9-12-2010 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

REMEMBER YOUR BAPTISM AND BE THANKFUL

 

     Several weeks ago, I told you about how our oldest son was heading back to college in Iowa and we were taking our daughter to college for the very first time in Pittsburgh.  My wife and I were having a very difficult time with that.  Our youngest son, Travis, however, put a somewhat different spin on things.  He said to his sister, “Mariah, you’re lucky.  You’re going away to college.  I’m going to be stuck in the house with Mom and Dad all by myself!”  In thinking about his statement, it occurred to me that he’s going to be going away to college in about two years.  Two years from now my wife will likely be saying to him, “Travis, you’re lucky.  You’re going away to college.  I’m going to be stuck in the house with your father all by myself!”

 

     Since my daughter’s gone away to college, I’ve been a bit unnerved by some of the stories she’s told us.  She’s at Point Park University in downtown Pittsburgh, and she has a boyfriend   at the University of Pittsburgh in Oakland.  Apparently, she rides the bus from Pittsburgh to Oakland all the time.  As parents, don’t we wish we could somehow get inside our kids’ heads to help them make decisions?  You know, “Don’t go to that party!”  “Stay away from that guy!”  “Don’t ride the bus by yourself at night!”  Don’t we wish we could get inside our kids’ heads to help them make decisions?  We might be able to keep them from making a few mistakes. 

 

   God found a way in the passage we read from the gospel according to Matthew.  There we    see Jesus going to the Jordan River to be baptized by John the Baptist.  After John immersed him in the river, and Jesus was walking out of the water, the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove.  We know God the Father as God over and above us.  We know God the Son as God with us and for us.  We know God the Holy Spirit as God in us.  The sacrament of baptism is meant to symbolize three important things.  One, we are admitted into the church universal.  Two, we are symbolically cleansed of sin.  Yet perhaps most of all, baptism also symbolizes our reception of the Holy Spirit.  God has found a way to dwell within us, perhaps to keep us from making so many mistakes.  This was part and parcel to our early vision in this church.  We talked about how we’re raising a generation of young people apart from the church.  Thus, we’re raising a generation of young people absent the sacrament of baptism.  Can we not thus infer that we’re raising a generation of young people who are bereft of the Holy Spirit?  That, my friends, should scare the bejeebers out of all of us.  For without the Holy Spirit, human beings are capable of anything.

 

   The church thought this baptism thing was so important that they made it a sacrament.  A sacrament is an outward and physical act, instituted by Christ, with an inward and spiritual meaning.  The outward and physical act of baptism is the placement of water on the head.  To be instituted by Christ means that Jesus told us to do it.  And the inward and spiritual meaning has to do cleansing from sin, the church universal, and the reception of the Holy Spirit.  The church thought it was so important that they made it a sacrament.  Jesus thought it was so important that it was a part of the last thing he ever said to his disciples.  He said, “Go therefore into all the world, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have told you; and lo, I am with you always to the close of the age.”  Jesus told us to baptize and transform the world.  It seems to me there is a sincere need.

     For example, did you know that there’s a new movement afoot advocated by a group called the National Secular Society?  It’s called “de-baptism.”  What is de-baptism?  De-baptism is where you actually take part in a rite to undo your baptism.  Suppose you were baptized as an infant.  Obviously, you were baptized against your will.  Then as an adult you choose to reject belief in God.  Since you don’t want to be counted in any statistics that might identify you as a Christian, you go through the rite of de-baptism.  I’m not making this up.  Then, just the other day, I was in the Robinson Mall in Pittsburgh.  I saw a young man – he couldn’t have been any more than 22 – with a young woman.  She looked to be about 18.  They were pushing a baby stroller with a baby in it.  The young man was wearing a t-shirt.  I’m going to try to draw it for you.  I apologize for the fact that I’m not much of an artist.  But here was the t-shirt.  On it, it said, “No Religion.”  Then there was a big circle, and inside the circle there was a cross, and over the cross was drawn a line.  I was grossly offended!  I wanted to say something to that young man, but I stopped myself lest I say something I might regret.  But it made me realize how a Muslim might react to an International Burn-a-Quran Day.  If we feel called to evangelize the Muslims – if we feel called to baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and to teach them all that Christ commanded – then maybe making them angry right off the bat is not the way to go.

 

     Where did the church go wrong?  Let me tell you a parable.  Once upon a time there was a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occurred.  There was a little lighthouse there that was really nothing more than a hut.  When a shipwreck would occur, the lighthouse crew would jump into a little boat and go out to rescue the survivors.  Many of those who were rescued were very grateful, and they joined the little lighthouse crew.  Pretty soon, they outgrew their crude little hut.  So they built a much bigger lighthouse and added carpeting and stained glass windows.  Then they bought bigger boats and hired a crew to do the rescuing for them.  It soon became more of a clubhouse than a lighthouse.  Then one day, a great big ship was wrecked     off the coast there.  All the boats went out to rescue the survivors.  But when they brought them back, many of them were dirty, they spoke a different language, and their skin was a different color.  It really made a mess of their lighthouse, so some of the lighthouse crew decided not to do the rescues any more.  Others objected, saying that that was their mission.  Yet they were outvoted and were told that if they still wanted to rescue shipwreck survivors, they could build another lighthouse further down the coast.  So that’s what they did.  Yet after a while, the new lighthouse got big and fancy and didn’t want to rescue people anymore, so they stopped as well.  Then another lighthouse was built and the same thing happened again.  If you go to that shoreline now, you see lots of great big clubhouses.  Shipwrecks still occur, but now most of the people just drown.

 

     Has the same thing happened to the church?  Have we forgotten who and what we’re supposed to be?  Perhaps this would be a good time to reaffirm our baptismal vows.  There is a rather lengthy litany in your bulletins this morning.  In a few moments, we’re going to go through it.  Then you’ll be invited to come forward where you will have to opportunity to be anointed with oil.  Kate and I will make the sign of the cross on your forehead and say the words, “Remember your baptism and be thankful.”  You don’t have to come forward, but I really hope you will.  Let’s not let what happened to that lighthouse happen to us.  Amen. 

 

8-15-2010 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MICK JAGGER

     Forty years ago, I wanted a mini-bike more than anything else in the world.  I made it very clear to my parents that that’s what I wanted as my birthday was fast approaching.  I remember talking about it with my friend Vince Landeck as we were riding bicycles.  I said to him, “I’ve been begging my parents for a mini-bike.  I’ve even been praying to God about it.”  Vince, ten-year-old theologian that he was, said, “You’ve been praying for a mini-bike?  Well then, you’ll get one for sure!”  I arose bright and early on the morning of August 4^th, 1970, expecting to see a mini-bike parked in the driveway.  Instead, I found a note.  It said, “Brian, we love you very much.  We just don’t feel you’re ready for a mini-bike right now.  Love, Mom and Dad.”  I don’t remember what I got for my birthday that year, but it wasn’t a mini-bike.  It was a real trial for my faith at the time.  I had prayed to God for a mini-bike, but somehow, God had come up short.

     Here we come to the contrast between faith and experience.  On the one hand, we’re led to believe that all things are possible with God, but on the other hand, we’re left disappointed when God comes up short.  On the one hand, we’re led to believe that God wants what’s best for us, but on the other hand, we’ve got Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones singing to us, “You can’t always get what you want.”  We have a contrast here between faith and experience.

     The question is, “Does God really want what’s best for us?”  When I was asking for a mini-bike and didn’t get one, I wasn’t so sure.  But listen to this.  Just the other day, I was sitting at the intersection at one of Meadville’s new four-way stops.  There was a car heading north, and I was the second car in line heading west.  As the car in front of me started to turn left, a boy came flying down the sidewalk on one of those motorized scooters.  He shot right out into the street.  Fortunately, the driver turning left saw him in time.  As I think about it, that’s probably exactly what I would have done on a mini-bike.  God’s preventing me from getting a mini-bike probably saved my life.  Perhaps in retrospect, I can indeed say that God truly wants what’s best for us.

