5-23-2010 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

KNEE HIGH BY THE FOURTH OF JULY

    Once upon a time, a little girl was sitting at the kitchen table watching her mother do dishes.  She noticed that her mother had several long strands of white hair that really stood out on her brunette head.  Naturally, the little girl felt compelled to point that out.  “Mommy,” she asked, “why are some of your hairs turning white?”

     Her mother replied, “Every time a mother’s little girl does something bad or makes her cry, one of her hairs turns white.”  I’m not sure that’s a good thing to say to a child, but that’s what this mother said.  The little girl thought about that for a moment and then replied, “Mommy, is that why all of grandma’s hairs are white?”  That, my friends, is what we euphemistically refer to as “turning the tables.”  One little girl clearly turned the tables on her mother.

     In the passage we read from Acts, I suspect a lot of the Jews in Jerusalem felt as if the tables had been turned on them, as well.  As our passage notes, it was the day of Pentecost.  Perhaps we Christians think of Pentecost as a Christian holiday, but it was a Jewish holiday first.  It was one of three great festivals which every male Jew living within twenty miles of Jerusalem was expected to attend.  The feast of Pentecost was significant to the Jews.  It commemorated Moses’ reception of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.  It had an agricultural significance as well.  An offering was given to God on Pentecost in thanksgiving for the harvest.  They had done the work of cultivation, but they truly believed that it was God who provided the growth.  The point is that Jerusalem would have been full to overflowing as they celebrated the Jewish feast of Pentecost.

     Why would some of the Jews have felt as if the tables had been turned on them?  Some seven weeks before, the leaders of the Jewish faith had seen to it that a rabble-rouser named Jesus was crucified.  They had hoped that would be the end of Jesus and his message, but apparently it wasn’t.  His disciples were still in Jerusalem.  As they were gathered together in one place, suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind.  There appeared to them tongues as of fire that came and rested upon every one of them.  They were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.  Apparently the Jesus movement was still alive and well, and now it would be even more difficult to contain.  Like I said, I suspect there were some Jews in Jerusalem that day who felt as if the tables had been turned on them.           

   In the Christian Church we call this event the Day of Pentecost.  To us it signifies the disciples’ reception of the Holy Spirit.  What really happened on that day?  Luke, the author of the book of Acts – the same Luke who wrote the gospel according to Luke – tells us that when the tongues of fire rested upon the disciples, they began to speak in foreign languages.  Remember, there were literally thousands of people gathered in Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost.  They would have come from many lands and they would have spoken many languages.  The disciples managed to speak in the native tongues of all who were gathered there. We call this phenomenon glossolalia, which means literally, “speaking in marvelous, heavenly languages.”

     That’s the way I’ve always interpreted the glossolalia of Pentecost.  The disciples spoke in the native tongues of all who were gathered in Jerusalem for the feast.  In fact, that’s what Luke literally says.  In verse 4 he writes, “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”  Luke clearly tells us that speaking in tongues has to do with speaking a language that everyone can understand.

     Yet William Barclay, a biblical commentator for whom I have the utmost respect, takes issue with that interpretation.  He notes that Luke is really writing about an event at which he was not in attendance.  He tells the story as if the disciples suddenly acquired the gift of speaking in foreign languages…as if the gift of the Spirit was like a crash-course in Rosetta Stone.  Yet there was in the early Church a phenomenon that’s recorded on numerous occasions, most vividly in the 14^th chapter of the first book of Corinthians.  What would happen is that someone – in an ecstatic trance – would begin to pour out a flood of unintelligible sounds in no known language.  This speech was believed to be directly inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, and was a gift that was greatly coveted.  To speak in tongues meant that you had the Spirit!  Perhaps glossolalia is not so easily explained away.  William Barclay writes:

It seems most likely that Luke, a Gentile, had confused speaking in tongues with speaking in foreign languages.  What happened was that for the first time in their lives this motley mob was hearing the word of God in a way that struck straight home to their hearts and (that) they could understand.  The power of the Spirit was such that it had given these simple disciples a message that could reach every heart.

   When all is said and done, I really think that’s the point.  Whether the disciples spoke in foreign languages or whether they uttered the unintelligible sounds of heaven is inconsequential.  What matters most is that the people gathered in Jerusalem that day heard the word of God in a way that went straight to their hearts.  The disciples spoke a Spirit-filled message that everyone understood.

   Frankly, I think that’s the goal of preaching as well.  The goal of the preached word is a message that everyone understands.  The goal of the preached word is to speak in a way that goes straight to the heart of the hearer.  Yet how can that be done?  How can the preached word go straight to the heart of the hearer?   

     It’s a two-fold process, really.  Theologians tell us that the preached word is the word of God.  It’s not the preacher’s words that are the word of God rather, it’s the Holy Spirit working through the words of the preacher and in the minds of the hearers that make it the word of God.  Thus, the preacher has a grave responsibility in preaching.  He or she must construct a sermon through careful exegesis and through diligent prayer.  Yet the hearer has a grave responsibility as well.    I think Jesus describes the responsibility of the hearer quite well in a parable he told in the gospel according to Matthew.

     Jesus said, “A sower went out to sow.  As he sowed some seeds fell along the path and the birds came and devoured them.  Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they had not much soil, and immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched; and since they had no root they withered away.  Other seeds fell upon thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.  Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

   When Jesus told this parable, his disciples failed to understand.  So Jesus later explained it to them.  He said, “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart; this is what was sown along the path.  As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself…and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.  As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the delight of riches choke the word and it proves unfruitful.  As for what was sown on good soil, this is he who hears the word and understands it.  He indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

   The message here is clear.  For the word of God to pierce our hearts, we must somehow prove to be good soil.  And that takes a little effort on our parts.  Here’s one way to start.  Begin and end every day with prayer.  Thank God for the simple beating of your heart in the morning and thank God for the gift of the day at night.  Remember, prayer isn’t meant to change God.  Prayer is meant to change us.  Daily prayer just might change us, and it will help to make us good soil.  And do more with your Bible than set it on the coffee table for when the minister comes by for a visit.  Open it up and read it.  Start with the gospel of Matthew and read at least a chapter a day.  As we become more God-centered, the word of God will come to have new meaning for us.  Like I said, the hearer has some responsibility in the preaching event as well.  If we come to worship unprepared, the preached word will never reach our hearts.

   I think of an old farming analogy.  Farmers in the Midwest, when speaking of their corn crop, always say, “knee high by the fourth of July.”  If corn is to be “knee high by the fourth of July,” the field must be plowed ahead of time, the seed must be planted ahead of time, and the crops must be fertilized ahead of time.  God will provide the requisite sunshine and rain but the farmer clearly has some responsibility in this as well.  Encountering the word of God is really quite similar.  God will provide the seed, but we still have to cultivate the soil in which that seed is planted.  We must first prepare ourselves to receive the word of God.  Amen.  

5-16-2010 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

YOUR FAITH HAS MADE YOU WELL

     One of the things a lot of people in the church these days claim to be a primary need or desire for them is spiritual growth.  Of course, there is perhaps no greater way to enhance spiritual growth than by being a part of a small group Bible study. After all, faith was never meant to be lived in isolation.  Faith has always been intended to be lived in community.  And, truth be told, there’s really no such thing as the term that’s become so popular today: “spiritual but not religious.”  I’ll delve into that another time.

     In this particular church we have what is called the ChristCare small group ministry.  If you are truly interested in spiritual growth, you would be wise to seek to be a part of a ChristCare small group.  It does require the setting aside of a couple of nights a month, but hey…anything really worth having takes a little effort on our part, wouldn’t you say?  That’s my ChristCare commercial for the day. 

     My wife and I are part of a ChristCare small group.  Our small group met just last Tuesday night.  During the course of our evening’s conversation, one of our small group leaders – a retired teacher – said that when he was in the classroom, he always allowed for a moment of silence amongst the students before he gave a test.  He was asked if he led the class in prayer.  He said that he didn’t, but this moment of silence gave the students time to pray if they wanted to pray.  I had to laugh and repeat an old adage I heard many years ago.  I said, “Ah, as long as there are math tests, there will be prayer in school!”

