9-11-09 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

WHO IS YOUR BARNABAS?

     I believe it was Red Skelton who once said, “All men make mistakes, but married men find out about it sooner.”  Again, “All men make mistakes, but married men find out about it sooner.”  While there may very well be some truth to Red Skelton’s observation, let’s place our focus today on the first part of his statement, which was this: “All men make mistakes.”  Or perhaps better put, “All people make mistakes.”

     Perhaps we could even say that people make mistakes when it comes to how they look at God.  The Rev. Dr. M. Craig Barnes, the senior minister at the Shadyside Presbyterian Church  in Pittsburgh, addresses this issue in his latest book entitled, The Pastor as Minor Poet.  He believes that people are often mistaken in how they look at God.  He goes on to say that one of the tasks of the minister is to help people to see God as God really is.  He writes:

Just because people call themselves “Christian” and have a long history in the church, (that does not mean) they have a biblical image of God.  To the contrary, the longer they’ve hung around religion, the greater the chance that they’ve acquired some false ideas about God that have a negative impact on their self-image.

 

In pastoral counseling, the minor poet (Barnes refers to the minister as the minor poet) in pastoral counseling the minor poet is wading through these false images, which are the real blocks to their ability to make changes.  We are thus made in the image of a false god, and until the image of God is seen correctly in the grace and truth of Jesus Christ, we never will be able to gain a correct image of ourselves.

 

When people tell me about their struggles with anger, a little digging reveals they believe God is angry with them.  Those who struggle with compulsive work patterns have been worshipping a demanding God who is never satisfied.  People who have a hard time trusting their hearts to others don’t really believe in the steadfast love of God.  None of them can discover real change in their lives apart from a Christological view of God.  So conversations that begin with improvements they want to make in life should end with the pastor demonstrating the changes Christ has already made to their lives.

 

Rather than use the few reflective listening skills we learned in our Introduction to Pastoral Care classes in seminary, which is only another way of holding up the judgmental mirror, we pastors need to hold up Jesus Christ.  “See him?” we say.  “That’s who you really are.  Everything else about you is just pretending.” 

     Barnes concludes with these words.  “The human self is never more truly itself than when it is living in Christ, the Restorer of the holy image of God in humans.”  Like I said, we all make mistakes.  Sometimes we even make mistakes in our image of who or what God is.  That’s when we need a guide.  That’s when we need a mentor.  That’s when we need someone to straighten out our misguided notions of God.

     Ladies and gentlemen, I think that brings us back to the discipleship question we’ve been wrestling with for the last several weeks.  The question was asked, “How can we identify a healthy disciple?”  The following criteria were presented:

1.      Who is your Lord?  In other words, when everything is said and done, whose agenda are you truly following?  Ideally, of course, the agenda we are following is that of Jesus Christ.

 

2.      Who are you?  At the beginning of each day, do you wake up thinking you’ll have to go out and win your own share of security and significance, or can you truly say that those are priceless gifts you have already received?  We noted a couple of weeks ago that Christ gave his life to secure our significance in the eyes of God.  There is nothing left  for us to prove.

 

3.      Who is your Barnabas?  Barnabas spoke up for the Apostle Paul and was something of a mentor to him.  Who is your spiritual mentor, the one from whom you are learning how to follow Jesus Christ?

 

4.      Who is your Timothy?  Paul was something of a mentor to Timothy.  Who is your apprentice – the one to whom you are passing along the life lessons that God has entrusted you?

 

5.      Where is your Antioch?  Antioch, to Paul, was a safe haven where the call of God could find him.  What small group of friends is your safe haven…that is helping you to discern the will of God in your life?

 

6.      Where is your Macedonia?  Macedonia was a field of ministry for Paul.  What field of ministry is most closely aligned with God’s call on your life, and hauntingly stirs your deepest passion?

 

     This week our focus is on the third criterion of a healthy disciple: Who is your Barnabas?  Who is your Barnabas?  Yet before we ask who your Barnabas is, perhaps we should answer the question of who Barnabas was.  That only makes sense, don’t you think?

     Barnabas makes his first appearance in the pages of Scripture in the fourth chapter of the book of Acts.  His real name was Joseph of Cyprus, but the apostles gave him the name Barnabas, which meant literally, “son of prophecy” or “son of encouragement.”  What did Barnabas do to warrant such a title?  It was in the early days of the church in Jerusalem.  The first century church seemed to advocate communal living.  Barnabas sold a field that belonged to him and he brought the money – all of the money – to the apostles and laid it at their feet.  They kept their money in a community treasury of sorts and shared it with fellow Christians as they had need.  No one in the early Christian community would have found themselves in want.

