thing now, you could all leave in a few minutes and beat the Methodists to Perkins.  But something happened on the way to the home of Jairus, and that’s what I want to focus on now.

     Jairus made his plea, and Jesus acquiesced.  As they made their way to the home of Jairus, a large crowd surrounded them and people were pressing on every side.  But there was this woman in the crowd – a woman who had suffered from hemorrhages for 12 long years.  She’d been to many physicians and no one had been able to help her; in fact, if anything, they’d only made things worse.  This woman would have been considered ritually unclean; she would have been ostracized from society.  She would have had to keep her distance from her friends.  She would have had to keep her distance from her husband and from her children.  She must have felt alone in this world.  No one could help her, so she turned to Jesus as a last resort.

     As Jesus moved through the crowds and the crowds pressed upon him, she came up with a plan.  If she could just touch him – maybe just touch the hem of his garment – maybe then she could be healed.  So that’s what she did.  She maneuvered her way through the crowd to where she thought Jesus would soon pass.  And as he passed, she reached out and in one desperate lunge, she got her hand on Jesus’ cloak.  It worked!  She felt the healing immediately!  As she slunk back into the crowd, she must have felt jubilant at her success.  After all these years, she was finally healed and no one was the wiser.

     But then Jesus stopped abruptly and said, “Who touched my garments?”  His disciples thought he was crazy.  “You see the crowd,” they said.  “How can you say, ‘Who touched me?’”  But the woman who had been healed knew exactly what he meant.  Trembling, she came and fell down before him and confessed what she had done.  Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

     Ah, another happy ending.  “Can we stop this sermon now?” you say.  “We can still beat the Baptists to Perkins!”  Sorry, there’s one more thing that needs to be said.  Jesus said to the woman, “Go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”  Most of our English Bibles say that this woman had a disease.  The Greek word mastigos can be translated “disease.”  But more literally it means a punishment or a chastisement – specifically, a punishment or a chastisement from God.  So what Jesus is really saying to that woman is this: “Go in peace, and be healed of your chastisement from God.” Are we insinuating here that God caused her affliction?  How could a loving God ever cause one of his precious children affliction?

     I’m going to tell you a story about how a father once caused his child affliction, but I will not mention any names.  Once, a father was coaching one of his sons in football when he heard a lot of sirens off in the distance.  Seems there was a brushfire in the neighborhood and the fire department was rushing to put it out.  Shortly thereafter, a woman told that father that her son, his son, and another boy had started that fire.

     A few minutes later, that father’s son and the other boy came strolling up to the foot-ball field.  The father said to his son, “What’s with all the firetrucks down the street?”  The two boys shrugged their shoulders and said, “Beats me!”  The father growled, “Don’t you lie to me!” as he watched the color leave the boys’ faces.  “Get in the truck.  We’re going down to the police station.”

     There the truth came out.  It was the third boy who started the fire, but the father’s son was guilty by association.  The boys got their hands slapped a little bit, but didn’t get into too much trouble.  As the father drove his son and the other boy home, he said, “You guys got off easy.  The next time, you won’t be so lucky.”  The father knew he had done the right thing when his own son said, “There won’t be a next time.”  The other boy just snorted and stared out the window.

     A father clearly afflicted his son, but he did it to teach him a lesson.  The police had no idea who started the fire.  The boys could have gotten off scot-free.  Instead, one boy was afflicted – by his own father – and he grew from his affliction.

     Can we perhaps now see how God might afflict us or chastise us for our own good?  No one knows the story of why the woman with the hemorrhage was afflicted.  Regard-less, though, it did draw her to Christ, did it not?  Having experienced the grace of God for herself, she would never be the same.  Perhaps God sometimes withdraws from us as well in an effort to get us to turn to Christ…in an effort to get us to dig a little deeper.  Perhaps that’s exactly what God is doing when we sometimes go through what we call the dark night of the soul.

     Something else strikes me about this story of the woman reaching out to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe.  Think of the crowds pressing upon Jesus as the Church.  People come to church for any number of reasons – some good, some not so good.  Some come out of habit.  Some come because it’s the right thing to do.  Some come to watch their children perform.  Some come because it’s good for business.  Some come to see what so-and-so is wearing.  Some come to count the hypocrites.  But some come because they have a deep, pressing spiritual need.  They have something that lays so heavily on their hearts that they just want to scream, “God!  Can you hear me?  Will you help me?”  It’s something that no one else knows about – perhaps it’s something they dare not even speak – and nobody seems to be able to help.  Some come to the church out of a deep, pressing spiritual need.