     As long as there are math tests, there will be prayer in school.  What does that mean?  That means that math is hard and we are wont to turn to a higher source when we face a difficult task.  I can remember literally praying in seminary on more than one occasion, “Lord, if you really want me to be a minister, then you’re going to have to help me pass this Greek test!”  We are wont to turn to a higher source when we face a difficult task.  Tests are one thing.  Health concerns are another.  Have you ever faced a situation in your life where you or a loved one was diagnosed with cancer, or heart disease, or Alzheimer’s, or Parkinson’s?  You feel absolutely helpless in such a situation.  Why, it’s almost as if you’ve walked off a cliff and you’re waiting to fall, or to somehow be lifted up.  We turn to God when we face the most dire circumstances in our lives, because – truth be told – we have nowhere else to turn.

     Such was the case with Jairus in the passage we read from the gospel according to Mark.     He was facing dire circumstances and he felt he had nowhere else to turn.  Jairus was a leader    in the synagogue.  That meant that he was a rich and powerful man and that he held a position   of great authority.  Back in those days people attributed great personal wealth to the grace of God instead of to their own dogged determination, but that’s another sermon.  Jairus had likely heard rumors of the power Jesus had to heal, but going to see Jesus was risky business for him.  The leaders of the Jewish faith were none too keen on this “Jesus” who constantly seemed to be upsetting the apple cart…who constantly seemed to be upsetting their apple cart.

   Yet Jairus had deep need.  You see, Jairus had a little girl who was very sick.  She was nearly at the point of death.  Jairus loved his little girl.  There is a special bond between fathers and daughters.  Fathers love their sons, but they somehow see their sons as extensions of themselves.  Fathers don’t see their little girls that way.  Fathers see their little girls as precious and delicate flowers – as something they need to hold and protect and never let go.  Ask any father who’s had to walk his little girl up the aisle at her wedding.  We never want to let them go!  There is a special bond between fathers and daughters.  Jairus’ daughter was sick and Jairus was willing    to move heaven and earth to make her well.  Thus, Jairus went to Jesus despite any grumbling he might hear from his peers.

     Jairus said to Jesus, “My little girl is at the point of death.  Come and lay your hands on her   so that she might be made well and live.”  Now we don’t know why she was sick or what dreaded disease she may have had.  All we know is that Jairus was desperate and that he believed Jesus could make her well.  Jesus was obviously moved by Jairus’ faith – and by his love for his daughter – so he agreed to go and see the girl.

     As they made their way to Jairus’ house, a large crowd followed them and was pressing upon them from every side.  That’s where our story takes a rather peculiar turn.  As it says in verse 25, “Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.  She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; yet she was no better, but rather grew worse.”  The focus in the story has shifted from Jairus and his daughter to a woman with a medical problem. 

   The woman in the story likely suffered from a condition that was fairly common in those days, but which was very hard to heal.  The Jewish Talmud itself gave no fewer than eleven cures for this malady.  Some of them were tonics or astringents.  Some of them were sheer superstitions, like carrying the ashes of an ostrich egg in a linen rag in the summer and a cotton rag in the winter, or carrying a barley corn which had been found in the dung of a white female donkey.  Can you imagine?  No doubt this poor woman had tried all the remedies and superstitions and had found no relief.  The trouble was that this condition not only affected her health, it also rendered her what they called “ritually unclean.”  It would have shut her off from the worship   of God and it would have ostracized her from her friends.  This was a woman who was nothing   short of desperate.  Thus, she hatched a plan.

     The woman reasoned that if she could make her way through the crowd and just touch the hem of Jesus’ robe, then she would be made well.  It was a desperate act by a desperate woman, but it was the only hope she had.  She saw Jesus making his way through the crowded city street.  She likely wedged her way between many others and in one desperate lunge, managed to touch the fringe of his robe.  And immediately upon touching that robe, she knew she had been healed.

     But then something happened that she hadn’t expected.  Jesus suddenly stopped and said, “Who touched me?”  His disciples looked at him incredulously.  “What are you talking about?” they said.  “Look at the crowd.  They’re pressing in from every side.  How can you say, ‘Who touched me?’”  But Jesus knew what had happened.  The woman then approached him in trembling and in fear.  She fell at his feet and confessed what she had done.  Then Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.  Go in peace and be healed of your disease.”  In other words, it wasn’t Jesus’ magic robe that healed her of her disease.  It was her faith in the Son of God that had really done the trick.  It was God who had healed her, not some tactic gleaned from a book or some far-fetched superstition.

     The message here is clear.  When all else fails, turn to God.  That’s what this woman did and she found her healing.  That’s what Jairus did, and we later discover that Jesus actually raised his daughter from the dead.  And that’s what we do when we come face to face with a math test or even some dread disease.  When all else fails, turn to God.  Keep that though in mind as we move forward.

     I’ve been reading an intriguing book of late entitled Vital Signs: The Promise of Mainstream Protestantism.  It was written by Milton Coalter, John Mulder and Louis Weeks.  I actually know those guys.  Milton Coalter was the librarian at the Louisville Seminary when I was there.  John Mulder was the President and Lou Weeks was the Dean of Students.  The book, however, is a little depressing.  It speaks at great length about the decline of the mainline church: denominations like Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist and Episcopalian to name a few.  The authors talk about how family worship was once a priority in America, but is so no longer.  They talk about how being a Christian was once a cultural expectation, but is so no longer.  Coalter, Mulder and Weeks put it this way:

For adults, church attendance and membership are increasingly a matter of choice, rather than an expected or encouraged pattern of behavior.  The church is one option among many for support or for the use of one’s time.  Contemporary American culture provides little encouragement to make the church a priority. 

     I suspect that comes as little surprise to those who raised their children in the church and now see their adult children choosing other options on Sunday mornings.  It breaks their hearts to see their grown children opt not to raise their own children in the church.  That’s why we see grandparents bringing grandchildren to church more and more every day.  That’s why we see membership and worship declines in the church more and more every day.  Like I said earlier, people refer to themselves as spiritual but not religious.  Of course, there is no such thing, but that seems to be beside the point.  Ah, the church is but one option among many for support or for the use of one’s time.  Contemporary American culture provides little encouragement to make the church a priority.  I told you the book was depressing, didn’t I?

     Yet the book’s title is Vital Signs: The Promise of Mainstream Protestantism.  Well if that’s the title, then there have to be some vital signs of hope in the church, don’t you think?  They do list a number of vital signs, but for the sake of time I’m only going to mention a few.  One of the vital signs is that the situation in today’s society provides an opportunity for an “awakening.”  An “awakening” is a time of religious renewal and revival.  Perhaps the time is ripe for a new Great Awakening.  The theory is that eventually people will say, “Enough is enough.” 

     Another vital sign is what they call the contribution of racial-ethnic minorities.  As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “America is never so segregated as it is at 11:00 on Sunday mornings.”  That’s the truth.  Maybe it’s time for that to change.  Another vital sign is a renewed dependence upon the word of God in Scripture.  Christians have always been known as “the people of the book.”  Maybe it’s time we became that again.  Coalter, Mulder and Weeks conclude, “In the midst of these changes, we are convinced that the Holy Spirit is creating something new in American mainstream Protestantism. A central task of the church at this time is to listen and respond to the leading of the Spirit, rather than becoming paralyzed and passive.” 

    Ladies and gentlemen, that is exactly what we are trying to do at the First Presbyterian Church of Meadville.  We recently formed a Church Revitalization Task Force aimed at transforming the decline in our own church.   At a recent congregational luncheon, we talked about our church being like a half a cup of water.  The question is, “Is the cup half empty, or is the cup half full?”  You see, if the cup is half full, we are grateful to God for all that we have.  If the cup is half empty, we will forever feel as if we have somehow been shortchanged.  We will constantly seek to have or to get more…and we’ll do nothing but complain until we get it.  We concluded that our cup was half full, and we listed many of the strengths of our congregation.  Among them were the following:

1.      Worship,

2.      Music,

3.      Staff,

4.      Stephen Ministry,

5.      ChristCare small groups,

6.      Congregational luncheons,               

7.      Youth programs, and

8.      Relationships.

     There were more items listed, but you get the gist of it.  Our cup is indeed half full.  We have a great deal to offer.  From this discussion, it was suggested that we need to create a new climate in our church.  As someone wisely put it, “In my opinion, you clean your house before you invite a bunch of new people over.”  I think that’s very well put.  Erma Bombeck would be proud!  The question is: How, exactly, do we clean our house?  How, exactly, do we create this new climate?

