1-27-2013 Sermon by Rev. Larry Peters

 

OUR CHRISTIAN MISSION

Rev. Larry Peters

January 27, 2013

 

Psalm 19:7-9

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Luke 4:14-21

  Today’s scripture lessons impress upon me the teachings of (1) How to have church, (2) What the church requires, and (3) What to do as the church.   We are called to think about who we are;  of what we mean when we say that Jesus Christ is our Lord;  what that calls us to be, and to do;  of what special tools or skills that we need;  of the way that we are to follow.

   These teachings are of great importance to us.   They are also of great importance to all those people with whom we come into contact.   You see, by coming to know our Lord Jesus Christ, we have come to know his life-saving grace!   We are changed!   Where once we were lost- now we are found, were blind- but now we see!   We are enabled!   We have a purpose!   We are on a mission!   We are to help others to see;  to see how their life can be changed—how they, too, can come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and to know his life-saving grace!

   We have this in common with everyone who is a Christian.   And this blessed assurance, that we are one in Christ, is what all of us celebrate!   This week, and everytime that we as God’s people gather together in churches and in communities all around the world—we are celebrating and witnessing to Christian unity!

  This unity, being one in the Body of Christ, is what is required of the church—what God requires of us.   How can the church be anything different?   How can the body function properly when it fails to work together as one?   And so, to ensure that the Christian’s faith and witness is sure;  that the church’s foundation is solid;  that the Body of Christ in the world today is strong—we notice, as does the psalmist in our call to worship, that God does certain things:

(1)    God gives us his law to follow.   The law of the Lord is perfect and right.   Happy are those who obey them!   They receive new strength!

(2)    God gives us commandments that are just, trustworthy, full of wisdom, and that we are able to understand.

(3)    We should understand what we are to give.   Of our giving every good thing to the Lord, our worship of the Lord is good;  it will continue forever!

  I remember once when I was attending church with the Methodists in Saegertown and the pastor was sharing a message with the children.   I don’t remember what the message was about.   I do remember a little girl of about five years of age asking in a loud voice; “How long does church last?”   Everyone laughed at that, and no one was quite sure how to answer.   However, here we are given an answer:  our worship is to be good;  and it will last forever!

(4)    We are also to understand that the Lord God gives judgment.   They are also just, trustworthy, full of wisdom, and they are always fair.   We should know and understand that God has the authority to judge and to give laws and commandments!   We should know and understand that God has a right to give these; and a right to expect his people to follow, that we are to give God loyalty and obedience!

  God has given Jesus all authority as Head of the Church!   We know the prayer of Jesus for God’s people, the Church:  that we may all be one, as God and the Son of God are one; that is all who believe in God and the Son, through the Word that they have received!   And Jesus prays; “that they also be one in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”   You see, the world is watching for our Christian witness, and our mission in the world.   The world watches to see what we mean when we say that Jesus Christ is our Lord; what this calls us to be, and to do.

  A popular hymn says that “They’ll Know that we are Christians by our Love.”   Our words, our actions should reflect this love.   Love is what we do; love is what we speak—and there should be no divisions among us—but that we be “perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”

  This perfection is what we as God’s people and God’s church are striving after—even in the midst of our imperfection!   Our Prayer of Confession that we said together explains our brokenness and how we pray for forgiveness when we have ignored God and become indifferent to God’s love.   The Bible says that we love because God first loves us.   But, if we are indifferent to God’s love, how can we exemplify God’s love?   How will the world know that we are Christians?

  In a “Peanuts” cartoon, Lucy is letting Charlie Brown have some of her anger and frustration when she concludes with the words: “and I don’t care if I ever see you again!   Do you hear me!?”   Linus turns to Charlie Brown and says: “She really hurt your feelings, didn’t she, Charlie Brown?   I hope she didn’t take all the life out of you.”   Charlie Brown answers: “No, not completely…. But you can number me among the walking wounded!”

  Some of us may know about the walking wounded.   Many can be found in church.   And the sad part is that often the wounds are inflicted by other Christians.   So, if we can start now to address one of those teachings mentioned at the beginning of this sermon, what the church requires is love, understanding, and acceptance.   The Apostle Paul is addressing this in his letter to the Corinthians.

  One of the great Biblical affirmations is that we are created in God’s image.   And the image that we see in Paul’s letter to the church is that we are one body made up of many parts.   Christians are the Body of Christ, and individually members of it, since we are all baptized into the one body.   Each member is unique.   Each one is different.   Each has a special skill, talent, God-given ability to be used for the good of all.   And so everyone is important!   Everyone is blessed!   Here everyone should receive a blessing.   Here everyone should be invited, welcomed, loved, accepted, understood, and together we look forward to going on to perfection even in the midst of our imperfection.

  If you were to ask some different people, “why do you come to church?” or “what does church really mean to you?” you’re likely to get some different, yet similar answers.   An aged man or woman may say that they have always felt part of the ministry, and that the church has always been home.   A member of the Youth Group might say, “I like my friends here.   We have fun together.”   And couples with families, or those separated or divorced, widowed or single might say, “The church is a place where people really seem to take an interest and care about what happens.”   Brokenness is a part of our human condition.   Caring and helping are part of our Christian mission.

  And so, we are starting to see (1) how to have church, (2) what the church requires, and (3) what to do as the church.   Now let’s think outside the box.   Often when we think of the church, we picture a building.   Do we see the church when we see each other?   Let’s go deeper than that.   Do we see Christ in one another?   And if we didn’t have the building, would we still be the Body?

  What if there were no church building or meeting place?   And what if our members were dispersed and relocated?   Or imagine a war situation where all of you had been captured and taken to a foreign land for a period of years—until all of you could return to home and church, assembled as family again.   What would be the most important element of your celebration?   May it be to re-establish yourself, your family, and your fellowship with your church family around God’s Word!

  Such a situation can be seen in our scripture lesson of Nehemiah.   The people had been captured and relocated to a foreign land during the Babylonian Exile.   And after years of being away, they returned home to find Jerusalem in ruins and the Temple destroyed.   How could they celebrate their freedom and homecoming?   What would they do now?   The scripture says they all assembled together and asked Ezra, the priest, the pastor to read the book of the Law—God’s Word to them!

  These people had been so disconnected and out of touch for so long that they now had a hunger to hear the Word of God again!   They all stood from early morning until after noon, listening to their preacher read the Bible to them!   All the people listened attentively to the law.   Because the people had rebelled against God, they had been captured or removed from their homes and their place of worship.   And now, when the people heard again what the law required, they were so moved that they began to cry.

  What does God require?   Repentance; then we receive forgiveness; and then we rejoice; and then we are fitted for service!   Our Christian mission is to enjoy the work that we have been given to do; and to understand that to help relieve the suffering of our human condition is to love, care and share with those who do not have enough.

  Our lessons today teach us (1) what to do as the church, (2) what the church requires, and (3) how to have church.   The scriptures say that the people, the church was so filled with the Holy Spirit and rejoicing, that new things began to happen in the church.   Phrases such as “praise the Lord!” and “Amen!” were heard, and “people knelt in worship with their faces to the ground!”

  As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, people came to see that there is “no division in the body, but all its different parts have the same concern for one another.”   Paul says that we should “strive for the greater gifts.”   That greater gift is the unity of the Body.   As members of the Body of Christ, we are called to strive for unity even in the midst of our diversity!   Diversity itself can be seen as a gift when it stretches us to see beyond the familiar to experience something new.

  The scriptures teach us that all of us have gifts that should be used for the greater benefit of everyone.   We should learn to see and use these gifts, and encourage others to do so.   Christians are the Body of Christ.   And so when Jesus reads from the prophet Isaiah, and we recognize him as the one anointed to:

n  Bring good news to the poor

n  Proclaim liberty to those who are captive

n  Proclaim recovering of sight to the blind

n  To free the oppressed

n  And to announce that the time has come when the Lord will save His people

  We also recognize that this is part of our Christian mission to a broken and suffering human condition.     The church is called to continue the ministry which Jesus Christ began.   We can start by confessing that we are all sinners in need of the Savior.   And to recognize our need for God; and to rejoice that God has provided for us.   We then learn how to love as God loves us, and to accept and understand one another.   God has blessed us with many unique and good gifts; and we are to use them for the benefit of all, and to the glory of God.   This is our Christian mission!   May it receive the blessing of Christ our Lord.   May it come true today in your hearing.   Amen!