   Let me take a moment to explain early Christian communal living.  Yes, it appears that the first century Christians did in fact hold everything in common.  That does not bode well for our great American philosophy of individualism and capitalism, does it?  Yet let me also say this.  It is obvious that the communal living of the early church didn’t last for very long.  Perhaps we could even say that it did not work.  That’s why the practice was discontinued.  While that statement does not baptize the greed in many a Christian heart, it does seem to speak against any requirement of communal Christian living.  That should make everyone feel at least a little bit better.

     Let’s get back to Barnabas.  He laid the proceeds from the sale of a field at the feet of the apostles in Jerusalem.  His next appearance in Scripture is in the passage we read a moment ago.  Saul of Tarsus – later known as the Apostle Paul – was a fierce opponent of Christianity everywhere.  He would literally take Christians in chains to the Jewish authorities.  He stood and watched and approved of the stoning of a Christian named Stephen.  Saul of Tarsus was feared by Christians far and wide.  Yet on a lonely road to Damascus, Jesus Christ had appeared to him and he had been transformed.  When Saul came to Jerusalem as a new Christian convert, everyone was afraid of him.  It was Barnabas who went to Saul and brought him to the apostles.  In other words, if it weren’t for Barnabas, there would have been no Paul.  And if it weren’t for Paul, Christianity might not have ever reached the hearts of those who were not Jewish.  Paul brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, yet he did so after being mentored by Barnabas.

The Apostle Paul needed a mentor, and God provided him one in the person of Barnabas.

     Glenn McDonald describes how important this whole “mentoring” thing is in his book, The Disciple Making Church.  It’s the very same quote that is printed in the Silent Reflection portion

 of your bulletins.  He writes:

In his book The Divine Conspiracy Dallas Willard points out that all of us learn how to live – for better or for worse – from those who teach us.  Each of us is somebody’s disciple.  “There are no exceptions to this rule, for human beings are just the kind of creatures that have to learn and keep learning from others how to live.”  Most of us    have been discipled, consciously or unconsciously, by a diverse collection of “somebodies” over the years. 

     Think about it.  How did you learn right from wrong?  Did you figure that out on your own, or did somebody teach you?  How did you learn how to drive?  Did you figure that out on your own, or did somebody teach you?  How did you light upon your present career path?  Did you figure that out on your own, or did somebody teach you?  Glenn McDonald is right.  “Most of   us have been discipled, consciously or unconsciously, by a diverse collection of ‘somebodies’ over the years.”

     We could look at that conversely as well, I suppose.  I heard a story not long ago about a first grade teacher at a school in our community.  She asked the kids in her class a very simple question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  She was absolutely appalled when many of the kids replied, “When I grow up, I want to lay on the couch and watch T.V. all day like my dad.”  She said to one, “Where do you get your money to live on?”  The child replied, “We go to this place and they give him a check.”

     Here’s what that teacher did.  She brought meat and cheese and crackers to school with her one day.  Then she asked the kids, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  If a child replied, “I want to be a doctor,” she gave them a piece of meat, a piece of cheese and a cracker.  If a child replied, “I want to be a teacher,” again she gave them a piece of meat, a piece of cheese and a cracker.  But if they replied, “When I grow up, I want to lay on the couch and watch T.V. all day like my dad,” she only gave them a cracker.  When the child cried out, “I want a piece of meat and a piece of cheese, too!” she said, “You have to work for that.”

    Now there’s a brilliant teacher who brought a brilliant lesson home to a group of first-graders.  But it ignores the larger problem.  Where are these kids getting the idea that it’s all right to lay on the couch all day and watch T.V.?  They’re getting it from their Barnabas.  They’re getting it from their mentor.  They’re getting it from a person they love who is modeling how to live for them.  And therein lies the problem.  Everyone needs a Barnabas.  Everyone needs a mentor.  Everyone need someone to show them how to live, and how to live well.  

     Perhaps we could raise the very same issue when it comes to our own faith.  How did you learn how to be a Christian?  Did you figure that out on your own, or did somebody teach you?  Or, perhaps even better put, how did you learn how to live as a Christian?  Did you figure that out on your own, or did somebody model that for you?

     Relationships that entail mentoring are not intended to be the exception to the rule.  Discipling is just the way God does things.  Jesus Christ himself gave himself fully to a dozen interested men.  He loved them, he lived with them, he told them stories, and he stretched their imaginations.  He scolded them when their hearts were calloused and he nurtured them when they were confused.  He invited them to walk with him into situations that ranged from the ambiguous to the controversial to the outright dangerous.  Sometimes he was formal, sometimes he was rhetorical.  Frequently he engineered opportunities for his disciples to place their trust in God.  Yet on every occasion, Jesus was communicating one important thing.  He was saying to them in essence, “Let me show you how to live.”        