     Have you ever prayed to God about a job?  Seven years ago, I was absolutely certain that I was going to a church in Hastings, Nebraska.  A friend of mine named Hal Shafer was a minister in Erie.  He was in this church for a presbytery meeting.  He called me and said, “I was just in your next church.”  I said, “Hal, their minister just left.  They won’t be ready to hire someone for at least a year.”  Well, the committee moved faster than I expected.  In fact, the day I left Salem to interview in Hastings was the day I sent my application here.  So I interviewed in Hastings and I was just sure they were going to offer me the job.  Then at the end of the interview they said, “Well, we promised this other guy that we’d interview him.  But he can’t meet with us for six more weeks.”  I was devastated.  I was just sure I was going to Hastings. 

     In the meantime, I met with a very impressive group of people from the First Presbyterian Church of Meadville.  As an aside, during the interview, I remember saying to them, “I hear it snows a little bit in Meadville.”  The committee members quickly said, “Oh, Edinboro is where it really snows.  We don’t get near the snow they get in Edinboro.”  I said, “No, no, I like the snow.”  They said, “Oh, well then you’ll love it here!”  I accepted the call to Meadville, even though I was certain we were headed to Nebraska.  I think of an old adage that says, “If you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans!” 

     The move was particularly hard on my kids.  Salem was home to them and they really didn’t want to move.  Yet shortly after we left, the school system there collapsed.  A levy failed to pass and the state actually had to come in and take over.  There were no longer any advanced placement classes and sports were offered on a pay-to-play basis.  My kids have gotten twice the education they would have gotten in Salem.  I have to say that God really does have our best interests at heart.

     But does God have our best interests at heart when it comes to human suffering?  Butch and Nancy Brown were a farming couple in my first church.  They had four girls and a nine-year-old boy named Kent.  One day Butch and Nancy were out mending fences.  Butch told Kent to hop in the truck and go back to the barn to get some nails.  So Kent hopped in the truck and threw it into gear.  As he went over a little hill, he didn’t see his mother kneeling there.  He ran right over top of her. 

     She was rushed to the Intensive Care Unit at University Hospital in Iowa City.  We prayed and we prayed and we prayed for Nancy to get better.  I, for one, couldn’t make any sense of   the accident.  It wasn’t fair for Butch to have to raise those kids by himself, it wasn’t fair for those kids to grow up without a mother, and it wasn’t fair that Nancy wouldn’t get to see her kids grow up.  In the end, Nancy died. 

     I heard Chuck Colson address this kind of thing some time later.  He said, “Is it possible that there is an afterlife so great as to render our present human suffering inconsequential?”  Again, “Is it possible that there is an afterlife so great as to render our present human suffering inconsequential?”  Chuck Colson said, “I believe there is.”  And that’s the point of the resurrection.

 

 God does have our best interests at heart.  One day, we shall see our loved ones again.

 

     This is exactly the kind of thing the Apostle Paul is dealing with in the passage we read from the book of Hebrews.  They’re wrestling with this contrast between faith and experience.  Paul reminds them of the faith of Abraham and how God made of him a great nation.  Paul reminds them of the faith of Moses’ mother and how she put him in a basket in the Nile and he was rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter.  Paul reminds them of how the Hebrew people followed Moses out of Egypt and how the Red Sea parted and they walked across on dry land, but when the Egyptians tried to cross it, the waters collapsed on them.  He tells them of God’s faithfulness     to faithful people in the past. 

     Yet these very same people were seeing Christians persecuted unto death.  They were being faithful to God and they were losing their lives.  So Paul reminds them of the resurrection.  He says in essence that there is an afterlife so great as to render our present human suffering inconsequential.  God does have our best interests at heart.  So he urges them to keep the faith.  He tells them to run the race that is set before them.  They are called to remain faithful to God by being obedient to God.

     I suspect the Apostle Paul would say the very same thing to us.  When you encounter a contrast between faith and experience, trust that God does have your best interests at heart.  Perhaps God sees an outcome that we don’t see.  So run the race that is set before you.  Keep the faith by being obedient to God. 

     The problem is that sin gets in our way.  Sin is defined as separation from God.  The way I see it is like this.  Our obedience draws us closer and closer to God.  Sin is simply turning our gaze in the wrong direction.  All it does is distance us from God.  The problem is that we don’t know what sin is any more. 

     Author Timothy Keller puts it this way.  He says that we don’t live in a moral society.  Nor do we live in an immoral society.  We live in what he calls an amoral society.  A moral society has a clear understanding of right and wrong.  To be immoral is to consciously choose to do the wrong thing.  Yet we don’t have a clear understanding of right and wrong any more.  We do what we feel in our hearts we should do.  That’s what constitutes an amoral society.  For example, I’ll bet 90% of the couples I marry are living together before they are married.  We used to call that “living in sin.”  The Bible clearly says that that is wrong, but most folks don’t seem to have a problem with that any more.  That’s what constitutes an a-moral society.  We do what we feel in our hearts is right.  We let our conscience be our guide.  Yet how can we be obedient to God if we don’t know what God wants from us anymore?  We need to recover a sense of the Holy.  We need to learn what it says in the Bible again.      

     God really does have our best interests at heart.  Perhaps at times when we don’t get what we want, God sees something up ahead that he wants us to avoid.  Or, perhaps at times when we fail to get what we want more than anything else in the world, God resolves it through the resurrection.  So run the race that is set before you.  Keep the faith by way of obedience.  For it may be as Mick Jagger says, “You can’t always get what you want.  But if you try sometimes, you just might find…you get what you need.”  Amen.

 

7-25-2010 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

REMEMBER MY CHAINS

 

   I had a very disturbing conversation not long ago; at least it was disturbing to me.  An elderly gentleman told me that he had raised his children in the church – they were there every Sunday morning – but now those kids seldom darkened the doors of the church.  I pointed out how the very same thing had happened in my own family.  My parents took my brother, my sister and I to church every Sunday morning, whether we wanted to go or not.  And out of that upbringing, I became a minister, but my brother and my sister have absolutely nothing to do with the institutional church.

   That elderly gentleman’s daughter was present for this conversation.  Suddenly she spoke up.  She said, “I don’t think you have to go to church to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.”  It took me aback a bit, so I replied, “Well, I guess I’m paid to take the opposite side of that argument.  I think you do have to go to church to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.  I mean, it was Jesus Christ who established the church in the first place!”  Apparently I set the woman off a bit, and we were absolutely not in a place where a theological debate was appropriate, so – as hard as it was for me – I decided to let it go at that.

     The question remains: Does one have to be a part of the church to have a relationship with Jesus Christ?  Is there really such a thing as “spiritual, but not religious?”  A November 2009 issue of The Week magazine featured a story entitled, “Losing our Religion.”  It focused on the rapidly growing numbers of religiously unaffiliated people in the United States and referred to them as the Nones – that’s n-o-n-e-s, not n-u-n-s.  They called them the Nones.  Typically younger than the general population, many Nones believe in God, but they’re really quite skeptical about organized religion. 

     The article quotes recent statistics that suggest that if this trend continues, scads of nonreligious young people will soon replace older religious people, and will account for fully 25% of the U.S. population.  A recent article in U.S.A. Today concluded that young adults born in the 1980s and 1990s – approximately 72 million people – want to make an impact and are socially conscious, but simply cannot relate to traditional institutional structures.  Precious few of these young adults see the church as a place to make a difference in the world.        

    Dr. C. Jeff Woods addresses this phenomenon in a book entitled, Congregational Megatrends.  He believes the church needs to make some significant “moves” if it wants to be relevant in the world today.  For example, the church needs to move from Tribal Education to Immigrant Education.  In other words, we cannot assume that the people who come to our churches today have any background in the Christian faith.  We must speak on a level that everyone can understand.  The church needs to move from Surrogate Mission to Hands-On Mission.  In other words, we need to move from exclusively paying others to do mission work for us to doing some of the mission work ourselves. 