     There’s someone like that here today.  God wants to help you.  God wants you to turn to him, and he will do whatever it takes to get you to do so.  That’s where that empty, hopeless, helpless feeling comes from.  To you, I say, “God is here.  God can help you.  And he will help you, if you let him.”  Don’t make God the last resort.  Instead, try making God the first resort.  Amen.

 

6-21-09 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

GOD IS NEVER IN A HURRY

     Life is full of little lessons, is it not?  Since it’s Father’s Day, let me tell you a story about a lesson a father once taught his son.  It seems the young man had recently gotten his driver’s license and he went to his father – who was also a minister – and asked him about getting his own set of wheels.  The father replied, “We can talk about it, son.  But here’s what I want you to do first.  I want you to improve your grades in school, I want you to start reading the Bible, and I want you to get a haircut.”  A few months later, the boy went back to his father.  He’d improved his grades.  He’d started reading the Bible, but he hadn’t yet gotten that haircut.  The father pointed that out to the son.  The son said, “But Dad, Noah had long hair.  Samson had long hair.  Moses had long hair.  Even Jesus had long hair.”  To which his father quickly replied, “Yes, my son, Jesus did have long hair.  And as you recall, he walked everywhere he went!”

     Life is full of little lessons, and sometimes those lessons sting a little bit.  And some-times, those lessons shake us to the very core.  Tony Campolo is a noted author and speaker who began his professional life as a Baptist minister.  Specifically, he was a youth pastor.  One day, Tony Campolo came home from work a little early.  As he pulled up in the driveway, he saw his son tossing a football with one of his friends.  As Tony got out of the car, he heard his son’s friend say, “Hey, great!  Now that your dad’s home, he can play football with us.”  Campolo heard his son reply, “Nah, my dad only likes to play with other people’s kids.”  It was a lesson that struck Tony Campolo to the core.  He soon got out of youth ministry and the rest, as they say, is history.

     Jesus was giving his disciples one of those lessons that shook them down to the core in the passage we read from the gospel according to Mark.  But before I get into that, I have to set the scene.  Earlier in the day, Jesus delivered what we call the Parable of the Sower.  A sower went out to sow.  As he scattered his seeds, some fell along the path and the birds came and quickly devoured them.  Some fell amongst the thorns and the thorns quickly choked them out.  Some fell on rocky ground and they quickly sprang up, but having no root system, they soon withered and died.  Yet some of the seeds fell on the good ground and they produced grain, some thirty fold, some sixty fold and some a hundred fold.  The disciples didn’t understand the parable, so Jesus had to explain it to them.  Now a parable is often defined as an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.  But a parable also always contains a twist and a central truth.  So maybe the Parable of the Sower isn’t so much a parable as it is an allegory.  In any case, Jesus explained it to them.  The seeds that fell on the path are like when the word of God comes to a person and the devil quickly devours it.  The seeds that fell on the thorny ground are like when the word of God comes to a person, but the cares of this world quickly choke it out.  The seeds that fell on the rocky ground are like when the word of God comes to a person and they’re all excited about it, but having no faith foundation, they quickly wither away.  But the seed that fell on good soil is like when the word of God comes to a person and it takes root in their souls.  It truly makes a difference in the way they live their lives.  I think of a mighty oak tree that grows to be 50 or 60 feet tall.  What keeps the wind from blowing the tree over?  It’s a deep-seated root system that keeps it from blowing over.  God can raise a mushroom in a day.  But to grow a mighty oak tree, it might take 30 or 40 years.  God is never in a hurry.  To build a foundation to our faith takes time as well.  Okay, so back to our passage.  Jesus has just given his disciples this lesson on faith when they put out to sea in their boats.  Jesus crawled up in the stern of the boat and fell asleep on a cushion.  Suddenly, a great storm of wind arose and the disciples were terrified.  They ran to Jesus and cried, “Master, do you not care if we perish?”  Jesus had just taught his disciples about faith and then this incident proves that their faith is not very strong.  So Jesus got up and calmed the storm.  Like I said, God is never in a hurry.  God is never in a hurry, but he’s always right on time.  Again, God is never in a hurry, but he’s always right on time.

     Many years ago, when I was in Minnesota, I had a wise, old minister friend who was probably about 25 or 30 years older than I was.  His name was Gordon Bloemendaal, and he was a minister in the Reformed Church, sometimes also called the Dutch Reformed Church.  Their motto was, “If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much.”  Gordon Bloemendaal – obviously a Dutchman himself – taught me a lot.  One of the wisest things he said to me was this: “If you’re not doing a great work for the Lord, the Devil’ll leave you alone.”  Pretty good, huh?  When Gordon was in seminary, he was married and already had two or three of his four kids.  One Sunday morning, as the offering plate was being passed, Gordon saw that he only had one dollar to his name.  How was he going to feed his family?  The cupboards at home were bare and he only had a dollar.  So he put that dollar in the offering plate and as he did so, he said a little prayer: “Lord, I don’t know how you’re going to work this out for us, but I trust that you will do so.”  That very afternoon – I’m not making this up – that very afternoon, five or six carloads of families from the church drove up to his house, each one loaded down with several bags of groceries.  It was truly a transformative moment for Gordon and his family.  He learned that God is true to his word.  Perhaps he also learned that God is never in a hurry, but he’s always right on time.