 

 

                                                                    

                                                          

 

01-13-2013 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

 

CHRISTIANITY 101: GOD IS SELF-SACRIFICING

  Daniel T. Rodgers is a professor at Princeton University and the author of a new book entitled, Age of Fracture.  In it he describes how words like dedication, courage, responsibility, self-scrutiny, and sacrifice have largely faded from the public discourse of our nation’s life.  “In particular,” he writes, “the language of sacrifice has disappeared as the values of a consumer-driven economy have swept over us – except for the sacrifice of a volunteer military, which sacrifices for us.”  In other words, the last thing on God’s green earth that we want to talk about these days…is our own personal sacrifice.

  Among the most important places this shift can be seen is in presidential speech making.  Rodgers points to the ways that earlier presidential speeches essentially mimicked Protestant preaching.  For example, John F. Kennedy once said, “And so my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”  “Beginning with Ronald Reagan,” Rodgers writes, “with his rhetoric of psychic optimism, older rhetorical formulas with their calls for sacrifice and responsibility were overwhelmed by new, softer, less demanding ones.”  In other words, the President as Protestant preacher was replaced by the President as motivational speaker.  Perhaps the election of 2012 serves as a vivid reminder of how foreign the language of sacrifice and responsibility is to contemporary American culture.

  Erskine Clarke is the editor of Journal for Preachers magazine.  Along those very same lines, he addresses today’s Protestant preacher in a recent article.  He writes, “So as a preacher, if you dare to claim the old rhetoric and traditions of the church, if you dare to model your preaching on something other than entertainment, if you dare for your preaching to plunge into the biblical texts – with their calls for personal and social self-scrutiny, repentance and sacrifice – you will be participating in a very un-American activity.”  Thus, ladies and gentlemen, we are about to embark upon a very un-American activity today.  Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

  Several weeks ago, we talked about the contrast between our tendency to gratify the desires of the flesh and the Apostle Paul’s call for us to live by the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit.  We noted how human will power lacks the capacity to change much of anything within us.  Change happens when something else is modified.  What is it that needs to be modified?  What needs to be modified is our personal narrative of who and what God is.  We need to have the proper story in our minds as to who and what God is, if we’re ever going to change who and what we are, because everything about us stems from our own internal narrative.

  As Jesus is God Incarnate, we determined to let Jesus establish our new internal narrative.  We noted how one of the false narratives that many people have of God is that God sticks it to us if we do something wrong.  Citing a passage from the gospel according to John, we saw Jesus and his disciples encounter a man who was blind from birth.  His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned – this man or his parents – that he was born blind?”  In their minds, it had to be one or the other.  Blindness was believed to be punishment from an angry God.  Thus, Jesus set out to establish a new narrative within them.  He quickly replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned.  He was born blind that the works of God might be made manifest in him.”  In other words, “God is good; God wills the good…and the glory of God will ultimately be revealed in him.”  Then Jesus healed the man born blind.  The point is that God wills what’s best for us.  The problem is that we don’t see the big picture as God sees the big picture.  Yet the narrative Jesus clearly sets out to establish here…is that God is good.

  We considered how much of our experience might lead us to believe that God cannot be trusted.  Why, even Jesus was not spared the agony of the cross when he begged God to do so.  Thus, what we did was embark upon the process of conducting a spiritual inventory.  In other words, we took the time to count our blessings.  What we discovered is that while our troubles are indeed very real, they are really quite small compared to God’s widespread mercy.  The more we are able to comprehend how many blessings we really have – freely given and freely received – the more we come to realize that God truly does will what’s best for us.  And when that moment of revelation occurs, we can’t help but discover that God is indeed trustworthy.

  Then we explored what we called a performance-based narrative.  A performance-based narrative dictates that the good are rewarded with good, while the bad are rewarded with bad.  The problem with a performance-based narrative about God is that it completely neglects the concept of grace.  Thus, while looking at the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, we encountered a landowner who gave not on the basis of what the laborers earned, but rather, on the basis of his abundant generosity.  Jesus’ intent, of course, was to equate the landowner with God.  We discovered that – while the way of the world may be survival of the fittest – the way of God is generosity to a fault.

  Looking at another angle of the performance-based narrative, we wrestled with whether or not God loves us only when we are good.  We considered the parable of the prodigal son.  There we discovered that there is a difference between hating the sin and hating the sinner.  God loves us unconditionally and longs for our return.  He will not rest until all of his children are securely under his roof.  What remains for us is to decide whether life in the Father’s house is better than life on our own.  Some come to that realization later than others, and some never come to it at all.  Yet the Father’s love remains undaunted, for the love of God is unconditional.

  Then we contrasted the grace of God with the holiness of God.  The grace of God has to do with God’s unconditional love and acceptance, while the holiness of God has to do with God’s passing judgment on sin.  We compared the grace of God and the holiness of God to the wings of a bird.  How far can a bird fly by flapping only one wing?  The world needs the grace of God on the one hand – and the holiness of God on the other hand – if it is ever going to fly; if it is ever going to change; if it is ever going to grow.

  Today our goal is to establish the narrative that God is self-sacrificing.  We noted earlier how out of touch the concept of sacrifice is with contemporary American society.  And, truth be told, many of us have a problem with the sacrifice Jesus made.  I knew a woman once who was very devout in her faith.  She’d taught Sunday school for years, she’d been Moderator of the Presbyterian women’s group, and she’d even served on Session.  But she had a problem with the sacrifice Jesus made.  “I just don’t understand why God would allow his Son to die on a cross like that,” she once said.  “To me…that borders on child abuse.” 

  The sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, I think, serves as a deterrent to many who would consider the Christian faith.  Why did God allow his Son to die such a horrible death?  And, pushing the envelope a little further still, wasn’t it God who sent him there in the first place?  If we take the time to think about it, I suspect a lot of us have a problem with the sacrifice Jesus made.  I suspect a lot of us have a problem with the death of God’s Son on the cross.

  In order to fully understand what God was up to in the Easter event, I think we need to consider what we call Trinitarian theology.  We know God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  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.  We believe in one God, revealed to us in three persons.  Yet the word “person” comes from the Latin word persona, which literally means “mask.”  So in other words, we literally have one God who essentially puts on masks to reveal himself to us in three ways.  Are you with me?  What I am saying is this: Jesus Christ dying on a cross does not reveal child abuse on God’s part.  It was God himself who went to the cross that day.  And that, my friends, is what we call the self-sacrifice of God.

  Now, the issue of why the cross was necessary is a subject for another sermon.  What we are concerned with today is the self-sacrifice of God.  So, rather than consider the rationale behind the cross, let’s instead look to what motivated God to go to the cross.  What was God thinking when he went to the cross to die?

  Richard Francis Xavier Manning – better known as Brennan Manning – is an American author and a Catholic priest.  In a book called, The Wisdom of Tenderness: What Happens When God’s Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives, he tells the story of how he came to be known as Brennan.  While growing up in Depression-era New York City, his best friend was a boy named Ray Brennan.  The two of them did everything together.  As teenagers they bought a car together, they double-dated together, and they went to high school together.  Later, they enlisted in the Marine Corps together, they went to boot camp together, and they fought on the front lines together in Korea. 

  One night, while sitting in a foxhole, Manning was reminiscing about the good old days in Brooklyn, while his friend listened and ate a chocolate bar.  Suddenly, a live grenade dropped into the foxhole.  His friend looked at him, smiled, dropped his chocolate bar, and threw himself on the hand grenade.  It exploded – killing him – but Manning’s life was saved.