     The church needs to move from Reasonable Spirituality to Mysterious Spirituality.  In other words, we need to help people not just to know about God, we need to help them to know God as well.  The church needs to move from Official Leadership to Gifted Leadership.  Too often the church has put people into leadership positions that do not fit their spiritual gifts.  But since we need elders and deacons and trustees, that’s where we try to put them, whether it fits their “giftedness” or not.

     The church needs to move from Segmented Programming to Holographic Programming.  In other words, we need to quit programming exclusively for one segment of the population – typically white, middle and upper-middle class families.  The world today is a little broader than that.  The church needs to move from Secondary Planning to Primary Planning.  In other words, don’t just throw together a program and say, “Y’all come.”  Make it specific.  Gear it toward parents of teenagers, or single adults, or those who are grieving.

     The church needs to move from Tribal Education to Immigrant Education; from Surrogate Mission to Hands-On Mission; from Reasonable Spirituality to Mysterious Spirituality; from Official Leadership to Gifted Leadership; from Segmented Programming to Holographic Programming; and from Secondary Planning to Primary Planning.  And last but not least, the church needs to move from Mass Evangelism to Relational Evangelism.

   Mass Evangelism focuses on the general population while Relational Evangelism focuses on the individual.  The principle means of church evangelism in the 1950s was simply opening the doors.  All you had to do was open up the doors and people showed up.  That is not the case anymore.  Today we have to build relationships with people and then we have to actually invite them to church.  Of course, as you’ve heard me say before, the average Presbyterian invites someone to worship with them once every 17 years.  But hey, at least we’re better than the Methodists.  The average Methodist invites someone to worship with them once every 24 years.  Ladies and gentlemen, those statistics are no longer acceptable.

   Of course, once we invite them, what will they see?  That’s where Relational Evangelism becomes even more crucial.  A number of years ago, when I was in Salem, Ohio, there was a mega-church that was forming nearby in a place called Greenford, Ohio.  It was called the Greenford Christian Church.  They boasted of 1200 people in worship on Sunday mornings and they built an 8 million dollar worship center.  They were reaching some of the unchurched people in the area, but for the most part, they were stealing sheep from established mainline congregations.  That did not sit well with a lot of us clergy-types.

   Once when I was at the gym, I was working out on the stair-stepper.  Next to me was a young girl – I think she said she was 20 – and we got to talking.  She was raised in the Friends Church, but now she attended the Greenford Christian Church.  I asked her, “What is the appeal?  Is it the contemporary music?  Is it the preaching?  Is it the brand-new worship facilities?  What is it that seems to draw people in droves?”

     The young lady replied, “For me, it was the sincerity of the people who were there.  They really seem to live their faith.  They welcome people who visit there and they really seem to care.”  In other words, she was looking for people who appear to live the life of faith they profess.  And once she found it, she had found a home.

   There you have it.  That’s Relational Evangelism in a nutshell.  A while back I quoted a theologian named Tertullian.  Regarding the growth of the Christian Church in the 3^rd century, he spoke of how outsiders saw the Christian faith.  Tertullian said that the outsiders said, “See how these Christians love one another, while we ourselves are ready to kill one another.”  Again, “See how these Christians love one another, while we ourselves are ready to kill one another.”  Ah, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Perhaps the very same thing is true today.  If the church is to survive – if the church is to be relevant to a new generation – perhaps we, too, need to learn how to love one another.  The question is, how are we to do that?

    Perhaps the Apostle Paul has some advice for us in the passage we read from the book of Colossians.  The book of Colossians is a letter Paul wrote to the church at Colossae.  It was         a church he had not founded himself, but it was a church for which he cared very deeply, just    the same.  It is believed to have been written while Paul was in prison – not in Rome, but in Ephesus.  Keep in mind the fact that Paul was in prison when he wrote this letter.

     Paul had gotten word that the fledgling church in Colossae was in trouble.  They were being led astray by some kind of false teaching.  As Paul put it in verse 8, “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ.”  What on earth does that mean?  Apparently Christians in Colossae were being taught to worship angels who were represented   by certain stars in the sky.  It was somewhat similar to what we might call astrology today, only they took it seriously back then.

     So Paul calls the Colossians back to their roots.  His language is convoluted, to say the least, but the gist of what he says is this: “God made you alive with him when he forgave you of your sin, erasing the record that stands against you.”  Again, “God made you alive with him when he forgave you of your sin, erasing the record that stands against you.”  In other words, when it comes to our relationship with God, the slate now is clean thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.  And when our relationship with God is unblemished, our relationships with others can be unblemished as well.  That, my friends, is the point of the church in a nutshell.  Our relationship with God has been made white as snow, so now our relationships with others can be made white as snow as well.  We call this phenomenon reconciliation.

     Ladies and gentlemen, our sin is forgiven.  Christ died that our sin might be put to death once and for all, and he was raised from the dead that we might have the hope of life everlasting as well.  What have you done?  What sin have you committed?  What burden do you bear?   What guilt or shame do you carry?  Thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, God no longer holds that sin against you.  Now you are free to live your life as a child of God – loved and forgiven for all of the past – no matter what you might have done.

     Karl Menninger was an American psychiatrist who founded the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas.  He once said, “If I could convince the patients in my clinic that their sins are forgiven, 75% of them could walk out of here the very next day.”  Do you see how oppressive the burden of sin can be?  Do you see how vital it is that we come to believe – to believe in our hearts – that we are indeed forgiven?  The trick is, how do we get there?

     Let me tell you a story.  Some years ago, there was a woman in my church whose husband was dying.  He was in the hospital for six weeks before he died, yet neither I nor my associate went to visit him.  Believe it or not, that woman was somewhat upset with us.

     When we found out about it, we were devastated.  My associate went over to her house and said to her, “Don’t you remember the conversation we had in the hospital?  You must have been so distraught that you just don’t remember.”  He lied to her to get himself off the hook.

   I went over to her house to talk to her as well.  I discovered that she had not called the church to tell us that her husband was in the hospital.  When she signed in at the hospital as a Presbyterian, she naturally assumed that the hospital would contact us.  I told her that they no longer do that.  Thus, we had no way of knowing that her husband was even in the hospital.  Then, still, I apologized profusely for the oversight.  That woman forgave me.  I felt terrible for what had happened, but I confessed and received forgiveness.  My confession and her forgiveness restored our relationship.  Let me add, however, that she was none too keen on our associate pastor after that. 

     Sincere confession is what receives forgiveness, not lying to ourselves and others to get ourselves off the hook.  We are sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving God’s displeasure, and without hope except in God’s sovereign mercy.  Yet God acts with justice and mercy to redeem creation in the Person of Jesus Christ.  Therefore I assure you – all of you – we are a forgiven people. 

     This is what allows us to love God and neighbor.  This is what allows us to live the life of faith we profess.  No longer can we look at people as better or worse than us since all of us are sinners who have received the grace of God.  Now we can look one another in the eye and say, “The peace of Christ be with you.”  And that person can reply, “And also with you.” 

     In fact, let’s do just that.  I want everyone who is able to stand.  Remember that you are a sinner forgiven by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.  Now turn to your neighbor and say, “The peace of Christ be with you.”  And I want that person to reply, “And also with you.”  Let’s just do that for a minute or two…

     Now that’s Relational Evangelism.  But the sermon title, as you see in your bulletins, is “Re-member My Chains.”  You’ve got to be thinking, “What does Remember My Chains have to do with Relational Evangelism?  Let me explain.

   When preaching on a passage of Scripture, it is important to view that passage contextually.   In the course of my research this week, I read the entire book of Colossians.  At the end of the 4^th chapter Paul writes, “I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand.  Remember my chains.”  Why does Paul say that?  Is it because he wants to remind people that he’s in prison so they can pray for him?  That’s what most of the commentators say.  But I thought of something a little bit different.