     I think of the passage we read from the gospel according to Mark.  A man named Jairus was faced with a situation that was beyond his capacity to resolve.  A woman with a flow of blood was faced with a situation that was beyond her capacity to resolve, as well.  What did they do?  They turned to God.  The solution to their situations was beyond their own capacity to resolve, so they turned to God.  Perhaps that’s how we create a new climate in our church as well.  We may not have all the answers now, but God knows what the answers are.  God is the One who can heal us of our disease.

  And that’s exactly what our Church Revitalization Task Force concluded last Wednesday night.  How do we create a new climate?  We need to turn that question over to God.  We need to pray.  We need to become a praying congregation.  We need to become a people that loves its church so much that we are willing to trust its future to God.  Thus I urge you as strongly as I can: Pray for your congregation.  Pray that the Holy Spirit of God would move mightily in our midst.  Then trust in God to provide the solution we need. 

     I believe it was Eugene Peterson who once said, “The most important thing a minister can do for a congregation is teach it to pray.”  If everyone in this church could learn to pray to God for our congregation’s well-being, then I will have done my job.  And Jesus will say to you as he said to the woman he healed, “Your faith has made you well.”  Amen.

 

 

 

 

5-2-2010 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

DOUGHNUTS ARE NEVER BIG ENOUGH

    Last Tuesday night my wife and I had both been at work all day long, then gone to a volleyball game at Maplewood, and I’d just gotten home from working out at the Y.M.C.A.  It was probably 9:00 p.m. as I flopped into my chair in the living room.  I was literally down for the count.  That’s when my wife reminded me that we were out of dog food.  She said, “Let’s go   get the dog food, then let’s go to Tim Horton’s.”

     Now normally I’m the one to suggest going to Tim Horton’s – and it may have been a ploy just to get me to go along – but out we both went just the same.  We got the dog food and then we went to Tim Horton’s.  We were graciously served by our church’s own Andrew Bartoe, nattily attired in his best Tim Horton’s brown.  I had a cup of coffee and a doughnut and my wife had a carton of milk and a doughnut.  Okay, I had a bagel and cream cheese too, but that’s beside the point.  As my wife finished her doughnut, she wistfully sighed and said, “Doughnuts are never big enough.”         

     Doughnuts are never big enough.  As she said that, I thought of two things.  First of all, I thought: What a great sermon title!  And second: What an intriguing philosophical statement!  Doughnuts are never big enough, just as the most precious and sacred moments of our lives are far too fleeting.  They are here for but a short time, and in an instant they are gone.

     I think of my mother’s reaction every time we leave Arizona.  As you know, my parents live in the Phoenix, Arizona area.  My mother’s health is such that she and my father can no longer travel to Pennsylvania.  And Phoenix is so far from here that my family and I only get down there about once a year.  Every single time we get ready to leave Arizona and travel back to Pennsylvania, my mother says the very same thing.  She says, “I can’t believe it’s been a week already!”  Ah, doughnuts are never big enough.  Doughnuts are never big enough, and the most precious and sacred moments of our lives are far too fleeting.  They are here for but a short time and in an instant they are gone.

     That’s probably a good summation of how the disciples felt in the passage we read from the gospel according to John.  They had just finished sharing what would come to be known as their “Last Supper” with Jesus.  Soon they would head to the Garden of Gethsemane where he would be arrested, and you know what happened after that.  Three years they had spent with the Master – not a lifetime, to be sure – but it was time enough for him to have grown on each and every  one of them.  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.  The more they saw – the more they heard – the more they came to love this man called Jesus with a love they had never known before.  Only now he would be leaving them.  Doughnuts are never big enough.  Surely they,   too, felt as if the most precious and sacred moments of our lives are far too fleeting.  They are here for but a short time and in an instant they are gone.

     Like I said, the disciples had just finished sharing what would come to be known as their “Last Supper” with Jesus.  During that last supper, Jesus instituted what we now know as the sacrament of communion.  After giving thanks to God, Jesus broke the bread and said, “Take, eat, this is my body broken for you.  This do in remembrance of me.”  Then in the same manner after supper Jesus took the cup saying, “This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood.    Whenever you drink of it, do so remembering me.”  In this simple act Jesus revealed something to the disciples that they did not understand at the time.  Jesus was showing them that spiritually, he would always be with them.  That very same promise is ours when we partake of the sacrament of communion as well.

     Interestingly enough, we find the institution of the sacrament of communion in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.  John does not tell us of the sacrament of communion.  Instead, John paints a different picture.  After supper, Jesus filled a basin with water and girded himself with a towel.  Then he began to wash his disciples’ filthy, dirty feet.  As you heard me say a couple of weeks ago, this was a task that was typically reserved only for the lowest of the low.  Yet here was the Lord of life, washing his disciples’ feet.  After he had done so he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you?  You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am.  So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another’s feet.”

     The passage we read from the gospel of John occurs shortly after the foot washing.  There Jesus says, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and in him God is glorified.”  At last Jesus’ hour had come.  “Now is the Son of man glorified,” Jesus says, and because the Son of man is glorified, God will be glorified as well.  How was Jesus to be glorified?  Well, what was about to happen?  Jesus was about to be crucified, was he not?  In other words, it was through Jesus’ crucifixion that he would be glorified, and through him, God would be glorified as well.

   We need to take a look at what it means to be glorified.  The Greek word for “glorified” is “hedoxasthay.”  It means literally, “to make visible.”  Thus, in this context, to glorify God is to make visible the presence of God.  Jesus’ crucifixion makes visible the presence of God. 

     I think of a line from what we call The Shorter Catechism.  The Shorter Catechism is taken from what we call The Westminster Confession of Faith.  The Westminster Confession of Faith was written in 1646 by a group of Calvinists and Puritans trying to establish the Protestant faith in England and Scotland.  The Rev. John Wallis – also a geometry professor at Oxford – later wrote The Shorter Catechism to help children understand The Westminster Confession.  Sorry  to muddy the waters here, but that’s what The Shorter Catechism is.  Like I said, on the subject of glorifying God, I think of a line from what we call The Shorter Catechism.

     The question is asked, “What is the chief end of man?”  Pardon the sexist language, but remember the era in which it was written.  The question is asked, “What is the chief end of man?”  In other words, “What is the role of humanity in the world?” or even, “What is the purpose of human life?”  The answer is, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”  The chief end of humanity is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.  In other words,    the purpose of our very lives is to glorify God.  The purpose of our very lives is to make visible the presence of God.  And when we do so, we will enjoy God forever.

     So just exactly how do we glorify God?  Just exactly how do we make visible the presence   of God?  Do we, too, have to climb up on a cross and die?  Actually, I think Jesus tells us how that is done in the next few lines of our passage.  There Jesus says, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”        Thus, Jesus has commanded his disciples to love one another, and he has given them the perfect example of how to do so.  The perfect example of how to love is first revealed in Jesus washing his disciples’ feet.  And the perfect example of how to love is further revealed by Jesus willingly going to the cross for our poor sakes.  We might go so far as to say that love is modeled in the foot washing and enacted fully in his crucifixion.  In any case, what Jesus is saying is this: Love is the way that God is glorified, and love necessarily implies humility and self-sacrifice.  Again, love is the way that God is glorified, and love necessarily implies humility and self-sacrifice. 