  When Manning later became a priest, he was instructed to take on the name of a saint.  He thought of his friend, Ray Brennan.  From that point on, Richard Francis Xavier Manning came to be known as Brennan Manning.  Years later, Father Manning went to visit Ray Brennan’s mother in Brooklyn.  As they sat up late one night drinking tea, Father Manning asked her, “Do you think Ray loved me?”  Mrs. Brennan got up off the couch, shook her finger in Father Manning’s face, and cried, “Dear God, what more could he have done for you?” 

  Father Manning said that at that moment, he experienced an epiphany.  He imagined himself standing before the cross of Jesus, wondering: “Does God really love me?”  Then he thought of Jesus’ mother Mary pointing to Jesus on the cross and crying out, “Dear God, what more could he have done for you?” 

  The cross of Jesus Christ is God’s way of doing all that he could do for us.  Now we need not wonder: Am I important to God, does God care about me, or does God really love me?  All we have to do…is look to the cross of Christ.

  When it comes to God’s self-sacrifice, we often ask the question: Why did Jesus have to die?  Maybe the answer is that Jesus did not have to die.  Maybe the answer is that Jesus chose to die.  Why?  For God so loved the world.  Amen.

 

01-06-2013 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

 

CHRISTIANITY 101: GOD IS HOLY

  People are funny.  They have an absolutely profound need to feel as if they are somehow in control of their lives and the world around them.  One of the ways we maintain our sense of control is by pinning labels on people.  And members of the clergy experience this just as much as anyone else.  For example, whenever a minister begins to serve a new parish, one of the questions he or she is inevitably asked is this: “Are you a liberal, or are you a conservative?”  The person who asks such a question asks it so they can understand where you are coming from – such that they might maintain a measure of control – by either accepting you or rejecting you.

  Now I don’t like the terms “liberal” and “conservative” because I think they are relative terms.  For example, at the Presbyterian seminary I attended, I anchored the conservative wing.  But just down the street there was a Southern Baptist seminary.  There I would have been considered a raving liberal.  Like I said, I don’t like the terms “liberal” and “conservative” because I think they are relative terms. 

  Thus, when I am asked that question – and I’ve been asked it many times – I respond by saying, “I am orthodox.”  Orthodox means “standard” or “right belief.”  It is built upon 2000 years of Christian theological history.  You see, from a theological standpoint, conservatives tend to emphasize personal piety and holiness, while liberals tend to emphasize social justice and peacemaking.  As an orthodox theologian, I believe those two concepts are like the wings of a bird.  How far can a bird fly by only flapping one wing?  The world needs personal piety and holiness on the one hand, and the world needs social justice and peacemaking on the other, if it is ever going to fly…if it is ever going to grow. 

  Now try this thought on for size.  What if the grace of God – and the holiness of God – are also like the two wings of a bird?  Maybe the world needs the grace of God on the one hand, and the holiness of God on the other hand, if it is ever going to fly…if it is ever going to grow.  Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

  Several weeks ago, we talked about the contrast between our tendency to gratify the desires of the flesh and the Apostle Paul’s call for us to live by the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit.  We noted how human will power lacks the capacity to change much of anything within us.  Change happens when something else is modified.  What is it that needs to be modified?  What needs to be modified is our personal narrative of who and what God is.  We need to have the proper story in our minds as to who and what God is, if we’re ever going to change who and what we are, because everything about us stems from our own internal narrative.

  As Jesus is God Incarnate, we determined to let Jesus establish our new internal narrative.  We noted how one of the false narratives that many people have of God is that God is an angry judge.  Citing a passage from the gospel according to John, we saw Jesus and his disciples encounter a man who was blind from birth.  His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned – this man or his parents – that he was born blind?”  In their minds it had to be one or the other.  Blindness was believed to be punishment from an angry God.  Thus, Jesus set out to establish a new narrative within them.  He quickly replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned.  He was born blind that the works of God might be made manifest in him.”  In other words, “God is good; God wills the good…and the glory of God will ultimately be revealed in him.”  Then Jesus healed the man born blind.  The point is that God wills what’s best for us.  The problem is that we don’t see the big picture as God sees the big picture.  Yet the narrative Jesus clearly sets out to establish here...is that God is good.

  We considered how much of our experience might lead us to believe that God cannot be trusted.  Why, even Jesus was not spared the agony of the cross when he begged God to do so.  Thus, what we did was embark upon the process of conducting a spiritual inventory.  In other words, we took the time to count our blessings.  What we discovered is that while our troubles are indeed very real, they are really quite small compared to God’s widespread mercy.  The more we are able to comprehend how many blessings we really have – freely given and freely received – the more we come to realize that God truly does will what’s best for us.  And when that moment of revelation occurs, we can’t help but discover that God is indeed trustworthy.

  Then we explored what we called a performance-based narrative.  A performance-based narrative dictates that the good are rewarded with good, while the bad are rewarded with bad.  The problem with a performance-based narrative about God is that it completely neglects the concept of grace.  Thus, while looking at the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, we encountered a landowner who gave not on the basis of what the laborers earned, but rather, on the basis of his abundant generosity.  Jesus’ intent, of course, was to equate the landowner with God.  We discovered that, while the way of the world may be survival of the fittest…the way of God is generosity to a fault.

  Looking at another angle of the performance-based narrative, we wrestled with whether or not God loves us only when we’re good.  We considered the parable of the prodigal son.  There we discovered that there is a difference between hating the sin and hating the sinner.  God loves us unconditionally and longs for our return.  He will not rest until all of his children are securely under his roof.  What remains for us is to decide whether life in the Father’s house is better than life on our own.  Some come to that realization later than others, and some never come to it at all.  Yet the Father’s love remains undaunted, for the love of God is unconditional.

  Today our goal is to establish the narrative that God is holy.  In light of that, consider the question we posed earlier.  What if the grace of God – and the holiness of God – are also like the two wings of a bird?  Maybe the world needs the grace of God on the one hand, and the holiness of God on the other hand, if it is every going to fly…if it is ever going to grow.  While the grace of God has to do with God’s unconditional love and acceptance, the holiness of God has to do with God’s passing judgment on sin.  Does the world really need both?

  Let’s begin by considering the concept of sin itself.  What is sin?  Sin is defined as separation from God.  I like to look at sin another way, however.  If that lectern over there is God, my obedience necessarily draws me closer to God.  Sin, aptly defined as separation from God, has to do with turning in another direction.  In other words, sin is simply turning one’s gaze in the wrong direction.  And what does it accomplish?  All it does is separate us from God.

  But you’re educated people, are you not?  The Bible is full of some pretty ridiculous rules, particularly in the Old Testament.  For example, in the 11^th chapter of the book of Leviticus, it lists the animals that are not to be eaten.  Verse 4 says, “But among those that chew the cud or have divided hooves, you shall not eat the following…The pig, for even though it has divided hooves and is cleft-footed, it does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you.”  That’s why Jews don’t eat pork.  That sounds pretty ridiculous, does it not?  But what can happen if you eat pork that is undercooked?  It’s a little thing called trichinosis.  Tell me, how good were the microwave ovens 3000 years ago?  There weren’t any microwave ovens 3000 years ago.  Eating pork was risky business 3000 years ago because the likelihood of eating it undercooked was high.  So you see, as ridiculous as this law sounds to us, it was designed for the people’s own good.  That’s the way the laws of God are.  They are not meant to oppress us; they are designed for our own good. 

  The question was, “Does the world need the grace of God on the one hand, and the holiness of God on the other?”  Listen to this.  Dr. James Bryan Smith is a theology professor at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas.  He talks about preaching a sermon in a Wichita church where he spoke about the grace of God.  “God loves you without condition,” he said.  “God has reconciled you to himself, and in Christ you are a new creation.”