     George Mason has been the senior minister at the Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas for more than 20 years.  In a recent address, he said:

For those of us who grew up on T.V., the quirky “Gilligan’s Island” is part of our culture.  You know it must be because now that we are middle-aged and have some buying power, commercials are using the theme song and bringing back characters to plug their products.  But what was its appeal?  Endearing characters, people we could identify with, certainly.  The blow-hard skipper, the brainy professor, the millionaire and his wife, the movie star, the plain-Jane girl, and a bumbling first mate.  Sounds a lot like society in general.  But the story is the thing.  Shipwrecked on an island, they don’t always get along, they are none of them alike, but they all need each other.  They have to work together to survive and build the best life possible because they are all in the same boat, literally.

     Along those same lines, G.K. Chesterton once said of humanity: “We are all in a small boat on a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.”  Life is not easy for anyone.  Everyone is a disciple, and everyone needs a mentor.  Everyone needs someone to model the Christian life for them.  So I ask you again, “Who is your Barnabas?”  If you can’t answer that question now, perhaps you should begin to look into how you can.  Amen.  

    

    

    

    

                  

 

  

  

    

 

    

 

9-27-2009 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

WHO ARE YOU?

     A number of years ago, a little girl on the East Coast made the following statement.  She said, “My name is Martha Bowers Taft.  My great-grandfather was President of the United States.  My grandfather was a United States Senator.  My daddy is an ambassador to Ireland.  And I am a Brownie.” 

     Perhaps we could say that little girl was very fortunate in that she knew exactly who she  was.  If life’s most important question is, “Who’s in charge?” then perhaps life’s second most important question is this: “What is your relationship to the one who is in charge?”  In other words, “Who are you?”

     As you hopefully know by now, we’ve been doing a sermon series on discipleship.  A couple of week ago the question was asked, “How can we identify a healthy disciple?”  The following criteria were presented:

1.      Who is your Lord?  In other words, when everything is said and done, whose agenda are you truly following?  Last week we discussed how Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice for us, and how we ought to be willing to make some sacrifice for him.  And don’t think for a minute that it doesn’t matter.

 

2.      Who are you?  At the beginning of each day, do you wake up thinking you’ll have to go out and win your own share of security and significance, or can you truly say that those are priceless gifts you have already received?

 

3.      Who is your Barnabas?  Barnabas spoke up for the Apostle Paul and was something of a mentor to him.  Who is your spiritual mentor, the one from whom you are learning how to follow Jesus Christ?

 

4.      Who is your Timothy?  Paul was something of a mentor to Timothy.  Who is your apprentice – the one to whom you are passing along the life lessons that God has entrusted you?

 

5.      Where is your Antioch?  Antioch, to Paul, was a safe haven where the call of God could find him.  What small group of friends is your safe haven…that is helping you to discern the will of God in your life?

6.      Where is your Macedonia?  Macedonia was a field of ministry for Paul.  What field of ministry is most closely aligned with God’s call on your life, and hauntingly stirs your deepest passion?

     Our focus this week will be on the second criterion of a healthy disciple: Who are you?  In other words, at the beginning of each day, do you wake up thinking you’ll have to go out and win your own share of security and significance, or can you truly say that those are priceless gifts you have already received?  Or, perhaps better put, do you feel you have to prove your worth on a daily basis, or has your value been bestowed by God already?

     I guess the place to start is by asking what matters most to us in life.  Think about it.  What are our essential needs in life?  Perhaps no one has described better what our basic needs in life are than psychologist Abraham Maslow.  He developed what we call Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  The first things we need to consider are our physiological needs.  We need oxygen, food and water and, as he puts it, “a relatively consistent body temperature.”  As human beings, I suppose it’s quite obvious that those are our basic needs.

     Once our biological needs are met, then we can consider our safety needs.  We want a safe place to live, a secure environment for our families – that sort of thing.  Then we need love and affection and a sense of belonging.  If we can satisfy those needs – if our biological, security and sense of belonging needs are satisfied – then we deal with our self-esteem.  Humans, so says Maslow, have a need for a stable, firmly based, high level of self-respect AND respect from others.  This is the one that hangs us up, as we’ll see in a moment.  And finally, if all our other needs are met, we have a need for self-actualization.  In other words, we seek out a way to do what we feel we were born to do.  There you have it, our basic human needs in a nutshell.      