     Now since Mother’s Day is next week, and since we have our annual Mother’s Day musical and I don’t get to preach, let me give you a “motherly” illustration of this.  Once upon a time, a man stopped outside a flower shop to order some flowers to be sent to his mother who lived 200 miles away.  As he got out of his car, he noticed a little girl, sitting on the curb, crying her eyes out.  He asked her what was wrong and she replied, “I wanted to buy a red rose for my mother.  But I only have 75 cents and a rose costs two dollars.”  The man smiled and said, “Come into the store with me.  We’ll get a rose for your mother.”  He bought the little girl a rose and ordered the flowers to be delivered to his mother.  As they were leaving, he offered to drive the little girl home.  She said, “Thank you very much.  You can take me to see my mother.”

     The little girl directed him on where to drive.  It wasn’t long before they arrived at a cemetery. There the little girl placed her rose on a freshly-dug grave.  The man returned to the flower shop and cancelled the flowers that were scheduled to be delivered to his mother.  Then he picked up a bouquet and drove the 200 miles to his mother’s house.  Love necessarily implies humility and self-sacrifice.  How sad it is that we must so often learn these things the hard way.

Yet it is through such love that God is glorified.

     The purpose of our lives is to glorify God, and we glorify God by loving one another.  Jesus said to his disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.”  Yet there are many kinds of love, are there not?  There is the love of a husband for a wife.  There is the love of a mother for a child.  There is love between best friends, and then there is the love of which Jesus speaks here.  I think Frederick Buechner describes the love of which Jesus speaks quite well in his book, The Magnificent Defeat.  He writes:

The love for equals is a human thing…of friend for friend or brother for brother.  It is     to love what is lovely and loving.  The world smiles.  The love for the less fortunate is     a beautiful thing…the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor; the sick, the failures, the unlovely.  This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.

 

The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing…to love those who succeed where we   fail; to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice; the love of the poor for the rich,      or the (servant for the master).  The world is always bewildered by its saints.

 

And then there is the love for the enemy…love for the one who does not love you, but mocks, threatens and inflicts pain.  The tortured’s love for the torturer.  This is God’s love.  It conquers the world.

     Thus far, we’ve pretty much been speaking on an individual level.  It occurs to me, however,

 that maybe there’s more to it than that.  Maybe that’s the purpose of the Church as well.  The Church is called to glorify God.  And the Church glorifies God when it learns to love the ones    it is called to serve.  And that’s what we’ve got to figure out.  Who are we called to serve, and how can we best love them?

     But before we get to that, I think we need to look at our lives as if they were a cup of water.  The cup contains half a cup of water.  The question is: “Is the cup half full, or is the cup half empty?”  It’s a very important question.  When our cup is half full, we are grateful to God for what is in our lives.  Yet when our cup is half empty, we will always feel that we’ve been short-changed.  We will always be seeking to have or to gain more.  One of these ways is the way of God.  One of these ways is the way of the world.  I’ll let you decide which is which.

     When we learn to see that our cups are half full…when we come to love not just those who love us in return, but also the poor, and the successful, and those who actually oppose us, then God is glorified.  Those are precious and sacred moments.  Yet in reality, moments like this are far too fleeting.  They are here for but a short time and then they are gone.  Ah, doughnuts are never big enough, are they?  So do what I like to do.  Order two.  Amen. 

 

4-25-2010 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

TICKLE ME ELMO

   A couple of weeks ago my wife and I were walking the dog at Woodcock Dam.  She told me a story about an interview she saw on T.V. with Ted Neeley.  Ted Neeley, of course, played Jesus in the 1971 blockbuster movie Jesus Christ Superstar.  He recently reprised that role at the Warner Theater in Erie and was later interviewed by a T.V. news reporter.  The reporter asked, “Does Jesus Christ Superstar still resonate with audiences today?”  Neeley replied, “Absolutely.  People today are very interested in things like Jesus and the Bible.  And they want to hear it at a Sesame Street level.  Thus, Jesus Christ Superstar is still quite popular today.”

   “People today,” Neeley said, “are very interested in things like Jesus and the Bible.  And they want to hear it at a Sesame Street level.”  That statement seems to coincide with what research on religion in the post-modern era says.  We are in an era that some experts call the post-modern era.  Typical to the post-modern era are things like a lack of respect for authority, the crumbling of once-noble institutions, and the notion that all truth is relative.  In this era of confusion and relativity, what do people want from their faith?  They want black and white answers.  They want something in their lives they feel they can control.  They want absolute certainty in what they perceive to be a treacherous and confusing and unstable world.  In other words, people  want the gospel at a Sesame Street level.

     I remember a friend of mine in a previous church insinuating just such a thing to me.  He said, “We need to hear sermons that are practical…that give us specific instruction.  For example, you should do a sermon some time on how often people should come to church.”  I said, “That’s easy.  You should come to church every Sunday.”  He said, “No, you need to be more practical than that.  Maybe you should say that people can still be good Christians if they come to church, say, once every other week.”  Ah, my friend wanted to hear the gospel at a Sesame Street level, but he didn’t want to be told anything with which he did not agree.  He wanted a simplistic gospel, but he was only willing to hear what he wanted to hear.

   It appears as though the very same thing was happening in the passage we read from the gospel according to John.  It seems the religious leaders to whom Jesus was speaking wanted him to tell them a Sesame Street gospel that entailed only what they wanted to hear.  The time in our passage was the festival of the Dedication, perhaps better known to us as Hanukkah.  It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the Temple in Jerusalem.  There he was confronted by some of the leaders of the faith.  “How long,” they demanded, “will you keep us in suspense?  If you are    the Messiah, tell us plainly.”  Like I said, they wanted him to speak a Sesame Street gospel.  Is it possible, however, that they were only willing to hear what they wanted to hear as well?

   Before we get to Jesus’ answer, perhaps we should take a moment to consider just exactly what those religious leaders expected the Messiah to be.  There were actually two schools of thought about the Messiah.  One was that no one would know from where the Messiah came.  The other was that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.  It’s important to note that these leaders of the faith thought they knew from where Jesus came.  They thought he came from Nazareth.  But where was Jesus really born?  You remember the line from the second chapter of Luke, do you not?  “A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled.”  That ancient Roman census brought Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem, where Jesus was actually born.  But you see, the scribes and the Pharisees did not know that at the time. 

   In any case, a lot of people believed that no one would know from where the Messiah came.  The official position of the Sanhedrin – the decision-making entity of the Jewish faith – was   that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem.  Since the people knew, or thought they knew, where Jesus was from, he did not qualify as the Messiah from one group.  And since they thought he was from Nazareth, he failed to qualify as Messiah with the other group as well.

     What kind of a Messiah were they expecting?  They likely expected a Messiah who would perform miracles, as Jesus did.  Yet they also expected a Messiah who would restore Israel to   its former place of prominence as a world power.  In other words, they sought a Messiah who would squash and expel the hated Romans.  They were likely looking, at this point in time, for the political Messiah of their dreams. 

    Yet what kinds of things did Jesus say?  A line from the Sermon on the Mount comes to mind.  There Jesus said, “You have heard it said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  Somehow, Jesus just didn’t fit their job description for a Messiah.  They wanted their gospel at a Sesame Street level and they were only willing to hear what they wanted to hear.  So they said to him, “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

     Jesus answered them very plainly.  He said to them, “I have told you, but you do not believe.  The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep.  My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me.”

   Who, exactly, are these sheep to whom Jesus referred?  The sheep to whom Jesus referred, in those days, were the disciples and others who followed him.  The sheep today…are us.  Now sheep are not overly bright animals.  Thus, to refer to ourselves as sheep necessarily implies a bit of humility, wouldn’t you say?  Sheep have a herd mentality.  If one sheep heads a particular way, the other sheep are going to follow.  One sheep could actually lead a whole flock of sheep off a cliff.  That’s why sheep have shepherds.  The shepherd loves the sheep and leads them only to places that are safe.  But the sheep have to hear the shepherd’s voice and heed it.  They cannot go off willy-nilly on their own.

     For example, imagine a sheep that sees a green pasture off in the distance near the woods.  The sheep is hungry and wants to eat the grass, so that’s exactly where he heads.  Yet the shepherd prevents the sheep from going to that pasture.  Why?  He knows there are wolves in those woods.  The shepherd knows what’s best for the sheep, even if the sheep don’t realize it at the time.

