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

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

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

ODE TO JOY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 apart from me, you can do nothing.”

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

5-3-09 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

ONE FLOCK, ONE SHEPHERD

     Rick Ezell is an author and a Baptist minister.  He’s also the publisher of a devotional guide called the One Minute Uplift newsletter.  In a recent article, he wrote:

Faithfulness is not just a religious duty that we employ on Sundays or when we are supposed to be Christian.  When we tire of our roles and responsibilities, it helps to remember that God has planted us in a certain place and told us to be a dependable and reliable accountant, or teacher, or parent, or engineer.  Christ expects us to be faithful where he puts us.

 

In the 11^th century, King Henry III of Bavaria grew tired of royal court life and all the pressures of being a king.  He made application to Prior Richard – that’s Prior Richard, not Richard Prior, by the way – he made application to Prior Richard at a local monastery, asking to be accepted as a monk and to spend the rest of his life in the monastery.

 

“Your Majesty,” said Prior Richard, “do you understand that the pledge here is one of obedience?  That will be hard for you because you have been a king.”

 

“I understand,” the king replied.  “The rest of my life, I will be obedient to you, as Christ leads you.”

 

“Then I will tell you what to do,” said Prior Richard.  “Go back to your throne and serve faithfully in the place where God has put you.”

     In other words, “Bloom where you’re planted.”  God has called each of us to be a part of the body of Christ we call the church.  More specifically, God has called most of us here to be a part of the First Presbyterian Church of Meadville.  The question is, what does that really mean to us?  What does it mean to be a part of the church?

     In the passage we read from the gospel according to John, Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd.”  He was speaking to the Pharisees.  Later he added, “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice.  So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.”

     The “other sheep” to whom Jesus referred were the Gentiles.  Jesus came, first of all, to the children of Israel.  But then he broadened his vision to include those outside the nation of Israel.  Because of Jesus Christ, we now count ourselves as numbered among the chosen people of God.  Because of Jesus Christ, we are now a part of that one flock that has one shepherd – what we call the Church.

     So what does that say about denominationalism?  If there’s really supposed to be one flock following one shepherd, have we confounded God’s plan by dividing ourselves into Presbyterians and Catholics and Lutherans and Methodists?  Is denominationalism a clouding of Christ’s vision?

     I think denominationalism IS a clouding of Christ’s vision.  It’s a clouding of Christ’s vision, that is, when one particular church claims to have sole access to God – when one particular church claims to have found its way to the true apostolic church of the first century.  Yet denominationalism can be a fulfillment of Christ’s vision, too.  Denominationalism is a fulfillment of Christ’s vision when it recognizes that our God is a God of diversity, and that what brings one person closer to God may not work for another.  As Jesus said, there will be one flock with one shepherd, but there are other folds.  Pardon my use of a military analogy, but, just as one nation’s army can have many separate battalions, it’s still the same army if they obey the same supreme commander. 

     Jesus Christ is that supreme commander.  Jesus Christ is the good shepherd.  If we heed his voice, then we are a part of that one flock following one shepherd, regardless of our denominational loyalty.  Thus, the real question is, whose voice do we really heed?

     Are all of you familiar with the name Paul Harvey?  Paul Harvey died on the 28^th of February at the age of 90.  A number of years ago, Paul Harvey presented an interesting interpretation of whose voice we tend to heed.  It was entitled, “If I Were the Devil,” and it goes like this:

If I were the Prince of Darkness, I’d want to engulf the whole world in darkness.  And I’d have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I wouldn’t be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree – THEE!

 

So I’d set about however necessary to take over the United States.  I’d subvert the churches first.  I’d begin with a campaign of whispers.  With the wisdom of a serpent I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve, “Do as you please!”

 

To the young I would whisper that the Bible is a myth.  I would convince them that humanity created God, instead of the other way around.  I would confide that what’s bad is good and what’s good is…SQUARE.  And the old I would teach to pray, after me, “Our Father, who art in Washington…”

 

And then I’d get organized.  I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull and uninteresting.  I’d threaten T.V. with dirtier movies, and vice-versa.  I’d peddle narcotics to whomever I could, especially children.

 

If I were the devil I’d soon have families at war with themselves, churches at war with themselves, and nations at war with themselves…until each in turn was consumed.  And with promises of higher ratings I’d have mesmerizing media fanning the flames.

 

If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellects, but neglect to discipline emotions – just let them run wild – until before you knew it, you’d have drug-sniffing dogs and metal detectors at every schoolhouse door.

 

Within a decade, I’d have prisons overflowing.  I’d have judges promoting pornography.  Soon I could evict God from the courthouse, then from the schoolhouse, and then from the houses of Congress.  And in his own churches I would substitute psychology for theology and deify science.  I would lure priests and pastors into misusing boys and girls and church money.  If I were the devil, I’d make the symbol of Easter an egg, and the symbol of Christmas a bottle.

