This sermon was presented at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on November 25, 2007, Christ the King Sunday.
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Luke 1:68-79
Colossians 1:11-20
Luke 23:33-43
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
The Today Show is doing a series on Presidential candidates and their roots called “Candidate Cribs.” This isn’t a political series; it’s a feature series about what influenced the candidates when they were young. Thanksgiving Day was former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee’s day. One of the things the story talked about was his love of rock music and especially the guitar. The story begins in the Christmas of 1966 with his parents making a tremendous sacrifice and ordering a guitar, amplifier, and the whole rig from the JC Penny catalog. Young Mike wanted to be in a band. The story mentions the work ethic involved in playing, the hours of practice, the meticulous preparation needed to prepare for one great performance. As the story showed tape of the Governor playing bass with his band “The Capital Offense,” the story talks about people he has played with in the past including Willie Nelson and Grand Funk Railroad.
The person Governor Huckabee was most excited about meeting was Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, who told the Governor about getting busted in Arkansas in 1975. Huckabee told NBC News, “I said, ‘Well yeah Keith, in fact I don’t know if you know this, but I am the one guy in the world that can do something that no body else can do, I can pardon you from that misdemeanor from back in 1975.’” So now, imagine Mike Huckabee doing an imitation of Keith Richards reply, “Oh man, could you do that? Could you really do that? That would be so great if you did that. That would be really cool if you did that.” So near the end of Huckabee’s administration, he issued a full and absolute pardon to Keith Richards for his misdemeanor traffic fine.
This pardon was met with some cynicism. When one reporter asked if since he pardoned Keith Richards would he pardon anybody, Huckabee replied, “Not unless they can play guitar as well as he can.”[1]
Huckabee was for a moment in time Governor of Arkansas. The power vested in the office of the Governor by the Arkansas constitution is the source of his power to pardon, to forgive, to absolve.
Jesus cries from the cross, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
Jesus asks his Father to issue a pardon by virtue of who he is, the Son of Man who is also the Son of God. Jesus is the anointed, the Christ, that’s who he is and who he has always been. Who he is and what he does is the source of his power.
Mike Huckabee’s ability to grant absolution was based on a relationship with a legal document and the voters of Arkansas. Jesus’ ability to ask for absolution is based on a relationship with God the Father Almighty.
Pardon, forgive, absolve, another way to look at these words is to free someone of their misdeeds, whether a traffic violation or the sin of humanity. But after the death and resurrection of Jesus, in the writings of New Testament, there is a special aspect to forgiveness that became obvious to readers, “the community [realized] that it has to receive from God the forgiveness which is offered through the saving act which has taken place in Jesus Christ.”[2]
Forgiveness of sins is available to us through the person and the work of Jesus Christ.
But there is an interesting piece of Jesus’ pardon that far surpasses that of the Governor. The Governor can only absolve crimes committed. Huckabee’s power is not a “get out of jail free” card to be presented before arrest. Huckabee’s power could only be exercised on behalf of someone who had been indicted. Jesus extends his forgiveness to humanity before the sin is committed.
The forgiveness of Christ precedes the sins of the world; before, not after. Jesus says “Forgive them for what they are doing,” not “for what they have done.” Yes, I imagine Jesus is asking for forgiveness for all humanity for all of the sins committed before that moment, but by saying “are doing” instead of “has done,” he is also asking for forgiveness for what follows.
Jesus does not wait to see the scope of the sin humanity is capable of before asking for our forgiveness, he knows and has known since the beginning. Yet, in this movement of grace, Christ gives himself for our forgiveness before our transgression is committed.
“At the cross, before the people gawk, before the rulers scoff, before the soldiers mock, before a criminal taunts, before the people tempt Jesus to save himself, he says, ‘Father forgive them.’”[3]
So during the chaos of the crucifixion, in the midst of all of the shouting and taunting, one of the criminals looks at the other and says, “Don’t you fear God? We’ve all received the same death sentence; but we’re getting what we deserve, he has done nothing wrong.”
With this, the criminal then acknowledges the sovereignty of Jesus over creation and the kingdom that was not created when he begs, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Recognizing Christ as King the criminal shows that he knows his death sentence is from the rulers of this world, but his life, his salvation rests in the King of all creation. Jesus tells him, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”
The Governor’s pardon releases the accused from the confines of prison and allows them the opportunity to live in the world without the burden of continuing to bear the cross of their crime.
Jesus does more. Through the pardon of the Lord, we are absolved of the sins of this world and the confines of this life and we are given the opportunity to live in the Kingdom of Heaven without bearing the cross of our sins.
Christ bears that cross for us. He bears it for all creation and for us each individually.
Christ is the sovereign, the ruler. He bows before no one and as co-equal and co-eternal; God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit reigns in love supreme over it all.
Still, Jesus as the Son of Man chooses to empty himself of all heavenly trappings, coming to earth, born in a barn stall, as the son of a carpenter and a young maiden. He comes with nothing; he comes as a baby, and on the tree of woe is called King by the Roman prelate and a criminal.
Today we celebrate Christ the King Sunday. Christ is King of a kingdom that is not of this world, yet is able to be found in this world. It is a kingdom that exists now on earth, but as we know all too well is not fully here, not yet. It is a kingdom of paradise. It is a kingdom where the king bears the sin of the subjects.
In the Kingdom of God, the kingdom of all that was created and all that existed long before creation, we are welcomed as citizens, not mere residents but citizens, by the power and the work of the King himself. Such grace and peace comes to us before we could ever know our sin. Like the crowd at the crucifixion, Jesus forgives us before we can even begin to insult him.
We have been forgiven. We have been welcomed. Like the criminal, we will be in paradise with the one who is paradise in the flesh and in the spirit. The lamb is on the throne, the Christ is on the cross. Let us sing, sing aloud that we know our King and show the world who the sovereign is of this life and of life eternal.
[1] “Candidate Cribs,” Today Show podcast, November 22, 2007, segment 5, viewed from MSNBC.COM on November 24, 2007.
[2] Kittel, Kittel, Gerhard, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. I, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 1965,
page 511
[3] Handbook for the Revised Common Lectionary. Bower, Peter C., Editor. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996, page 265.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Spiritual Disciplines-Testify
This sermon was delivered at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on November 18, 2007, the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time.
Isaiah 65:17-25
Isaiah 12
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Luke 21:5-19
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
This is a true story. It’s a little over twenty years old, and it’s mine.[1]
In the summer of 1985, I finished grad school. But as a twenty-three year old with no professional experience in a tight economy I couldn’t find a job in my field, higher education. So, I went back to doing what got me through grad school, I went back to work in the bars.
While working at a club in the Westport district of Kansas City, Missouri I met a girl, her name was Megan. She was home in KC for a couple of semesters from the University of Wyoming because her grandfather was dying. She was taking education classes at the University of Missouri Kansas City, working at a hardware store, and playing shuffleboard at my bar. To make a long story shorter, I was taken by her. But too soon, in January 1987, she went back to Wyoming to go back to school and in an age long before email, we began exchanging letters.
That summer, she came back for a couple of weeks and when she did, she blew me off completely. I was ticked. Of course, I didn’t say “ticked.” There are bar words and there are church words, and I should not use the bar words here.