     Today, a lot of people are struggling financially.  But are they turning to God as my friend Gordon Bloomendaal did?  No, they’re turning to drinking and they’re turning to gambling.  Do you realize that just last week more than 47 million dollars was wagered at Presque Isle Downs?  And over the course of the year so far, in Pennsylvania alone, more than 21 billion dollars have been wagered?  It makes me think of a quote from Gary Eberle’s book, The Geography of Nowhere.  He writes:

In the middle ages, people spent vast amounts of time and money to pilgrimage to shrines and to 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 postmodern one, they opt for Mickey Mouse.

     Perhaps we need to turn to God once again.  Maybe that’s what God is waiting for.  After all, God is never in a hurry…but he’s always right on time.  Amen.   

 

6-7-09 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

IS YOUR GOD TOO SMALL?

     As many of you know, my wife is a music teacher at East End Elementary.  Just last week, another teacher B obviously affiliated with the Academy Theater B approached her about their next production.  He told her they=re doing South Pacific, and he wondered if I=d be interested in being part of the cast.

     As my wife told me about this man=s request, I was truly flattered.  What role would they want me to play?  Would they want me to be the entrepreneurial Luther Billis?  Would they want me to be Lieutenant Joe Cable?  Had Kevin Dill or Becky Borthwick let it slip about what a talented singer I really am?  So I said to my wife, AWhat role do they want me to play?@  To which she quickly replied, AThey=re looking for drunken sailors!@

    Okay, okay, that was a little bit humbling.  And truth be told, I didn=t really think they=d ask me to play a major role.  But it=s nice to be asked.  It=s really quite flattering.  And as all of us suspect deep, deep down, flatteryYwill get you everywhere.

   In a manner of speaking, that=s exactly what Nicodemus was trying to do in the passage we read from the gospel according to John.  Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the prestigious Sanhedrin B what we might call the Supreme Court of ancient Israel.  Now since Jesus had caused a bit of a stir amongst the Pharisees, Nicodemus came to Jesus by cover of darkness.  Upon gaining an audience with Jesus, Nicodemus said to him, ARabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.@  Why it was almost as if he had borrowed a page from Dale Carnegie=s book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.  You know, flattery will get you everywhere!

     Nicodemus probably expected Jesus to reply with something like, AWhy, yes, I do come from God.  How perceptive of you to notice!@  But that=s not what Jesus said at all.  Jesus knew why Nicodemus had come, and Jesus knew the question that burned in his heart.  Jesus quickly put the small talk aside and said to him, ATruly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.@

    Nicodemus wanted to know how to attain the kingdom of God for himself.  He wanted to know how to attain eternal life.  And that=s the question Jesus answered.  AUnless one is born anew,@ he said, Aone cannot see the kingdom of God.@

     The Greek words translated Aborn anew@ here are gennaythay annothen.  They can actually be translated two ways.  One way implies that one must be physically reborn.  The other way implies that one must be spiritually reborn B literally, Abegotten from above.@  Nicodemus misunderstood.  He assumed Jesus was talking about physical rebirth, and he did not understand how that could happen.  How important it is that we   be on the same wavelength when we=re trying to communicate!

     For example, I came across an interesting story about a miscommunication just the other day.  It seems the children in a particular family really wanted a hamster and they begged their parents to buy them one.  They promised their parents that if they got said hamster, they would take care of it themselves.  So Mom and Dad purchased a hamster for their kids and the kids named it Danny.

     After a month or two, the mother found herself responsible for feeding and cleaning up after Danny.  Thus, she located a prospective new home for him, and she told the children about her plan.  Surprisingly, the children took it pretty well.  They actually said, AHe=s been around here a long time.  We=re really going to miss him.@

     AYes,@ the mother replied, Abut he=s too much work for just one person, and since I=m that person, I say he goes.@  One of the children said, AWell, maybe if he wouldn=t eat so much and wouldn=t be so messy, we could keep him.@

     But Mom was firm.  AIt=s time to take Danny to his new home,@ she said.  AGo and get his cage.@  Suddenly the kids cried out, ADanny!  We thought you said Daddy!@

     Like I said, how important it is that we be on the same wave length when we=re trying to communicate.  Jesus said to Nicodemus, AUnless one is born anew, one cannot see the kingdom of God.@  Nicodemus thought in terms of physical rebirth, but Jesus was speaking in terms of spiritual rebirth.