 

If I were the devil I’d take from those who have and give to those who want it until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious.  And what’ll you bet, I couldn’t get whole states to promote gambling as the way to get rich.  I would caution against extremes – in hard work, in patriotism, in moral conduct.  I would convince the young that marriage is old-fashioned – that “swinging” is more fun – that what you see on T.V. is the way to be.  And then I could undress you in public, and I could lure you into bed with diseases for which there are no cures.  In other words, if I were the devil, I’d just keep right on doing what he’s doing.  GOOD DAY!

     Now I’m not asking you to buy into everything Paul Harvey said in his essay.  Just think about it.  Whose voice do we tend to heed?

     It is not easy to heed – or even hear – the voice of the Good Shepherd.  One of the few places we can still find his voice any more is in the worship service, but even that can get pushed to the back burner as our lives become more and more involved in other things.  We gather to worship because of the love God has shown to us.  Again, we gather to worship because of the love God has shown to us.  We gather not because God somehow needs our flattering words, but because we are in desperate need of God.

     I think of a child as the day draws to a close.  He’s tired, and ready for bed, but hasn’t yet given up for the night.  He curls up on the couch with his head in his mother’s lap.  No words are spoken, but as he lays there, his mother gently strokes his tousled hair.  The boy feels a deep sense of peace, resting in the haven of his mother’s love.  Pretty soon, he’s asleep – having drifted there amid utter serenity.

     That’s how we need God.  God calms our fears, God eases our burdens, God sends us off to sleep by the peace of his touch.  Yet it won’t always be God who touches us.  Sometimes he sends others to do his bidding.

     Once upon a time, there was a church that appeared to be really thriving.  They had about 500 people in worship on Sunday morning, they had numerous outreach ministries in their own community, and lots of people were coming to Christ and to church through their ministry.  The problem was that the church was not growing in numbers.  People were leaving just as quickly as they were coming in.  The church began to do some research on the people who were leaving, and they found that the vast majority who left were not attending another church.  They just stopped going to church altogether.  Because of their inability to keep the people who were joining the church, they were actually de-evangelizing the neighborhood.  Those who were leaving were almost impossible to bring back into any community of faith.

     The senior minister realized that something had to be done, so he called up the last 12 people to join the church and invited them to dinner.  After dinner, he sat them down and asked if they wanted to know the future.  Of course, they all said, “Yes!”  So he said to them, “Statistically speaking, in the next two or three years, two of your marriages will have broken up, and the shame will cause you to leave the church.  Three of you will have a conflict with someone else in the church, and you will leave the church.  One will have a tragedy, lose faith, and leave.  Two will have a moral failing and leave, and two will just lose interest and drift away.  In two or three years, out of this group of twelve, only two of you will be going to church, and only one of you at this church.”

     There was dead silence in the room.  All of these wide-eyed Christians wanted to say, as Jesus’ disciples said at the Last Supper, “Surely not I, Lord!”  Then one of them spoke up and said, “What can we do to change the statistics?”  The minister replied, “You can get together as a group and decide that you’re not going to let anyone go without a fight.”

     That is exactly what they did.  These “strangers” formed a small group and supported one another through the tragedies, through the conflicts, and through the failings.  In four years, only one had left the church.  The church went from losing 11 out of every 12 members to losing only one.  And it was all because they were there for one another.  If we can’t be there for one another in the church, then what’s the point?

     So let’s go back to our original question.  We’ve been called to be a part of the body of Christ we call the church.  What does that really mean to us?

     It means that we’re a part of one flock with one shepherd.  We hear his voice and we heed it.  It means that God calms our fears, eases our burdens, and sends us off to sleep by the peace of his touch.  But it also means we’ve got people around us who sincerely care for us and who would do anything in their power to help us.  And truth be told, that just might be the best part of all.  Amen.

 

 

4-26-09 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THE GOD OF SECOND CHANCES