After some time of hurt feelings and a couple of more letters, I came to know that I had fallen in love with her. I decided what I needed to do is put my cards on the table, tell her how I felt, and let what happens happen. I decided it would be best to do this in person instead of in a letter, but I never got the chance. On December 13, 1987 Megan shot herself. When I got the call, I let out a cry that made God himself shudder.
I knew I needed forgiveness; forgiveness for being so angry with her; forgiveness for not telling her how I felt; forgiveness for not taking responsibility for my feelings and my actions; or inactions really. But I could not find forgiveness, so instead of forgiveness, I tried to hide.
I hid in work. I hid in a bottle. I hid in plain sight. Finally, I ended up hiding in Lamar, Colorado 81052. A little over a year after Megan’s death, I was running a dormitory at a community college.
After a few years in Colorado I began to hear that still small voice of the Lord, the one that told me if I was waiting to “be good enough” before going back to church, I would never be good enough and I would never go. So one Sunday, I ended up in a pew at the First Presbyterian Church in Lamar and began the journey that brings me to you today. But that’s another story; let me finish this one first.
I attended regularly and began reading my bible. I started to learn about grace and forgiveness. But one thought haunted me, no matter how hard I tried to deal with my guilt, it never went away. Truth be known, I was probably giving it away with my right hand and taking it right back with the left.
One night, at a Presbyterian revival service (yeah, a Presbyterian revival—it may be an oxymoron, but it’s still a true story) the pastor spoke on forgiveness. He preached on Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer with special attention to 6:15, “but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Don’t get me wrong, I understood, to be forgiven I would have to forgive. But what did I have to forgive her for? She was the one who was in so much pain that she thought the only way out of it was to kill herself. What did I possibly have to forgive her for? Then, by the grace of God, I discerned an answer: I had to forgive her for forgetting. I had to forgive her for forgetting about her family, her friends, and I had to forgive her for forgetting about me. I had to forgive her for leaving. I had to forgive her. And in that moment, after nearly eight years of mourning, I did.
And at that moment, I don’t know if you heard the angelic choir or not, but at that very moment, at the moment I forgave, by the grace of God, I was forgiven too. I had held onto my mourning and sorrow for so long, when the weight was lifted I knew I was in the presence of God. At that moment, I was in a holy place in my life.
Wonderfully, about four months later, I met Marie. If I had met her any earlier, I wouldn’t have been ready, she would have seen it, and life as I know it would have been without the love I know today. Thank God I didn’t meet Marie one minute before I was ready to meet her.
Megan’s mom came to Colorado for our wedding. During the dance at the reception, I thanked her for coming. And I told her that I am a better man, and will be a better husband, for having known her daughter.
I say that this is my story, but this isn’t really true. First of all, I have many more stories than this one, but this is a very important one and was once the dominant story of my life. But more importantly, it isn’t my story, it’s God’s story. The Lord gave it to me so that in the end the glory of God may be known. I’m one of the lead characters, but from that horrible abyss of abusive self destruction, there was a light that shined long before I could see it, long before I was even looking for it. And I thank God that the Lord was concerned with me long before I was ever concerned with the Lord.
Jesus tells us that we will be called before others; kings and governors and other powerful people, and this is our opportunity to testify. And when we testify we aren’t to have defense strategies prepared because the Lord will give us the words none of our opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. Jesus promises to give us words, and in all truth, we have been given the words to use when kings and governors ask us to testify, they come from two places.
The words we are to use are right in front of us, literally. The words we have been given to speak are in the words of scripture. These words give us the best defense, more than we could ever imagine. And in these words, we are given the speech to talk about who God is. In my story, I learned that our Lord has the courage reach into the deepest and darkest places in our lives. The Lord is bold and caring and loving. The Old Testament shows us a multifaceted God, one that creates humanity because God wants a loving relationship with humanity. We are also presented a jealous God who disciplines when we stray and worship other gods.
This is the same Lord who is presented in the New Testament in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ. This is the same Lord who turns over the money changer’s tables in the temple invoking the words of Isaiah and Jeremiah when he tells them they are making the temple a den of thieves.[2] The same God who John tells us not only is the perfect personification of love, but is love.
In the words of scripture we are not only presented with the image of God, but with how God interacts with creation and the created. Theologian George Lindbeck writes “the primary focus of [of the bible] is not on God’s being in itself, for that is not what the text is about, but on how life is to be lived and reality constructed in the light of God’s character as an agent as this is depicted in the stories of Israel and of Jesus.”[3] We have a picture of who God is through scripture, but it is not complete without the Lord in relationship with creation and humanity.
The story of Israel is the story of how the Lord says and lives the announcement, “I will be your God and you will be my people.”[4] It is the story of the Lordship of God, the kingship of God in the kingdom of God. It is the story of a disobedient Nazirite who becomes the renowned and notorious Sampson. It’s the intimate story of a prophet who anoints a simple shepherd boy to become King David. It is the story of how Jesus interacts with the disciples, and not just how Jesus interacts with Peter, James and John; the “popular kids” disciples. It is the story of Jesus’ relationship with Simon the Zealot, Peter’s brother Andrew, Matthew the tax collector; and even the story of Jesus’ relationship with Judas, the disciple who would betray him.
Our testimony is both who the Lord our God is, and who the Lord our God is in our lives. And when people ask us about who Jesus is, when people ask you what you believe; they don’t want to hear theological rhetoric, which is a pity because I have a pretty good lock on that. People want us to tell them about who God is and why God is important in our lives. They want to know why God is important to us. They want to hear stories of power and glory, stories of faith and redemption. People want to know want to know not just who God is, but why God is important in our lives.
Even more important than the testimony of our tongue is the testimony of our hands. Jesus said much, but it is what he did that intensified what he said. He not only tells us to behave with compassion, he was compassionate. He healed when the rest of the world rested. He fed the multitudes when others would send them home hungry. He forgave when others passed the sentence of death. He returned from a place where others remain. And we are called to follow him in these acts of peace, grace, and mercy.
In this we are called to follow the spiritual disciplines of prayer, lifting those who need support and giving thanks to the Lord who answers prayer. We are called to give, even when others say that giving blood won’t be enough. We are called to live in a world that wants nothing but our death. And we are called to share the word with the world, a world that doesn’t want to hear it.
Jesus warns us though; we are called to testify in very difficult times. We are warned that others will vie for our attention. Some will even claim to be like gods or even gods themselves. Idols will abound in times like these. We will hear that end times are near, whether individually or as a nation or a people, we will hear that end times are near, but we are instructed not to follow them. We are told that terrifying things will happen and terrifying things will be rumored, yet as long as we know who God is and who God is in our lives, we are set upon ground that cannot be shaken even by the earthquakes of our lives.
We are also warned that on the basis or our testimony, on the basis of the one we testify about, we will be hated and some will be put to death. History, both ancient and current, show us that this is true. But through our endurance, through the perseverance of the faith and the one in whom we have faith, we will not simply persevere, we will gain life. We will gain our souls. We will be saved by grace through faith. It is this faith, this grace we are to share with the world.