     Now suppose that you’re a married man or a married woman.  You see an attractive member of the opposite sex – or these days, it might even be an attractive member of the same sex!  God forbid that I not be politically correct!  Like the sheep that wants to go off to greener pastures, you sense an overwhelming urge to pursue that other person.  The shepherd knows there are wolves in the woods.  The shepherd knows that if we pursue that person, we will devastate our spouses and our children, not to mention countless other people as well.  Perhaps we could even go so far as to say that our level of commitment to our relationship with our spouses reflects our level of commitment to our relationship with God.  Let me repeat that.  Perhaps we could even go so far as to say that our level of commitment to our relationship with our spouses reflects our level of commitment to our relationship with God. 

     A Christian hears the shepherd’s voice and heeds the Good Shepherd.  But some don’t hear that voice, do they?  Some head for what they think are greener pastures anyway.  They ignore the voice of the Good Shepherd and then find themselves wondering what went wrong.

     Freedom of choice aside, we must be humble enough to admit that we don’t always know what’s best for us.  And we must be faithful enough to trust in the fact that the Good Shepherd does.  We must first hear his voice, and then we must be willing to heed it as well…even when it’s not what we want to hear.

     The religious leaders to whom Jesus spoke did not hear what they wanted to hear.  They had asked him to tell them plainly if he was the Messiah or if he was not.  Jesus spoke of the works that he had done.  Jesus clearly indicated that he was not the political Messiah they envisioned.  Then Jesus concluded their conversation by saying, “I and the Father are one.”  In other words, what we know to be true of Jesus we know to be true of God for Jesus Christ is the revelation of God himself.  At that, they picked up rocks as if to stone him.  It was a good conversation gone bad.

     Sometimes Jesus just doesn’t tell us what we want to hear.  Instead, Jesus tells us what we need to hear.  Ladies and gentlemen, there is a difference.  Our desire to hear a Sesame Street gospel aside, sometimes things are not all black and white.  Sometimes we have to hear things we just don’t want to hear.  And for some strange reason, that’s what God calls preachers to do.  He calls us to sometimes say the things that no one wants to hear.  So, here goes…

   Ladies and gentlemen, I fear for the Church.  I love the Church with a passion that defies description.  But sometimes I feel like I’m a dying breed.  Where is the zeal for Christianity these days?  Where is the love for the Church anymore?  Whatever happened to evangelistic ardor?  Back in the 1950s, the principal means of evangelism was simply opening up the doors.  All the Church had to do was open up the doors and people flocked to the Church in droves.  Ladies and gentlemen, it’s not the 1950s anymore. 

     Years ago we had “blue laws” that seemed to aid our cause.  Incidentally, do you know why they were called “blue laws?”  Mainline Protestant churches collaborated in communities across the nation to pass and enforce laws that kept people from working on Sundays.  They conceded that cows needed milking, but factories didn’t have to operate.  Doctors could deliver babies, but mail did not have to be delivered.  Connecticut, a bastion of Protestant strength a number of generations ago, passed a set of model laws for Sabbath observance.  They printed it on blue paper.  When the law was copied elsewhere, the “blue laws” received their name.

     The blue laws included laws for Sabbath observance, but they included a few other things as well.  Let me share with you some of the blue laws that were once enforced in this country:

·         No one shall travel, cook, make beds, sweep house, cut hair, or shave on the Sabbath Day.  (That kind of law would keep the Sabbath holy, don’t you think?)

 

·         No woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath Day.  (I’m not exactly sure what the point of that law was.  And how did they enforce it?)

 

·         Every rateable person, who refuses to pay his proportion to the support of the minister of the town, shall be fined by the court…until he or she pays the rate to the minister.  (Actually, I think that sounds like a really good law!)

 

·         Fornication shall be punished by compelling the marriage, or as the court may think proper.  Adultery shall be punished by death.  (My, how things have changed!)

 

·         A wife shall be deemed good evidence against her husband.  (I’m not really sure what that means.)

 

·         Married persons must live together, or be imprisoned.  (Some might say that’s one and the same.  I wouldn’t say that, but some people might.)

 

·         Every male shall have his hair cut round according to a cap.  (I think we call that a “bowl cut” these days, don’t we?)

 

·         And last but not least, no man shall court a maid in person, or by letter, without first obtaining consent of her father.  (I think that sounds like a really good law, too.)

     Those are some of what we call the blue laws.  Obviously they didn’t work, or we’d still   have them.  My point is this.  We once had laws – blue laws – that seemed to encourage worship attendance.  We no longer have such laws.  No one is under compulsion to worship God any more.  It is done out of their own free will.  But if all we do is complain about how loud the music is, or how we just don’t agree with the sermons sometimes, or how boring worship is, who’s going to choose it?  Complaining can quickly become a cancer in a church.  Attitude        is everything.  Where is the zeal for Christianity these days?  Where is the love for the church anymore?  Whatever happened to evangelistic ardor?  I mean, don’t we believe that Christianity has something significant to say to our world today?  Don’t we believe that our faith could truly make a difference in our community and beyond?

     Since I was already on a Sesame Street train of thought this week, that got me to thinking about Tickle Me Elmo.  Tickle Me Elmo was introduced to the public in 1996, becoming that year’s top fad.  It was produced by Tyco Toys.  At first, Tyco did not have the rights to make Sesame Street toys, but they had the rights to make Looney Tunes toys.  Yet somehow, the Tickle Me Tazmanian Devil failed to catch on.  When they got the rights to Sesame Street     toys, Tickle Me Elmo was born.  And so was what was called “Elmo-mania.”     

     A Wal-Mart clerk named Robert Waller was among those injured by Elmo-mania.  During a midnight madness sale, a crowd of 300 stampeded down the aisle after seeing him being handed a box of the toys by another employee.  Waller was pulled under, trampled, and the crotch was somehow yanked out of his brand-new blue jeans.  He suffered a pulled hamstring, injuries to his back, jaw and knee, a broken rib, and a concussion. 

     If people can muster such zeal for a Tickle Me Elmo, why can’t they muster a little zeal for the Christian faith?  Why can’t they stir up a little evangelistic ardor for the church?  After all, the church has something a little more important to say than Tickle Me Elmo does.  Amen.

 

      

      

 

            

                         

 

4-18-2010 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THE REST OF THE STORY

 

     My name is Simon Peter.  I was a guest in this church on Maundy Thursday.  I told you about how Jesus called me, the miracles I saw him perform, and what he taught as we celebrated our last supper with him.  Then a couple of people from this congregation told me that they wanted to hear the rest of the story.  That’s why I’m here today.  I’m here to tell you the rest of the story.

     Allow me to briefly recap what I said on Maundy Thursday for the sake of those who were not here.  I was a fisherman by trade, and I’d been fishing all night long with my brother Andrew and we hadn’t caught a thing.  Then this man on the shoreline said, “Cast your nets on the other side of the boat for a catch.”  We thought he was crazy, but we did as we were told.  We caught more fish that day than we had ever caught before.  I knew there was something special about this man called Jesus.  When we got to shore, I dropped to my knees and said, “Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man.”  He said to me, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”  What could we do but follow?  Twelve men, Jesus called, and we all began to follow – ever so slowly at first – doubting him every step of the way.  But the more we saw – the more we heard – the more we came to love this man called Jesus with a love we had never known before.  The things we saw Jesus do were nothing short of amazing.  We saw him turn water into wine.  We saw him feed 5000 people with but five loaves of bread and two fish.  We saw him heal a man who was blind from birth.  And then we saw him raise Lazarus from the dead.  We began to believe that Jesus was the Messiah Israel had long awaited.  We began to believe that Jesus was, in fact, the very Son of God.