    The one we seem to have a problem with is the need for self-esteem.  We seem to think we can gain our self-esteem by way of material splendor.  The more we have, the happier we seem to be.  And better still if we have more than the next guy.  As someone once put it, “Some people want the front of the bus, the back of the church, and the center of attention!”  But listen to this.  Lillian Daniel addresses this issue in an article she wrote in The Christian Century entitled, “Affluent Christians.”  She writes:

David Myers, a professor of psychology at Hope College, believes that we – as a nation – are growing more unhappy and depressed.  Myers writes about the bad side of affluence.  Apparently too much money may buy a supersized case of the blues.  Today’s youth and young adults have grown up with much more affluence, slightly less overall happiness, a much greater risk of depression and a tripled teen suicide rate.  Never has a culture experienced such physical comfort combined with such psychological misery.  Never have we felt so free or had our prisons so overstuffed.  Never have we been so sophisticated about pleasure or so likely to suffer broken relationships.

     Wow!  What does that say about our current American culture?  Obviously, something is missing.  Obviously, having more and more things is not the answer.  Maybe the answer to      the question, “Who are you?” is not, “I am a consumer.”  Perhaps we can look to the passage   we read from the gospel according to Luke to find the answer to who we really are.

     You know the story.  It’s the story of the prodigal son.  It seems a man had two sons and the younger of the two came to his father and said, “Father, give me the share of property that falls to me.”  In other words, “I want what you’re going to give me anyway when you die.”  How’s that for an endearing conversation starter?

     We are not told how the father felt about his son’s request, we are only told that he did as he was asked.  So the son took the money and went to another country.  He squandered everything on what we might call “loose living.”  Just let your imagination run wild.  In the end, he had nothing left and wound up feeding pigs, yet even the pigs ate better than he did. 

     He began to recall how well his father’s servants lived.  He decided to return to his father and live as a hired hand.  He would beg for his father’s forgiveness and hope that he would not turn him away.  Yet what happened when his father saw him off in the distance?  His father ran to him and declared a celebration!  He put a robe on him, a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  He even killed the fatted calf – one they were likely saving for a special occasion – and hosted a sumptuous feast.

     I think Jesus tells that story to point out how precious each and every human being is to God.  God does not want any of us to be lost.  God wants us to repent and to return to him.  Unlike far too many human beings, God is guided by love, not by vengeance.  Again, God is guided by love, not by vengeance.

     It reminds me of a poem entitled, “Heaven.”  The author is unknown.  Listen closely to the words.

I was shocked, confused, bewildered

As I entered Heaven’s door,

Not by the beauty of it all,

The lights or its décor.

 

            No, it was the folks in Heaven

            Who made me sputter and gasp –

            The thieves, the liars, the sinners,

            The alcoholics and the trash.

 

There stood the kid from seventh grade

Who swiped my lunch loot twice.

By him was my old neighbor

Who said not one thing nice.

 

            Herb, who I always thought

            Was rotting away in hell,

            Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,

            Looking incredibly well.

 

 

I said to Jesus, “What’s the deal?

I’d love to hear your take.

How’d all these sinners get up here?

Did God make a mistake?

 

And why are folks so quiet?

            So somber – give me a clue.”

            “Hush, child,” he said, “they’re all in shock

            At the thought of seeing you!”

 

     Like I said, each and every human being is oh, so precious to God.  God does not want any lost, for God is motivated by love, not by vengeance.  But there remains the older brother, does there not?  The older brother had remained loyal to his father while the younger brother had squandered his inheritance.  When he came in from the fields that night, he saw a party taking place in the house.  After asking a servant what was going on, he was dismayed to say the least.  In fact, he refused to go into the house.

     His father came out and spoke to him.  He said to him, “All that is mine is yours.”  In other words, “Your faithfulness will be rewarded.  You don’t have to worry about that.”  But he also expressed his infinite joy in having his son return.  In spite of what the younger boy had done, the father still loved his son.  In spite of what we may have done, the Father loves us as well.

     That’s how the story ends.  We do not know if the older boy went in to the party, or whether he ever restored his relationship with his brother.  If he did, in fact, restore his relationship with his brother, there was one thing he needed to overcome.  He needed to overcome his own sense of self.

     Ladies and gentlemen, that is the secret to knowing who we are.  Each of us is one of six billion people here on earth, each of whom we can presume God loves equally.  Yet we are also like an only child in that we are the most precious thing in the world to God.  It’s quite a conundrum, isn’t it?  Yet in order to be truly reconciled to one another, and in order to be truly reconciled to God, we must overcome our own sense of self.  That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Those who would save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”  We must recognize that God has given us the best that he has to give: he gave us his Son.  And we must also recognize that God did so for a reason.  He did it that all the world might be saved.  We need not worry.  Everything the Father has to give to us will be ours.  We just need to recognize the fact that God has other children as well.

   Once upon a time, in a third grade classroom, there was a nine-year-old boy who wet his pants.  There was even a little puddle on the floor.  He thought his heart would stop because he could not imagine how it happened.  It had never happened before, and he knew that once the other boys found out they would never let him hear the end of it.  And once the girls found out, he would be ostracized.