     Paul says, “Remember my chains.”  Paul is in prison for proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Paul has sacrificed his freedom to proclaim Jesus Christ.  And prisons 2000 years ago were much, much worse than they are today.  They didn’t have prison advocates lobbying for better prison conditions, I can assure you of that.  Paul has willingly gone to prison because what he has to say is that important.  In other words, this stuff matters.  Don’t think for a minute that this stuff doesn’t matter.  So does one have to be a part of the church to have a relationship with Jesus Christ?  I think Paul would answer that question by saying, “Remember my chains.”  Amen.         

7-18-2010 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

GINGER OR MARY ANN?

     Does anyone remember an old T.V. show called Gilligan’s Island?  The show only ran for three years – from 1964 until 1967 – and there was a grand total of 98 episodes made.  The show really made its biggest mark on T.V. audiences once it got into syndication.  It was a show about a group of seven people who went on a three-hour tour and ended up stranded on a desert island.  Every single episode, it seemed, focused on their valiant efforts to get off the island, only to be thwarted time and time again by Gilligan’s ineptitude. 

    An urban legend tells us that the idea for the show came from a Sunday morning sermon.  The show’s creator Sherwood Schwartz once heard a minister talking about who you’d like to be stranded on a desert island with.  The minister’s answer was Jesus, of course, but this got Sherwood Schwartz to thinking.  He thought about desert islands and the humorous situations that could arise from different people being stranded on one, and the rest is television history.

     In fact, a question referring to Gilligan’s Island has made its way into popular American culture.  There is a game that asks people to choose which of two options they prefer.  Hot dogs or hamburgers?  Chocolate or vanilla?  Fried eggs or scrambled eggs?  It’s an either/or proposition and most of us can answer the questions rather quickly.  The old Star Trek or the new Star Trek?  McDonalds or Burger King?  Clinton or Reagan?  Ginger…or Mary Ann?

     Obviously, that last question is probably aimed more at men than it is at women.  Someone told me that I need to be nonsexist in my reference to Ginger or Mary Ann.  But somehow, asking the question, “The skipper or Gilligan?” loses some of its luster.  Ginger was the sultry Marilyn Monroe look-alike, while Mary Ann was more like the girl-next-door.  Ginger or Mary Ann: which do you prefer?  In this context, it’s clearly an either/or proposition.

     It’s a game that popped into my head as I thought about the passage we read from the gospel according to Luke.  Jesus went to visit a couple of sisters named Mary and Martha.  They had a brother named Lazarus as well, but he’s not mentioned in this particular passage.  So Jesus and his disciples went to the home of Mary and Martha.  Imagine thirteen dinner guests showing up at your house unannounced.  Martha tried to play the consummate hostess.  She probably rushed around the house picking up whatever was strewn about.  Then she set about getting a huge meal together.  Martha was doing everything she could to provide for her guests.

    What was Mary doing?  Well, apparently Jesus sat down and started to teach.  Mary sat down at his feet and listened to what he was saying.  It didn’t take Martha long to notice that Mary was not helping her.  I can almost picture the scene in my mind: Martha, frantically working in the kitchen, trying to get the table set.  As she walks out into the dining room carrying a stack of plates, she slams each one down on the table and glares at Mary as she does so. 

   Finally, Martha lodged a complaint with Jesus.  She said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all of the work by myself?  Tell her then to help me!”  Jesus likely smiled, looked at Martha and said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things.  There is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part.” 

   This is what got me to thinking about an either/or proposition.  Mary or Martha: which one would you rather be?  Or, perhaps better put, Mary or Martha: which one are you more like?  Martha was busy making preparations for her guests.  Mary was attentive to the primary guest.  Martha had chosen to DO, while Mary had chosen to BE.  Again, Martha had chosen to DO, while Mary had chosen to BE. 

     Jesus himself actually said that Mary had chosen the better part.  But think about it.  Only men think meals magically appear.  Didn’t someone have to get a meal together?  Didn’t someone have to set the table?  Didn’t someone have to straighten up?  Isn’t it perhaps true that both Mary’s role and Martha’s role were necessary? 

   If you think about it, Mary and Martha’s roles are similar to the tracks that the Eastern Church and the Western Church have taken.  In the year 1054 A.D., the church underwent what we call the Great Schism.  The Eastern Church became the Eastern Orthodox Church while the Western Church became the Roman Catholic Church.  Protestants wouldn’t come along for another 500 years.  The Church split primarily over what we call the Filioque.  Speaking of the Holy Trinity, the Eastern Church said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.  The Western Church said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.  Filioque is Latin for “and the Son.”  That’s why the East and the West split in the year 1054 A.D.  We may think of that as splitting theological hairs, but they took their theology much more seriously 1000 years ago than we do today.

     But here’s my point about how Mary and Martha’s roles are similar to the tracks that the Eastern Church and the Western Church have taken.  The Eastern Orthodox Church tends to focus on being.  They emphasize prayer and their churches are filled with icons.  The Roman Catholic Church and Protestant churches in general tend to focus on doing.  That’s why we talk incessantly about mission.  The Eastern Church, like Mary, focuses on being, while the Western Church, like Martha, focuses on doing.  Is one better than the other?  Is this an either/or proposition, or is this perhaps a both/and proposition?

     I believe this is a both/and proposition.  I believe we need to learn how to BE, but I also believe that we are called to DO.  We learn to BE through worship and through prayer, and we DO when we work to make the kingdom of God a reality in our little corner of the world.  We are called to do both and both are vitally important.

     Listen to this.  Last week I did a funeral for a woman named Helen Truran.  In June of 1951, Helen and a friend were driving in a car in Columbus, Ohio.  They came across another car at a stop sign that contained two servicemen stationed at Fort Hayes.  One of those servicemen asked Helen where she and her friend were going.  She said, “On a picnic.”  The serviceman asked, “Can we come along?”  Helen said, “Sure!”

     The serviceman who asked Helen if he and his buddy could come on that picnic was Dick Truran.  They had their picnic in June of 1951.  By September of 1951, Dick and Helen were married.  It was all because Dick asked her, “Can we come along?” and she said, “Yes.”  What if she had said, “No?”  If she had said no, I can think of five children who would never have been born, not to mention countless grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 

     My point is this.  Do you see how important one little decision can ultimately be?  One seemingly harmless or simple decision can alter the entire course of our lives, not to mention the lives of countless others.  It is vitally important that we choose wisely.  So I say we need to learn to BE before we go out and DO.  Again, we need to learn to BE before we go out and DO.  In other words, we need to prayerfully discern who God is and what God wants before we try to go out and try to change the world.  Prayer necessarily precedes action.

   I recently came across a fascinating essay of sorts entitled “Lost Generation.”  It was written by a young man named Jonathan Reed.  It was written in response to a challenge by the American Association of Retired Persons to college students to imagine themselves at the ripe old age of 50.  This essay actually came in second in the contest.  I’d like to see the essay that came in first!  In any case, listen to an essay entitled “Lost Generation.”

I am part of a lost generation and I refuse to believe that I can change the world.  I realize this may be a shock but “Happiness comes from within” is a lie and money will make me happy.  So in 30 years I will tell my children they are not the most important thing in my life.  My employer will know that I have my priorities straight because work is more important than family.

 

I tell you this, once upon a time families stayed together.  But this will not be true in my era.  This is a quick-fix society.  Experts tell me 30 years from now I will be celebrating the 10^th anniversary of my divorce.  I do not concede that I will live in a country of my own making.  In the future environmental destruction will be the norm.  No longer can it be said that my peers and I care about this earth.  It will be evident that my generation is apathetic and lethargic.  It is foolish to presume that there is hope.