     It was at the last supper we ever ate with Jesus that he taught us the secret to life.  After supper, he filed a basin with water and girded himself with a towel.  Then he began to wash his disciples’ filthy, dirty feet.  It was a task typically reserved only for the lowest of the low.  Yet here was the Lord of life washing his disciples’ feet.  When he came to me I said, “Lord, do you wash my feet?”  Jesus said, “If I do not wash you, you have no part of me.”  I said to him, “Lord, not only my feet but also my head and my hands!”  Jesus said, “Your feet will do for now.”  And in that one simple act, Jesus taught us the secret to life.  The secret to life is love.  And the keys to love are humility and selflessness.  Again, the secret to life is love, and the keys to love are humility and selflessness.

     It was after this that Jesus gave us his passion prediction.  He told us that one of our number would betray him.  We failed to understand.  I said to Jesus, “Lord, I would lay down my life for you!”  Jesus said, “Will you lay down your life for me, Peter?  I tell you, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.”  Much to my chagrin, that’s exactly what I did.  Then Jesus said, “Let not your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God.  Believe also in me.  In my Father’s house there are many rooms.  If it were not so – if it were not so – would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And when I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am, you may be also.  And you know the way where I am going.  Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going.  How can we know the way?’  Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father…but by me.’”

     After Jesus had said these words, we left the upper room and went to the Garden of Gethsemane.  There we disciples fell asleep, while Jesus went off to pray.  It wasn’t long before Judas led an angry mob to where we were.  When they laid their hands on Jesus, I drew my sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s slave.  Jesus reached up and restored the man’s ear.  Then he told me to put my sword away.  It was almost as if he was saying, “Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.”  At that, we disciples fled while the mob hauled Jesus to the high priest’s house.

     I followed at a distance to the house.  There was a fire in the courtyard and as I sat warming myself by the fire, a woman said to me, “Weren’t you with that Jesus?”  I said, “No, I was not!”  A little while later someone else said, “Weren’t you with Jesus?”  Again I said, “No, I was not!”  Then a group of people again accused me of being with Jesus.  I shouted, “I tell you, I do not know the man!”  At that, the cock crowed.  Jesus had been right.  At a time when Jesus needed me most, I had denied even knowing him.  You cannot even begin to imagine how I felt after that.

     Jesus was brutally beaten and hung on a cross to die.  When Jesus died, our hopes and dreams died alongside him.  We disciples huddled together in the upper room.  We were terrified!  If they’d done that to Jesus, what would they do to us?  Jesus died on a Friday.  We were huddled together all day on Saturday.  It was probably the longest day of our lives.  Then early on Sunday morning, some women from our company went to the tomb to embalm the body of Jesus.  They came back to us telling us that the tomb was empty – that Jesus had been risen – and that they’d even seen an angel.  I ran to the tomb myself to check their story out.  Sure enough, the tomb was empty.  Jesus later appeared to us and convinced us that he had been raised from the dead.  Now we had the assurance of a resurrection.  Now we had the hope of our own salvation as well.  You might think that would be the end of my story.  You might think so, but it is not.

     After we had the assurance of our own salvation, we went back to our regular lives.  I said to the other disciples, “I am going fishing.”  Several of them went with me.  We toiled all night long and didn’t catch a thing.  Then there was this man on the shoreline.  He said, “Cast your nets on the other side of the boat for a catch.”  And when we did, we hauled in 153 fish.  John cried out, “It is the Lord!”  I sprang from the boat and I ran to him.  Jesus said to me, “Peter, do you love me?”  I said, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  He said to me, “Feed my lambs.”  Then Jesus said to me again, “Peter, do you love me?”  I said, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  He said to me, “Tend my sheep.”  Then Jesus said to me for a third time, “Peter, do you love me?”  I was hurt.  I said, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  Jesus said to me, “Feed my sheep.”  And then I knew that the assurance of my salvation was not enough.  As John wrote in his gospel, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  God sent the Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”  Salvation is not the end of the journey, it is merely the beginning.  We were called to spread the gospel across the land in order to transform the world.  And some 2000 years later, you are called to do the very same thing.  As a man named Paul Harvey used to say, “Now you know the rest of the story.”  Amen.   

 

 

 

4-4-2010 Easter Sunday Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

WISHFUL THINKING

     There was an interesting article in last Tuesday’s Meadville Tribune about the Hitchens brothers.  Christopher Hitchens has become one of the world’s most prolific atheists and is the author of a book entitled, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.  Peter Hitchens is his younger brother, and is a man who recently overcame a bout with atheism.  He, too, is the author of a book entitled, The Rage Against God, which is actually a defense of the Christian faith.  Can you imagine what their family reunions must be like?

    Christopher Hitchens does not appear to be a person who will be changing his beliefs any time soon.  He once said, “God did not create man in his own image.  Evidently, it was the other way around.”  In other words, human beings invented the notion of God out of a deep psychological need.  He writes:

There are four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that it manages to combine the maximum of servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wishful thinking.

   I don’t want to get into the business of servility or solipsism or sexual repression, but I do want to wrestle with his notions on wishful thinking.  Because in a way, I think Mr. Hitchens is right.  God could reasonably be called a product of wishful thinking.  After all, when someone takes advantage of us and there’s nothing we can do about it, don’t we hope there’s Someone up above keeping score?  When we become ill and it’s questionable as to whether or not medical science can heal us, don’t we want to turn to a higher Source?  And as we approach that time in life when we will no longer exist in this world, don’t we hope for something beyond this earthly life?     

   I think of what comedian Jerry Seinfeld once said in one of his bits.  He said, “Recent polls show that the greatest fear of most Americans is public speaking.  People are more afraid of public speaking than they are of dying.  So in other words, most people would rather be in the coffin…than up front doing the eulogy!”

     I’m not so sure that Jerry Seinfeld or those so-called polls are right.  People who are on in years and have lived a life of faith may not be afraid of dying.  But perhaps there is no greater fear for those who have not lived so long or who have not lived a life of faith.  Death has long been the greatest fear of the human race.  It’s instinctive…we simply have a drive to survive.  It stands to reason, then, that life beyond death could well be what Christopher Hitchens calls wishful thinking.  We have a deep-seated desire for life to go on, and we have a deep-seated hope that God will provide a way.

     Two thousand years ago, the belief in a resurrection was not nearly as doctrinal as it is today.  The Pharisee sect of the Jewish faith had a vague notion of some kind of life after death after a cataclysmic end of the world.  The Sadducee sect of the Jewish faith vehemently denied the existence of life after death altogether.  It was this confusion – this lack of certainty – that led to such despair for those who followed Jesus in the aftermath of his crucifixion.  Jesus had died and with his death, all of their hopes and dreams seemed to die alongside him.

     Such was the situation for the women who went to Jesus’ tomb bright and early on a Sunday morning.  Jesus had been crucified the Friday before and since Saturday was their Sabbath, they waited until Sunday to embalm the body.  As they made their way to the tomb, they were all wrapped up in earthly concerns.  “Who will roll the stone away from the door of the tomb?” they wondered as they walked.  Tombs in those days were caves and they had great round rocks rolled in front of them.  The stone would be far too big for them to budge.  Thus, we could say it was a valid concern.

     Yet when they arrived at the tomb, they found that the stone had already been rolled away.  Note how our passage says they were “perplexed” about this.  The Greek word translated “perplexed” is haporeisthai.  It means literally, “to be at a loss as to what to do.”  These women were literally at a loss as to what to do.  Note that it was then that they encountered two men in dazzling clothes.  Luke says it was two men in dazzling clothes.  Mark says it was a young man in a long, white robe. Matthew says it was one angel while John says it was two.  In any case, I think the lesson is clear.  When we are perplexed – when we are at a loss as to what to do – that is when we can turn to God and God will give us guidance.  Sometimes it takes a little perplexity for us to get beyond our pride and self-sufficiency and to open ourselves to God.  Again, sometimes it takes a little perplexity for us to get beyond our pride and self-sufficiency and to open ourselves to God.