     This simple passage has probably caused as much confusion in the church as any passage in all of Scripture.  The question is asked, AHow does one get to heaven?@  And the answer is posited, AYou must be born again.@  The confusion is this.  Is our spiritual rebirth something we accomplish on our own, or is our spiritual rebirth something God accomplishes in us?

     I truly believe that conventional wisdom in America today leans toward the former. 

You know, in order to be born again, we must accept Jesus Christ as our personal savior.  I don=t know where exactly that language came from.  Nowhere in Scripture does Jesus say, AIn order to see the kingdom of God, you must accept me as your personal savior.@  Yet try to look at this as a theologian.  If the onus of being born again rests with us, then does this not become salvation by works?  We do not B nor have we ever B espoused a doctrine of works-righteousness.  Salvation comes by the grace of God and the grace of God alone.  Or, try to look at this from a psychological standpoint.  If I have accepted Christ as my personal savior and you have not, aren=t I inclined to look down upon you B to see myself as being superior?  It=s this very attitude that has given Christianity such a bad name in recent years.

     That=s why Jesus clearly indicates that it all begins with God.  To Nicodemus, he says, ADo not marvel that I said to you, >You must be born anew.=  The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.@  That=s what the Church has taught for the last 2000 years.  That=s what we call orthodox Christian theology.  It all begins with God.  We still have free will.  God can come to us by way of his Holy Spirit and we can choose to reject him.  But I=ve always been of the mindset that if God wants you, God=s going to get you.  Our spiritual rebirth begins with God.  It=s orthodox Christian theology.  And if it begins with God and not with us, that ought to humble us as well, don=t you think?  We didn=t first choose God, rather, God first chose us.

     Yet the question is often asked, AHow do I know that I=m born anew?@  How can I tell if I=ve been begotten from above?  How does that old saying go, AThe proof is in the pudding?@  The proof of our spiritual rebirth is evidenced by the way we live our lives.  Again, the proof of our spiritual rebirth is evidenced by the way we live our lives.

     A recent United States President claimed to be born again, did he not?  His spiritual rebirth got him to stop drinking.  And perhaps that=s a good thing.  Yet I recently encountered a startling essay that questions his sincerity.  I=m not going to say who wrote the essay because some of you might know him.  And I don=t mean to offend anyone, but I do want you to think.  The essay says:

Many persons supported George Bush because they believed him to be a devout Christian, a man of prayer, a man of God.  Certainly Bush lets no opportunity pass to let the public know that he is a born again Christian.  I have been asked whether I believe him to be a godly man.  It is not for me to judge, but I am not persuaded that he is.  For one thing, none of the people whom I have known in my lifetime whom I would characterize as Agodly@ have every publicly paraded their godliness.  And among widely known public figures, the only one that comes to mind (who is godly) is Mother Teresa.

      The essayist goes on to contrast former President Bush=s actions with Jesus= Sermon on the Mount.  ABlessed are the peacemakers,@ Jesus said.  The essayist says Bush is a war maker.  AHe waged an unjust war in Iraq.@  ABlessed are the meek,@ Jesus said.  The essayist says, ABush and his cronies are the epitome of arrogance and toughness.  They mocked John Kerry for suggesting that we show some sensitivity in dealing with those who disagree with us.@  The list goes on and on, but I=ll stop here.  Again, I am not trying to offend anyone.  I just want you to think about what it means to evidence our faith by the way we live our lives.  Consistency is imperative. 

     Compare that to the man about whom Don Skinner wrote in last Friday=s Meadville Tribune B a man named Millard Fuller.  Skinner wrote:

Highly successful and an early millionaire, Fuller could have been forgiven for being satisfied with his achievements.  He might also have evaporated into oblivion.  He was one of several men I=ve personally met who sky-rocketed into economic orbit, only to look around and ask, AIs this all there is?@  Indeed it was all B where he was at.  But not where he was going.  He hadn=t gotten off the ground yet.

     Who was Millard Fuller?  Millard Fuller was the founder of Habitat for Humanity.  By the year 2009, Habitat for Humanity volunteers had erected 300,000 homes, occupied by more than 1.5 million people.  As Fuller himself put it, AWe know that by doing what we can, we make a difference.  We know from experience that when we move on faith, God moves with us.@  Now there=s a man who was born anew.  He truly figured out that life was not all about him.