     Pretty depressing, wouldn’t you say?  Then the essay says, “And all of this will come true unless we choose to reverse it.”  Then when you reverse the lines of the essay, it reads like this:

There is hope.  It is foolish to presume that my generation is apathetic and lethargic.  It will be evident that my peers and I care about this earth.  No longer can it be said that environmental destruction will be the norm.  In the future, I will live in a country of my own making.  I do not concede that 30 years from now I will be celebrating the 10^th anniversary of my divorce.  Experts tell me this is a quick fix society.  But this will not be true in my era.

 

Families stayed together once upon a time.  I tell you this, family is more important than work.  I have my priorities straight because my employer will know that they are not the most important thing in my life.  So in 30 years, I will tell my children, “Money will make me happy” is a lie and “happiness comes from within.”  I realize this may be a shock but I can change the world.  And I refuse to believe that I am a part of a lost generation.

     That essay is really quite profound.  I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that it will never come true apart from worship and prayer and Bible study.  We first must BE before we attempt to DO.  For only God can provide the solutions to what ails our society.

     We were talking last Wednesday morning at the men’s breakfast at Perkins about what ails our society.  Our nation is fast approaching a debt of 14 trillion dollars.  The national debt increases at a rate of 4.15 billion dollars a day, and each individual citizen’s share of the national debt is $42,905.31.  Small towns all across America are collapsing as their industry gets shipped somewhere else.  And 69% of the Crawford Central School District is on the free or reduced lunch program.  I kept trying to say, “Where is the hope?  Where is the hope?”  Finally someone said, “The hope is going to have to come from the Presbyterian pulpit!” 

     All right, here’s the hope.  Only God has the answer to what ails our society.  Worship God in the hopes that he will not turn his back on us.  Study the Bible to come to understand what it is God wants from us.  And pray that God will somehow intervene.  Then we must do what we believe in our hearts God is leading us to do.

     Now back to the word game.  I read a story about someone who was playing that word game we talked about earlier.  You know, hamburgers or hot dogs?  McDonalds or Burger King?  The question was asked, “The Ten Commandments or the Beatitudes?”  Everyone quickly said, “The Beatitudes, of course!”  But a dedicated Catholic woman named Elizabeth refused to answer the question.  She said, “You can’t have one without the other.” 

     Elizabeth was right.  It’s not an either/or proposition, it’s a both/and proposition.  We must learn to BE and we must learn to DO.  We must turn to God first to find out who he is, who we are, and what he wants from us.  Then we must do what we believe in our hearts God is leading us to do.  So I ask you again: “Ginger or Mary Ann?”  Perhaps the best answer…is both.  Amen. 

                                 

 

6-20-2010 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

NABOTH’S VINEYARD

     David Oriani is now a sophomore at the University of Rhode Island.  About seven years ago    – as a seventh grader in a Rhode Island public school – he began to experience harassment from numerous school bullies.  In fact, it became more than harassment.  Eventually, some of his schoolmates began to brutalize him.

    David Oriani recalls faking illnesses to avoid having to go to school at all.  He was terrified to walk the school hallways.  His grades began to slip.  School administrators tried to intervene, but seemingly to of no avail.  The harassment and the brutalization were endless.

  David’s thoughts began to darken.  He says, and I quote, “I felt, ‘What did I do to deserve this?’  I wanted revenge.  I never sat down and planned anything.  I, personally, couldn’t pick up a gun and kill someone.  It’s not who I am.  But I will tell you, I did want to hurt them.  I wanted them to feel as bad as I felt.”

   David Oriani eventually transferred to another school and – with the help of his parents and a sympathetic principal – he gradually rebuilt his self-esteem.  In an age when bullying has often had fatal consequences, David Oriani’s story is really a success story.  Oriani could stand as a poster boy for a modern movement that seeks to understand resilience among the young.  The question is asked, “What is it that allows some kids to negotiate the path to a brighter tomorrow, while others get lost – or even crash and burn?”  Again, “What is it that allows some kids to negotiate the path to a brighter tomorrow, while others get lost – or even crash and burn?”

   Keep that thought in mind as we turn to the passage I read a moment ago from the first book of Kings.  It may seem for a little while as if I’m off on a hopeless tangent, but that’s part and parcel to a preaching theory I learned from a professor named Frank Caldwell.  Dr. Caldwell  said that when you begin a sermon, no one should know where you’re going.  But by the time you finish a sermon, everyone should know where you’ve been.  Hopefully, by the end of this sermon, everyone will know where we’ve been.  

   The passage I read from the first book of Kings is frequently entitled, “Naboth’s Vineyard.”  Naboth was a simple man who had a beautiful vineyard in a place called Jezreel.  It was Naboth’s bad fortune, however, that his vineyard just happened to be located near the palace of the king.

   The king – King Ahab was his name – wanted Naboth’s vineyard for himself.  He offered to buy it or to exchange it for a nicer vineyard, but Naboth wouldn’t sell.  After all, the vineyard had been in his family for generations, and it was far more to him than just a parcel of land.

     When Naboth wouldn’t budge, basically King Ahab began to pout.  Ahab went home, laid down on his bed, turned his face away from everyone, and refused to eat.  We can almost imagine him stomping his feet and throwing a tantrum as well, can we not?  Perhaps we could say that Ahab was a bit of a spoiled brat.

     Now King Ahab’s wife was a Phoenician princess named Jezebel.  When she found out what her husband’s problem was, she said in essence, “Are you not the king of Israel?  Sit up and eat and be happy.  I’ll get Naboth’s vineyard for you.”

    And that’s exactly what she did.  She wrote letters in Ahab’s name to the leaders of Naboth’s town.  She told them to set a couple of unsavory characters near Naboth at a feast to bring charges against him and have him put to death.  And that’s exactly what the leaders of Naboth’s town did.  When Naboth was put to death, King Ahab went to take possession of Naboth’s vineyard.

     God takes a harsh stance against those who abuse their power to take advantage of the weak.  He sent the prophet Elijah to confront Ahab in the vineyard.  When Elijah showed up, Ahab said to him, “Have you found me, O my enemy?” You see, no one wants to confront the word of God – or a representative of God – when they know that they’ve done wrong.  That’s why he referred to Elijah as his enemy.  And Elijah lived up to his billing.  He promised Ahab that because of the evil he had done, God would bring evil upon him.

     Now there are actually several directions I could go with this story.  We could talk about the abuse of power of the powerful against the weak.  Not long ago I read a story about how a man wanted to purchase some property to build a new baseball stadium in Texas.  The people who owned the property wouldn’t sell.  You see, the property had been in their family for generations.

     So the rich and powerful man spoke to some friends in the local government and had the land condemned.  He was then able to purchase the land, develop it, and build his new baseball stadium.  Then the rich and powerful man left the baseball business and became governor of Texas.  Then he gave up his job as governor of Texas when he got elected President of the United States.  But, that’s not the direction I want to go.

    Another direction we could go is to blame this whole series of events on Jezebel.  Like I said, Jezebel was a Phoenician princess.  When she married King Ahab – which was likely a political alliance – she brought her Phoenician gods with her.  Now this was bad news for the nation of Israel.  They were taught to worship the one true God – the same God we worship today.  But here the king and his wife were worshipping foreign gods as well, and leading the rest of Israel to follow suit.  This we might refer to as the fruits of TOLERANCE.  We allow anyone to think and act and believe as they choose, in spite of the inherent dangers of such actions, but that’s not the direction I want to go either.

     After all, today is Fathers’ Day.  What I want to do today is express the importance of fatherhood, and point out what a poor example of fatherhood Ahab set.  Ahab set a poor example, and I think history bears me out on that.  The Bible itself tends to blame Jezebel for this incident with Naboth and his vineyard.  In fact, the very name “Jezebel” applied to a person has come to mean wanton and treacherous.  Think about it.  How many girls have you ever known named Jezebel?