     While the gospels may not be in agreement as to who appeared to the women at the tomb, they all agree on one thing: the tomb was empty.  Jesus had been raised from the dead.  This,     of course, was the greatest news they could have encountered.  Death had been overcome by    the Son of God.  Now their greatest fear – the fear of death – had been vanquished.  While Christopher Hitchens may call this wishful thinking, we have four separate accounts that tell us otherwise.  Death is not the end of life, it is merely the end of a phase of life.  There is a resurrection.  Now we have the hope that our lives go on.  As I often times say in my funeral sermons, “It’s not ‘goodbye’ we say to the dearly departed today.  It is, rather, ‘Until we meet again.’”  Such is the assurance of the resurrection.  It marks an end to our greatest fear, and it thus serves as the greatest news we could possibly hear.  In fact the very words “good news” are literally translated “gospel.”  Maybe that’s why the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are called the gospels.  They are meant to present – and they represent – good news.           

     The question is, what do we do with that wonderful news?  Is it meant to be shared or is it meant to be hoarded unto ourselves?  Or, perhaps better put, is the assurance of our salvation   the end of our journey with God, or is it merely the beginning?  Abraham Heschel has an interesting take on this in his book, God in Search of Man.  He writes:

The world needs more than the secret holiness of individual inwardness.  It needs more than sacred sentiments and good intentions.  God asks for the heart because He needs the lives.  It is by lives that the world will be redeemed – by lives that beat in concordance with God – (and) by deeds that outbeat the finite charity of the human heart. 

     In other words, the assurance of our salvation is not the end of our journey with God.  It is merely the beginning.  God wants us to do something with the good news of the resurrection, not simply hoard it unto ourselves.  And that is exactly what those women who went to the tomb to embalm the body of Jesus did.  They ran and told the disciples of all they had heard and seen.

We might even call them the world’s first evangelists.

     Yet the disciples did not believe the report of the women.  Our passage says, “The words seemed to them an idle tale.”  That’s actually putting it mildly.  What the Greek words used   here mean literally is that it seemed to them to be the babbling of fevered or irrational minds.      Still, Peter went to the tomb to check the story out.  He ran to the tomb and found it just as       the women had said.  Yet he found something else as well.  The gospel of John takes an entire verse to explain it.  Peter found the linen cloth that had been wrapped around the body of Jesus lying there.  He also found the napkin that had been on Jesus’ head – not lying with the linen wrappings – but folded up in a place by itself.  Is a folded napkin significant?

     In order to understand the significance of the folded napkin, one has to understand a little    bit about the Hebrew tradition of that day.  The folded napkin had to do with the master and     the servant, and every Jewish servant at the time was aware of this tradition.  When the servant set the dinner table for the master, he made sure that it was exactly the way the master wanted   it.  The table was furnished perfectly, then the servant would wait – just out of sight – until the master had finished eating.  The servant would not dare touch the table until the master was done.

    If the master was done eating, he would rise from the table, wipe his fingers and his face, then wad up the napkin and toss it on the table.  The servant then knew it was time to clear the table.  For in those days, the wadded napkin meant, “I am finished.”  But if the master got up from the table and folded his napkin and laid it beside his plate, the servant would not dare touch the table.  For you see, the folded napkin meant, “I’m not finished yet.  I will be coming back.”  Perhaps the folded napkin in Jesus’ tomb was meant to insinuate the very same thing.  Perhaps it, too, meant, “I’m not finished yet.  I will be coming back.”  Peter knew then that his job was not yet finished either.  The assurance of his salvation was but the beginning of his journey with God.

     So there you have it…the assurance of your own salvation.  Perhaps you have figured out that your journey with God is just beginning as well.  So what do you suppose it is that God still wants you to do?  Or perhaps better put, what do you suppose God wants the mission of the First Presbyterian Church of Meadville to be?

    We live in a community that is filled with poverty, more and more every day.  I recently heard that more than 40% of our high school students are on the free or reduced lunch plan.  More than 50% of our middle school students are on the free or reduced lunch plan. And one of our local elementary schools has 96% of its students on the free or reduced lunch plan.  And this doesn’t count the students who may be too proud to admit their need – who don’t want to admit to their poverty “stigma.”  If we are truly Christians assured of our own salvation, we cannot sit idly by in the face of facts like these.  Our hearts must somehow be moved to action.

   I know it’s easy to blame the parents of these children for their predicament.  But nevertheless, can we in good conscience allow these children to go hungry?  Can we in good conscience sit idly by, reveling in our own salvation, and allow these children to climb onto that same merry-go-round of poverty that their parents are on?  Or should we seek to do something about it?     

     Maybe we could provide an after-school program for kids who are in this predicament.  Our after-school program might include things like recreation time, Bible study, a nutritious meal, and classroom tutoring.  Kids from the streets would encounter Christian compassion and love, maybe for the first time in their lives.  Of course, such a program would require a significant number of volunteers.  Yet if we actually attempted to do such a thing, don’t we believe it would make a profound difference in their lives?  In fact, don’t we believe that the presence of Christ makes a profound difference in anyone’s life?  Here’s the most amazing thing about that though.  When compassionate people seek to transform the lives of those in need, those people often find themselves being even more profoundly transformed.  Again, when compassionate people seek to transform the lives of those in need, those people often find themselves being even more profoundly transformed.  That’s just the way God’s Holy Spirit works.

     I know, I know, some of you are rolling your eyes saying, “We’ve heard all of this before!”  And I’ll admit it.  You have.  You’ve heard it from me.  But don’t you know what preaching is?  Preaching is like the waves of the ocean lapping up against a rocky shoreline.  As the waves continually slap against the rocks, they slowly begin to make inroads.  They slowly erode the rocks away.  That’s what preaching is meant to do.  It’s meant to make inroads and to erode away the hardened hearts of our worldly nature.  Of course, you have to be here for that to hap-pen, but that’s another sermon. 

   Christ is risen.  Christ is risen indeed!  Now that our greatest fear has been taken away – now that we have the hope of life everlasting – our journey toward God is ready to begin.  We have   a deep need in our community and we have a profound mission from God.  As author Frederick Buechner once said, “Our calling from God is where the world’s deep need and our deep hunger...intersect.”  Is the social and spiritual transformation of the young people in our   community something we feel called by God to accomplish, or is it merely wishful thinking?  Amen.

    

 

3-28-10 Palm Sunday Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

AMAZING GRACE

     A rather unpleasant aspect of the Bible is how often it calls upon us to sacrifice.  The word “sacrifice” itself appears 284 times in the pages of Scripture.  The words “give” and “giving” appear a whopping 2285 times.  One might be led to believe that selfishness has no place in the Christian life.  Yet still, one has to ask the question, “Why?”  Why would one sacrifice – why would one give – when looking out for Number One is what most of us would really rather do?

     I believe a man named Bill Moore from Asheville, North Carolina – not Bill Moore from Meadville, Pennsylvania, Bill Moore from Asheville, North Carolina – addresses this phenomenon.  He tells a beautiful story as to why one might willingly choose to sacrifice one’s own self-interest for the sake of another.  I may have told you this story before – you know me, I get my churches mixed up – but I’ve always believed that a really good story is worth a second telling.  Listen closely just the same.

People who live in resort areas like ours rarely seem to lack for visitors, especially during the vacation season.  Much of the time this parade of pilgrims to the mountains is a pleasant experience for the hosts.  But recently, we had the visitor to end all visitors.

 

He couldn’t stay at our house unless we went out and bought a special kind of bed for him, we were told.  So we did.  He was accompanied by an entourage of no fewer than three people, whose mission in life was to wait on him hand and foot.  We had to find places for them to stay, we were told.  So we did.

 

He arrived with, of all things, an assortment of his own personal screwdrivers.  In his spare moments he proceeded to disassemble just about everything in the house.  Unfortunately, his skill at taking things apart was not nearly matched by his skill at putting them back together.  Someone had to constantly follow him around and reassemble the things he took apart.  So we did.

 

We like to take first-time visitors to Asheville to the lodge at Mount Pisgah for lunch.  The scenery nearly bowls them over, but not this guy.  We were barely over the bridge across the French Broad River when he went to sleep.  And he didn’t wake up until we got to the lodge.

 

He made a scene at lunch, refused to eat what was ordered for him, and insisted on eating someone else’s meal.  And before we could get him out of the place, I caught him kissing the waitress.  He turned out to be a real conversation killer as well.  While he slept, the rest of us walked around on tiptoe and spoke in hushed tones so as not to disturb him.  While he was awake, he tended to monopolize any conversation, rattling on non-stop in a voice that demanded careful attention.