To testify brings an outrageous level of terror; with good reason. Jesus warns us that in this time we are called to testify we will be in danger. We will be called to testify when kings will be in a place to take our lives and Pharisees eject us from the temple. Worse, our friends and neighbors may begin calling us names like Jesus freak. But our witness, our testimony is the church’s evangelism. Through testimony in the faith of our Lord and God we are called to be disciples. We are called to be God’s people, because the Lord is our God.
It’s scary; then again the Greek word for witness is martyr. It’s supposed to be scary. But in God, we have nothing to fear. In our testimony is our life. In our testimony is the life of the Lord in our lives. It is up to us to testify, to share the good news of who God is and what God does in our lives.
[1] The names have not been changed. No one is innocent.
[2] Isa 56:7; Jer 7:11.
[3] Lindbeck, George A., The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age. Louisville; Westminster/John Knox Press, 1984, page 121.
[4] Jeremiah 7:23
Isaiah 65:17-25
Isaiah 12
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Luke 21:5-19
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
This is a true story. It’s a little over twenty years old, and it’s mine.[1]
In the summer of 1985, I finished grad school. But as a twenty-three year old with no professional experience in a tight economy I couldn’t find a job in my field, higher education. So, I went back to doing what got me through grad school, I went back to work in the bars.
While working at a club in the Westport district of Kansas City, Missouri I met a girl, her name was Megan. She was home in KC for a couple of semesters from the University of Wyoming because her grandfather was dying. She was taking education classes at the University of Missouri Kansas City, working at a hardware store, and playing shuffleboard at my bar. To make a long story shorter, I was taken by her. But too soon, in January 1987, she went back to Wyoming to go back to school and in an age long before email, we began exchanging letters.
That summer, she came back for a couple of weeks and when she did, she blew me off completely. I was ticked. Of course, I didn’t say “ticked.” There are bar words and there are church words, and I should not use the bar words here.
After some time of hurt feelings and a couple of more letters, I came to know that I had fallen in love with her. I decided what I needed to do is put my cards on the table, tell her how I felt, and let what happens happen. I decided it would be best to do this in person instead of in a letter, but I never got the chance. On December 13, 1987 Megan shot herself. When I got the call, I let out a cry that made God himself shudder.
I knew I needed forgiveness; forgiveness for being so angry with her; forgiveness for not telling her how I felt; forgiveness for not taking responsibility for my feelings and my actions; or inactions really. But I could not find forgiveness, so instead of forgiveness, I tried to hide.
I hid in work. I hid in a bottle. I hid in plain sight. Finally, I ended up hiding in Lamar, Colorado 81052. A little over a year after Megan’s death, I was running a dormitory at a community college.
After a few years in Colorado I began to hear that still small voice of the Lord, the one that told me if I was waiting to “be good enough” before going back to church, I would never be good enough and I would never go. So one Sunday, I ended up in a pew at the First Presbyterian Church in Lamar and began the journey that brings me to you today. But that’s another story; let me finish this one first.
I attended regularly and began reading my bible. I started to learn about grace and forgiveness. But one thought haunted me, no matter how hard I tried to deal with my guilt, it never went away. Truth be known, I was probably giving it away with my right hand and taking it right back with the left.
One night, at a Presbyterian revival service (yeah, a Presbyterian revival—it may be an oxymoron, but it’s still a true story) the pastor spoke on forgiveness. He preached on Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer with special attention to 6:15, “but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Don’t get me wrong, I understood, to be forgiven I would have to forgive. But what did I have to forgive her for? She was the one who was in so much pain that she thought the only way out of it was to kill herself. What did I possibly have to forgive her for? Then, by the grace of God, I discerned an answer: I had to forgive her for forgetting. I had to forgive her for forgetting about her family, her friends, and I had to forgive her for forgetting about me. I had to forgive her for leaving. I had to forgive her. And in that moment, after nearly eight years of mourning, I did.
And at that moment, I don’t know if you heard the angelic choir or not, but at that very moment, at the moment I forgave, by the grace of God, I was forgiven too. I had held onto my mourning and sorrow for so long, when the weight was lifted I knew I was in the presence of God. At that moment, I was in a holy place in my life.
Wonderfully, about four months later, I met Marie. If I had met her any earlier, I wouldn’t have been ready, she would have seen it, and life as I know it would have been without the love I know today. Thank God I didn’t meet Marie one minute before I was ready to meet her.
Megan’s mom came to Colorado for our wedding. During the dance at the reception, I thanked her for coming. And I told her that I am a better man, and will be a better husband, for having known her daughter.
I say that this is my story, but this isn’t really true. First of all, I have many more stories than this one, but this is a very important one and was once the dominant story of my life. But more importantly, it isn’t my story, it’s God’s story. The Lord gave it to me so that in the end the glory of God may be known. I’m one of the lead characters, but from that horrible abyss of abusive self destruction, there was a light that shined long before I could see it, long before I was even looking for it. And I thank God that the Lord was concerned with me long before I was ever concerned with the Lord.
Jesus tells us that we will be called before others; kings and governors and other powerful people, and this is our opportunity to testify. And when we testify we aren’t to have defense strategies prepared because the Lord will give us the words none of our opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. Jesus promises to give us words, and in all truth, we have been given the words to use when kings and governors ask us to testify, they come from two places.
The words we are to use are right in front of us, literally. The words we have been given to speak are in the words of scripture. These words give us the best defense, more than we could ever imagine. And in these words, we are given the speech to talk about who God is. In my story, I learned that our Lord has the courage reach into the deepest and darkest places in our lives. The Lord is bold and caring and loving. The Old Testament shows us a multifaceted God, one that creates humanity because God wants a loving relationship with humanity. We are also presented a jealous God who disciplines when we stray and worship other gods.
This is the same Lord who is presented in the New Testament in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ. This is the same Lord who turns over the money changer’s tables in the temple invoking the words of Isaiah and Jeremiah when he tells them they are making the temple a den of thieves.[2] The same God who John tells us not only is the perfect personification of love, but is love.
In the words of scripture we are not only presented with the image of God, but with how God interacts with creation and the created. Theologian George Lindbeck writes “the primary focus of [of the bible] is not on God’s being in itself, for that is not what the text is about, but on how life is to be lived and reality constructed in the light of God’s character as an agent as this is depicted in the stories of Israel and of Jesus.”[3] We have a picture of who God is through scripture, but it is not complete without the Lord in relationship with creation and humanity.
The story of Israel is the story of how the Lord says and lives the announcement, “I will be your God and you will be my people.”[4] It is the story of the Lordship of God, the kingship of God in the kingdom of God. It is the story of a disobedient Nazirite who becomes the renowned and notorious Sampson. It’s the intimate story of a prophet who anoints a simple shepherd boy to become King David. It is the story of how Jesus interacts with the disciples, and not just how Jesus interacts with Peter, James and John; the “popular kids” disciples. It is the story of Jesus’ relationship with Simon the Zealot, Peter’s brother Andrew, Matthew the tax collector; and even the story of Jesus’ relationship with Judas, the disciple who would betray him.