  Shortly after the service, a woman approached him and said, “Thank you so much for that sermon.  It was very freeing!”  She went on to say, “You see, I’ve been living with my boyfriend for the past six months.  I was raised in a church that said this was a sin, and I felt really guilty.  But this morning you said that God loves us without condition, and that Jesus has forgiven us all our sin, and then I realized that my guilt was unnecessary.  So I just wanted to thank you for preaching such a liberating message.”

  As she smiled and bounded away, Dr. Smith’s heart sank.  He had labored long and hard to present the message that the love of God is unconditional.  What he had failed to present was that God also has some standards by which we are called to live.  What he failed to include was the holiness of God. 

  The passage we read from the book of Malachi addresses God’s holiness.  The historical setting is shortly after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, and the subsequent fall of the Babylonians to the Persians.  The people of God had been dispersed to foreign lands and longed to return to their homeland.  Malachi quotes God when he writes, “Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them.  Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.”

  Yet before he gets to that, Malachi describes what God is doing to his people.  “For he is like a refiner’s fire; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendents of Levi and refine them like silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.”  The purification of the people is compared to the process of refining metal…removing the dross and leaving the pure metal. 

  Some time ago, a women’s Bible study group was examining the book of Malachi.  They came upon that remarkable expression in the third verse: “And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.”  They were curious about it, so one of the women decided to visit a silversmith and report to the others on what he said about the subject.  So she went, and – without telling him the reason for her visit – begged the silversmith to tell her about the process of refining silver.  After he had fully described it to her, she asked, “Sir, do you sit while the work of refining is going on?”

  “Oh, yes ma’am,” the silversmith replied.  “I must sit and watch the furnace constantly, for – if the time necessary for refining silver is exceeded in the slightest degree – the silver will be compromised.”  The woman at once saw the beauty in the expression, “He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.”

  Yet before she left, she asked the silversmith one final question.  “How do you know when the process is complete?” she asked.  “Oh, that’s easy,” the silversmith replied.  “The process is complete…when I can see my reflection in the silver.”

  Perhaps that is also what the holiness of God implies.  God does not establish rules and regulations to make life hard on us.  The laws of God are for our own good.  For you see, what God really desires…is to see his own reflection in us.  Amen.

 

12-30-2012 Sermon by Rev. Larry Peters

A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

Rev. Larry Peters

December 30, 2012

Psalm 72:12-14

Isaiah 60:1-6, 17-22

Matthew 2:1-18

 

  At Christmas, God gives us his perfect gift of his Son, the Messiah, the Promised One.  We love Christmas!  We love to hear the story of how God’s love came to be with us.  And what a precious love it is!  A child!  God’s Word made flesh; prophecy fulfilled; the  shepherds quake; the angels sing; the wise follow.  We are drawn to the light.  We want to come nearer; to bow down in glad and humble worship; to behold this most precious and perfect gift.  For a while, at least, the dark, evil, turbulent world seems at peace in the soft, warm glow of this nativity scene.

  But let’s not forget the cold, harsh reality of why this scene is what it is.  The child is born in a manger because there was no room at the Inn, symbolic of how people are unwilling to give him a place in their heart as Lord of their life.  And let’s not overlook God’s protection and providence in this scene.  The child is born in this unimagined, obscure place because there are evil forces that would seek to destroy him.  Yes, we know that this is a violent world and this is yet another cold, dark night.

  But God is here!   This is Christmas Remember the Christmas message as announced by the angels (Luke 2:10-12):  “Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.  To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord!  This will be a sign for you; you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger!”  The gift that God gives us at Christmas is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior and Hope of the world!  So then a multitude of heavenly hosts suddenly appear praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” (V. 14).

  We love Christmas, Christ’s birth, God’s precious love with us!  But, to understand the full value of God’s perfect gift, we must look beyond the nativity at Bethlehem and journey to the Garden of Gethsemane, the hill of Calvary, the cross, the empty tomb, to Resurrection morning, and to our Lord’s promised coming again in glory!

  When we walk this faith journey with Christ, we come to learn about him and we come to understand his ways.  We come to learn and understand more about who he is; why he has come to be with us; and why we should follow him.  We come to learn about and to understand our human need; about God’s perfect way and design to fulfill our need; and about a need for our response.  Already, as we look about the nativity scene at Christmas, we see our situation; the human situation to which God has come.  The Son of God is born in a manger because people are unprepared or unwilling to receive him as Lord and to give him proper place in their lives.  Whatever it is, greed, selfishness, indifference, there are so many things that come between us when the Lord comes to be with us.

  So many things, including fear and jealousy.  We hear in our gospel lesson of today from Matthew chapter two that king Herod was upset upon learning that there was one born to be king of the Jews.  Out of fear and jealousy, Herod ordered a search for the child, that he be destroyed.  Oh – he had let on to the wise men that he wanted to “pay homage” to the new born king.  You know, of course, the deception that evil likes to employ in its path of destruction.  This is the kind of dark, dangerous, deception and evil world that we live in; the world that Jesus came to.  The Good News is that Jesus has come to conquer evil and to save us from our sins!  Jesus is our hope, our salvation!  Jesus is the way out of our corrupt human situation!  Jesus is a Light in the Darkness! 

  Thanks be to God that he loves us so much that he gives his only begotten Son to be our Lord and Savior!  Those who believe in him are delivered from their fears – even our fear of death; and we have a new promise, a new hope!  God comes to save!  God will take care of us!  God is with us!

  Now it may be on some people’s hearts to ask: was God with the children, the teachers, the innocent victims of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School?  Why didn’t God take care of them?  Why didn’t God save them?  Some have tried to answer by saying that it is a result of our having dismissed God from our schools.  The trouble, I think, with such a statement is that it wrongly assumes that we have some authority over God.  We have no ability to tell the God who created this world to be perfect, the God of the universe who orders all things – where he can and cannot be!

  As Christians we can believe that God was there – in the courage of the teachers to confront the gunman and attempt to overpower him; in the judgment of  those sounding warning and seeking safety for others; in the compassion of outstretched arms embracing and protecting one another.  Yes, we can believe that God was there because love was there; and God is love.

  The Bible says that Jesus loves the innocent, loves the children as he said:  “Bring the little ones to me, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”  (Luke 18:16).  They know that they are loved and cared for.  They know the fulfillment of their salvation.  It is for us to be about the task of healing, caring for and saving children, families and communities through the love of God in us.  Sadly, it seems that it takes tragedies such as this to get our attention and to motivate us to a right kind of action.  The Bible says there’s one thing that gets God’s attention more than anything else, and that is the innocent blood which cries out to him.

  There has been spilling of innocent blood from the earliest mention of human interaction beginning in the Book of Genesis.  Early in chapter four Cain kills his brother Abel; and God says to Cain: “Listen, your brother’s blood is crying out to me!”  And in today’s gospel lesson we are told again of “The Slaughter of the Innocents,” the children killed by order of Herod whose fear and jealousy was of a new born king.  And a great weeping was heard throughout the land because the children were no more.

  Indeed that must have been a terrible time of weeping and heartbreak and again as families cry over loved ones at Newtown, Connecticut and whenever, wherever such terrible loss of life occurs.  It is a sadness that touches us deeply.  I cried for those families, children and teachers as many Americans have.  I remember how my wife, Susan, and I cried for our still-born Son, Tyler, in August of 1998.  Susan had carried Tyler to almost full term when one day she felt no movement.  At the hospital we learned that Tyler had died.  We were shocked, horrified; this wasn’t supposed to happen.  We were joyfully expecting the birth of our son when all of a sudden the joy, the hope, the promise, the future, the life we loved was taken away from us.

  But God was with us; and God was with Tyler.  God was in the gentle concern of the doctor who induced labor and helped Susan to deliver our still-born son.  God was in the sensitivity of the nurse who gently washed Tyler and bundled him in clean cloths so that we could hold him.  We were allowed to spend important time with Tyler, and all the while under the care of the doctor and nurses.  And God was in the compassion and concern of friends who would comfort us.