     J.B. Phillips was the author of a book entitled, Your God Is Too Small.  When is our God too small?  Our God is too small when we believe the world revolves around us.  Our God is too small when we think we have all the answers.  Our God is too small when we think we=re better than somebody else.  Our God is too small when we equate God=s desires with our own.  Our God is too small when our faith doesn=t guide every aspect of our lives.  Our God is too small when he impacts only our lives and not the way we deal with others.  Our God is too small when we think that being born again has only to do with spending eternity in heaven.  Our God is too small when he doesn=t impact what we do in the here and now.  So I ask you now: AIs your God too small?@  Amen.    

 

5-24-09 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

WHAT IS TRUTH?
Once upon a time, a little boy went with his parents to a revival meetin’. Now this little boy had grown up in a Christian home and had been to church many times, but that night he heard something he had never heard before. The preacher stood before the congregation and held up a very dirty water glass.
“See this glass?” the preacher cried. “This glass is you. It’s filthy, and it’s stained with sin, both inside and out.” Then the preacher picked up a great big hammer. “This hammer,” he said, “is the righteousness of God. It’s the instrument of God’s wrath against all his sinful people.”
The preacher put the glass on the pulpit and drew the hammer back. He began to bring the hammer down upon the glass, but then something happened. At the very last instant, the preacher covered the glass with a pan. The hammer struck the pan with a CLANG that echoed throughout the sanctuary.
The preacher then held up the untouched glass in one hand and the mangled pan in the other. “Jesus Christ,” said the preacher, “died for your sins. He took the punishment you rightfully deserved.”
That image deeply disturbed the little boy. Thinking about what he had seen, he decided that he was actually afraid of God. He later said to his parents, “I love Jesus, but I hate God.” My guess is, that’s not the message the preacher intended to impart.
What that preacher was trying to do was to illustrate what we call the doctrine of the atonement. Around the year 1100 A.D., Bishop Anshelm devised a theory we call substitutionary atonement. In other words, the Son of God took the punishment we rightfully deserved. Twentieth century theologian Karl Barth describes three distinct and time-honored atonement themes. There’s the forensic theme: We are guilty of a crime and Christ takes the punishment. There’s the financial theme: We owe a debt to God and Christ pays the debt in full. Then there’s the cultic theme: Christ makes a sacrifice on our behalf.
All are trying to explain why Jesus Christ had to die to set us aright with God. Yet not everyone is comfortable with the death of Christ on the cross. In our own time, theologian Rita Brock says that the death of Christ on the cross amounts to what we might call “divine child abuse.” How’s that for a unique perspective on the atonement?
Perhaps a better way to look at it is this. Maybe the reason Christ had to die on the cross is beyond our comprehension. But remember – and this is vitally important – we also say of Christ that he was fully God. Thus, in the cross of Christ we see that there is nothing the love of God won’t do for the sake of his beloved children. God went to the cross himself that our relationship with him might be restored. Perhaps we can love God after all.
The cross is exactly where Jesus was headed in the passage we read from the gospel according to John. The scene is the Last Supper, shortly before Jesus led his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane. What, then, is Jesus doing? He’s praying for his disciples.
Christ’s prayer has a number of distinct themes. Perhaps the first thing to note is that Jesus did not pray that his disciples should be taken out of this world. He never prayed that they might live a life of ease. He never prayed that they might find escape. He prayed, rather, that they might conquer. The kind of Christianity that limits itself to a sanctuary or to a monastery might not have seemed very Christian to Jesus. Of course, there is a need for worship and for prayer and for meditation, but all those things are not the END of life, rather, they are a means to an end. Christianity was never meant to withdraw us from life, rather, it was meant to equip us for a better life. Christianity does not offer us release from the problems of life, rather, it offers us a way to solve them. Christianity does not offer us a life in which troubles are escaped or evaded, rather, it offers us a life in which troubles are faced and conquered. Jesus Christ did not pray for his disciples to abandon the world, rather, he prayed that they might win it.
I recently read a story about an old, downtown Presbyterian Church in Dallas, Texas. Years ago, the congregation built a huge Victorian building with a massive stained glass window behind the choir loft. It depicted Jesus, reaching out his arms to welcome those who came into that building. Beneath the picture of Jesus were the words, “Come unto me.”
A few years ago, when that congregation built a brand new building, they decided to keep that stained glass window, but to put it in a very different place. Now worshipers encounter it going out – not coming in – because it’s over the doors heading out to the narthex and then to the city beyond. Jesus is still standing there with his arms wide spread, but the message of that window is different now. Now, after encountering God in worship, Jesus then invites them to come unto him. But now they’re going back out into the world, ostensibly to make a difference. Jesus does not pray for us to escape the world. Jesus prays for us to engage the world, in order to transform it.