   But let’s take a closer look at Jezebel.  Jezebel was not an Israelite – she was a Phoenician – and she was not raised with any allegiance toward God.  In fact, we should actually admire her religious convictions, in a way.  She had temples built in honor of her Phoenician gods, she actively pursued their worship, and she did her best to convert others to her way of thinking.   We would admire such religious conviction in a person if they were Christian!  She was far more zealous for her faith than most milquetoast Christians in the church are for their faith today.

     And as far as Naboth goes, Jezebel was acting on behalf of her husband.  She was only trying to give the king what she knew the king wanted.  She was only trying to give her husband what she knew her husband wanted.  Granted, she went to extreme measures, but she was only doing what she thought best.

   Ahab – King Ahab – is the one who should have stepped up and set things right.  Only Ahab, clearly, wasn’t strong enough to do the right thing.  We may want to say that these things happened to Ahab – certainly that’s the way the Bible wants to put it – but Ahab could have prevented it all.  The problem was that Ahab was just too weak.  Apparently, he allowed people     to walk all over him.

   And what kind of father was Ahab?  Well, two of his sons actually became king over Israel as well.  Ahaziah reigned in Israel for two years, and Jehoram was king for twelve.  Yet Scripture tells us that both did evil in the sight of the Lord.  Both led Israel away from God.  Ah, children tend to become what their parents lead them to become, do they not?

    It’s up to a father to set a good example for his children.  Of course, it’s up to a mother set a good example as well, but bear with me here.  It’s Fathers’ Day!  It’s up to a father to set a good example for his children.  For as with King Ahab’s boys, children tend to become what their parents lead them to become.

     If, for example, a father belittles his wife, what do you suppose his children will do to their wives?  If a father is too busy to spend time with his kids, how much time do you suppose his kids will spend with their own kids?  If a father sees worship as extraneous to his real way of life, how do you suppose his children will see the church when they grow up?  I could go on and on I suppose.  Instead, I want you to listen to the words of one of my favorite poems.  It’s entitled, “The Little Chap Who Follows Me.”  Listen closely to the words.

A careful man I ought to be;

A little fellow follows me.

I do not dare to go astray

For fear he’ll go the self-same way.

            I must not madly step aside,

            Where pleasure’s paths are smooth and wide,

            And join in wine’s red revelry…

            A little fellow follows me.

I cannot once escape his eyes;

Whate’er he sees me do he tries.

Like me, he says, he’s going to be;

The little chap who follows me.

            He thinks that I am good and fine,

            Believes in every word of mine;

            The base in me he must not see,

            The little chap who follows me.

I must remember as I go

Through summer’s sun and winter’s snow,

I’m building for the years to be,

A little chap who follows me.

     Now back to David Oriani.  Bullied as a 7^th grader, he managed to survive without incident.  What is it – what is it – that allows some kids to negotiate the path to a brighter tomorrow, while others get lost – or even crash and burn?

   The late Julius Segal – a pioneering psychologist in resiliency research – said it’s this: “The kids who survive are the kids who are able to locate a charismatic adult; a person with whom they can identify, and from whom they can gather strength.”  Again, the kids who survive are the kids who are able to locate a charismatic adult; a person with whom they can identify, and from whom they can gather strength.  Sometimes it’s a teacher, sometimes it’s a mother, and sometimes it’s a father.

   Thus, on this particular Fathers’ Day, I challenge the fathers to truly be fathers.  To be a father is to do more than just provide for your family.  To be a father is to set a good example for your kids.  They will become what they see in you.  But more than that, come home early from work once in a while.  Turn off the television.  Open up a Bible – read it to your kids – and talk about what it means.  Don’t just try to shape them into athletes.  Don’t just try to turn them into scholars.  Try to help them become moral, Christian human beings as well.  Because, truth be told, that may be exactly what our society needs…more than anything else in the world.  Amen.

 

6-13-2010 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THEOLOGICAL AMNESIA

   Katherine Dill – no relation to our own Kevin Dill – was a woman in my first church who was well into her eighties by the time I knew her.  Katherine Dill was one of the greatest teachers I ever had.  Some of you may have heard me say, “The most spiritual people I have ever known tend to be women in their eighties.”  Katherine Dill is one of the reasons why.

   Katherine had a husband named Jack who was in poor health so I went to see the two of them often.  It seemed like every time I went to see them, Jack was laying on the couch taking a nap.  When I came in the door, Jack would sit up on the couch, Katherine would sit in a chair on the side of the room, and I would sit directly across from Jack.  Jack would tell these old stories that Katherine had probably heard a hundred times before, but she was on the edge of her seat just the same.  When Jack would falter and fail to finish the story he was telling, Katherine would finish the story for him.  Like I said, she’d probably heard those stories a hundred times before, but still, she was on the edge of her seat.  And Jack never seemed to mind when Katherine finished   a story for him either.  It was almost as if the two of them had become one person.

     It was from Jack and Katherine Dill that I learned what marriage is really meant to be.   Jack and Katherine had been married for 63 years and in the course of those 63 years the two had indeed become one.  I learned that when the Bible says that the two shall become one in marriage, that doesn’t happen overnight.  It happens after many years of love, and hard work, and a word that isn’t spoken very much anymore.  That other word is sacrifice.      The two become one in marriage after many years of love and hard work and sacrifice.

     Katherine said to me on numerous occasions, “I just want you to know that I’m praying for you.”  Think about how that must have felt to me.  Imagine someone you respect and admire saying to you, “I just want you to know that I’m praying for you.”  It gave me a sense of peace and contentment, and I’m sure it contributed in large measure to any success I might have had in that church.  It happened because Katherine was praying for me.

   Of course, I’d had people say that they were praying for me before.  It used to happen a lot in seminary.  Whenever you’d get into a theological disagreement with someone in seminary and they’d be totally frustrated with you, they’d say, “I’ll pray for you!”  What they were really saying is that they’d pray for you to get God to make you agree with their way of thinking.  In that situation I wanted to respond, “No!  Don’t pray for me!  I don’t want God to make me think like you!”  Yet when Katherine Dill said to me, “I just want you to know that I’m praying for you,” it was something else entirely.

   After Jack died, I went to see Katherine as often as I could.  Occasionally the subject of eternal life would come up.  When Katherine would wonder if she was worthy of eternal life, I’d say to her, “Katherine, what are you talking about?  If anyone’s going to get into heaven, it’s you.”  To which Katherine would reply, “Oh, I don’t know.  I’m just such a sinner!”

     That was the final lesson Katherine taught me.  She taught me that the most deeply spiritual people in the world have the most pervasive sense of their own depravity.  In other words, the people who seem to us to be the closest to God are the ones who are most keenly aware of how far away from him they really are. 

     John Calvin once wrote in his epic theological treatise, Institutes of the Christian Religion, “Without knowledge of self, there is no knowledge of God.”  Thus, knowledge of God begins with knowledge of self, and knowledge of self begins with the recognition of one’s own sinfulness; with the recognition of one’s dire need of the grace of God in Christ.  In other words, we have to see ourselves for who and what we really are before we can even begin to comprehend God, let alone draw near to him.

     Truth be told, that was Simon the Pharisee’s problem in the passage we read from the gospel according to Luke.  He failed to see his own sinfulness.  He was completely unaware of his own deep need for the grace of God in Christ.  He was quick to point a finger at the sins of those around him, but he failed to see his own pressing need.

     Our passage begins by saying, “One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him.”  Now the Pharisees were a particular sect of the Jewish faith at the time of Jesus.  They were deeply devoted to the Law of Moses.  The word “Pharisee” stems from a Hebrew word meaning, “one who is separate.”  That in itself should give you a clue as to what the Pharisees thought of themselves.  The Pharisees enjoyed great prestige and would be the first ones to tell you how exclusive they really were.

   Now as you know, Jesus frequently butted heads with the Pharisees.  Thus, one might naturally wonder who this Pharisee was who extended a dinner invitation to Jesus, and why he extended it.  Unfortunately, we have no clue as to who this Pharisee was other than the fact that his name was Simon.  And as to why he extended a dinner invitation to Jesus, we can only speculate.