Have you ever done something you really regretted? Have you ever committed a sin that ate away at your conscience? Sin has a way of doing that, you know. That’s the trouble with knowing right from wrong. If we don’t know any better, it really doesn’t bother us. But if we do know better, it can tear us up inside.
I’m reminded of a letter received by the Internal Revenue Service a number of years ago. The letter came from a guilt-ridden taxpayer. The letter read:
To Whom It May Concern:
Enclosed you will find a check for $1500.00. I cheated on my income tax return last year and have not been able to sleep ever since.
Signed, A Taxpayer.
P.S. If I still have trouble sleeping, I will send you the rest!
Sin has a way of doing that, does it not? That’s the trouble with knowing right from wrong. If we don’t know any better, it really doesn’t bother us. But if we do know better, it can tear us up inside.
I think of the disciples of whom we read in the gospel according to Luke. Jesus had been crucified just three days before. And here they were, huddled together in the Upper Room – that same Upper Room in which Jesus had shared his last supper with them. They were huddled together in fear of what might become of them. Yet perhaps they were also huddled together in shame for what they had done.
They had loved this man called Jesus with a love they had never known before. They watched as he healed the sick, gave sight to the blind and mended the lame. They listened as he spoke of a kingdom that had no end. They had come to believe that Jesus was God’s Anointed – the Messiah they had long awaited. Then what had they done when Jesus was arrested? They had abandoned him. They had turned tail and run like scared dogs. Surely they were feeling a great deal of shame over what they had done.
Some women of their company had gone to the tomb that morning and had come back saying that Jesus was raised from the dead, but it seemed to them an idle tale. Then two others named Simon and Cleopas had encountered him on the road to Emmaus. They came back and said Jesus was alive as well. But the disciples were having a hard time believing it, perhaps due in part to the great shame they felt for what they had done. They had abandoned their Lord in his hour of greatest need.
Then while these disciples huddled together in fear and shame, Jesus himself stood among them. He said to them, “Peace be with you.” Yet the disciples were terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost. So Jesus proved to them that he was not a ghost; that he was alive and had been raised from the dead. What Jesus’ appearance must have signified first and foremost to them was that they were forgiven. What thus remained was for them to forgive themselves. Let me repeat that. What Jesus’ appearance must have signified first and foremost to them was that they were forgiven. What thus remained was for these disciples to forgive themselves.
Are all of you familiar with Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel, Les Miserables? It’s the story of an escaped galley slave who rose to become a successful manufacturer in 19th century France. But I think it’s also a story of one man’s ability to forgive himself, and another man’s inability to forgive himself.
Jean Valjean was born in 1769. Both of his parents died when he was a child and he was raised by his older sister. His sister married and had seven children of her own, but then her husband died as well. When resources become scarce, Jean Valjean steals a loaf of bread from a local baker. He is caught and sent to prison for five years. He tries to escape a number of times and every time he does, his sentence is extended. He ends up serving 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his hungry family.
Later Jean Valjean, now an escaped galley slave, is making his way through the city seeking food. None can be found; he is turned away from door after door. Finally, someone suggests that he try the bishop’s house. After a rap at the door he is warmly received, given food, and bedded down for the night. Then, shortly before dawn, Valjean – who in every way looks the part of a runaway – arises, packs the bishop’s silver in his knapsack, and flees.
Later he finds himself standing helplessly in the bishop’s dining room, having been apprehended by police. “We found this man leaving town,” they said. “And he has a knapsack filled with silver that bears your initials!”
The bishop’s housekeeper casts an “I told you so” glance at her employer, while he
listens to the report. All the while, Jean Valjean stands with his head bowed like a condemned man before the hangman’s noose. The police inquire if the bishop’s silver is, in fact, missing.
Then the bishop goes to the mantel and grabs two silver candlesticks. He thrusts them into the hands of Valjean and says, “Jean, don’t you remember that I gave you the candlesticks also?” Valjean looks up. He is bewildered by this show of grace, which saves his life and protects the integrity of the bishop. Then the bishop speaks. “Remember, Jean, I have discovered that life is to give and not to get!”
The story continues as Valjean leaves the bishop’s house. On the road from the city in which he was treated with grace, he experiences a conversion. As time goes on, Valjean becomes a successful manufacturer who has changed his name to Monsieur Madeleine. Yet still he is hunted by Javert, a police inspector who wishes to prosecute him and send him back to the galleys.
Monsieur Madeline uses his new-found wealth to help hospitals, orphanages and schools, all the while being persecuted by the tenacious, self-righteous Javert. When an insurrection breaks out, Javert is arrested as a spy. Monsieur Madeline becomes a hero in the insurrection and is offered anything he wants. He asks for the life of Javert, his mortal enemy, who would have been hung for being a spy. Yet even after that, Javert continues to persecute Monsieur Madeline, convinced that he is really Jean Valjean. Toward the end of the story, Javert finally has his man and allows Madeline to go home for a short time. It is later revealed that Javert has committed suicide.
One man experienced grace and it turned his life around. Another man experienced grace and he killed himself. Perhaps the secret is this. When we have been forgiven, we must also forgive ourselves. For if we cannot find it within ourselves to forgive our-selves, God only knows what can happen. Look at Javert.
Karl Menninger, the famous psychologist and the founder of the Menninger Clinic, once said that if he could convince the patients in his psychiatric hospital that their sins were forgiven, 75% of them could walk out the next day. It is not enough to be forgiven. We must also forgive ourselves.
What happens when we don’t forgive ourselves? We tend to become self-righteous – perhaps even judgmental. A man named Mike Foster describes this very well in an article entitled, “Embrace, Don’t Abandon.” He writes:
I’ve been meeting every other week at Starbucks with a pastor who had an affair with an employee at his mega church. A few months ago his actions were found out; he left the ministry disgraced and is now going through a vicious divorce. It’s not an unusual story and one that I sadly deal with in my line of work. And though this story is heartbreaking, I’m afraid there is something even more tragic that has occurred in this man’s life. You see, this incredibly popular and well-loved pastor now finds himself abandoned by those in the Christian community. When the ugly news got out about his indiscretions, people stopped calling, the invitations to lunch dried up, and he was asked not to be involved in his small group any longer.
It seems as though grace is struggling to survive these days, even in the church. As it says in the book UnChristian, “Our culture doesn’t look at us as a faith of second chances but rather, as a religion of judgments.” How does that old saying go? The church is the only army that shoots its own wounded?
Perhaps one of our weaknesses is that we’re far more concerned with being right than we are with being righteous. We become like the Pharisees whenever we focus on issues rather than on people. Judgmentalism creeps in whenever we deal with issues as if they were black and white, rather than flesh-and-blood humans in need of redemption. We need to recapture the concept of grace.
I love the quote from Philip Yancey that’s printed in the Silent Reflection in your bulletins this week. He writes:
During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world were discussing whether any one belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of return from death. The debate went on for some time until C.S. Lewis wandered into the room. “What’s the rumpus about?” he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. In his forthright manner Lewis responded, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.”
That’s what Jesus showed to his disciples when he appeared to them in the Upper Room. Jesus forgave them, and if Jesus had forgiven them then perhaps they could forgive themselves as well. And once they did that – once they forgave themselves – they went out and changed the world.
You see, Jesus reveals to us who God really is. God is not a vindictive judge sitting on a throne looking for an opportunity to punish his malevolent subjects. Our God is a loving God – a God who gives us a second chance. Listen to a poem I wrote a number of years ago entitled, The God of Second Chances.