  The boy was devastated, so he did the only thing he could think of to do.  He said a little prayer.  He said, “Dear God, this is an emergency!  I need help now!  Five minutes from now I’m dead meat!”  He looked up from his prayer and the teacher was approaching him with a look in her eyes that said he had been discovered.

     As the teacher was walking toward him, a classmate named Suzie was carrying a goldfish

bowl that was full of water.  Suzie tripped in front of the teacher and dumped the entire bowl of water in the boy’s lap.  The boy pretended to be angry, but all the while he said to himself, “Thank you, Lord!  Thank you, Lord!”

     All of a sudden, instead of being an object of ridicule, the boy was the object of sympathy.  The teacher took him downstairs and gave him a pair of gym shorts to wear while his pants dried out.  The other children cleaned up the mess around his desk.  But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his was transferred to someone else.  It was transferred to Suzie.  She tried to help clean up, but the other kids yelled at her, “You’ve done enough, you klutz!”

     Finally, at the end of the day, they were waiting for the bus.  The boy walked over to Suzie and whispered, “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”  Suzie whispered back, “I wet my pants one time, too.”

     In a silly story like that lies the key to who we are.  When we remember that all of us make mistakes, when we can put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, we can put ourselves aside for someone else’s sake.  Therein we just might find our ultimate happiness.  Amen.

    

 

 

 

           

  

    

 

9-20-2009 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

MAN OVERBOARD!

    Last Sunday morning, we talked at great length about nametags.  Of course, it wasn’t really a sermon about nametags, was it?  It was really a sermon about discipleship.  The question was asked, “How can we identify a healthy disciple?”  The following criteria were presented:

1.      Who is your Lord?  In other words, when everything is said and done, whose agenda are you truly following?

 

2.      Who are you?  At the beginning of each day, do you wake up thinking you’ll have to go out and win your own share of security and significance, or can you truly say that those are priceless gifts you have already received?

 

3.      Who is your Barnabas?  Barnabas spoke up for the Apostle Paul and was something of a mentor to him.  Who is your spiritual mentor, the one from whom you are learning how to follow Jesus Christ?

 

4.      Who is your Timothy?  Paul was something of a mentor to Timothy.  Who is your apprentice – the one to whom you are passing along the life lessons that God has entrusted you?

 

5.      Where is your Antioch?  Antioch, to Paul, was a safe haven where the call of God could find him.  What small group of friends is your safe haven that is helping you     to discern the will of God in your life?

 

6.      Where is your Macedonia?  This was a field of ministry for Paul.  What field of ministry is most closely aligned with God’s call on your life and hauntingly stirs     your deepest passion?

   Our focus this week will be on the first criteria of a healthy disciple: Who is your Lord?  In other words, when everything is said and done, whose agenda are you truly following?  Again, when everything is said and done, whose agenda are you truly following?

    In the passage we read from the gospel according to Mark, Jesus presents what we call his first passion prediction.  In other words, he was trying to tell his disciples of his impending crucifixion and resurrection.  He began by saying to his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”  They answered him, “Some say John the Baptist.  Others say Elijah or one of the prophets.”  Jesus said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”  It was Peter who first replied, “You are the Christ, Son of the Living God.”

     “You are the Christ, Son of the Living God.”  What does that really mean?  What does it mean to say that Jesus is the Christ, or to say that Jesus is the Messiah?  I think Jesus himself explains what it means in the verses that follow.  He says, “If any wish to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”  In other words, Jesus Christ must become Lord of our lives.  Jesus Christ must become the one who dictates the plan for our lives.

     And that’s all well and good, in theory.  The Apostle Paul points out what more often happens in reality.  Addressing the plight of humanity in the first chapter of Romans, he writes, “Ever since the creation of the world, God’s eternal power and divine nature – invisible though they are – have been understood and seen through the things he has made.  So people are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images (or idols)… Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”

     Can we safely say that there’s an element of that going on today?  Are not there those who worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator?  I propose that our entire mindset has been shifted to serve the creature rather than the Creator.  And one of the culprits in this transition is the advertizing industry.

     For example, if we don’t use the right shampoo, we’re going to end up with split ends or dandruff and be repulsive to those around us.  If we don’t use the right toothpaste, our teeth won’t be their whitest and that might keep us from getting the perfect job.  And if we don’t use the right deodorant or cologne, we won’t have crazed members of the opposite sex leaping on us in grocery store aisles.  The advertizing industry does its level best to convince us that without their product, our lives will not be full.  The advertizing industry does its level best to convince us to worship the creature rather than the Creator. 