Jesus also prays for the unity of his disciples. As it says in the 133rd Psalm, “How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.” Few things would be more important for these disciples than unity in the days and weeks that lay ahead. They would need to be of one accord. After all, they would soon be taking on the world. In John’s gospel, there is a distinct meaning when he uses the word “world.” According to John, the world is, “Human society organizing itself without God.” Again, the world is “Human society organizing itself without God.” These disciples were preparing to take on the world. They would need to be united.
“Divide and conquer,” is the theme of the Evil One. If the disciples were divided, their mission would be compromised. Perhaps the same could be said of the church. The church is sorely divided over so many issues these days. People are inclined to leave it when they find that others don’t agree with them. We need to remember what we have in common. We need to remember what our mission as a church really is.
Which brings us to the third thing Jesus prays for his disciples. In verse 17 Jesus says, “Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth.” But what exactly does that mean?
The Greek word translated “sanctify” here is hagiason. The dictionary says that the word “sanctify” means, “the state of growing in divine grace as a result of Christian commitment after baptism or conversion.” But the Greek lexicon goes a little bit further. To be sanctified is to be set apart for a special task. It also implies that one is equipped with the qualities and character which are necessary for that task.
So when Jesus prays for his disciples to be sanctified in the truth, what is he really saying? He’s asking God to set them apart for a special task and to equip them to com-plete that task. How will they be equipped? They will be equipped by way of the Holy Spirit.
We believe in a triune God. God the Father is God over and above us. God the Son is God with us and for us. And God the Holy Spirit is God in us. As Jesus prays to the Father to equip the disciples for what lies ahead, he means for them to receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God in us. And if God is in us, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.
Yet note that they are to be sanctified in the truth. Thus, we have to ask, “What is truth?” Jesus himself says, “Thy word is truth.” Yet the Greek word translated “truth” here is alaythea. It means literally, “Reality, as opposed to mere appearance.” Again, truth is defined as reality, as opposed to mere appearance.
For example, I saw in interesting commercial the other night. A balding man was standing on a sidewalk, watching a parade. His daughter was sitting atop his shoulders eating an ice cream cone, and the ice cream was dripping all over his head. Then he noticed another man standing not far from him with his little boy on his shoulders. He
was eating bite-sized ice cream from a bag and tossing them up to his son.
The theory behind a commercial is usually how to make our lives better. Thus, the theory behind this commercial must have been this: How can I watch a parade with my child on my shoulders, let her eat ice cream, and not have it drip on my head? Ladies and gentlemen, that’s not reality. That’s a sales pitch.
Truth is reality as opposed to mere appearance. If I were to try to define reality, I would define it like this. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” That’s John 3:16, right? But in my mind, you can’t quote John 3:16 without also quoting John 3:17. John 3:17 says, “For God sent the Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”
Do you remember how John defines the world? The world, in John’s mind, is this: “Human society organizing itself without God.” The world is human society organizing itself without God. Ladies and gentlemen, that is indeed the world in which we live and find ourselves today. Yet still, the world matters so desperately to God. Thus, if we are to indeed be sanctified in the truth as Jesus prayed for his disciples, well…then we’ve got our work cut out for us, don’t we?
Albert Camus was a self-proclaimed agnostic who fought with the French underground during World War II. Once he was actually invited to speak to a group of Christians. What he did was take them to task for their compromising silence and
ambiguous theological jargon while millions of Jews were slaughtered. He said:
What the world expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear, and that they should voice their condemnation in such a way that never a doubt – never the slightest doubt – could rise in the heart of the simplest man. They should get away from abstraction and confront the blood-stained face his-tory has taken on today. The grouping we need is a grouping of (people) resolved to speak out clearly and to pay up personally. Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you don’t help us, who in the world will?
I think that’s an apt statement for us to hear on Memorial Day weekend. Because a lot of people did speak out clearly and pay up personally. A cemetery in Brittany, France holds 4410 American soldiers’ graves. A cemetery in Lorraine, France holds 10,489 American soldiers’ graves. A cemetery in Normandy, France holds 9387 American soldiers’ graves. A cemetery in Argonne holds 14,246 American soldiers’ graves. I think you get the picture. And today, as I understand it, we’re losing about 1000 World War II veterans a week. How does that old saying go? All have sacrificed some, and some have sacrificed all?
Remember those heroes. And don’t be afraid to speak out clearly and to pay up personally. Live the faith you profess. After all, that’s what sanctification is all about. Amen.

5-17-09 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

ODE TO JOY

     I know I’ve told you this story before, but I tell it again today for a couple of reasons.  One, it fits so perfectly with Confirmation Sunday, and two, it leads so well into where we’re headed with the sermon today.  So bear with me, and listen to a story about three ministers who found they had a common problem.