To come of age in this wide world, one finds life’s full of dances.
One knows there is – yet turns not to – the God of second chances.
We want to spread our mighty wings, to soar far as we can.
A conquest here, a conquest there: who thought it’d be this grand?
We have success and all is good in this terrestrial life.
To top it off, we then seek out a husband or a wife.
We fall in love and happiness is all we think and feel.
And then along come one, two, three children with which to deal.
But that’s all right. It gives our life a sense of true delight.
We always have more love to share. It simply feels so right.
We live our lives by our own rules ‘bout each and every day.
We have success, but then come woes, to boot, along the way.
A child in whom we took such pride turns out not like we’d planned.
He takes a wrong turn here and there in spite of our demands.
And then that husband or that wife no longer feels the same.
So they want out. And we want out. It’s such a hurtful game.
Then there’s that job for which we strove our hardest every day.
Turns out it’s simply a dead end. We only work for pay.
Or what if everything’s still grand? In life we find no “whys?”
But then that one we loved so much gets sick and then he dies?
We find that life is not all fun and games along the way.
We have our good days and our bad. So then we learn to pray.
As long as we maintain our faith across life’s wide expanses,
We’ll find that we are blessed by Him: the God of second chances.
To get a second chance at life and love; a chance to cope.
We want it and we find that this is all for which we hope.
Perhaps the second time around we won’t take it for granted.
The seed of love now in our hearts will be securely planted.
We learn life has its ups and downs, but still, we do find love.
We find a sense of happiness: it comes from up above.
Oh, there are those who’ll think we’ve failed and made a few mistakes.
But until life takes twists and turns, you don’t know what it takes.
No longer are we fooled by all
Life’s trials, hoops and trances.
We’ve found we now owe all to Him:
The God of second chances.
Our God is a God of second chances. God has forgiven you. Perhaps you can now forgive yourself. Amen.

4-12-09 Easter Sunday sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

HOW DOES THE STORY END?

Let us pray: O Lord our God, at Easter time we remember the great hope of eternal life which you have set before us, and we feel within our hearts the longings for goodness and for you.  Grant that nothing may hinder the hope of eternal life from coming true, and the desire for goodness and for you from being realized.  We pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

 

     I recently finished reading the book Quiet Strength by Tony Dungy and Nathan Whitaker.  Our own Dave McInally will be teaching a Sunday school class on that book beginning next week.  Tony Dungy, of course, is the recently retired coach of the Indianapolis Colts, who also spent a little time playing for that football team based out of Pittsburgh.  (I’ve got to be careful how I say that because I know there are always at least a few Cleveland Browns fans in our midst.)

     The book Quiet Strength is about more than Tony Dungy’s life as a football coach.  It’s really about Tony Dungy’s walk with God.  He experienced success – he won a Super Bowl with the Colts – and he experienced failure – he got fired by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  Yet Dungy also talks about the greatest tragedy he ever endured.  Three days before Christmas in the year 2005, his oldest son, Jaimie, took his own life.

     Dungy doesn’t really address the grief his family endured.  He tries to put a positive spin on things.  Tony Dungy actually spoke at his son’s funeral.  He said, “The only way we can praise God at all times is to remember that God can provide joy in the midst of a sad occasion.  Our challenge today is to find that joy.”

     To that we want to say, “What a deep and devout faith that Tony Dungy must have!”  Even in the face of his oldest son’s suicide, he is able to maintain a positive attitude.  He is able to focus on the eternal joy his son is experiencing right now.  And after all, isn’t that the way a Christian should look at death?

     I want to tell you another story.  Back when I was in Salem, Ohio, I was a part of the local ministerial association.  One of the members of that ministerial association was the Captain of the Salvation Army, a wonderful man by the name of Tom Hinzman.  At one point in time, Tom’s father passed away after a very brief illness.  Tom was absolutely devastated.

     Now Tom was a man of deep faith.  He was a man who truly lived the faith he professed to believe.  Yet when his father died, he was heartbroken.  Those of us who were in the ministerial association with him were aware of what had happened, and most of us did our best to console him. 