Our testimony is both who the Lord our God is, and who the Lord our God is in our lives. And when people ask us about who Jesus is, when people ask you what you believe; they don’t want to hear theological rhetoric, which is a pity because I have a pretty good lock on that. People want us to tell them about who God is and why God is important in our lives. They want to know why God is important to us. They want to hear stories of power and glory, stories of faith and redemption. People want to know want to know not just who God is, but why God is important in our lives.
Even more important than the testimony of our tongue is the testimony of our hands. Jesus said much, but it is what he did that intensified what he said. He not only tells us to behave with compassion, he was compassionate. He healed when the rest of the world rested. He fed the multitudes when others would send them home hungry. He forgave when others passed the sentence of death. He returned from a place where others remain. And we are called to follow him in these acts of peace, grace, and mercy.
In this we are called to follow the spiritual disciplines of prayer, lifting those who need support and giving thanks to the Lord who answers prayer. We are called to give, even when others say that giving blood won’t be enough. We are called to live in a world that wants nothing but our death. And we are called to share the word with the world, a world that doesn’t want to hear it.
Jesus warns us though; we are called to testify in very difficult times. We are warned that others will vie for our attention. Some will even claim to be like gods or even gods themselves. Idols will abound in times like these. We will hear that end times are near, whether individually or as a nation or a people, we will hear that end times are near, but we are instructed not to follow them. We are told that terrifying things will happen and terrifying things will be rumored, yet as long as we know who God is and who God is in our lives, we are set upon ground that cannot be shaken even by the earthquakes of our lives.
We are also warned that on the basis or our testimony, on the basis of the one we testify about, we will be hated and some will be put to death. History, both ancient and current, show us that this is true. But through our endurance, through the perseverance of the faith and the one in whom we have faith, we will not simply persevere, we will gain life. We will gain our souls. We will be saved by grace through faith. It is this faith, this grace we are to share with the world.
To testify brings an outrageous level of terror; with good reason. Jesus warns us that in this time we are called to testify we will be in danger. We will be called to testify when kings will be in a place to take our lives and Pharisees eject us from the temple. Worse, our friends and neighbors may begin calling us names like Jesus freak. But our witness, our testimony is the church’s evangelism. Through testimony in the faith of our Lord and God we are called to be disciples. We are called to be God’s people, because the Lord is our God.
It’s scary; then again the Greek word for witness is martyr. It’s supposed to be scary. But in God, we have nothing to fear. In our testimony is our life. In our testimony is the life of the Lord in our lives. It is up to us to testify, to share the good news of who God is and what God does in our lives.
[1] The names have not been changed. No one is innocent.
[2] Isa 56:7; Jer 7:11.
[3] Lindbeck, George A., The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age. Louisville; Westminster/John Knox Press, 1984, page 121.
[4] Jeremiah 7:23
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Spiritual Discipllines-Living
This sermon was delivered at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday November 11, 2007, the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time.
Haggai 2:1-2:9
Psalm 98
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
Luke 20:27-38 (-40)
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
There’s an old joke, a brain teaser if you will, you may have heard it before. It goes like this: “You have two coins, together they add up to thirty cents, and one of them is not a nickel. What are the coins?” Does anyone know the answer? Does anyone know what the two coins are? The coins are a quarter and a nickel. If you don’t know the joke you may be asking yourself, “I thought he said one of them wasn’t a nickel?” You’re right, I did, and that’s the joke. One of them is not a nickel. The other one is.
The purpose of this kind of joke for the tellers is to make them feel witty and superior at the expense of another. It’s not particularly funny; it’s a moment to show off for the one who tells it. (It’s nice when someone else knows the answer and spoils the joke. It takes the teller and pierces them right in their pomposity.)
Today’s reading from Luke takes that sort of tack as the Sadducees test Jesus on a point of levirate marriage. The Sadducees were the priestly, aristocratic party in Judaism, whose interests centered in the temple.[1] They probably descended from the sons of Zadok, who was one of the chief priests appointed by David.[2]
The views and practices of the Sadducees opposed those of the Pharisees. One of the differences between them is that the Sadducees represented the interests of the temple and its priesthood while the Pharisees represented the interests of the synagogue and its teachers.[3] The Sadducees and the Pharisees also disagreed on the matter of the resurrection. The Sadducees did not believe in the prospect of the resurrection where the Pharisees did.
Where the Sadducees and the Pharisees did agree was that Jesus was dangerous.
To help understand what was at stake with the question, it is important to know a little about levirate marriage. Quoting Deuteronomy, levirate marriage was a legal concept where “when brothers reside together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her, taking her in marriage, and performing the duty of a husband’s brother to her, and the firstborn whom she bears shall succeed to the name of the deceased brother, so that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.”[4] The purpose of the law was to prevent marriage of the Israelite woman to an outsider maintaining national purity and to continue the name of the dead husband in Israel.[5]
So as our reading opens, the Lord is at the temple. The triumphant entry of Palm Sunday happened a couple of days earlier. Jesus has run the money changers out of the temple. He has taught in the temple and his authority was questioned—then made stronger by the words he spoke. And he has been tested by the Jewish authorities, foiling their efforts at every turn.
So our Savior receives a question that could only come off of the Sadducee Ordination Examination about levirate marriage. Of course for the Sadducees it was a trick question. After the resurrection, whose wife would this seven time married no child bearing woman be? She would be no one’s wife because there is no resurrection. Ha-ha! It’s the quarter and the nickel all over again. Jesus takes another tack to answer their question.
Jesus tells the Sadducees and all who will listen that there is life in the resurrection because “The Lord is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob] are alive.” And he makes this point using the Lord’s very own words from second Book of Moses. In Exodus, the Lord tells Moses at the bush which burns but is not consumed by the fire that the Lord is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.[6] Not the Lord was their God, but the Lord is their God. The Lord is still the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Lord continues to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
In the Lord, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob live.
This truth so amazed the Scribes who were at the temple that they said, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” And depending on whom the “they” are in verse 40, because Jesus could leave the Sadducees speechless with such ease, composure, and style, either the Scribes or the Sadducees decided in that moment they wouldn’t ask Jesus another question.
There is life in the resurrection and the Sadducees couldn’t fathom it. The new life is nothing like they have ever seen, experienced, or conceived. It is new life and does not resemble the life they know in any way. It’s not like our life only better; it is something completely new and different. It is life transformed.
This is why Jesus makes the differentiation between the children of this age and the children of the age to come. The children of this age worry about questions of law and levirate marriage. Children of the coming age are concerned with praising and worshiping the Lord in the resurrected life, much like the angels live to praise and worship the Lord.
As this life changes people then, it continues to change us now.
As a spiritual discipline, we are called to live in the resurrection life revealed to Moses and explained to the Sadducees in the temple by Jesus.
We are to live in the resurrection life Jesus promises one and all. We are to live in the resurrection life Jesus gives so graciously. We are to live the resurrected life of worship and praise.
So how does it change us? The beginning of the answer to that question can be found in the question the Sadducees asked.
When I read this passage in the New Revised Standard Version, I get the impression of this being just another test from the Jewish officials. But when I was reading this passage translating it from the Greek, there was a tone that I found missing in the English reading. Imagine this reading: “There were seven brothers, and the first after taking a wife died childless, and the second and the third took her likewise and also they died and they left no children, then in the resurrection (which the Sadducees didn’t even believe existed anyway) the woman becomes a wife to which of them?