  I remember in particular a couple from one of the churches that we served who came to the hospital room and ministered to us by allowing us to express our grief.  They knew the grief.  They had lost their only child, a son, in a motor vehicle accident.  They came and hugged us and gave us a shoulder to cry on; and I cried like I had never done before.  And God was in the tears.  I’ve learned that a good cry can actually help a person to feel better.  It feels like a cleansing, and then you feel ready for a fresh start and a new beginning.  God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning, the end, and all times in between!  Yes, God is our Emmanuel!  God is with us!  And people, like the ones I mentioned and many others like them, are important in the ways that they help to bring healing to those that are hurting.  I remember how they helped me and I will always think of them as heroes.

  People need heroes every day.  Maybe you could use one.  Maybe you could be one.  People need healing.  Let’s try to find ways to help one another.  I came across a letter written by Max Lucado; it reads:

                “Dear Jesus,

It’s a good thing you were born at night.  This world sure seems dark.  I have a good eye for silver linings.  But they seem darker lately.   These killings, Lord.  These children, Lord.  Innocence violated.  Raw evil demonstrated.  The whole world seems on edge.  Trigger-happy.  Ticked off.  We hear threats of chemical weapons and nuclear bombs.  Are we one button push away from annihilation?  

Your world seems a bit darker this Christmas.  But you were born in the dark, right?  You came at night.  The shepherds were night-shift workers.  The wise men followed a star.  Your first cries were heard in the shadows.  To see your face, Mary and Joseph needed a candle flame.  It was dark.  Dark was Herod’s jealousy.  Dark was Roman oppression.  Dark with poverty.  Dark with violence.

Oh, Lord Jesus, you entered the dark world of your day.  Won’t you enter ours?  We are weary of bloodshed.  We, like the wise men, are looking for a star.  We, like the shepherds, are kneeling at the manger.  This Christmas, we ask you, heal us, help us, be born anew in us.

Hopefully,

Your children”

  Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior and Hope of the world!  Jesus is a Light in the Darkness!  The message, as we get through the struggles of one year and get ready to start a new year, is that there is hope!  Remember to keep the light of Jesus shining brightly!  The prophet Isaiah tells us to “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!”  There is a thick darkness over the land and over the peoples.  But we are not to let it get us down.  Again Isaiah says; “Lift up your eyes and look around.  Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice….Your days of mourning shall be ended.  Your God will be your glory.  The Lord will be your everlasting light!” (Isaiah 60:1-5, 19-20).  Amen!

 

 

12-23-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

 

CHRISTIANITY 101: GOD IS LOVE

  In the summer of 1997, my sister’s 18-month old baby died.  I flew down to Phoenix, Arizona to conduct the funeral.  Seeing the devastation in the eyes of my sister – not to mention my mother and my father – made it one of the most trying experiences of my life.  In any case, while I was there, I discovered that my sister’s husband’s sister – my brother-in-law’s sister and her husband – had also endured the trauma of losing a baby.  After the funeral was over, my brother-in-law’s sister’s husband came up to me to thank me for doing the funeral.  Then he talked about his own experience of losing a baby.  I remember him specifically saying, “We’ve got to be so good now.”  I said, “What do you mean, you’ve got to be so good now?”  He said, “We’ve got to be so good now…or we’ll never see our baby again.” 

  Therein lies another false narrative about God.  It assumes that we’ve got to be good in order to earn God’s favor.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying we shouldn’t be good.  The false narrative here lies in the assumption that God only loves us when we are good.  Does God only love us when we’re good?  Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

  Several weeks ago, we talked about the contrast between our tendency to gratify the desires of the flesh and the Apostle Paul’s call for us to live by the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit.  We noted how human will power lacks the capacity to change much of anything within us.  Change happens when something else is modified.  What is it that needs to be modified?  What needs to be modified is our personal narrative of who and what God is.  We need to have the proper story in our minds as to who and what God is, if we’re ever going to change who and what we are, because everything about us stems from our own internal narrative.

  As Jesus is God incarnate, we determined to let Jesus establish our new internal narrative.  We noted how many people tend to see God as an angry judge.  Citing a passage from the gospel of John, Jesus and his disciples encountered a man who was blind from birth.  His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned – this man or his parents – that he was born blind?”  In their minds, it had to be one or the other.  Blindness was believed to be punishment from an angry God.  Jesus set out to establish a new narrative within them.  He quickly replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned.  He was born blind that the works of God might be made manifest in him.”  In other words, “God is good; God wills the good…and the glory of God will ultimately be revealed in him.”  Then Jesus healed the man born blind.  The point is that God wills what’s best for us.  The problem is that we don’t see the big picture as God sees the big picture.  Yet the narrative Jesus clearly sets out to establish here…is that God is good.

  We considered how much of our experience might lead us to believe that God cannot be trusted.  Why, even Jesus was not spared the agony of the cross when he begged God to do so.  Thus, what we did was embark upon the process of conducting a spiritual inventory.  In other words, we took the time to count our blessings.  What we discovered is that while our troubles are indeed very real, they are really quite small compared to God’s widespread mercy.  The more we are able to comprehend how many blessings we really have – freely given and freely received – the more we come to realize that God truly does will what’s best for us.  And when that moment of revelation occurs, we can’t help but discover that God is indeed trustworthy.

  Then we explored what we called a performance-based narrative.  A performance-based narrative dictates that the good are rewarded with good, while the bad are rewarded with bad.  The problem with a performance-based narrative is that it completely neglects the concept of grace.  Thus, while looking at the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, we encountered a landowner who gave not on the basis of what the laborers earned, but rather, on the basis of his abundant generosity.  Jesus’ intent, of course, was to equate the landowner with God.  We discovered that, while the way of the world may be survival of the fittest, the way of God is generosity to a fault.

  I spoke earlier about a man who lost a baby.  He was convinced that he and his wife had to be incredibly good if they were ever going to see their baby again.  Where’s the grace of God in that?  Can you imagine the pressure that must have put upon them?  Can you imagine the guilt they would occasionally feel?  Ladies and gentlemen, that, too, is a performance-based narrative.  Last week we considered the story of a man for whom things went sour, and he was absolutely convinced that God must be punishing him for something he did wrong.  That was part and parcel to a performance-based narrative…yet so is today’s story.  A man and his wife were convinced that God would only reward them if they were good.  A performance-based narrative about God insists that the good are rewarded with good, while the bad are rewarded with bad.  There is no grace in that.  Thus, today we want to attempt to replace that narrative with the narrative that God is love.

  In order to do that, I want to examine the parable of the prodigal son.  Yet before we get to the parable of the prodigal son, it is absolutely imperative that we understand its context.  As you know, Jesus called a number of individuals to be his disciples.  One of those individuals was a man by the name of Matthew.  Now Matthew was a tax collector, and tax collectors were despised in Jesus’ day.  They were ordinary Hebrew citizens who had contracted with the Roman government to collect taxes.  They were notorious for overcharging the Jewish citizenry, and for keeping any excess for themselves.  Thus, they were seen as traitors, and were widely perceived to be unscrupulous.  No one liked tax collectors in Jesus’ day, yet Jesus called one of them to be a disciple.  What’s more, on occasion, he even dined with tax collectors.

  This was more than the scribes and Pharisees could stand.  Then one day Jesus was speaking to a large crowd of people.  As it says in Luke 15:1, “And all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to hear him.”  The scribes and Pharisees began to grumble amongst themselves, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them!”  In other words, “Jesus is obviously unaware of the character of the people with whom he associates.  How could he possibly be the Messiah?” 

  Jesus was apparently aware of their grumbling.  He tells them a brief parable about the joy of finding a lost sheep, and another brief parable about the joy of finding a lost coin.  Then he gets to the parable of the prodigal son.  Now there are actually three primary players in this drama      – and each has a vital role – as we shall soon see.

  There once was a man who had two sons.  The younger of the two came to his father and said, “Father, give me the share of property that falls to me.”  In other words, “You’re going to die some day and I’m going to get half of all you own.  Let’s dispense with the formalities.  Just give it to me now.”  How would you react if one of your children did that to you?