      Some scholars suggest that Simon invited Jesus to dinner because he was an admirer of the young prophet and was sympathetic to his cause.  After all, not all of the Pharisees were enemies of Jesus.  Some even came to him for advice.  Yet this scenario is unlikely because Simon failed to perform some basic courtesies to Jesus that we’ll talk about momentarily.  Others suggest that Simon invited Jesus to dinner with the intention of enticing him into some word or action that might be used against him in a Jewish court of law.  This scenario, too, is unlikely because, as we see in verse 40, Simon actually calls Jesus “Teacher,” or “Rabbi.”  He must have had at least some respect for Jesus.

     Other scholars suggest that Simon was just a collector of celebrities.  You know, maybe Simon was a “name dropper.”  He liked having important people at his house.  Actually, this      is a very plausible reason for Simon’s invitation.  Perhaps Simon was a man who was only   trying to patronize Jesus.  It helps to explain the omission of the customary courtesies of the    day that Simon failed to extend to Jesus. 

  What were those customary courtesies of the day?  Two thousand years ago, when an important guest entered a house, there were three things that were always done.  First, the host would place his hand on the shoulder of the guest and kiss him on the cheek.  It was what they called “the kiss of peace.”  Second, most roads in those days were only dust tracks, and shoes in those days were leather soles held in place by straps.  Cool water was supposed to be poured on the guest’s feet to cleanse and comfort them.  And finally, either a pinch of sweet-smelling incense was burned, or a drop of rose oil was placed on the head of the guest.  These were the things that good manners dictated, yet in this case, not one of them was done. 

    As our story progresses, we see that a woman of the city came to Jesus.  Our passage indicates that this woman was a sinner, which is a nice way of saying that she was likely a prostitute.  This woman began to wash Jesus’ feet with her tears and to anoint them with oil.  There are two questions that come to mind right here.  Number one, how did the woman get into this invitation-only dinner, and number two, how did she gain access to Jesus feet when he was sitting at the table?

     The home of a wealthy Pharisee like Simon would have had a large open courtyard surrounded by a wall.  Often these courtyards had gardens and fountains, and in warm weather, meals were eaten there.  It was the custom that when a Rabbi was at a meal in such a house, all kinds of people came in and they were quite free to do so.  They came to listen to the wisdom that fell from his lips.  That explains how the woman got into the invitation-only party.

     How did she gain access to Jesus’ feet when he was sitting at the table?  In those days, people didn’t actually sit at tables like we do today.  They reclined on their sides beside the table.  They planted their left arms on a couch and folded their legs behind them.  It would have been a difficult time to be left-handed, don’t you think?  In any case, Jesus’ feet would have been sticking out behind him.  That’s how the woman gained access to Jesus’ feet.

     Clearly this woman was repentant of her behavior.  She must have wept bitterly – so much    so that she shed enough tears to wash Jesus’ feet with her hair.  Around her neck she wore, like all Jewish women at the time, a little vial of concentrated perfume.  They were called alabasters and they were very expensive.  She poured this ointment on Jesus’ feet, for it was all she had to offer.

     By now, I suspect, this woman was creating quite a scene.  Simon thought to himself, “If this man were really a prophet, he would know what kind of a woman she is.”  Jesus, fully aware of what lay in Simon’s heart, posed a question to him.  “Simon,” he said, “a certain creditor had two debtors: one who owed $50,000.00 and one who owed $5,000.00.  When they could not pay, he forgave them both.  Which of the two will love him more?”  Simon wisely replied, “The one, I suppose, to whom he forgave more.”  Jesus said to Simon, “You have judged rightly.”

     Then turning toward the woman, Jesus said to Simon, “Do you see this woman?” Likely keeping his gaze upon her, he added: “I entered your house and you gave me no water for        my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.  You gave me      no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet.  You did not anoint       my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.  Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much.  But he who is forgiven little, loves little.”

     Simon’s heart must have dropped to his feet at that.  Jesus deftly pointed out the contrast between the two of them.  Simon was conscious of no need for forgiveness and therefore felt    no love in his heart.  Simon’s impression of himself was that he was a good man in the sight      of God.  The woman was conscious of nothing but a deep-seated need for forgiveness.  Since she was so overwhelmed with love for him who could give it, she found her forgiveness.

      Perhaps nothing shuts a person off from God any more than self-sufficiency.  The ultimate irony is that the more Godly a person is, the more conscious they are of their own depravity; the more aware they are of their own sinfulness.  My friend Katherine Dill saw herself as a sinner.  When the Apostle Paul spoke of sinners, he referred to himself as the foremost of sinners.  St. Francis of Assisi once said, “There is nowhere a more wretched and more miserable sinner than I.”  And as John Calvin said, “Without knowledge of self, there is no knowledge of God.”  The denial of who and what we really are does nothing but expand the chasm that exists between us and God.  It can render us loveless and it can leave us unforgiven.  Such are the fruits of the self-sufficient life.

     It seems as though Simon the Pharisee had a bad case of theological amnesia.  Sometimes   we get a bad case of theological amnesia as well.  What is theological amnesia?  Theological amnesia has to do with forgetting what it really means to be a Christian.  Christians are sinners   in desperate need of the grace of God in Christ.  Theological amnesia stems from a lack of familiarity with Scripture.  We need to learn to open to our Bibles again.  We need to read    them and recognize ourselves in its pages.  For apart from Scripture, we have the capacity to rationalize our way around anything.  People can literally justify their behavior in everything from little white lies to adultery. 

     Ladies and gentlemen, we need to learn to recognize ourselves for who and for what we are – not in accordance with the world’s standards – but in the eyes of God.  We may not like what we see at first, but the grace of God perpetually gives us the chance to begin anew.  May we learn to see ourselves for who and for what we really are.  For that, my friends, is where forgiveness can be found, and our journey toward God begins.  Amen. 

 

6-6-2010 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

SACRED COMMUNITY

   Last Friday night I saw an intriguing documentary entitled, “The Smartest Men in the Room.”  It was all about the rise and fall of Enron.  Now I’m not going to go into all of the gory details, but I was absolutely appalled at the things Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and friends did.  At one point one of them actually said, “The Lord helps those who help themselves.”  Of course, you know that phrase is not in the Bible, don’t you?  In any case, that got me to thinking theologically.  I thought, “Does God exist to serve us, or do we exist to serve God?”  Again, does God exist to serve us, or do we exist to serve God?  Keep that thought in mind as we move forward.     

    Have you seen the young men dressed in white shirts and ties going door-to-door in our community of late?  They represent what is now known as The Church of Jesus Christ of     Latter Day Saints, perhaps better known to us as the Mormon Church.  Their mission, in a nutshell, is to convert anyone they can to the Mormon faith.

     Now typically, they do their best to avoid going to the homes of the ministers in town.  Yet recently, two of these young men actually did come to my house.  Unfortunately, I was not home at the time, so my wife answered the door.  As they tried to strike up a conversation, she quickly told them that her husband was the minister at the First Presbyterian Church.  They duly noted her statement, then tried to give her some of their literature just the same.  My wife politely refused, then told them that Presbyterians are Christians too and that she was really quite happy with her faith.  As the young men started to leave, one of them suddenly stopped and asked,   “Do you know any Catholics?” 

     I’m not exactly sure what they meant by that statement, but I have a pretty good idea.  In my younger days, I was actually quite critical of Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses going door-to-door trying to recruit people to their way of thinking – what we might call proselytizing.  Then I studied a passage from the ninth chapter of Luke where the disciples caught someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name.  They tried to stop him because he was not one of them.  Jesus said to them, “Do not stop him; for he who is not against us is for us.”  Thus, unless we can prove that Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses are actually against us, we have to assume that they are for us.  That proved to be a bit of an eye-opener for me.  I am no longer as hard on them as I once was.