As I read this, I found a sort of “butter won’t melt in his mouth” quality in the Sadducee’s question. Also I found, what we would consider, an antiquated view of the woman taken, being the possession of the husband.
It’s as if the lawyer says to a man you get the car, the plasma TV, and the widow, in that order.
The purpose of levirate marriage underscores the value of marrying within the clan and the importance of sons. There is some truth that levirate marriage protects the woman who would have been without support after becoming a widow, but this is an added bonus for her and had little to do with the rationale for the law. The value of the national purity and the family name took precedence over the value of the woman in levirate marriage.
So considering the purposes of levirate marriage and the words and the tone of the Sadducee, the value of the woman in this passage is just the value of her womb and her death. With neither of these things, she would have been useless to this hypothetical situation. And considering she was barren, for the purposes of the test, as far as the Sadducees were concerned, the only thing she had of any value was her death.
Not her life, but her death.
The words and the tone of the Sadducee took a woman, a child of Abraham, a child of God, and made her into nothing. She was nothing more than ashes and dust—miraculously brought back to life in a resurrection the Sadducee questioner didn’t believe existed—waiting to see whose wife she would be again. The hypothetical woman’s only purpose was as a pawn in a story to try to trick Jesus.
If you find this interpretation of the story offensive, I find this offensive too. And based on his response, I believe Jesus found it offensive too. Jesus would have nothing to do with a story shrouded in death just to make a point.
Finding the Sadducees take on this woman offensive shows that we do not live in their world. We have taken at least one step past the legal restrictions of the Sadducees and moved toward the age to come and the grace of resurrected life.
The resurrection is not about death and return to the life we have lived on earth amplified. Life in the resurrection is a radical transformation. Resurrected life takes flawed sinful men like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and makes them patriarchs, fathers of the faith. Resurrected life takes humanity and places it in holy communion with Lord and with the angels in a life that will never perish. Resurrected life is like the bush which burned before Moses, it burns, it radiates with the light of the Lord God, but it is not consumed.
The Sadducees consumed the life of the hypothetical woman, in Christ she lives.
Resurrected life is unlike anything the Sadducees know, but it was available to them through life in the Lord. Most importantly, it is available to us now. Resurrected life in Jesus is not something that has to wait for our death to join; it is available to us now. Jesus made this clear when he declared that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob live—present tense-live—before his resurrection, indeed before his earthly birth.
Aye, when we share in the presence of the Lord we will share in the resurrection life in the presence of the Triune God, but the Lord our God does not want us to wait for our deaths to live the resurrection life. The Lord our God wants us to begin living that life today.
This is why as much as praying and giving, living is a spiritual discipline. We must seek to live in the Lord our God. We are called to live in the resurrection now, long before our own deaths.
I am happy that we live in a time and place that sees women as more than the sum of their lady parts. Yet this is not true in every place in this time. I would love to say that women and men are equal partners in this realm, but this is not true either. Yet, to quote Paul’s letter to the Galatians, “there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”[7] In the resurrection life, we are one.
We are called to live, live our lives in the resurrection now. But we don’t, not yet. But this is not something for us to beat ourselves up about, it is a simple fact of our earthly lives in a sin stained creation. Yet we are called to something far better, something we only glimpse from our earthly lives.
Life in the resurrection is glorious. Life in Christ is life eternal. Resurrection life transforms us into the people the Lord wants us to be, the people we were intended to be from the beginning.
Life is more than the day to day existence many face today. Real life is a spiritual discipline to be lived in the love, peace and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[1] Sadducees entry. The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, George Arthur Buttirck, Dictionary Editor. 1992 edition. Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN, 1962. Electronic Version, 2002.
[2] 1Kings 2:26
[3] Sadducees entry, The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.
[4] Deuteronomy 25:5-7
[5] Marriage, Levirate Marriage. The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.
[6] Exodus 3:6
[7] Galatians 3:28, NRSV
Haggai 2:1-2:9
Psalm 98
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
Luke 20:27-38 (-40)
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
There’s an old joke, a brain teaser if you will, you may have heard it before. It goes like this: “You have two coins, together they add up to thirty cents, and one of them is not a nickel. What are the coins?” Does anyone know the answer? Does anyone know what the two coins are? The coins are a quarter and a nickel. If you don’t know the joke you may be asking yourself, “I thought he said one of them wasn’t a nickel?” You’re right, I did, and that’s the joke. One of them is not a nickel. The other one is.
The purpose of this kind of joke for the tellers is to make them feel witty and superior at the expense of another. It’s not particularly funny; it’s a moment to show off for the one who tells it. (It’s nice when someone else knows the answer and spoils the joke. It takes the teller and pierces them right in their pomposity.)
Today’s reading from Luke takes that sort of tack as the Sadducees test Jesus on a point of levirate marriage. The Sadducees were the priestly, aristocratic party in Judaism, whose interests centered in the temple.[1] They probably descended from the sons of Zadok, who was one of the chief priests appointed by David.[2]
The views and practices of the Sadducees opposed those of the Pharisees. One of the differences between them is that the Sadducees represented the interests of the temple and its priesthood while the Pharisees represented the interests of the synagogue and its teachers.[3] The Sadducees and the Pharisees also disagreed on the matter of the resurrection. The Sadducees did not believe in the prospect of the resurrection where the Pharisees did.
Where the Sadducees and the Pharisees did agree was that Jesus was dangerous.
To help understand what was at stake with the question, it is important to know a little about levirate marriage. Quoting Deuteronomy, levirate marriage was a legal concept where “when brothers reside together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her, taking her in marriage, and performing the duty of a husband’s brother to her, and the firstborn whom she bears shall succeed to the name of the deceased brother, so that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.”[4] The purpose of the law was to prevent marriage of the Israelite woman to an outsider maintaining national purity and to continue the name of the dead husband in Israel.[5]
So as our reading opens, the Lord is at the temple. The triumphant entry of Palm Sunday happened a couple of days earlier. Jesus has run the money changers out of the temple. He has taught in the temple and his authority was questioned—then made stronger by the words he spoke. And he has been tested by the Jewish authorities, foiling their efforts at every turn.
So our Savior receives a question that could only come off of the Sadducee Ordination Examination about levirate marriage. Of course for the Sadducees it was a trick question. After the resurrection, whose wife would this seven time married no child bearing woman be? She would be no one’s wife because there is no resurrection. Ha-ha! It’s the quarter and the nickel all over again. Jesus takes another tack to answer their question.
Jesus tells the Sadducees and all who will listen that there is life in the resurrection because “The Lord is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob] are alive.” And he makes this point using the Lord’s very own words from second Book of Moses. In Exodus, the Lord tells Moses at the bush which burns but is not consumed by the fire that the Lord is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.[6] Not the Lord was their God, but the Lord is their God. The Lord is still the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Lord continues to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
In the Lord, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob live.
This truth so amazed the Scribes who were at the temple that they said, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” And depending on whom the “they” are in verse 40, because Jesus could leave the Sadducees speechless with such ease, composure, and style, either the Scribes or the Sadducees decided in that moment they wouldn’t ask Jesus another question.