  This father actually gave his son half of all he owned.  Then the young man went out and – as Luke so tactfully puts it – “squandered his inheritance on dissolute living.”  Luke is being kind.  He’s sparing us all of the gory details.  Well, the young man eventually ran out of money.  He ended up taking a job feeding pigs, yet even the pigs ate better than he did.  The young man came to his senses and decided to return to his father – not as a son – but as a hired hand.  He would confess his sin and throw himself upon the mercy of his father.

  Unbeknownst to the young man, his father longed for his return.  He probably got up every morning, had his breakfast, and – while sipping his morning coffee – looked out the window and scanned the horizon in search of his son.  His heart would likely rise every time he saw someone, then fall when he realized it was not his son.  But then one day, it was his son.

  The father raced to his son.  His son tried to make his confession, but the father would hear none of it – so overjoyed was he at the return of his son.  He laid a robe over his shoulders, he placed a ring upon his finger, he killed the fatted calf, and he threw the biggest party that region had seen in years.  When the older brother caught wind of it – the son who had remained faithful to his father for lo, these many years – he was none too pleased.  We’ll come back to the older brother later.

  I think what Jesus intends in this parable is for us to see the father as God, and the prodigal son as the world of lost sinners.  As the father in the parable gave his son half of all he owned, God gives us the gift of free will.  He will not force us to be faithful to him.  He wants us to choose to be faithful to him.  Thus, he allows us to go out in the world and experience life as we choose.  Some come to realize that life in the father’s house is better.  Some come to that realization sooner than others, and some never come to it at all.  Yet all the while, God scans the horizon, hoping for our return.  You see, there’s a difference between hating the sin and hating the sinner.  That, my friends, is because God the Father loves us unconditionally.  Whether we are good or whether we are bad, God loves us unconditionally. 

  I got a fascinating glimpse into what unconditional love really is a few days ago while I was working out at the Y.M.C.A.  I was running on an elliptical machine, and a friend of mine was running next to me.  He is 74 years old, and he tragically lost a son in an automobile accident a number of years ago.  He was telling me about his grandchildren.  His eyes lit up as he described them to me.  I said, “And the best part is – at the end of the day – you can send them home!”  He laughed, but I don’t think he felt that way at all.  He said, “I never knew what unconditional love was…until I had grandkids.” 

  I got to thinking about that.  As parents, we think we know what unconditional love is, but maybe we really don’t.  I thought of a couple of classic Bill Cosby routines.  His father used to say to him, “I brought you into this world, I can take you out.  I can make another one…look just like ya!”  His mother used to say to him, “I hope you’ve got clean underwear on!”  Young Bill would reply, “Yes, I’ve got clean underwear on!”  His mother would say, “You’d better have clean underwear on.  What if you got into an accident and had to go to the hospital?  If they had to take your pants off, what would people think of me if you didn’t have on clean underwear?  What would people think of me?”  Bill replied, “But Mom…I’m the one in the hospital!” 

  As parents we have a responsibility to raise our children right.  And often times, we see them as a reflection on us.  Sometimes I think we get so caught up in that, that we forget what a treasure they really are.  A grandparent doesn’t get caught up in all that.  In fact, I’ve never seen anyone any more heartbroken that a grandmother who raised her children in the church, and then sees her own children fail to raise her grandchildren in the church.  A grandparent knows what it means to love unconditionally, maybe even better than a parent.  God knows what it means to love unconditionally, as well.  After all, that’s exactly how he looks at us.

  Now back to the older brother.  He’d been loyal to his father all of his life, while his younger brother had taken advantage of their father and squandered his inheritance on dissolute living.  Then when his brother came back – when the prodigal son returned – his father threw him the biggest party he’d ever seen.  The older brother was angry, and refused to go in the house.

  Do you remember how we talked about the context of the parable of the prodigal son?  It was in response to the scribes and Pharisees being critical of Jesus for dining with sinners and tax collectors.  This part of the parable was directed at them.  They’d been faithful to God all their lives.  They didn’t appreciate the fact that all this fuss was being made over lost sinners.  They were, in essence, the older brother in this parable.

  I think a lot of us can relate to the older brother here, as well.  Many of us have been faithful to God all our lives.   Oh, we may have taken a bad turn here and there – after all, a lot of us went to college – but for the most part, we have been faithful to God all our lives.  And Jesus is saying here that those who come to the faith at the last minute are entitled to all of that to which we are entitled as well?  That doesn’t seem fair, does it?  How can God consider these sinners to be on equal footing with us?

  God can do it because God loves us unconditionally.  Like I said earlier, there is a difference between hating the sin and hating the sinner.  We may not approve of everything our children do, but does that affect the love we have for them?  I don’t think it does.  In fact, I think the gospel according to John puts God’s perspective on this quite well.  John writes, “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.  But when we read John 3:16, we must never forget 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.”  And there you have it; a new narrative about God.  God…is love.

  But what about the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son?  He refused to go in to the party, so his father came out to him.  He said, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.  But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was lost and now is found.”

  We don’t know what the older brother ultimately did.  Did he go in to the party and welcome his brother, or did he stand in the field and pout?  Jesus does not give us the answer.  And maybe that’s a good thing.  Considering what you now know about the unconditional love of God, what would you have done?  Amen.

 

12-16-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

 

CHRISTIANITY 101: GOD IS GENEROUS

  I recently read an article written by a minister named MaryAnn Dana in a publication called Journal for Preachers.  When Rev. Dana was in seminary, she and a number of her seminary classmates had gone overseas to take a special class when they encountered something they found to be very peculiar.  This is how she described it:

Several years ago I attended a study trip with seminary classmates at the World Council of Churches.  We spent a few days in Munich before arriving in Geneva for the course.  The museum there had a display of Christmas-related artifacts, and we were fascinated by a bearded goat-like creature that appeared to be preying on small children.  Without a working knowledge of German to read the accompanying placards, we could only assume that the goatman was Santa’s evil twin. 

  Rev. Dana and her classmates were not far off.  What they saw was a beast-like creature known as Krampus.  Local folklore taught that during the Christmas season, Santa Claus came and rewarded good children with gifts.  Yet at the same time, an evil beast called Krampus came and gave bad children a lump of coal.  If a child was particularly bad, Krampus might actually stuff the child in his sack and carry him off to his lair.  And you were afraid you were teaching your children things that might land them on a psychiatrist’s couch one day!  What this represents is what we might call a performance-based narrative.  Do good, and you’ll be rewarded with good.  Do bad, and you’ll be recompensed with bad.  Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

  Several weeks ago, we talked about the contrast between our tendency to gratify the desires of the flesh and the Apostle Paul’s call for us to live by the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit.  We noted how human will power lacks the capacity to change much of anything within us.  Change happens when something else is modified.  What is it that needs to be modified?  What needs to be modified is our personal narrative of who and what God is.  We need to have the proper story in our minds as to who and what God is, if we’re ever going to change what and what we are, because everything about us stems from our own internal narrative.

  As Jesus is God incarnate, we determined to let Jesus establish our new internal narrative.  We noted how many people see God as an angry judge.  Citing a passage from the gospel of John, Jesus and his disciples encountered a man who was blind from birth.  His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  In their minds it had to be one or the other.  Blindness was believed to be punishment from an angry God.  Jesus set out to establish a new narrative within them.  He quickly replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned.  He was born blind that the works of God might be made manifest in him.”  In other words, “God is good; God wills the good…and the glory of God will ultimately be revealed in him.”  Then Jesus healed the man born blind.  The point is that God wills what’s best for us.  The problem is that we don’t see the big picture as God sees the big picture.  Yet the narrative Jesus clearly sets out to establish within us is that God is good.

  We considered how much of our experience might lead us to believe that God cannot be trusted.  Why, even Jesus was not spared the agony of the cross when he begged God to do so.  Thus, what we did was embark upon the process of conducting a spiritual inventory.  In other words, we took the time to count our blessings.  What we discovered is that while our troubles are real, they are really quite small compared to God’s widespread mercy.  The more we are able to comprehend how many blessings we really have – freely given and freely received – the more we come to realize that God truly wills what’s best for us.  And when that moment of revelation occurs, we can’t help but discover that God is indeed trustworthy.