   Say what you will about their process, but you’ve got to admire their dedication.  I mean, how many of us would be willing to go door-to-door in an effort to expand the Presbyterian Church?  They are committed to their cause.  And if you were to ask them, “Does God exist to serve us,   or do we exist to serve God?” their answer might be better than the typical mainline Christian.

   Does God exist to serve us, or do we exist to serve God?  Perhaps we will find an answer to that question in the passage we read from the gospel according to Luke.  Jesus and his disciples had gone to a town called Nain.  There they met a procession that was carrying a dead man out of town.  He was the only son of a widow, and she was devastated, as you might expect.  After all, no parent wants to outlive their children.  When Jesus saw the woman, he had compassion for her.  Then he stopped the procession and raised the young man from the dead. 

     At first glance, it might appear as if this woman had been served by God, not to mention her son.  Thus, when we ask the question after reading this passage, “Does God exist to serve us, or do we exist to serve God?” we might be inclined to answer, “God exists to serve us.”  But when   we look at this passage contextually, we see that it’s really the other way around.  You see, this event occurred very early in Jesus’ public ministry.  He had recently called twelve disciples to follow him.  He had just preached what Luke calls “The Sermon on the Plain.”  And now he has raised a young man from the dead.  As our passage puts it, after this event occurred, “Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, ‘A great prophet has risen among us,’ and ‘God has looked favorably upon his people!’”  The point of this passage is God’s glorification.  God does not exist to serve us, rather, we exist to serve God.  There may be some clear benefits to serving God, as we see in this passage, but first and foremost, we exist to serve God.

     I am not at all convinced that our culture sees things that way.  Our culture is more inclined to look at life the way Winnie the Pooh looks at life.  Author Rodney Clapp points that out in a book entitled, Border Crossings.  One day Winnie the Pooh was sitting on a log when he heard   a buzzing noise.  He thought to himself, “If there’s a buzzing noise, somebody’s making a buzzing noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing noise that I know of is because you’re a bee.  And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey.  And the only reason for making honey is so I can eat it!”  Of this, Rodney Clapp writes:

Now, even though this philosopher carries the strange title of Winnie the Pooh, and    even though his work is mostly appreciated (only) by children, this bit of reflection deserves our serious attention.  After all, it resembles the way the American Church is more and more thinking about God and discipleship. 

 

This incident shows Pooh to be a pragmatic individualist.  He cannot imagine bees possessing an existence and purpose apart from his own use and interest.  Winnie the Pooh is the quintessential consumer, entirely practical and entirely self-centered.  As Pooh himself puts it, “The only reason for being a bee is to make honey, and the only reason for making honey is so I can eat it.”

 

Thus reasoning, Winnie the Pooh has a range of other possibilities blocked from his vision.  He cannot see, for instance, the wider ecological purpose of bees: how they weave into a fabric of flora and fauna not only by providing honey, but also by such crafts as pollinating flowers.  Another thing Pooh cannot see is a theological purpose    for bees: that in the wonder of their existence, they speak and spell the glory of a Creator God.

    I ask you again, “Does God exist to serve us, or do we exist to serve God?”  Winnie the Pooh clearly sees God existing to serve us.  And perhaps more often than we’d care to admit, we see God in the very same way.  We turn to God urgently and often when we want something from him.  We turn to God seldom to thank him for his provision.  As Lyle Schaller, the guru on church growth and leadership in the 1990s once said, “It used to be that people joined the church and said: How can I help this church meet its needs?  Today people are more likely to join the church and say: How can this church help meet my needs?”  The world has made us into consumers.  The mantra, “Have it your way,” has come to be the way we expect our hamburgers to    be prepared at Burger King, as well as the way we expect all other businesses and institutions    to treat us…including the church.  The world has made us into consumers, and its effects are nothing short of devastating. 

   Along that line of thinking, I recently came across an interesting article entitled, “Visions of the Sacred Community.”  It was actually written by four Jewish men: Isa Aron, Steven Cohen, Lawrence Hoffman, and Ari Kelman.  While the bulk of their research was done on synagogues, their findings seem to be quite applicable to the church as well.  They write:

Congregational leaders who embark upon change efforts develop contrasting images of the qualities they seek in the congregation and of the characteristics they hope to shed, transcend, or avoid.  They aspire to become what we call visionary congregations: those that most effectively develop, nurture and apply powerful, widely-shared and widely understood visions of the sacred community.  In contrast, they distinguish their communities from what we call functional congregations, those that may excel at performing discrete functions that satisfy their consumer-members, but tend to fall short of genuinely achieving an integrated sense of sacred community.

   The goal here is sacred community.  Community is one of the things our Church Revitalization Task Force has tried to emphasize in recent weeks.  Sacred community is found in what they call visionary congregations, but seems to be lacking in what they call functional congregations.  Thus, obviously, we want to be a visionary congregation.  Yet in order to do so there are certain pratfalls that need to be avoided, and there are certain characteristics that need to be developed. 

     Functional congregations – those that fall short of sacred community – tend to have the following six characteristics in common.  The first characteristic is consumerism.  In other words, we pay a certain amount to the church when we make a pledge, and we expect a certain level of service in return.  That’s what we call “consumerism.”  The second characteristic is segmentation.  In other words, programs tend to stand on their own with very little integration into the life of the church.  It’s a lot like the silos you might see on a farm.  There is no overarching sense of connection or purpose.     

     The third characteristic is passivity.  In other words, the ministry of the church is done   almost exclusively by paid professionals.  Worshippers sit passively in their pews, parents     drop off their kids for religious education, and church boards deal with minutia.  The fourth characteristic is meaninglessness.  People feel like they’re just going through the motions at church without a genuine sense that they’re making a difference. 

     The fifth characteristic is resistance to change.  You know the seven last words of the church, don’t you?  They are: We’ve never done it that way before!  The church that says that is resistant to change.  And last but not least, the sixth characteristic of a functional church is nonreflective leadership.  Leaders of the church are more concerned with programs and institutional arrangements than they are with purpose or with vision.    

   There you have it, the six characteristics of a functional congregation.  A functional congregation will often be lacking in sacred community.  The goal is to become a visionary congregation.  A visionary congregation is much more likely to have sacred community.  Visionary congregations, too, seem to have six characteristics in common. 

     The first characteristic is sacred purpose.  A pervasive and shared vision infuses all aspects  of the church.  The second characteristic is a holistic ethos.  The parts are related to each other such that the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  Scripture, service and acts    of loving kindness are intertwined throughout the church’s life.    

   The third characteristic is a participatory culture.  People do more than sit in pews on Sunday mornings and avoid church commitments all week long.  They are actively involved in the work of creating sacred community.  The fourth characteristic is meaningful engagement.  Meaningful engagement is achieved through repeated inspirational experiences that infuse people’s lives with meaning.  That comes through worship and personal involvement in the life of the church.

    The fifth characteristic is an innovative disposition.  We have to be willing to try new things, and we have to accept the fact that some of the things we try will fail.  People who sit back and say, “I told you so,” help no one.  The sixth and final characteristic of a visionary congregation  is reflective leadership.  This requires a commitment to the overarching purpose of the church, attention to relationships, the mastery of both the big picture and the details, and a sincere and prayerful approach to change. 

   If the goal of our church is truly sacred community, then we need to strive to become a visionary congregation.  Ladies and gentlemen, we are currently taking all the right steps.  These are exactly the kinds of things the Church Revitalization Task Force has been considering, and these are exactly the kinds of things we’ve been discussing at our congregational luncheons.  I suspect you’re going to be hearing more about these kinds of things in the days and weeks that lie ahead.

     For now, however, let’s return to our initial question: “Does God exist to serve us, or do we exist to serve God?”  If we believe God exists to serve us, then we have bought completely into the consumer culture around us.  Yet if, instead, we believe that we exist to serve God, there is   still a flicker of hope for our future.  For a people that believes it exists to serve God might just be on the way to building sacred community.  Amen.