There is life in the resurrection and the Sadducees couldn’t fathom it. The new life is nothing like they have ever seen, experienced, or conceived. It is new life and does not resemble the life they know in any way. It’s not like our life only better; it is something completely new and different. It is life transformed.
This is why Jesus makes the differentiation between the children of this age and the children of the age to come. The children of this age worry about questions of law and levirate marriage. Children of the coming age are concerned with praising and worshiping the Lord in the resurrected life, much like the angels live to praise and worship the Lord.
As this life changes people then, it continues to change us now.
As a spiritual discipline, we are called to live in the resurrection life revealed to Moses and explained to the Sadducees in the temple by Jesus.
We are to live in the resurrection life Jesus promises one and all. We are to live in the resurrection life Jesus gives so graciously. We are to live the resurrected life of worship and praise.
So how does it change us? The beginning of the answer to that question can be found in the question the Sadducees asked.
When I read this passage in the New Revised Standard Version, I get the impression of this being just another test from the Jewish officials. But when I was reading this passage translating it from the Greek, there was a tone that I found missing in the English reading. Imagine this reading: “There were seven brothers, and the first after taking a wife died childless, and the second and the third took her likewise and also they died and they left no children, then in the resurrection (which the Sadducees didn’t even believe existed anyway) the woman becomes a wife to which of them?
As I read this, I found a sort of “butter won’t melt in his mouth” quality in the Sadducee’s question. Also I found, what we would consider, an antiquated view of the woman taken, being the possession of the husband.
It’s as if the lawyer says to a man you get the car, the plasma TV, and the widow, in that order.
The purpose of levirate marriage underscores the value of marrying within the clan and the importance of sons. There is some truth that levirate marriage protects the woman who would have been without support after becoming a widow, but this is an added bonus for her and had little to do with the rationale for the law. The value of the national purity and the family name took precedence over the value of the woman in levirate marriage.
So considering the purposes of levirate marriage and the words and the tone of the Sadducee, the value of the woman in this passage is just the value of her womb and her death. With neither of these things, she would have been useless to this hypothetical situation. And considering she was barren, for the purposes of the test, as far as the Sadducees were concerned, the only thing she had of any value was her death.
Not her life, but her death.
The words and the tone of the Sadducee took a woman, a child of Abraham, a child of God, and made her into nothing. She was nothing more than ashes and dust—miraculously brought back to life in a resurrection the Sadducee questioner didn’t believe existed—waiting to see whose wife she would be again. The hypothetical woman’s only purpose was as a pawn in a story to try to trick Jesus.
If you find this interpretation of the story offensive, I find this offensive too. And based on his response, I believe Jesus found it offensive too. Jesus would have nothing to do with a story shrouded in death just to make a point.
Finding the Sadducees take on this woman offensive shows that we do not live in their world. We have taken at least one step past the legal restrictions of the Sadducees and moved toward the age to come and the grace of resurrected life.
The resurrection is not about death and return to the life we have lived on earth amplified. Life in the resurrection is a radical transformation. Resurrected life takes flawed sinful men like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and makes them patriarchs, fathers of the faith. Resurrected life takes humanity and places it in holy communion with Lord and with the angels in a life that will never perish. Resurrected life is like the bush which burned before Moses, it burns, it radiates with the light of the Lord God, but it is not consumed.
The Sadducees consumed the life of the hypothetical woman, in Christ she lives.
Resurrected life is unlike anything the Sadducees know, but it was available to them through life in the Lord. Most importantly, it is available to us now. Resurrected life in Jesus is not something that has to wait for our death to join; it is available to us now. Jesus made this clear when he declared that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob live—present tense-live—before his resurrection, indeed before his earthly birth.
Aye, when we share in the presence of the Lord we will share in the resurrection life in the presence of the Triune God, but the Lord our God does not want us to wait for our deaths to live the resurrection life. The Lord our God wants us to begin living that life today.
This is why as much as praying and giving, living is a spiritual discipline. We must seek to live in the Lord our God. We are called to live in the resurrection now, long before our own deaths.
I am happy that we live in a time and place that sees women as more than the sum of their lady parts. Yet this is not true in every place in this time. I would love to say that women and men are equal partners in this realm, but this is not true either. Yet, to quote Paul’s letter to the Galatians, “there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”[7] In the resurrection life, we are one.
We are called to live, live our lives in the resurrection now. But we don’t, not yet. But this is not something for us to beat ourselves up about, it is a simple fact of our earthly lives in a sin stained creation. Yet we are called to something far better, something we only glimpse from our earthly lives.
Life in the resurrection is glorious. Life in Christ is life eternal. Resurrection life transforms us into the people the Lord wants us to be, the people we were intended to be from the beginning.
Life is more than the day to day existence many face today. Real life is a spiritual discipline to be lived in the love, peace and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[1] Sadducees entry. The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, George Arthur Buttirck, Dictionary Editor. 1992 edition. Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN, 1962. Electronic Version, 2002.
[2] 1Kings 2:26
[3] Sadducees entry, The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.
[4] Deuteronomy 25:5-7
[5] Marriage, Levirate Marriage. The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.
[6] Exodus 3:6
[7] Galatians 3:28, NRSV
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Spiritual Disciplines-Giving
This sermon was delivered at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday November 4, 2007, the 31st Sunday of Ordinary time.
Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
Psalm 119:137-144
2Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
Luke 19:1-10
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Public services are a necessary part of our lives and they have to be paid for and we pay for them by taxes. And maybe, just maybe, the only thing worse than paying taxes is collecting them. I believe the county assessor’s office would confirm this.
In August of this year, Eureka Springs’ tax collections were just shy of $110,000. This was 22% under projections and 10.5% under the approximate $124,000 collected in August of last year. According to the council, there was good news though; figures indicated that September’s projection of $144,000 appeared to have been met. And there was great rejoicing on the west side of the King’s River.
To quote the newspaper, “Eureka Springs City Commissioner Hahn noted that a number of shops are closed, which likely affects collections.” I guess that whole you can’t get blood from a turnip thing applies here.
Later in the meeting, Commissioner Alvin Byrd asked for a copy of letters sent to delinquent businesses, saying that he had received complaints about their harshness. City Advertising and Promotions Commission Executive Director Jim Williams said the 30-day notice simply asks if the person had forgotten to pay their taxes, and the 60-day notice is more “matter of fact,” than harsh.[1]
It just can’t be a joy to collect taxes. Even so, the very words “Tax Collector” cause even the most honest and diligent to shudder. But at least we don’t pay our taxes to some middle manager who runs a private state sanctioned tax collection service. This is how taxes were collected in the hinterlands of first century Rome.
As a first century assessor and clerk, Zacchaeus was in charge of collecting taxes for Rome. As the head tax collector he was responsible for paying the estimated taxes to Rome in advance, and then collecting the taxes.[2] This becomes a losing proposition for a collector when people don’t pay their taxes. But you can’t tell that to Rome. Rome says pay up and the head tax collector pays up, in advance.