     George MacDonald tries to set us right in his book, Creation in Christ.  He believes the opposite – that we should be worshiping the Creator rather than the creature.  He writes:

I will tell you.  Get up, and do something the Master tells you; so make yourself his disciple at once.  Instead of asking yourself whether you believe or not, ask yourself whether you have this day done one thing because he said, “Do it,” or once abstained because he said, “Do not do it.”  It is simply absurd to say you believe, or even want to believe in him, if you do not anything he tells you.  If you can think of nothing he ever said as having had an atom of influence on your doing or not doing, you have too good ground to consider yourself no disciple of his.

But you can begin at once to be a disciple of the Living One – by obeying him in the first thing you can think of in which you are not obeying him.  We must learn to obey him in everything, and so must begin somewhere.  Let it be at once, and in the very next thing that lies at the door of our conscience!  Oh fools and slow of heart, if you think of nothing but Christ, and do not set yourselves to do his words!  You but build your houses on the sand.

     To be a disciple of Jesus Christ is to be able to answer the question, “Who is my Lord?”  The answer, of course, is: “Jesus Christ is my Lord.”  And if Jesus Christ is truly your Lord, you will take up your cross and follow.  For if Jesus Christ is truly your Lord, you will do what he tells you to do.

     It won’t be easy and it won’t always be pleasant.  So the question now, I guess, is this: Is it worth it?  Why bother to be a disciple of Jesus Christ if it entails suffering and sacrifice?  Why even try to make Jesus my Lord?

     I think Glenn McDonald gives us a wonderful reason in his book, The Disciple Making Church.  I call this story, “Man Overboard!”  Listen to this:

To celebrate their fiftieth anniversary, my parents decided that they would host their own party.  They invited their three sons and three daughters-in-law to join them on a Caribbean cruise in February.  I don’t recall agonizing for very long over the invitation.  When someone hands you a free Get-Out-of-Indiana-in-February card, you take it.  Speaking as veteran cruise passengers, my parents gushed, “We’ll do all kinds of things together, and before dinner on the second day we’ll even get a chance to stand in line and meet the captain.”  I rolled my eyes and said to (my wife), “Don’t worry.  I’ll figure out a way to get us out of that one.”

The trip was wonderful.  Cruises are designed to be multisensory, it’s-all-about-me experiences for the guests.  At the end of the first evening of water-gazing and over-indulging in the dining room, we headed for bed.  While we slept the boat quietly cruised out into the open water beyond Puerto Rico.  At 4:48 a.m., however, everything changed.  We were awakened by a disembodied voice on the cabin intercom.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain.  I am very sorry to disturb you so early in the morning, but we have an urgent concern.  We have an unconfirmed report that a passenger has fallen overboard.  We have already turned the ship around and initiated a search.”  At that moment I realized for the first time that the boat was no longer moving.  The captain continued, “Please go to your room if you are not there at this time, and account for everyone in your party.  If anyone is missing, please report their name to the purser’s desk immediately.”

Thirty minutes passed.  Through our window we could see searchlights sweeping across the swells of black water in the pre-dawn darkness.  The U.S. and Dutch Coast Guards had arrived on the scene.  We found ourselves praying, “God, if anyone is out there alone in that ocean, may your mercy be upon him.”  The captain spoke a second time.  “Ladies and gentlemen, two men are currently unaccounted for.  Their names are John Garcia and Eric Armstrong.  If you know the whereabouts of either of these men, please bring word to us right away.”

There were 1700 guests on the cruise boat and more than 700 crew members.  From the list of 2400 passengers the captain had narrowed the search to just two individuals.  Fifteen minutes later he addressed us again.  “Ladies and gentlemen, we are looking for Eric Armstrong.”  The energies of everyone on board were now focused on the hunt for a solitary person.  Though he was a stranger to us, we all knew his name.

Two hours later the sun rose above the Caribbean.  Once again we heard the captain’s voice.  “Ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to tell you we have just found Eric Armstrong.  A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter is at this moment airlifting him to safety.    He appears to be in good condition.  Thank you for your cooperation during this time.”

     The successful search-and-rescue had a dramatic effect on the rest of the cruise.  Every passenger now knew: I’m sailing with someone who would turn this ship around  in the middle of the night and come looking for me.  Who was Eric Armstrong?  Was he a V.I.P.?  A U.S. senator?  The first mate?  Someone intimately related to the captain?  No, he was a 20-year-old man who at about 4:30 a.m. was in a restricted area and had apparently fallen off the bow while doing the Titanic thing – I’m king of the world!

Before dinner on that second day, there was no question what I wanted to do.  I stood in line to meet the captain.  I wanted to shake the hand of the man who I knew would pull out all the stops to find one lost person, even someone who was doing the wrong thing at the wrong place at the wrong time.