     Shortly after his father died, as Tom sat at the table before one of our meetings began, he was approached by one of the local ministers.  That minister had a great big smile on his face and he said to Tom, “How does it feel to know your father has achieved eternal victory?”  Tom’s eyes filled with tears, he said, “Excuse me,” and he quickly left the room.

     Tom was having a terrible time with his father’s death.  Of course, he knew his father was in heaven, but he still had a lot of pain inside.  Does that make him any less faithful than a man like Tony Dungy?  I don’t think so.  In spite of the glory of the resurrection, we still have to deal with the pain of being left behind.  And in my mind, that’s okay.  All of us deal with grief differently.  We should never feel ashamed of how well or how hard we deal with it.

     I think a preaching professor by the name of Fred Craddock has a wonderful take on this.  In addressing the very passage I read from Mark a moment ago, he wrote, “For Mark, the resurrection served the cross; Easter did not eradicate – but vindicated – Good Friday.”  Did you catch that last part?  Easter did not eradicate – but vindicated – Good Friday.  In other words, Easter vindicated Jesus’ death by raising him from the dead, but it did not eradicate the pain we feel when we lose a loved one.  Like I said, all of us deal with grief differently.  It hurts to lose a loved one and there is no shame in that.

     I think that’s basically where the women were coming from in the passage we read from the gospel according to Mark.  Jesus had been crucified the Friday before.  As sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday was the Sabbath for them, they had to post-pone the embalming of Jesus’ body until Sunday morning.    

     Clearly, they were in great distress.  As Garry Wills writes in his book, What Jesus Meant, “The first Christians were not expecting the resurrection.”  In their minds, they did not have a resurrection to vindicate Good Friday.  So they went to the tomb at dawn on Sunday morning to embalm the body of Jesus.  Perhaps they were, in a way, practicing an age-old trick for dealing with traumatic experiences.  They were trying to keep busy so they didn’t have time to think about it.

     Here’s another interesting “take” on the women at the tomb.  It was written by a woman named Kate Huey, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ.  She notes that embalming the body of the deceased was considered “women’s work” in those days.  She goes on to note that women always have to do what no one else wants to do!  The women to whom I mentioned that statement last week all nodded their heads and said, “That’s true!”  So the women went to the tomb to do what no one else wanted to do.

     And what was their primary concern?  Their primary concern was that great big stone that had been rolled in front of the tomb.  “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” they said.  Jesus had spoken of how he would be raised from the dead, but these women were concerned about the stone in front of the tomb.  It was a legitimate practical matter.  As I said before, “The first Christians were not expecting the resurrection.”  To accept the resurrection, they would need to have proof…convincing proof.

     It reminds me of a wonderful story about the astronomer Carl Sagan.  Carl Sagan was always fascinated by the fact that educated adults – with the wonders of science all around them – could cling to beliefs based upon the unverifiable testimony of observers dead for 2000 years.  He once had an exchange with the Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, the current Director of Religion at the Chautauqua Institute.  (By the way, you know what the Chautauqua Institute is, don’t you?  Will Willimon, a frequent speaker at Chautauqua, once called it, “Disneyland for Intellectuals!”)

     So Carl Sagan says to Joan Brown Campbell, “You’re so smart; why do you believe in God?”  Campbell found this to be a surprising question from a man who accepted the existence of black holes, which no one had yet observed.  She replied to Sagan, “You’re so smart; why don’t you believe in God?”  Perhaps we could say they reached a stale-mate.

     Jerry Adler wrote an article on Carl Sagan for Newsweek magazine shortly after his death.  He says that Carl Sagan never had doubts about his agnosticism.  As Sagan’s wife said in the article, “There was no deathbed conversion…no appeals to God, no hope for an afterlife, no pretending that he and I – who had been inseparable for 20 years – were not saying goodbye forever.”

     “Didn’t he want to believe?” she was asked.  “Carl never wanted to believe,” she fiercely replied.  “He wanted to know.”

     She makes a good point.  A lot of us don’t want to believe, we want to know.  Perhaps the same could be said of the women who went to the tomb.  Jesus had told them he would be raised from the dead, but they had no concept of a resurrection.  They would need to have proof…convincing proof. 

     They were about to get it.  When they arrived at the tomb, that stone they had been so worried about had already been rolled away.  God has a way of removing obstacles for those who are doing his work, does he not?

     Slipping inside the tomb, they encountered a young man dressed in a white robe.  Matthew, Luke and John insinuate that it was angels who appeared, so perhaps we can leave it at that.  He tells them that Jesus has been raised from the dead.  Then he instructs them to tell Jesus’ disciples of what they had seen.  He says, “Go, tell his disciples – and Peter – that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.”  Why the specific reference to Peter?  Recall that it was Peter who had said he would never abandon Jesus.  Yet when Jesus was arrested, Peter ran like the others.  Then Peter denied Jesus three times in the courtyard of the high priest.  No one could possibly     need more assurance now than Peter.