     Once upon a time, there were three ministers gathered together in a restaurant having coffee.  During the course of their conversation they discovered – much to their surprise – that each of them had the common problem of bats in their belfries…bats in the belfries of their churches, that is.

     The first minister said, “I tried shooting them with a BB gun.  But those doggone bats are so gosh darn quick that I kept missing them.  All I ended up with was holes in my stained glass windows.  My bats are still there.”

     The second minister said, “I tried trapping them alive.  Then I took the trap five miles out of town before I let them go.  And wouldn’t you know it?  Those stupid bats beat me back to the church.  My bats are still there as well.”

     The third minister said, “I used to have problems with bats in the belfry of my church as well, but not anymore.”  The other two ministers were astounded.  “What did you do?” they asked.  To which the third minister replied, “It was easy.  I simply baptized them, confirmed them…and I haven’t seen them since!”

     Now that little story would probably be a whole lot funnier if it didn’t come so close to the truth.  I’ve seen it time and time again.  The kids come to class every Sunday prior to their confirmation, and then many of them simply disappear into the woodwork.  We seldom – if ever – see some of them again.

     Perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised.  After all, that seems to be the trend in America today.  The cover of Newsweek’s April 13^th edition was, “The Decline and Fall of Christian America.”  The article itself went on to quote the recent American Religious Identification Survey.  They note that the proportion of Americans who claim to have no religion at all has increased from 8.2% in 1990 to a whopping 15% today.  The percentage of people who claim no religious belief has nearly doubled in less than 20 years.

     John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge wrote a recent article in The Wall Street Journal entitled, “God Still Isn’t Dead.”  They began the article with these words:

America was famously founded by companies and churches.  The woes of American capitalism are well known: Wall Street is a synonym for excess        and greed around the world, and Detroit is tottering on the edge of bankruptcy.  But just as its temples to Mammon are under fire, so suddenly are its churches    to God.

     They go on to note that while mainline churches may be declining, well-organized “mega churches” are taking their place.  They theorize that people aren’t leaving the Church, they’re simply leaving certain churches.  What’s more, five of the ten biggest churches in the world are in South Korea.  And Christianity seems to be booming all across China. 

     Time magazine’s Easter issue in 1966 asked the question, “Is God Dead?”  Thus, the title of Micklethwait and Wooldridge’s article, “God Still Isn’t Dead.”  Religion may be changing, they say, but God still isn’t dead.  In fact, it seems God can never die in the minds of his people.  It seems our brains are actually hard-wired for God.

     “Religious belief and behavior are a hallmark of human life, with no accepted animal equivalent, and found in all cultures,” says Professor Jordan Grafman, from the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders in Bethesda, Maryland.  A recent study published in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences would seem to back him up.  For the analysis, researchers used an MRI machine to examine the active regions in the brains of volunteers who were asked to think about religious and moral problems.  They found that people of different religious persuasions and beliefs – including atheists – tended to use the same electrical circuits in the brain when solving a moral conundrum as well as when dealing with issues related to God.  Are we, in fact, hard-wired for God?  There are solid scientific studies that seem to conclude we are.

     Perhaps we could even say Jesus was aware of that, as evidenced by what he said in the passage we read from the gospel according to John.  Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches.”  What happens to a branch when it is cut off from the vine?  It dies, does it not?  Why, it’s almost as if Jesus is insinuating that we are, in fact, hard-wired for God.  So then Jesus adds, “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, for

 apart from me, you can do nothing.”

     Could Jesus possibly be any more brutally clear?  If we abide in Christ and Christ abides in us, we will bear much fruit.  Yet apart from him, we can do nothing.  So how do we bear much fruit?  The answer…is love.  Jesus goes on to say, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.”  Yet to abide in Christ’s love is not just to revel in it.  To abide in Christ’s love, that love must be shared.  In other words, we must learn to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

     Of course, it’s easy to love those people who love us in return.  It’s easy to love those people with whom we agree and we find to be agreeable.  The challenge here, I think, is loving the unlovable and loving those with whom we disagree.  For you see, when we do not love someone, we have a tendency to become judgmental.

     Margaret Feinburg describes this very well in an article she wrote entitled, “Friendship Overcomes.”  Listen to what she has to say.  She writes:

You see, love is the opposite of judgmentalism; it tempers our views, attitudes and interactions.  In our cultural climate, love is foundational.  Now some say  that love has no agenda, but I believe love is the agenda.  Whether in our communities, workplaces, or government, we must be committed to love those we work with and serve.