Imagine how this would work in our case from Eureka Springs…imagine the city Alderpersons being told to pony up the difference between the estimated and collected taxes for August. This would have come to more than $30,000 split between the six of them. That’s over $5,000 apiece. So if it’s your job to collect the taxes, you had better collect the taxes because if they don’t get paid by the merchants, it’s coming out of your pocket. The good news for the commissioners though was in months where collections exceeded the estimate, the surplus is profit. That profit would be the commissioners’ salary.
This is why first century tax collectors would gouge the people who paid their taxes. They knew there would be some fat times and some lean times, so they made sure there was more than enough fat to cover the lean.[3]
It almost gives you a grain of pity for the hard work faced by the first century tax collector. Almost.
Zacchaeus was a man. He was a head tax collector and he was short and he was rich and he was reviled by his people. And like every other tax collector, he overcharged on the taxes he collected because he knew what would happen if he didn’t. But as a head tax collector, he had junior collectors who did the dirty work with the people while he did the work with the big boys in Rome. And through this, he became rich. And as a son of Abraham, he was truly reviled by his people, the Jews, who made him rich doing Rome’s dirty work.
He was a collaborator. He was not a patriot.
Just being seen with Zacchaeus would make you guilty by association.
But this doesn’t stop Jesus.
Jesus calls to Zacchaeus, “Hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”
Zacchaeus was so happy that Jesus, the Lord, would come to his house that he says, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord. I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything I will pay back four times as much.”
Here’s a man who has changed, a man who has repented, just because he broke bread with Jesus.
What do the people say? What do they grumble? “Jesus has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”
In changing, in repenting, in turning, Zacchaeus takes his earthly wealth and first dedicates it to the Lord by helping the poor and then by making restitution to those whom he has wronged.
There was never a better result on “The People’s Court.”
Zacchaeus responds to the call of the Lord by giving. He gives to the poor and rights the wrongs he has committed. Jesus affirms his repentance saying, “Today salvation has come to this house.”
Jesus found the lost and the lost found Jesus.
That’s the way it was meant to be.
It’s still the way it was meant to be.
And in response to the meal we eat with the Lord, the meal he invited us to share, the meal he gave to us, we are called to give.
Zacchaeus sacrificed much of his fortune when he gave his wealth in response to the presence of the Lord. He gave half, and probably more than half of what he had in the name of Jesus.
In Genesis, we receive the concept of tithing when Abram gives one-tenth of his wealth to Melchizedek, the King of Jerusalem, after they share a meal of bread and wine.[4] Zacchaeus’ response to Jesus’ meal leaves that one in the dust.
But giving is not a competition, it’s a spiritual discipline.
Last week I talked about praying as a spiritual discipline. Prayer is not only how we communicate with God, but it is how God communicates with us. As the old saying goes, communication is a two way street, we have to listen as well as talk to communicate.
This week, I want us to consider stewardship, specifically giving, as a spiritual discipline. I have talked about Zacchaeus’ sacrificial gift of his personal treasure. But there is more to sacrificial giving than this.
Zacchaeus gave much, but Jesus gave more. Jesus sacrificed the social structure of the community by eating with a fellow Jew who was also a Roman collaborator.
Jesus sacrificed his personal status as a man of authority by being seen with this lost soul.
Jesus sacrificed his rabbinical authority by acknowledging the short man as a child of Abraham.
Jesus sacrificed his standing with the masses by seeking the lost.
Jesus sacrificed his power by saving the lost.
It makes writing a check seem somehow lacking by comparison.
Jesus as we know would give so much more. He identified with us joining the community of faith when he was baptized by John. He instituted this meal we share today, a meal which was foreshadowed when Abram was fed by Melchizedek and when Abram fed the three men by the Oaks of Mamre.[5] A meal the Lord shared with Zacchaeus on an ordinary day, a day not unlike this one.
And Jesus gave even more.
As you know, recently Marie has been suffering not only with the effects and side effects of Crohn’s Disease; she has also been suffering from challenges faced with treating the disease. In particular, she needs intravenous medications and her veins are as straight as a road map of Arkansas. There are some strait roads on the main routes, but for the most part it’s a twisty-turny mess in there. As you also know, she got a port that allows a single regular site to receive the IV medications, but it acted up too. She was very upset and the only person more frustrated about her veins than her was the nurse at the hospital who couldn’t get a vein on her to save his life.
Just a note before going on, all is well with the port. On Friday it worked like a dream. Praise God!
Anyway, I started quoting a line out of a song when she would go in for blood tests and medication, “Give blood/But you may find that blood is enough.”[6] Anemia is a side effect of the Crohn’s but I got to tell you, Marie has been giving so much blood over the past few months that there’s no wonder her anemia has reached epic status.
“Give blood/And there are some who'll say it's not enough.”
Jesus gave blood, and sweat, and toil, and tears, that we may approach the throne of glory. Jesus gave himself, he emptied himself of his Godly life that he may come and share life with us. He emptied himself of his intimate relationship as a part of the triune God that he may experience life in intimate relationship with us.
Giving is a spiritual discipline. And sure enough, you’ve heard and you will continue to hear you’ll hear televangelists, General Assembly moderators, Presbyterian fundraisers, pastors, and church treasurers say give. This message is heard so often that we begin to think to ourselves “give blood and there are some who’ll say it’s not enough.”
Just being seen with Zacchaeus would make you guilty by association. Being with us Jesus became guilt for us. He gave all that he was. He gave himself for us. He gave himself to seek out and save us.
Without despair let us remember, that as much as we give, it can never surpass what has been given to us. Jesus gave blood, and it was exactly what needed to be given. Can we give anything in return that would begin to match what we have been given? No, we can’t. Still, Jesus is our model of giving as a spiritual discipline. And we are called to respond to him through our giving.
[1] Long, E. Allen, “CAPC recommends ‘Ree’ Slane for vacancy; tax collections hit target in September,” Carroll County News, October 5, 2007, http://carrollconews.com/articles/2007/10/05/news/we2.txt, accessed November 3, 2007
[2] Bamberger, B. J., “Tax Collector,” in “The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.” George Arthur Buttrick, Dictionary Editor. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962, 21st Printing 1992, electronic version 2004.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Genesis 14:17-24
[5] Genesis 18:1-8
[6] Townshend, Pete, “Give Blood,” from “White City: A Novel” Atco Records, 1985.
Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
Psalm 119:137-144
2Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
Luke 19:1-10
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Public services are a necessary part of our lives and they have to be paid for and we pay for them by taxes. And maybe, just maybe, the only thing worse than paying taxes is collecting them. I believe the county assessor’s office would confirm this.
In August of this year, Eureka Springs’ tax collections were just shy of $110,000. This was 22% under projections and 10.5% under the approximate $124,000 collected in August of last year. According to the council, there was good news though; figures indicated that September’s projection of $144,000 appeared to have been met. And there was great rejoicing on the west side of the King’s River.
To quote the newspaper, “Eureka Springs City Commissioner Hahn noted that a number of shops are closed, which likely affects collections.” I guess that whole you can’t get blood from a turnip thing applies here.