  Today our aim is to establish within us the narrative that God is also generous.  Yet what we experience in the world today might lead us to believe otherwise.  In the opening illustration, we examined what we called a performance-based narrative.  Good children received gifts from Santa, while bad children received lumps of coal from Krampus…or worse.  From a very young age we learn that our parents’ approval is dependent upon good behavior; that school grades are given on the basis of performance; that popularity or affection is offered due to attractiveness; and that rejection, loneliness, despair and isolation are the consequences of failure.  And when every person in every situation in every day of our lives treats us on the basis of how we look, or how we act, or how we perform, it is difficult not to project that onto God.

  My uncle Daryl was about a year-and-a-half younger than my father.  They grew up on a farm in western Iowa and attended a one-room schoolhouse when they were young.  My father always told me that his nickname was “Muscles,” and Daryl’s nickname was “Pickles,” but my uncle Daryl always told me it was the other way around.  In any case, both grew up to be farmers, although my father sold out and went off to college to become an electrical engineer when he was about thirty-two.  Daryl continued to farm and was quite successful at it…that is, until the farm crisis hit in the early 1980s. 

  Here’s what happened.  Daryl was a very successful farmer and was thinking about putting up a large pole building.  He spoke to his local banker about it one time, but he was hesitant.  The banker insisted, “Go ahead and do it.  Times are good.  What could possibly go wrong?”  So Daryl borrowed $40,000.00 and erected a pole building.  He put up a 240 acre farm he’d inherited as collateral.  Farmland in Iowa was going for about $2000.00 an acre at the time.  I’ll let you do the math yourselves. 

  Daryl paid on his loan and had worked it down to about $10,000.00.  In the meantime, the local bank had sold Daryl’s loan to a faceless corporation in Des Moines.  Then the farm crisis hit and Daryl – like a lot of other farmers in the Midwest – couldn’t pay back his loan.  So that faceless corporation came and took his 240 acre farm.  That $10,000.00 debt essentially cost him about $480,000.00.  And it was all perfectly legal.

  Daryl, as you might suspect, was a little upset by this.  He came to my father to borrow $10,000.00 but in 1982, $10,000.00 was a lot of money, and my father simply could not bail him out.  In the end, Daryl said to my father, “I can’t believe this is happening.  What did I do to make God turn his back on me?”  And there you have it: a performance-based narrative about God.

  You don’t have to look very far in the pages of Scripture to prove such a narrative about God.  Consider the rather unsettling passage we read from the book of Acts.  In the first century Christian community, all things were held in common.  That’s a nice way of saying socialism.  Nobody possessed abundance, yet nobody lacked for anything either.

  A married couple by the name of Ananias and Sapphira belonged to that first century Christian community.  Then one day, they sold a piece of land.  What they were supposed to do was bring all of the proceeds and lay them at the feet of the apostles.  Yet Ananias and Sapphira plotted to keep some of the money for themselves.  When Ananias lied to the apostles about how much money he’d received, he dropped dead on the spot.  When Sapphira came later and backed up her husband’s story, she dropped dead, as well.  They lied before God, and they were struck down for it.  That, my friends, is a performance-based narrative about God.  And it seems as though the Bible backs it up.

  Yet perhaps saying that sin has its consequences is different than saying that God rejects us entirely because of our sin.  After all, isn’t the larger theme of the Bible the steadfast love of God that culminates in the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus Christ on behalf of a wayward world? Thus, perhaps we should interpret the entire Bible and some of its more troubling stories in light of Jesus Christ.  Because truth be told, I think Jesus gives us a vastly different narrative.

  Consider the passage I read a moment ago from the gospel according to Matthew.  Two thousand years ago, there may have been as many as 18,000 men milling about the streets of Jerusalem on any given day, looking for work.  As the story goes, a landowner came to town at about 6:00 a.m. to hire laborers for his vineyard.  He agreed with the laborers for the usual day’s wage, then sent them into his vineyard to work.  About three hours later, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and sent them into his vineyard to work.  He did the same thing at noon; he did the same thing at three; and he did the same thing again at 5:00 p.m. 

  At the end of the day, his business manager called the laborers together to pay them.  The laborers who began work at five – the laborers who probably worked for only about an hour – received a full day’s pay.  So did the laborers who worked for three hours, so did the laborers who worked for six hours, and so did the laborers who worked for nine hours.  The laborers who had worked for twelve hours thought they were due a little more.  When they received no more than what they had agreed upon initially, they grumbled against the landowner.  The landowner replied, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?  Or are you envious because I am generous?” 

  Now we can all probably relate to the laborers’ disgruntlement.  That’s because we tend to put ourselves in the place of the laborers; we tend to look at this story from the laborers’ perspective.  Instead, let’s try to look at this story from the landowner’s perspective.  The landowner paid most of those laborers far, far more than he had to.  The theme of this story thus becomes the landowner’s generosity, not the shorting of a few disgruntled laborers.  And if the landowner is meant to represent God in this story, the narrative that Jesus describes of God…is one of a God who is abundantly generous. 

  Our problem is that we operate out of what might be called the myth of scarcity.  We have this irrational fear that there may not be enough to go around.  Jesus breaks the myth of scarcity by revealing a God of generosity.  If you don’t believe me, then just consider a few human attributes that come from God.  One human attribute is love.  The more we love, the more our capacity for love grows.  Another human attribute is forgiveness.  The more we forgive, the more our capacity for forgiveness grows.  Attributes expand and grow…it’s commodities that decrease.  Yet perhaps Jesus is even trying to assure us here that our commodities will never run out if we trust in God and share them in Jesus’ name.  Jesus reveals a God who is generous.  And when we come to sense the incredible generosity of God, we can’t help but become generous ourselves.  And maybe that’s the point.

  I was watching a show on the Discovery Channel the other day called Wild Russia.  A mother Snowy Owl had captured a lemming and brought it back to her two young owlets.  The bigger of the two snatched the lemming and began to devour it.  The smaller of the two was too weak to fight for it, and the mother owl was aware of that.  So she took the lemming from the bigger owlet and gave it to the smaller owlet, but the bigger one took it right back.  The smaller owlet was on the brink of starvation, and eventually died, because it could not compete with its sibling for food.  The narrator of the show simply called it “survival of the fittest.” 

  Maybe that’s the message Jesus is trying to drive home in us.  The way of the world is survival of the fittest.  The way of God is generosity to a fault.  And if God is abundantly generous…then maybe we should be too.  Amen.

 

12-02-2012 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

 

CHRISTIANITY 101: GOD IS TRUSTWORTHY

  From November of 1997 until May of 2002, I worked on my Doctor of Ministry degree at the Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia.  The program required that I go down there twice a year for about ten to twelve days at a time.  It was 740 miles from my driveway in Salem, Ohio to the parking lot at the seminary.  I used to leave on Sunday afternoons after leading worship at my church, and drive until 11 or 12 o’clock at night.  I was much younger then.

  My poor wife had to run the household all by herself in my absence.  And, like any good father trying to buy his way back into the good graces of his children, I always came home bearing gifts.  One year my daughter – who was probably five years old at the time – wanted me to bring her back a Furby.  A Furby was a fuzzy little robotic toy that could talk to you and move its arms and blink its eyes.  Thus, when I had a little free time, I went to a mall and found a Furby.  Money was a little tight in those days, and a Furby was not an inexpensive toy.

  A few days before I was scheduled to return home, I was talking to my daughter on the phone.  She said, “Did you get me my Furby, Daddy?”  I said, “Mariah, a Furby costs $35.00.”  To which she quickly replied, “Do you know what I got you, Daddy?”  I said, “What, Mariah?”  She said, “I got you a hug and a kiss…and that’s priceless!”  Of course, I immediately went out and dropped $35.00 on a Furby.