     How does the story end?  Scholars tell us that the oldest manuscripts end with verse 8.  Verses 9 through 20 were likely added later by someone else.  Thus, the original ending of the gospel according to Mark was this: “And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

     That’s how the gospel of Mark originally ended: “And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”  About this blunt ending, Fred Craddock once remarked, “Is this any way to run a resurrection?  Is this enough to persuade, to stir new life in the followers of Jesus?”

     What a great statement!  Is this any way to run a resurrection?  Mark obviously wasn’t trained in the art of wrapping up a good story.  You need a powerful conclusion.  You need to wrap up loose ends.  Either that, or you need to lead into a sequel, right?  But Mark wraps up this story so poorly.  Or does he?

     Perhaps we are called to supply our own ending to the gospel of Mark.  Although

Mark doesn’t say it, the women at the tomb must have told someone.  After all, Jesus’ disciples were transformed.  They moved from cowering in fear behind a locked door in Jerusalem to fearless and fierce followers and advocates and martyrs.  Again quoting Garry Wills in What Jesus Meant, “Those unable to face the prospect of Jesus’ death were soon embracing with great fortitude and hope their own martyrdom.”  Something happened to the disciples to transform them.  It’s an ending Mark could not have predicted.  Their discipleship reached the apex of the known world – the city of Rome – in a matter of a few short years.  Can we write an ending to Mark as well?  Can our discipleship transform our community?  How does the story end?  It ends in discipleship.

     Earlier I talked about Carl Sagan.  As his wife said of him, “He didn’t want to believe, he wanted to know.”  Well, we know Christ is alive.  We know Christ is alive because we see him in the tireless acts and the transformed lives of those who practice discipleship.  Perhaps we don’t know what lies ahead, and perhaps we don’t know what heaven is going to be like.  Yet I like the way William Sloane Coffin once put it in his book Credo.  He said, “If we don’t know what is beyond the grave, we do know who is beyond the grave.”  Ladies and gentlemen, I really think that’s enough for me.  How about you?  Amen.        

 

4-5-09 Palm Sunday Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

WERE YOU THERE?

Are all of you familiar with the name Chuck Colson?  Chuck Colson was a Watergate criminal who later began a vital prison ministry.  I once heard Chuck Colson address the mega-church phenomenon that seems to be sweeping our nation.  He said, “It seems there was a little Baptist church that wanted to grow.  They decided it would help if they built a great big beautiful church near an interstate.  So they built a great big beautiful church near an interstate, and they began to grow.  Then they decided that people had bad associations with denomination names, so they dropped the word “Baptist” from their name and became the First Community Church.  And they grew a little more.  Then they decided that people were offended by certain terms like sin and repentance and salvation, so they dropped those words from the pulpit vernacular.  And they grew a little more.  In the end they had a massive church filled with a sea of humanity, and not one transformed soul.

A few years back in Atlanta, Georgia, there was a Presbyterian church that tried a similar thing.  One of the things they did in the worship service was to drop the confession of sin.  Now if you went to a Presbyterian seminary like I did, you know that’s something you cannot do.  Well a few years later, that minister left and a new minister came on board.  One of the things he tried to do was put that confession of sin back into the worship service.  So he went to the church’s governing board, the session.  And it started a tremendous fight.  One elder was actually quoted as saying, “I don’t have anything to apologize to God for!”

It seems as though no one wants to admit that they’re guilty of sin these days.  What is sin exactly?  Sin is defined as separation from God.  In other words, our obedience draws us closer to God.  When we sin, it’s as though we’ve turned our gaze in the wrong direction.  And all we manage to do is distance ourselves from God.  Now as a Presbyterian, I come out of the Reformed tradition, started by John Calvin.  If you take the time to study John Calvin carefully, what you discover is that he was really trying to take the church back to where Augustine had had it some 1100 years before.  Now you really can’t summarize the theology of John Calvin in a few words, although many have tried.  They’ve invented an acronym we call the TULIP of John Calvin.  The T stands for total depravity.  The U stands for unconditional election.  The L stands for limited atonement.  The I stands for irresistible grace, and the P stands for the perseverance of the saints.  I don’t have time to go into all of that, but I do want to talk about total depravity.  Total depravity does not mean that all of us are bad people.  But what it does mean is that sin pervades every aspect of our lives.  All of us…are sinners.

The Apostle Paul addresses this issue in the passage we read from the book of Romans.  It says that at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.  The ungodly…are us.  I think a wonderful illustration of this is found in Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion.  Incidentally, when Mel Gibson first tried to make his movie, no one would produce it.  They said that no one would sit through a 3-hour movie with subtitles.  It would never sell.  So Mel Gibson decided to produce the movie himself.  Then when it became a blockbuster – when the movie made millions – people said, “He only did it for the money!”  Isn’t that incredible?  Anyway, the movie shows a brutal scene of Jesus being flogged.  Then when he’s laid on the cross, his arm is strapped down and a metal spike is driven through the flesh on his wrist.  But do you know whose hand was holding the spike?  It was Mel Gibson’s hand holding the spike.  It was the only scene he was in in the whole movie.  To me, this is indicative of the fact that it was our sin that put Jesus on the cross.  So when the hymn asks us, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” the answer is, “Yes, you were there.” 