Later in the meeting, Commissioner Alvin Byrd asked for a copy of letters sent to delinquent businesses, saying that he had received complaints about their harshness. City Advertising and Promotions Commission Executive Director Jim Williams said the 30-day notice simply asks if the person had forgotten to pay their taxes, and the 60-day notice is more “matter of fact,” than harsh.[1]
It just can’t be a joy to collect taxes. Even so, the very words “Tax Collector” cause even the most honest and diligent to shudder. But at least we don’t pay our taxes to some middle manager who runs a private state sanctioned tax collection service. This is how taxes were collected in the hinterlands of first century Rome.
As a first century assessor and clerk, Zacchaeus was in charge of collecting taxes for Rome. As the head tax collector he was responsible for paying the estimated taxes to Rome in advance, and then collecting the taxes.[2] This becomes a losing proposition for a collector when people don’t pay their taxes. But you can’t tell that to Rome. Rome says pay up and the head tax collector pays up, in advance.
Imagine how this would work in our case from Eureka Springs…imagine the city Alderpersons being told to pony up the difference between the estimated and collected taxes for August. This would have come to more than $30,000 split between the six of them. That’s over $5,000 apiece. So if it’s your job to collect the taxes, you had better collect the taxes because if they don’t get paid by the merchants, it’s coming out of your pocket. The good news for the commissioners though was in months where collections exceeded the estimate, the surplus is profit. That profit would be the commissioners’ salary.
This is why first century tax collectors would gouge the people who paid their taxes. They knew there would be some fat times and some lean times, so they made sure there was more than enough fat to cover the lean.[3]
It almost gives you a grain of pity for the hard work faced by the first century tax collector. Almost.
Zacchaeus was a man. He was a head tax collector and he was short and he was rich and he was reviled by his people. And like every other tax collector, he overcharged on the taxes he collected because he knew what would happen if he didn’t. But as a head tax collector, he had junior collectors who did the dirty work with the people while he did the work with the big boys in Rome. And through this, he became rich. And as a son of Abraham, he was truly reviled by his people, the Jews, who made him rich doing Rome’s dirty work.
He was a collaborator. He was not a patriot.
Just being seen with Zacchaeus would make you guilty by association.
But this doesn’t stop Jesus.
Jesus calls to Zacchaeus, “Hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”
Zacchaeus was so happy that Jesus, the Lord, would come to his house that he says, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord. I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything I will pay back four times as much.”
Here’s a man who has changed, a man who has repented, just because he broke bread with Jesus.
What do the people say? What do they grumble? “Jesus has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”
In changing, in repenting, in turning, Zacchaeus takes his earthly wealth and first dedicates it to the Lord by helping the poor and then by making restitution to those whom he has wronged.
There was never a better result on “The People’s Court.”
Zacchaeus responds to the call of the Lord by giving. He gives to the poor and rights the wrongs he has committed. Jesus affirms his repentance saying, “Today salvation has come to this house.”
Jesus found the lost and the lost found Jesus.
That’s the way it was meant to be.
It’s still the way it was meant to be.
And in response to the meal we eat with the Lord, the meal he invited us to share, the meal he gave to us, we are called to give.
Zacchaeus sacrificed much of his fortune when he gave his wealth in response to the presence of the Lord. He gave half, and probably more than half of what he had in the name of Jesus.
In Genesis, we receive the concept of tithing when Abram gives one-tenth of his wealth to Melchizedek, the King of Jerusalem, after they share a meal of bread and wine.[4] Zacchaeus’ response to Jesus’ meal leaves that one in the dust.
But giving is not a competition, it’s a spiritual discipline.
Last week I talked about praying as a spiritual discipline. Prayer is not only how we communicate with God, but it is how God communicates with us. As the old saying goes, communication is a two way street, we have to listen as well as talk to communicate.
This week, I want us to consider stewardship, specifically giving, as a spiritual discipline. I have talked about Zacchaeus’ sacrificial gift of his personal treasure. But there is more to sacrificial giving than this.
Zacchaeus gave much, but Jesus gave more. Jesus sacrificed the social structure of the community by eating with a fellow Jew who was also a Roman collaborator.
Jesus sacrificed his personal status as a man of authority by being seen with this lost soul.
Jesus sacrificed his rabbinical authority by acknowledging the short man as a child of Abraham.
Jesus sacrificed his standing with the masses by seeking the lost.
Jesus sacrificed his power by saving the lost.
It makes writing a check seem somehow lacking by comparison.
Jesus as we know would give so much more. He identified with us joining the community of faith when he was baptized by John. He instituted this meal we share today, a meal which was foreshadowed when Abram was fed by Melchizedek and when Abram fed the three men by the Oaks of Mamre.[5] A meal the Lord shared with Zacchaeus on an ordinary day, a day not unlike this one.
And Jesus gave even more.
As you know, recently Marie has been suffering not only with the effects and side effects of Crohn’s Disease; she has also been suffering from challenges faced with treating the disease. In particular, she needs intravenous medications and her veins are as straight as a road map of Arkansas. There are some strait roads on the main routes, but for the most part it’s a twisty-turny mess in there. As you also know, she got a port that allows a single regular site to receive the IV medications, but it acted up too. She was very upset and the only person more frustrated about her veins than her was the nurse at the hospital who couldn’t get a vein on her to save his life.
Just a note before going on, all is well with the port. On Friday it worked like a dream. Praise God!
Anyway, I started quoting a line out of a song when she would go in for blood tests and medication, “Give blood/But you may find that blood is enough.”[6] Anemia is a side effect of the Crohn’s but I got to tell you, Marie has been giving so much blood over the past few months that there’s no wonder her anemia has reached epic status.
“Give blood/And there are some who'll say it's not enough.”
Jesus gave blood, and sweat, and toil, and tears, that we may approach the throne of glory. Jesus gave himself, he emptied himself of his Godly life that he may come and share life with us. He emptied himself of his intimate relationship as a part of the triune God that he may experience life in intimate relationship with us.
Giving is a spiritual discipline. And sure enough, you’ve heard and you will continue to hear you’ll hear televangelists, General Assembly moderators, Presbyterian fundraisers, pastors, and church treasurers say give. This message is heard so often that we begin to think to ourselves “give blood and there are some who’ll say it’s not enough.”
Just being seen with Zacchaeus would make you guilty by association. Being with us Jesus became guilt for us. He gave all that he was. He gave himself for us. He gave himself to seek out and save us.
Without despair let us remember, that as much as we give, it can never surpass what has been given to us. Jesus gave blood, and it was exactly what needed to be given. Can we give anything in return that would begin to match what we have been given? No, we can’t. Still, Jesus is our model of giving as a spiritual discipline. And we are called to respond to him through our giving.
[1] Long, E. Allen, “CAPC recommends ‘Ree’ Slane for vacancy; tax collections hit target in September,” Carroll County News, October 5, 2007, http://carrollconews.com/articles/2007/10/05/news/we2.txt, accessed November 3, 2007
[2] Bamberger, B. J., “Tax Collector,” in “The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.” George Arthur Buttrick, Dictionary Editor. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962, 21st Printing 1992, electronic version 2004.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Genesis 14:17-24
[5] Genesis 18:1-8
[6] Townshend, Pete, “Give Blood,” from “White City: A Novel” Atco Records, 1985.
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