     McDonald concludes his story with these words.  “It occurred to me later that this is precisely what Jesus did on the cross.  He pulled out all the stops to launch a search-and-rescue for an entire world of lost people – a great many of whom remain oblivious to his very existence.”  So I ask you again: Why bother to be a disciple of Jesus Christ if it entails suffering and sacrifice?  Why even try to make Jesus my Lord?  That’s why.  Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice for us.  Can’t we make a little sacrifice for him?

     Leo Tolstoy points out that every person has to choose between two gods.  Most people opt for “the god who is here to serve me.”  The difficulty, as Tolstoy reminds us, is that such a god doesn’t exist.  Clinging to the expectation that Christ exists only to make me happy is a recipe for deep disappointment.  Tolstoy’s alternative is the God whom I myself am called to honor and serve.  The Lordship of Jesus Christ means waking up to the conviction that we have received the gift of life in order to do what Jesus wants us to do.  Perhaps we could even say that the cruise is not about us. The cruise…is about the captain.

     And don’t think for a minute that it doesn’t really matter.  Christ did not come just to save you and me.  Jesus Christ came to transform the world.  Chuck Colson recently wrote an interesting commentary on that very subject.  He wrote:

I see no hope for our culture if the Church is not revitalized.  Culture is religion incarnate, and culture shapes politics.  So if we’re going to change the direction of our society, the Church has to fulfill its role as the conscience of society.  Well, I can already hear you saying, “Isn’t worldview just an abstract subject that tweedy professors like to talk about?”  Emphatically, no!  Everybody’s got a worldview that determines how they live their lives.  The sum total of all the worldviews in our culture determines the kind of society we have.  And frankly, Christian are losing the worldview battle.

We need to teach the next generation what we believe, why we believe it, why it matters, and how it plays out in every walk of life.  Worldview determines how we form our families, what is taught in schools, what laws our communities pass, what kind of music we listen to, and what we believe about art and science.

The great apologist Francis Shaeffer was right when he said that Christians must be missionaries to their own culture. Our culture speaks a different language, and thinks differently, than Christians do.  And if we don’t understand this, we can’t communicate effectively with our non-believing neighbors.

I pray fervently that there will be a mighty movement of God’s people learning and then teaching a Christian worldview to others.  If we don’t, if we sit passively in our pews, we’re going to witness the world collapsing – or perhaps I should say finish collapsing – all around us.

     To be a disciple of Jesus Christ is to be able to answer the question, “Who is my Lord?”  Don’t think for a minute that it doesn’t matter.  Amen.   

 

9-13-2009 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THAWING THE FROZEN CHOSEN

     There is a website called JARGON DATABASE.COM.  Jargon, of course, is defined as the technical terminology used by a particular group of people.  For example, there is such a thing as political jargon.  Computer programmers certainly have their own unique jargon.  One could even say that there is such a thing as religious jargon.  People outside the faith are not likely to understand what Christians mean when they say sacrificial lamb, regeneration, or even The Apostles’ Creed.

     JARGON DATABASE.COM defines some of our religious jargon.  For example, they explain that a believer’s baptism is a baptism performed on someone who has made a profession   of faith.  To join the choir invisible is to die and to go to heaven.  They also define the term, “God’s Frozen People.”  God’s Frozen People is defined as, “a wry term for Episcopalians; not considered derogatory.”  I’m not so sure about the derogatory part, but that’s what it says.

     JARGON DATABASE.COM also defines the term, “Frozen Chosen.”  In fact, they claim that the term Frozen Chosen is looked up more than any other word.  How do they define Frozen Chosen?  It says this: “Frozen Chosen – Presbyterians.  This particular flavor of the Protestant faith is known fairly accurately for a quiet, reserved manner.”  JARGON DATABASE.COM says that the definition of Frozen Chosen…is Presbyterian.  The question we have to ask is this: Is it true?  More specifically, is it true of our church?

     Now before I get into all of that, I need to tell you a story.  I told this story in a sermon just a few weeks ago, so my apologies to those of you who heard it then.  But once we get to where we’re going this morning, I think you’ll understand why I had to tell it again. 

   His name was Bill.  Bill had wild hair.  He wore a T-shirt with holes in it, tattered jeans and ratty 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 thing he always wore – a T-shirt with holes in it, tattered jeans and ratty sandals.

     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 no one was willing to move over.  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, he 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 toward 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 he 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 back-ground 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 couldn’t start his sermon until the elder did what the elder had 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!