 

One of our weaknesses is that we’re far more concerned with being right than

being righteous.  We become like the Pharisees whenever we focus on issues rather than (on) people.  Judgmentalism creeps in whenever we deal with issues  as if they were black and white, rather than flesh-and-blood humans in need of redemption.  Do you want to remove the unhealthy judgmentalism you have in regard to the poor?  Make sure you have poor people whom you love and welcome into your life.  Do you want to remove the unhealthy judgmentalism you have in regard to homosexuals?  Make sure you have gays and lesbians whom  you love and welcome into your life.  Do you want to remove the unhealthy judgmentalism you have in regard to our government?  Make sure you have people involved in politics whom you love and welcome into your life.

 

Then, when we talk about issues, we won’t just be talking about those things we care about, but people we care about.  And the judgmentalism, well…it will naturally begin to fade away like it did for the woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, and so many others.

     How’s that for a profound definition of love?  Love overcomes judgmentalism, and the last time I checked, judgmentalism was still a sin.  We love not only those who love us in return and with whom we agree.  We also love those who do not love us and with whom we may disagree.  That’s the fruit the good branch produces.  And that’s the way we abide in Christ’s love.

     But what’s the point?  Why bother to go through the labor of all this difficult loving?  “What’s in it for me?” we are wont to ask.  Jesus lays it out in one of the most profound statements he makes in all of Scripture.  In verse 11 Jesus says, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”  Again, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” 

   It’s all about joy.  Our lives are meant to be joyful.  As it says in The Shorter Catechism to the Westminster Confession, “What is the chief end of man?”  Pardon the archaic, sexist language, but the answer is this: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”  Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll say it again.  Our lives are meant to be joyful.

     Yet the joy of Christian living is a very difficult thing to explain.  I researched this and I researched this and I researched this some more.  I found a lot of evidence as to what the joy of Christian living is NOT.  The Rev. Carl Haak, in an article entitled, “The Joy of Christ” says, “The thing we must clear up is that we must distinguish the joy of Christian living from the superficial and artificial joy which is so commonly held up in the church world today – a joy which is based upon things going our way, on getting from God what we want, of being somehow worked up – groundless and merely fickle joy.”  Well if that’s what joy is not, then what is it?

     I began to think that joy – like love – is not something that can be defined.  Perhaps joy – like love – is something that must be experienced.  Let me give you a personal illustration.

     Last Sunday we had our annual Mother’s Day musical during the worship hour.  At 2:00 that afternoon, Kevin Dill and I were responsible for the worship service at the Hillside Home.  Now what I generally do is preach the same sermon I preached at 8:30 and 11:00 right here.  But since we had the Mother’s Day musical, I didn’t preach a sermon.  What I planned to do was preach the sermon I had preached the week before.

     Then I spoke with Professor Julia Marshall – a member of this church and a Hillside Home resident herself – right before I left the church for lunch last Sunday.  She said to me, “I hope you have something related to Mother’s Day for us.  Some of the women have been saying that on Mother’s Day, they hope to hear a Mother’s Day sermon.”  I said, “Of course, Professor.  You will have a Mother’s Day sermon.”

     So I took my wife and my kids to lunch for Mother’s Day, then I came back to the church.  I searched my files for a Mother’s Day sermon and I found one from 2002.  I took that sermon to the Hillside Home and began it with an Erma Bombeck story entitled, “When God Made Moms.”  From the looks on the faces of those women gathered to worship at the Hillside Home, I knew I had done the exact right thing.  Their faces just beamed.  And for what I had done, I felt a true and sincere joy in my heart.

     That’s what joy is.  It’s a profound feeling within.  It comes not when we do for ourselves.  It comes, rather, when we do for others.  When we put the happiness of others first – and we do what we can to please them – joy just naturally happens. 

     You don’t have to go to the Hillside Home to preach to find your joy.  You can if you want.  I mean, I’m sure they’d be glad to have you.  But the key is putting the happiness of others first, and doing what we can to please them.

     We live in a community that could use a little joy.  I keep hearing stories about the vicious and brutal fights that take place in the high school and the unbelievably audacious behavior of kids in the elementary schools.  It’s not the school’s job to socialize these kids.  The schools can’t begin to teach these kids about the joy of Christian living.  The law, of all things, prevents that.  You can say it’s the parents’ job to do that and I agree with you wholeheartedly.  But if the parents aren’t doing it, then maybe the churches should.

     Who feels God’s call within them to make a difference in the lives of the children in our community?  Who has a burning passion to come up with a program at the church that could fill young hearts with love?  Who has the conviction to give of themselves so that someone else’s life might be made just a little bit brighter?  If it’s you, I’d love to talk to you about it.  For in so doing, you just might find your own true inner joy.  Amen.