 

You might think we’d say, “Who needs a guest like that?  We’ll be glad to see him go and we’ll never invite him back.”  You might think that, but you’d be wrong.  You see, he is just three years old and he calls me “Grandpa.”  And he can come over and disassemble the house any time he wants.

     Why would one sacrifice – why would one give – when looking out for Number One is what most of us would really rather do?  I think Bill Moore from Asheville, North Carolina reveals the answer for us.  The answer…is love.  We sacrifice for love.

   I believe this brings to mind the passage we read from the gospel according to Luke.  Jesus makes his triumphal ride into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday on the back of a colt amid pomp and circumstance.  People line the road, place their garments in the street, wave palm branches and shout, “Hosanna!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest!”

     Now from our vantage point, nearly 2000 years on this side of the cross, we are well aware of the fate that lay in store for Jesus in Jerusalem.  He would see the crowds turn against him and he would see his closest friends abandon him.  He would suffer brutal beatings and he would suffer death by crucifixion.  Yet the fact of the matter is, Jesus had a pretty good idea as to the fate that would befall him as well.  We can’t help but ask the question, “Why?  Why on earth would Jesus ride into Jerusalem in full knowledge of the suffering he would face?  Why on earth would Jesus ride into Jerusalem in full knowledge of the sacrifice he would ultimately make?”  There can be no other answer…but love.  Jesus made his sacrifice out of his love for humanity.  Jesus made his sacrifice out of his love for you and me.

     The sacrifice Jesus made changed the course of history.  For through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, God established a new covenant with humanity.  The old covenant – the covenant of law – was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  The new covenant he established is a covenant of grace and mercy.

     As Christians, we are under this new covenant of grace and mercy.  That does not mean that the old covenant is abolished – that the laws of God in the Old Testament are meaningless to us.  But what it does mean is that because of the covenant established through Christ’s sacrifice, now there is forgiveness…thanks to the grace of God.

     So what exactly is the grace of God?  I recently came across an interesting analogy written by a minister who was trying to reach the younger generation.  He says that grace is like the System Restore feature on the Windows Millennium Edition of your computer.  How does it work? Let’s say you’ve had a crash on your computer today.  You’re not a computer wizard – no one in your family works for the Geek Squad – so you don’t know how to recover the last week of financial information you entered, or the documents you’ve saved, or even your son’s English paper.  What you need is a restoration of your system.

     With the System Restore feature on your computer, all you have to do is specify the date to which you want your computer reset.  Almost like a time machine, that’s exactly what your computer does.  Your computer is returned to its previous stable state.  It almost sounds theological doesn’t it?  System Restore…now that’s grace!

     When a person works an eight-hour day and receives a fair day’s pay for his or her time, that is a wage.  When a person competes with an opponent and receives a trophy for his or her performance, that is a prize.  When a person receives appropriate recognition for long service or high achievement, that is an award.  But when a person is not capable of earning a wage, and can win no prize, and deserves no award – yet receives such a gift anyway – that is what we call grace.

Grace is defined as unmerited favor.  Again, grace is defined as unmerited favor.

   J.I. Packer is a retired professor of theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia.  Kevin Dill says that if he’s a Canadian, he can’t be all bad!  In his book Knowing God, he takes an interesting look at the concept of grace.  Listen to what he has to say:

It is commonplace in all the churches to call Christianity a religion of grace.  It is a truism  of Christian scholarship that grace, far from being an impersonal force – a sort of celestial electricity received like a battery charge by plugging in to the sacraments – is a personal activity…God operating in love toward people.

 

It is repeatedly pointed out in books and sermons that the Greek New Testament word  for grace (charis), like that for love (agape) , is a wholly Christian usage, expressing a notion of spontaneous, self-determined kindness which was previously quite unknown to Greco-Roman ethics and theology.  It is a staple diet in the Sunday school that grace is God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.  And yet, despite these facts, there do not seem to be many in our churches who actually believe in grace.

     Did you catch that last line?  “And yet, despite these facts, there do not seem to be many in our churches who actually believe in grace.”  What on earth does that mean?  How could anyone not believe in grace?  The fact of the matter is, that question is not so shocking.  For in order to believe in grace, one must necessarily accept a small progression of other facts as well.

     For example, in order to believe in grace, one must first accept the fact that one is a sinner.  Yet many modern men and women are convinced that, despite all their little peccadilloes – drunkenness, gambling, reckless driving, promiscuity, black and white lies, unscrupulous business practices, pornography, what have you – in spite of these things, people still believe they are, at heart, thoroughly good folks.  The thought of themselves as creatures fallen from God’s image, rebels against God’s rule, guilty and unclean in God’s sight, fit only for God’s condemnation…never even enters their heads.  Yet in order to believe in grace, that’s the first thing we have to believe.  To believe in grace, we must first believe we need it.

     In order to believe in grace, one must also believe in the retributive justice of God.  We often times say, “If God is really a God of love, how could he punish anyone?”  Of course, that’s not scriptural, but that’s the way we try to rationalize our way around things.  Yet God would not be true to himself unless he did punish sin.  We must come to realize that sinners – like us – deserve God’s condemnation before we can begin to believe in grace.

     In order to believe in grace, one must believe in what we might call the spiritual impotence of humanity.  Ancient pagans thought they could appease God by offering tremendous gifts and sacrifices.  Perhaps we think we can appease God as well through churchmanship or morality.  For example, back in the 1930s, one man paid to build the massive East Liberty Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh all by himself.  Some call that church “Mellon’s Fire Escape.”  Yet in order to believe in grace, we must first believe that mending our relationship with God – that regaining God’s favor after having once lost it – is beyond the capacity of any one of us.  Restoring our relationship with God is only possible through Jesus Christ.

     And finally, in order to believe in grace, one must first accept the sovereign freedom of God.  The point is that God owes us nothing.  Grace is only grace if it comes from a God who is free to choose otherwise.

     So I ask you now: “Do you believe in grace?”  If you believe that you are a sinner, that you deserve God’s condemnation, that you can do nothing to merit God’s favor, and that God is free to do with you as he chooses, then perhaps you do believe in grace.  If you believe otherwise, then perhaps what you believe in is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer referred to as cheap grace.  The grace of God in Christ is anything but cheap.  The grace of God in Christ…is nothing short of amazing.

     Yet one more thing still needs to be said.  Christians are often criticized as being hypocritical.  Outsiders see Christian foibles and imperfections and think to themselves, “Hah!  Christians are no better than anyone else!  And that’s why I don’t want to be one.”  They see our imperfections and criticize the Christian faith in general.  To that, I say this.  Christians are not perfect.  Christians, too, are in need of the grace of God.  Being a Christian is a process of growth that takes a lifetime to complete.  The question is, “Who can really change?”  Who can really be transformed by the grace of God?  Our pride has a tendency to get in the way.  With that in mind, I want you to listen to part of an article that was written by Phillip Yancey in Christianity Today in October of 2001.  He writes:

I have never been especially patriotic.  I’ve travelled too much overseas, I guess, and have seen from afar the arrogance and insensitivity of too many Americans.  September 11^th changed my attitude.  I choked up when Congress sang “God Bless America,” and when the Buckingham Palace guard played “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and when firemen told corny stories about their fallen comrades, and when a solitary bagpiper played “Amazing Grace” in Union Square, and when hundreds of New Yorkers walked around dazed with photos of their missing loved ones…I felt a sudden surge of loyalty and unity with my country that was new to me.  Scot Simon put words to it in a National Public Radio editorial after the World Trade Center attacks.  He said, “Patriotism is not based on a blind belief that the United States has no need to change.  God knows we need to change in many ways.  Our love for America rests on the belief that the changes needed are more likely to occur here than anywhere else in the world.”

   Perhaps we could say the very same thing about people who encounter the amazing grace of God.  They are not perfect; they still need to change.  It’s just that the changes needed are more likely to occur in them than they are in anyone else in the world.  Amen.