  There is a special bond between a father and a daughter.  There’s a special bond between a father and a son, too, but it isn’t quite the same.  My boys call me “Dad,” or one of several nicknames they have for me, but my daughter always calls me, “Daddy.”  She’s twenty years old now and is a junior in college.  And the last thing she says to me whenever I talk to her on the phone is, “I love you, Daddy.”  That’s a very special word to me.  I suspect that’s a very special word to many of you as well.  Keep that thought in mind as we move on.

  Several weeks ago, we talked about the contrast between our tendency to gratify the desires of the flesh and the Apostle Paul’s call for us to live by the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit.  We noted how human will power lacks the capacity to change much of anything within us.  Change happens when something else is modified.  What is it that needs to be modified?  What needs to be modified is our personal narrative of who and what God is.  We need to have the proper story in our minds as to who and what God is if we’re ever going to change who and what we are… because everything about us stems from our own internal narrative.

  As Jesus is God incarnate, we determined to let Jesus establish our new internal narrative.  We noted how many of us see God as an angry judge.  Citing a passage from the gospel of John, Jesus and his disciples encountered a man who was blind from birth.  His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  In their minds, it had to be one or the other.  Blindness was believed to be punishment from an angry God.  Jesus set out to establish a new narrative within them.  He quickly replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned.  He was born blind that the works of God might be made manifest in him.”  In other words, “God is good; God wills the good...and the glory of God will ultimately be revealed in him.”  Then Jesus healed the man born blind.  The point is that God wills what’s best for us.  The problem is that we don’t see the big picture as God sees the big picture.  Yet the narrative Jesus sets out to establish within us is that God is good.

  Today our aim is to establish the narrative within us that God is also trustworthy.  Consider the passage I read from the gospel according to Mark.  Jesus has just shared his last supper with his disciples, and established what we call the sacrament of communion.  It was late on that first Maundy Thursday.  Looming on the horizon was the first Good Friday; looming on the horizon was Jesus’ impending crucifixion.  Thus, Jesus left the upper room and went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray.

  He took with him Peter and James and John.  Knowing exactly what was about to happen to him, he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even unto death.  Remain here, and watch.”  Then going a little further into the garden, Jesus dropped to his knees and cried, “Abba, Father, all things are possible with thee.  Remove this cup from me…yet not what I will, but what thou wilt.”  Now I could probably write an entire book about the rich theological content of that one simple prayer.  Instead, let’s take a look at just a couple of things, and try to understand the narrative Jesus reveals to us here about God. 

  The first thing Jesus says is, “Abba, Father.”  The word “Abba” is an Aramaic word.  Aramaic, of course, was the language of the day.  Hebrew was the language of the Scriptures, Greek was the language of the Romans, but Aramaic was the language of the people of God.  The word “Abba” only appears three times in all of Scripture: once on Jesus’ lips in the Garden of Gethsemane, once in Romans and once in Galatians.  The word literally means, “Daddy.”  So in other words, at Jesus’ most crucial time of trial, he cries out to God, saying, “Daddy!  Help me!” 

  Such was the relationship between Jesus and God.  Jesus called him, “Daddy.”  The word itself implies a closeness, a relationship, and an intimacy that defies description.  What’s more, I think it reveals the level of trust that Jesus had in God.

  A number of years ago, my family and I were at the Kennywood amusement park in Pittsburgh.  There is a roller coaster there called The Phantom’s Revenge.  I wanted to go on it, but neither of my boys would go on it with me.  My daughter said, “I’ll go on it with you, Daddy.” 

  So we stood in line for 45 minutes.  We were fortunate enough to sit in the front seats of the very first car.  The ride lasted all of a minute-and-a-half and – truth be told – it scared me to death!  I don’t think I’ve ridden it since!  It’s because I don’t like to stand in line that long, not because I’m afraid or anything.  Anyway, after we got off, I asked my daughter, “Mariah, were you afraid?”  She said, “No.”  I said, “Why not?”  She said, “Because I was with you, Daddy.”

  For better or for worse, my daughter trusted me.  I was and am clearly not worthy of such implicit trust.  I love her and would do anything for her, and I would never put her in harm’s way intentionally.  But I am a limited, finite human being.  In her eyes, however, being with me meant that she was completely safe.  Maybe that’s what it means to have a Daddy.

  Jesus called God, “Daddy,” when he was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Thomas Smail puts it well in his book, The Forgotten Father.  He writes:

The Father that Jesus addresses in the garden is the one that he has known all his life and found to be bountiful in his provision, reliable in his promises, and utterly faithful in his love.  He can obey the will that sends him to the cross with hope and expectation, because it is the will of Abba whose love has been so proved – that it can now be trusted so fully – by being obeyed so completely.  This is not legal obedience driven by commandment…but trusting response to known love.

  In Jesus’ mind, God was trustworthy.  We know that because Jesus called him “Daddy.”  Yet note that he also says, “Remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt.”  Remove this cup from me.  The Greek word for cup is po-tare-ion.  It literally means cup or drinking vessel.  Yet the cup is meant to represent, by implication, what it contains.  The cup Jesus sought to have removed was the pain and suffering he was about to endure.  Perhaps we have a cup or two we’d like to have removed as well.

  I have a good friend who battled leukemia six years ago.  The chemotherapy protocol and the bone marrow transplant he endured were nearly unbearable.  When it comes to cancer, sometimes it seems as though the cure is worse than the disease.  Yet my friend survived.  He got through it and was living a happy and successful life of gratitude to God.  And then the cancer came back.  What do you say to a person you know and love who says to you, “Why is God doing this to me?” 

  We want to say to God – as Jesus said to God – “Remove this cup from me.”  And when we say that, we can say it with confidence because sometimes God does remove the cup.  But sometimes he doesn’t.  He did not remove the cup from Jesus.  Yet Jesus trusted God enough to say, “Not what I will, but what thou wilt.”  Jesus trusted God enough to make his way to the cross.

  It occurs to me that perhaps the problem is that we think this is the most important phase of our existence.  We think this earthly life is the most important phase of our existence.  Maybe it’s not.  Maybe this earthly life is like a seed that we plant in the ground.  The seed – with the proper sunlight, nutrition and care – grows into a beautiful flower.  In other words, maybe the most important phase of our existence is yet to come.  After all, the next phase of our existence is supposed to last for all eternity.

  Jesus believed that God was trustworthy.  He trusted God enough to make his way to the cross.  He knew the proper way to view God’s grace and mercy.  I’m not entirely sure we do.  Thus, I want to conduct an experiment with you.  It’s an experiment the Rev. Dr. George Buttrick conducted with the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in downtown New York City some 60 years ago.  I believe it is equally applicable today.

  What do you see?  What do you see when you look at this piece of paper?  (Walk down the aisle and display the paper.)  There is no trick here.  Just tell me what you see.  What do you see?

  You see a black dot, don’t you?  We focus on the black dot and fail to notice the white paper that surrounds it.  And therein lies the problem.  We notice the black dots in our existence and fail to notice the widespread mercy that surrounds it.  We need to learn to deliberately call to mind the joys of our existence, and to focus on them...if we’re ever going to come to find God to be trustworthy.

  Counting your blessings is a powerful spiritual exercise.  Perhaps what we need to do is conduct a spiritual inventory.  Make a list of all the blessings in your life.  Are you thankful for your family?  Write that down.  Are you thankful for your home?  Write that down.  Are you thankful for your job?  Who gave you the mental capacity to earn a living?  Are you thankful for the air that you breathe or the water you drink?  Who created the earth and stocked it with abundance?  Make a list of all the blessings in your life.  I think what you will find is that there’s a lot of white paper surrounding the blots on your page as well.

  Our troubles are real.  But they are small compared to God’s widespread mercy.  The more we are able to comprehend how many blessings we really have – freely given and freely received – the more we will come to realize that God truly wills what’s best for us.  And when that moment of revelation occurs, our trust in God…can’t help but increase.  Amen.