            I want to tell you a story about a woman whose funeral I conducted about a week ago.  Her name was Ethel Shirey, and she lived to be 101.  People said of her, “Ethel was one of the kindest, most compassionate people I ever met.”  Yet listen to this.  Back in 1958, her only son died of cancer.  It absolutely devastated Ethel and her husband Miles.  Yet the very next day, Ethel went down to the church and asked the minister – a gentleman named Bill Smith – if she could teach the senior high school Sunday school class.  She just wanted to be around teenagers.  In 23 years of ministry, I have never had anyone volunteer to teach the senior high school Sunday school class!  Then she went to the county home and asked if there was anyone there who didn’t have anyone – who was basically alone in life.  Someone was quickly found and Ethel went and read to him every day.  Then one day, in a conversation with her nephew, Ethel said, “I don’t know if I’ll make it to heaven.  I’m such a sinner.”  Her nephew replied, “Aunt Ethel, if you don’t make it to heaven, then I haven’t got a chance!”

            None of us have a chance.  None of us have a chance on our own, that is.  But thanks to the grace of God in Jesus Christ, we do.  Grace is defined as unmerited favor.  That’s why it’s so amazing.  Amen.

 

3-22-09 Sermon by Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THE TROUBLE WITH DIMLY LIT RESTAURANTS

     Once upon a time, a young couple brought their newborn son to the pediatrician for his very first checkup.  The doctor looked at the baby and said, “You have got the most beautiful baby!”  The baby’s mother smiled, thanked the doctor, and said, “I’ll bet you say that to all the new parents.”  The doctor said, “Actually, I don’t.  I only say that about those babies that are really cute.”  The woman then asked, “So what do you say to those people whose babies aren’t really cute?”  The doctor replied, “I simply say, ‘He looks just like you!’”

     Isn’t it funny how we question compliments?  If someone says something bad about us, we have a tendency to believe it right away.  But if someone says something good about us, we tend to question it.  We think they have an angle or some ulterior motive.  Why is it that belief  has become such a difficult concept for us?

     I think it’s a consequence of the postmodern era.  We tend to question anything and everything these days.  Insurance companies now require us to get a second opinion from doctors.  And have you noticed how many opinion polls our society gathers anymore?  Facts aside, what seems to be most truthful these days is what most of the people think!  It’s hard to know anymore what we should believe and what we shouldn’t. 

     In the passage we read from the gospel according to John, Jesus seems to be calling for wholehearted belief.  “For God so loved the world,” Jesus says, “that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”  Jesus doesn’t leave much room for second opinions here, does he?  He is clearly calling us to believe in him.  But what does it really mean to believe in Jesus Christ?

     Last week I told you that the Greek word translated “belief” is “pisteuo.”  It means literally, “belief in a special sense, as faith in the Divinity that lays special emphasis on trust in his power and his nearness to help, in addition to being convinced that he exists and that his revelations are true.”  That’s how the Greek lexicon defines the word.  Let’s see if we can make that definition come to life.

     Biblical commentator William Barclay says that belief in Jesus Christ contains three elements: 1) belief that God is our loving Father; 2) belief that Jesus is the Son of God and therefore tells us the truth about God and life; and 3) belief necessarily entails unswerving and unquestioning obedience to Jesus Christ.  Let’s try to take that definition apart.

     To believe in Jesus Christ is to believe with all our hearts that God is as Jesus declares him to be.  It means believing that God loves us, that God cares for us, and that God wants nothing more than to forgive us.  Two thousand years ago, it wasn’t easy for a Jew to believe that.  The Jews of Jesus’ day looked upon God as one who imposed his laws upon them and punished them if those laws were broken.  It was hard for them to not think of God as a judge waiting to exact a penalty; it was hard for them not to think of God as a task-master waiting to pounce.  Jesus revealed God as a Father who wanted nothing more than for his erring children to come back home.  It cost Jesus his life to teach us that.  And perhaps we cannot begin to be Christians until we believe that with all our hearts.

     We are called to believe that God is our loving Father.  We are also called to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and therefore tells us the truth about God and life.  How can we be sure that Jesus knows what he’s talking about?  What guarantee is there that the good news of the gospels is true?  We must simply believe it.  We must believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that in him is the mind of God.  We must believe that Jesus knew God so well, that he was so close to God, and that he was so one with God, that he – and only he – is qualified to tell us the absolute truth about God.

     And finally comes the third element of belief.  We must stake everything on the belief that what Jesus says is true.  Whatever he calls us to do, we must do.  Whatever he commands of us, we must obey.  We must take Jesus at his word.  Even the smallest action in life should be done with unquestioned obedience.

     That’s what it means to believe in Jesus Christ.  But we have to ask to what end, do we not?  Why do we believe in Jesus Christ?  I mean, what’s in it for us?