     Isn’t that a wonderful story?  I told that story in a sermon a few weeks ago.  Two days later, we received the following e-mail from someone who was there.  Listen closely:

            Dear Dr. Jensen,

This past Sunday, my wife and I and our grandson attended your church for the 8:30 service.  Our grandson recently moved to Meadville and has been looking for a church to regularly attend.  Your church certainly is a beautiful one and we did enjoy your sermon, entitled, Fair Weather Friends.  However, unlike the old elder who sat on the floor alongside the poorly dressed guest, I doubt anyone at this service would do the same.  We were guests at your church, and no one greeted us or made us feel welcome or – in our grandson’s case – suggest that he come again and that they would be glad to have him.  Now perhaps if we would have filled out the cards, etc. that you mentioned, things would have been different.  I doubt this very much.  I was raised in a Presbyterian church, but have attended a Methodist church for the past 50 years.  After attending your church, I’m glad we do.  I’d much rather attend where people are friendly and make an effort to greet strangers and make them feel welcome and at home.

     That’s the letter in a nutshell.  Now please don’t misunderstand.  I tell this not to make anyone feel bad.  I tell this simply to point out the fact that we have a problem.  This, my friends, cannot continue to happen.  I look at it as a wakeup call.  I look at it as a way of thawing the frozen chosen.

     We talked about this letter at a staff meeting and at a session meeting.  We came up with a number of suggestions.  One was nametags – blue ones for members, red ones for visitors.  Another suggestion was that we greet one another during the worship service itself.  Someone suggested that we have a group of people – a group of people who like people, that is – who go around the sanctuary greeting everyone.  Someone suggested better greeter and usher training.  The list goes on and on.

     Thus, we’re going to be doing a greeting every Sunday morning, at both services.  And I’m asking you to please start wearing nametags.  Lyle Schaller, the guru on church growth and leadership in the 1980s, once said that if a church expects to grow, everyone will wear nametags!  So we’ll have blue nametags for members and we’ll have red nametags for visitors.  That way, we’ll be able to identify who’s who.  That way, you can’t walk up to someone and say, “Are you visiting with us this morning?” only to have them retort, “I’ve been a member of this church for 35 years!”  Please, please, please wear the nametags.

     Perhaps the root of our problem is discipleship.  Consider the passage I read from the gospel according to Matthew.  It says, “When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’”

     The “harvest” to which Jesus referred are the people God wishes to be a part of his kingdom.  You encounter them every day of your lives in the world, but you especially encounter them when they visit our church.  The laborers are the people who are supposed to bring the people to Christ.  The laborers then were obviously Jesus’ disciples.  Today those laborers are you and me.  We are called to bring people to Christ.  At the very least, we need to welcome the ones who visit our church, don’t you think?

     Glenn McDonald addresses what’s been happening in Protestant churches regarding this issue in his book, The Disciple Making Church.  He writes:

Classically, North American congregations have relied on a single individual to generate church-wide progress in bringing people to Christ.  That person is the pastor.  For roughly 300 years, Protestant pastors have been charged with the spiritual development of everyone within the church’s reach – a mission to be accomplished through preaching, teaching, worship leadership, counseling, direction of appropriate boards and committees, home visitation, correspondence, administration, janitorial duties, praying at civic functions, and whatever other ‘hats’ might be required apparel at a particular church.  The ultimate issue therefore becomes: How can we expose a maximum number of people to the work of our pastor, so that he or she can work a maximum amount of spiritual magic?

     The pastor can’t do it alone.  The pastor can’t be a disciple for you.  Each and every one of you needs to become a disciple yourself.  We’re going to be wrestling with this issue of discipleship in the weeks that lie ahead.  For now, let me just say this.  How can we identify a healthy disciple?  Again, how can we identify a healthy disciple?  A disciple is someone who can answer – with ever-growing conviction and understanding – the following six questions.

1.      Who is your Lord?  In other words, when everything is said and done, whose agenda are you truly following?

2.      Who are you?  At the beginning of each day, do you wake up thinking you’ll have to go out and win your own share of security and significance, or can you truly say that those are priceless gifts you have already received?

3.      Who is your Barnabas?  Barnabas spoke up for the Apostle Paul and was something of a mentor to him.  Who is your spiritual mentor, the one from whom you are learning how to follow Jesus Christ?

4.      Who is your Timothy?  Paul was something of a mentor to Timothy.  Who is your apprentice, the one to whom you are passing along the lessons that God has entrusted you?

5.      Where is your Antioch?  What small group of friends is helping you to discern God’s will for your life?

6.      Where is your Macedonia?  What field of ministry is most closely aligned with God’s call on your life and hauntingly stirs your deepest passion?

          As we wrestle with these questions and seek God’s answers to them in the weeks that lie ahead, perhaps our church will become a different kind of place.  Perhaps we’ll start to become better disciples ourselves.  Perhaps we’ll even begin thawing the frozen chosen.  Amen.

 

 

 

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.