     Jesus assures us in verses 15 and 16 that those who believe in him may have eternal life.  But you need to listen to this very carefully, because we’re not just talking about heaven here.  The Greek words translated “have eternal life” here are “eckay zoane aioneone.”  “Eckay” means to have or to hold.  “Aioneone” means eternal or without end.  “Zoane” means life, but it means a special kind of life.  The Greek lexicon says that this life is a result of faith in Christ.  But it also says that the follower of Jesus possesses this life even in this world.

     So we’re not just talking about heaven here.  To believe in Jesus Christ is also to possess a special kind of life even in the here and now.  What does that mean?  I think it means this.

     To possess life in Christ is to have a life that envelops every relationship in life with peace.  Let me repeat that.  To possess life in Christ is to have a life that envelops every relationship in life with peace.  It gives us peace with God.  We are no longer cowering before a tyrannical king or seeking to hide from a vindictive judge.  Instead, we are at home with our Father.

     Life in Christ gives us peace with others.  If we have been forgiven, then we must be forgiving.  It enables us to see others as God sees them.  Theoretically, it makes all of us into one great human family joined together in love.

     Life in Christ gives us peace with life.  If God is our Father, then God is working all things together for good.  When we believe God is our Father, we believe our Father’s hand will never cause his child a needless tear.  We may not necessarily understand life any better, but at least we will resent it no longer.

     Life in Christ gives us peace with ourselves.  In the last analysis, perhaps we are more afraid of ourselves than of anything else.  We know our own weakness; we know our own temptations; we know our own tasks and the dreads of our lives.  But now we know we are facing those things with God.  It is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives within us.  There is peace founded upon strength in his life.

     Yet perhaps most of all, life in Christ makes us certain that the deepest peace on earth is but a shadow of the ultimate peace to come.  It gives us a hope and a goal to which we travel.  It gives us a life of glorious wonder here, yet at the same time it gives us a life in which the best is yet to come.  To believe in Jesus Christ is to have eternal life.  Yet that life begins with peace in the here and now.

     I think I need to add at this point, however, that that does not mean that we will have a life of luxury and ease.  I don’t care what Robert Schuller and Joel Osteen and their ilk say.  Life in Christ does not mean that there will no longer be suffering in the world, or even in our lives.  As Mother Teresa once put it, “I know God will not give me anything  I cannot handle.  I just wish he didn’t trust me so much!”      

    R. Leslie Holmes addresses this issue in the March-April issue of Preaching magazine.  He writes:

Stories abound of how, after the death of his 11-year-old son Willie, Abraham Lincoln went into severe periods of grief.  In those dark days of early 1862, Lincoln looked often to Presbyterian preacher Phineas D. Gurley, whose church Lincoln attended…for a word of comfort.  In the eulogy for Willie, Gurley preached that when tragedy comes, one must look to “Him who sees the end from the beginning and doeth all things well.”

He also said that when one trusts God, “our sorrows will be sanctified and made a blessing to our souls, and by and by we shall have occasion to say with blended gratitude and rejoicing, “It is good for us that we have been afflicted.”  Dr. Gurley paraphrased Psalm 119:71.  Such was the influence of Gurley’s words that it was reported that after Willie’s service, Lincoln asked Gurley for the words of the eulogy and that they became his life-raft during his intense sorrow.

     Holmes later adds, “…it is amazing to me that there are still some people in the church who have bought into the erroneous notion that Christ always shields his followers from pain and heartbreak.”  I don’t know if I can go along with the idea that, “It is good for me that I was afflicted,” but I do know that Christ shielding his followers from all pain and suffering is an erroneous notion.

     Yet when we have life in Christ, we can be moved with compassion.  The word “compassion” itself comes from the Latin roots “cum” and “passio.”  “Cum” means “with” and “passio” means “to suffer.”  Thus, compassion literally means “to suffer with.”  Our own suffering brings compassion because we know what it means to suffer.  Life in Christ may not save us from all suffering, but we will be able to transform it.

     Life in Christ begins in the here and now.  We’re not just talking about heaven here.  Life in Christ comes to those who believe in him.  Jesus goes on to say that those who believe are not condemned, yet those who do not believe are condemned already.  He adds, “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”  Jesus Christ is the light who leads us to life.

     It reminds me of having lunch in a dimly lit restaurant.  Imagine you leave a bright, sunny day to go into a dimly lit restaurant.  You have a hard time seeing at first, don’t you?  You get led to your seat, but then you have a hard time reading the menu.

      Yet after a while, your eyes adjust.  You can read the menu and it doesn’t seem dark at all.  It’s not until you leave the restaurant and step back outside that you realize how dark it really was.  That’s the trouble with dimly lit restaurants.  You don’t realize how dark it really was until you step back out into the light.

     In a way, I think that’s an analogy of our own world.  Things can get so dark – wars and crimes and school shootings, and now even a church shooting – but after a while our eyes adjust.  It’s not until we step into the light of Jesus Christ that we begin to realize how dark our world has become.

     Believe in Jesus Christ and you’ll have life everlasting, beginning in the here and now.  The closer you draw to Christ, the darker you will see our world become.  But maybe that’s a good thing.  After all, we have to see what’s broken before we can try to fix it.  Amen.